Before becoming a chef, Purdie worked for a decade as a stylist at the late department store Henri Bendel, and on her lunch breaks she often went to a deli that had a ramen stand tucked in alongside the sandwich counter and salad bar. She became a ramen obsessive, but only later, after pivoting to a professional cooking career at places like Untitled at the Whitney, and Red Rooster Harlem, and pouring herself into ramen research, did she notice the parallels between traditional Japanese techniques and the Black American cooking of her grandmothers in North and South Carolina. There was the long, slow simmering; the use of bones and offcuts of meat; the layering of fats and aromatics. After mounting a few pop-ups that featured experiments like collard-greens ramen and chopped-cheese ramen, she homed in on the theme of New York City breakfast. She had become a fan of Kettl, a Japanese tea shop with a presence in one of Bowery Market’s minuscule retail spaces, and she told me that during her pop-up era she envisioned a permanent version of Ramen by Ra that had the same spare aesthetic. When a space in the market became available, she pitched herself to the landlord; the coming together of all the elements felt, she told me, “divine.”
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The teas Purdie serves alongside her ramen are Kettl’s—a bright ginger; a dusky hojicha and soba cha; a grassy, straightforward green. They’re poured from ornate pressed-glass decanters into similarly decorative glassware, heirlooms from her mother, which provide a visual counterpoint to the little restaurant’s otherwise dramatically minimalist décor. A grid of dark mounted shelves on the white walls contain only a vase of flowers, bowls and glasses, and a stack of three talismanic books: the iconic “Princess Pamela’s Soul Food Cookbook,” the scholarly volume “The Untold History of Ramen,” and “For the Culture,” the food writer Klancy Miller’s compendium celebrating Black women working in food—Purdie included. Places are set with chopsticks and spoons and, in warmer weather, discreet black-handled folding fans. Curious onlookers meander past, watching, over diners’ shoulders, as Purdie sweeps a dollop of garlicky parsley chimichurri over thin slices of magenta-rare rib eye in a bowl of steak-and-eggs ramen. It’s not “authentic,” in the sense of a bowl that instantly transports you to a Tokyo train station or a Fukuoka alleyway (head to Okiboru or Ramen Ishida, if that’s what you’re after), but authenticity comes in many forms; Purdie prepares her very personal, very New York version of asa-ra with knowledge and reverence, and a real sense of play. On each of my visits, someone passing by would ask if they could sit down in one of the empty stools. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make a reservation online,” Purdie would reply, with genuine warmth. “I hope I’ll see you soon!” ♦
