Chef Ting is a visionary with a passion for food, community, and connection. These ingredients come together in her Black Joy Kitchen, located across from Tony’s Market in Oak Bluffs. Opened earlier this year, the 79-seat fine-dining restaurant celebrates cuisines of the Black diaspora, introducing flavors and ingredients that traveled from Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria, down to Brazil, up the Amazon, into Peru, through the Caribbean, and into the southern U.S. “It’s the food of hot cultures; the food of melanated people,” says Chef Ting.
The journey to her new endeavor began in earnest about two years ago. After cooking as a private chef and caterer on the Vineyard for a year and a half, folks started asking her when she’d be opening her restaurant. “I would say, ‘There is no way I’m opening one.’” Then, in 2023, life threw Chef Ting a curveball, when she had a mini stroke. “I did what most people do when they have some kind of significant health event, which is to think, ‘What do I want to do with the rest of my life?’” Now, when people posed the question about opening her own place, Chef Ting started fantasizing, “Perhaps, maybe one day, 20 years from now, I’ll have a tiny, six- to eight-table restaurant.”
She continues, “I’m a super-manifester. When I set my intention around something, it generally comes to pass. Maybe not exactly as I envisioned it, but pretty close.” Lo and behold, last May, Chef Ting read that the former Bombay Indian Cuisine building was available. And as things usually unfold when it’s your destiny, everything fell into place by the end of the day. Chef Ting and her wife, Melissa, along with their daughters Maddie and Mackenzie, rented the space at 7 Oakland Ave. to create a commercial kitchen for catering.
“But then, when people asked, ‘When are you opening a restaurant?’ it’s kind of hard to say you’re not when you are operating your commercial kitchen in a space that’s a restaurant. So I started to dream.” But in April 2024, Chef Ting had another stroke: “Fortunately, I have a cohort of three other chefs who are incredible supporters and helped me do the catering gigs I wasn’t able to handle.” Eventually, the trio persuaded her to move forward with opening a restaurant. With their guidance, the dream became a reality. With the blessing of her cardiologist, Dr. Aliya Browne, Chef Ting forged ahead, opening in May.
In terms of the food she would serve, Chef Ting explains, “I started cooking at a very young age. To me, it was love, it was family. It was how you celebrated, healed people, and welcomed new babies. It was how you transitioned people from one lifetime to another. I was also always interested in other cultures.” As a Black Jewish child of a Black father and white mother, Chef Ting says, “I grew up as a third-culture kid. From very early, I was intrigued by cultures around the world, traveling at the age of 15 to other countries.” That number has now grown to 74.
Asked why she is excited about offering food of the African diaspora, Chef Ting explains, “There is an extraordinary opening of mind, heart, and spirit that happens when people begin to connect the journey of our people to how our food has evolved, and now rely on that food as a bridge to bring us back to one another. We have conducted a tremendous amount of research to find another restaurant on Earth that does this. We can’t wait to discover who they are, but for now we may be the only ones.”
Speaking about her menu, Chef Ting insists, “We have to fearlessly introduce this food, and trust that humans will get it. We don’t have to dumb it down, take the spice out of it, or make it easy to say or understand. People are brilliant. We can teach them about unusual things if we present our food with a full heart and a generous spirit.”
The dishes reflect various food journeys. For example, those featuring rice begin in Ghana with jollof rice, which includes ginger, curry, and Scotch bonnet pepper; proceed to Trinidad and Tobago with rice and peas that incorporate coconut; and then continue to South Carolina with Gullah red rice, flavored with smoked paprika, tomatoes, and shallots.
There are also greens from Cameroon that include crushed melon seeds, cassava leaves, and coconut milk; as well as huacatay shrimp and pineapple from Peru that contains black mint leaves, Amarillo, and soursop.
While Chef Ting’s favorites change on any given day, when we spoke they were the bedazzled avocado dream with pistachios, balsamic glaze, and rose petals from Puerto Rico, as well as the Sukuma wiki mixed greens with peanut sauce, and caribiero chili pepper from Tanzania.
Ever mindful of those who came before her, Chef Ting recognizes the pioneering Black chefs on the Vineyard, including Chefs Deon Thomas, Marvin Jones, Allan Howard, and Anthony Foster. “Not only do I regularly reference them in conversation, but you can see their influence on my menu, such as our leaning into barbeque because that is Chef Anthony’s specialty.”
Chef Ting honors her heritage and that of the land on which we live through hiring African American and Wampanoag staff. Additionally, diners will find a 2 percent economic acknowledgement added to each bill that goes to the indigenous inhabitants of Noepe.
“Ultimately, we want guests to be delighted, to be joyful, and want them to be fully engaged in the food experience,” Chef Ting says. “Food is the ultimate bridge. It is an invitation to create a place where we can find each other. To me, finding each other is everybody because, now more than ever, we need to find one another. We need a place of community, joy, love, and light. To be opening this restaurant at this time in history feels more significant than ever.”
Black Joy Kitchen, 7 Oakland Ave., Oak Bluffs. For more information, visit blackjoykitchen.com.
