When I arrived at Eny Lee Parker’s apartment building in Fort Greene last Friday, the ceramicist and designer had just returned from her studio, pushing two carts with matching conical sculptures atop each one. The cartoonishly scaled pieces are floor-standing candlestick holders, she explained, for the evening’s dinner party. Together we pushed the carts down the hallway to her apartment, where Woldy Reyes, Parker’s co-host and the evening’s chef, exuberantly greeted us with the accent of a British aristocrat’s butler.
It was a cute and playful welcome, but it turns out the accent is actually a funny affectation—a tic—he occasionally takes on when he’s anxious, said Reyes, who is American and first-generation Filipino. As someone who’s an infrequent, often self-conscious host, it was endearing (and even a bit of a relief) to witness a seasoned professional exhibiting nervousness before his own dinner party.
Since launching his catering business and brand Woldy Kusina in 2016, Reyes, 38, has quickly become a go-to caterer for New York’s fashion and art worlds. His creative menus showcasing fresh, seasonal ingredients and visually inspiring presentations have attracted clients such as Alaïa, J.Crew, and Giorgio Armani. Last month, Reyes debuted his first cookbook, In The Kusina, featuring plant-based Filipino recipes that nostalgically nod to the food he grew up eating around his family’s dinner table in Southern California.
“Tonight’s dinner is in celebration of the cookbook, and a lot of the people coming are close friends who also contributed to the book in some way,” said Reyes, looking on as Tara Thomas, a model and fellow chef who was assisting for the night, put the final touches on the table’s place settings and decor. Bitter melons and other unusually shaped green gourds fashioned into candlestick holders were set alongside tall stalks of blossoming alliums. The plates, meanwhile, were made by Parker. “Tara, for instance, helped with the creative production, and my friend Arsh [Raziudden] who works at Christie’s, also did two illustrations in the book,” he added.
The dinner also coincided with the start of New York’s Design Week—where Parker and several other guests were presenting work—as well as AAPI Heritage Month. “The majority of people coming are all AAPI, and they all work in different creative outlets. But they’re also close friends,” repeated Reyes, who noted his natural inclination to being part of a close-knit community in which friends and collaborators are typically one and the same.
This was Reyes’s second time hosting a dinner at Parker’s apartment, although he recalled it looked slightly different then. “I’m always bringing in new pieces I made and switching things out,” explained Parker, who gave me a quick tour, indicating which art pieces and furnishings she’d designed or made herself, including a ceiling-grazing column twisted like rope, dotted with hanging lamp sconces.
Reyes and I settled ourselves on the carpet in Parker’s living room, where he told me about his experience in a family he described as “unapologetically Filipino.” When non-Filipino guests came over for dinner, even his father’s boss, “there was no sort of American food accommodations,” he recalled. But there was hospitality in abundance and generosity, and relentless urging for visitors to try things. Reyes remembered that, as a self-conscious kid, feeling a heightened awareness of his friends’ comfort levels, and how others perceived them.
These days he’s glad to observe a greater presence of his AAPI community in culture and society that’s more normalized. “I see more representation in food, design, fashion, film, and media. When I look at my AAPI friends and see what they’re creating and putting out into the world, we’re becoming more visible and making meaningful contributions.”
Clara Jeon, a friend who works in fashion PR, arrived early and volunteered to set up the wine and cocktail station, which included a selection of red and white Vivanterre wines, the non-alcoholic aperitif Aplos, and French Bloom, a non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Reyes and Thomas set out halved soy and vinegar-soaked eggs on platters that Parker had made, as more guests arrived: Conway Liao, whose Dumbo-based design brand and store, Hudson Wilder, would host the NYCxDESIGN Festival’s official closing party the following week; fashion stylist and photographer Melissa Levy; Olivia Lopez, a podcast host and multidisciplinary creative who was visiting from Los Angeles, and the florist Fernando Kabigting. It was immediately clear that most guests were friends or close acquaintances. “Fernando did the flowers for my wedding,” Levy said.
Dinner was a family-style spread of dishes from In the Kusina: crispy, wonton-wrapped asparagus lumpia, and “Bicol Express” cauliflower, a vegan take on a popular recipe known for its rich creaminess and chili-enhanced heat (and usually made with pork). Guests passed around plates of crispy lemon-dill rice, as Reyes served everyone pancit salad, a cold dish of stir-fried glass noodles buried under a layer of crunchy vegetables and herbs.
Conversations ranged from Design Week affairs (“Dumbo is really becoming a prominent design district—it’s exciting,” remarked Liao), to favorite Filipino restaurants in the city, notably Naks in downtown Manhattan, and Kabigting’s career pivot from designer to florist.
For dessert, Reyes glided around the table, offering everyone a slice of vegan bibingka, a buoyant and delicately sweet rice cake, while bowls of jammy candied kumquats and homemade coconut ice cream circulated. In the recipe’s notes, Reyes explained that he had come up with the egg-free version at Thomas’ request, a memory time-stamped by the pandemic and its stretches of unoccupied time. It’s a recollection that poignantly echoes the cookbook’s introduction, in which Reyes writes, “Cooking is, after all, a form of biography.” It’s true that recipes reveal something about the culture from which they originate, but just as importantly in Reyes’ case, they tell the story of the individual.
Just as the night seemed to be winding down, and a first wave of guests were saying their ‘goodbyes,’ a late arrival—Neada Deters, founder of the skincare line Lesse—came in, fresh off a flight from Miami. Reyes plated her a colorful array of all the night’s dishes, unable to hide his delight that the fun wasn’t quite over yet—far from it, in fact. As several guests migrated back over to the living room area, Reyes cranked up the music, setting off an impromptu dance party.
