Ayesha Curry aims high with new restaurant
For a few minutes during a sleepy afternoon lunch service at Michael Mina’s RN74, a camera shutter was the loudest sound in the dining room.
The lens was trained on the movements of Ayesha Curry, the 28-year-old budding culinary superstar planning to open her first true restaurant, to be named International Smoke.
“I kind of get nervous before photo shoots,” she said, admitting her meteoric rise in the food world requires some adjustment.
Curry is opening International Smoke in the current RN74 space — on the ground floor of San Francisco’s Millennium Tower — in partnership with Mina, whose group owns and operates more than two dozen upscale restaurants across the country.
Mina was the one who spurred Curry to try a temporary restaurant last year in his Mina Test Kitchen. The venture was originally meant to last three months, but with visits from the likes of rapper Drake and her NBA-star husband, Stephen Curry, not to mention a constant flow of Bay Area food lovers, the immensely popular venture lasted nearly six months.
Mina saw potential. No stranger to the sports world, he runs a restaurant at Levi’s Stadium and counts former tennis star Andre Agassi as an early investor. Now, he has decided to close his celebrated RN74 so he
and Ayesha Curry can transform the space into International Smoke. RN74 opened in 2009 with one of the city’s largest French wine lists and an award-winning design from New York firm AvroKO. (The RN74 in Seattle will remain open.)
The Mina Group’s tentative plan is to operate RN74 through the summer, shut down for a brief redesign and then open International Smoke in the fall.
Curry’s professional endeavors are a carefully cultivated list of familyoriented projects. Her short, yet notable career, includes a TV show on the Food Network (“Ayesha’s Home Kitchen”), a meal-kit delivery service called Homemade, a cookbook and, come May 14, a line of children’s tableware in collaboration with Cheeky. In the fall, she will launch a line of cookware.
Her newfound career as a chef and restaurant owner might be the most ambitious of her recent endeavors, especially when considering the Bay Area restaurant industry’s ongoing issues of staffing shortages, high operating costs and worries of a “restaurant bubble.”
Because of the volatility of the marketplace, 2017 has seen fewer bold projects than in past years. Restaurateurs are choosing instead to doubledown on familiarity by opening spinoff restaurants or deciding to remodel concepts to better fit the climate.
International Smoke will be Curry’s first true restaurant, and she’ll begin as both a member of the kitchen staff and the team operating behind the scenes — big leaps for someone with such little professional dining experience.
“One thing I’m not worried about is the aesthetic or the deliciousness of the food,” Curry said. “I just want to ... take my game to the next level.”
The Mina and Curry relationship began several years ago when the two crossed paths, coincidentally, at RN74, as Mina just so happened to be there on the same night the Currys were there for dinner. They ended up discussing food, and Ayesha Curry peppered Mina with questions about the restaurant business.
As her star has grown, Curry has become more meticulous about her business decisions. Even Mina had to spend a few months building a relationship with her, he said. He often spoke with her about concepts and what would work in San Francisco. He routinely updated her about possible business opportunities. Early on, he introduced the Curry crew to his Mina Group team, hoping trust could be built in a shorter amount of time.
“Ayesha really wants to be involved in everything. We’re treating this as 100 percent we’re opening a restaurant together,” he said.
The fully blown International Smoke will mirror the pop-up, specializing in “lighter” barbecue dishes from around the world, like St. Louis pork ribs, Singaporestyle black pepper barbecue lobster, slow-cooked char sui pork shoulder and spicy merguez sausage served with purple potato salad, braised mustard greens and onion rings.
“The food was so delicious at the pop-up. But that didn’t even scratch the surface,” said Mina, who takes Curry’s recipes and executes them. “We got to try out a lot of stuff that was great, but we didn’t have the fire power and equipment and the space that we’ll have now.”
So the big question: Can Curry cook?
Adam Sobel, the chef who runs the Mina Test Kitchen, had a front-row seat for the pop-up, which was Curry’s first time in a professional kitchen.
“She cooks soulfully. It comes natural,” Sobel said. “She was a little worried in the beginning. But after one night of service, she was in her element.”
In terms of their partnership, Mina seems to have a handle more on the business side of the project, while relying on Curry’s recipes — and growing celebrity — to push people through the doors.
“We know the success of a restaurant and what it takes. We’ve done this a long time,” he said. “This is going to be one of those projects that really has no ceiling.”
Curry is now one of the leaders of a group of newage celebrities, a category dominated by women like recent cookbook author (and supermodel) Chrissy Teigen and Joanna Gaines of HDTV’s “Fixer Upper” show. Curry said they all run in the same circles.
While Curry has followed what seems to be a formulaic business plan over the years, she said people shouldn’t try to predict her next venture.
“People will try to put me in a box, but the box doesn’t exist,” she said.
Still, there are boundaries, she admits. For example, don’t expect an appearance on titillating fare like “The Real Housewives.”
“No — not at all,” she said with a laugh. “That’s just not me. Anything family-oriented, I’m for it as long as it makes sense for me. No offense to any of the ‘Housewives,’ but that’s not my forte. I’m not made for reality TV. I think everybody would be bored.” Chronicle staff writer Carolyne Zinko contributed to this report.