Here’s where to eat and drink.
But this isn’t a story about excessive consumption.
(She advised against it, blessed being that she was.)
From left: A guest room at Hotel Kansas City, in Downtown; glasses of Stone’s Throw, a sour ale from Double Shift Brewing, in the Crossroads neighborhood.Anna Petrow
Driven by this energy, I ate what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it.
And it’s through saying this outright that I recognize the privilege of being able to truly indulge.
Upon my return to New York, it seemed like when folks asked, “How was it?”
From left: Vanilla mochi doughnuts with black-sesame glaze and strawberry-milk crumb from the lobby café at Hotel Kansas City; chefs Helen Jo and Johnny Leach, the husband-and-wife team behind Hotel Kansas City’s restaurant, the Town Company, and its lobby café.Anna Petrow
what they really wanted to know was, “Could you still do it?
Can you travel justbecause?”
Even as a once-intrepid traveler, on this April tripmy first in the COVID eraeverything felt new.
Jackie Nguyen sitting by her coffee truck, Café Cà Phê.Anna Petrow
When my trip was pending, the response to Kansas City was inevitably, “Barbecue?”
I tried to pin down why this energy felt so new.
It wasn’t just the reopening of businesses as pandemic restrictions softened.
From left: Egusi soup, a Nigerian staple made with ground melon seeds and greens, at Fannie’s African & Tropical Cuisine; the entrance to Fannie’s, a South Hyde Park favorite for traditional pan-African food.Anna Petrow
It wasn’t just that entrepreneurs are finding inspiration in one another’s pursuits.
No one could explicitly tell me what was behind this shift, but many agreed that something was afoot.
A moment is happening.
From left: Café Cà Phê’s Hella Good Latte, which combines espresso, oat milk, ube, and condensed milk; Mark and Marissa Gencarelli inside their Yoli Tortilleria.Anna Petrow
A moment is happening.
Revel in it while it’s here, was the advice I took.
This is a dish to give in to.
From left: Buckwheat dumplings topped with caviar at Corvino Supper Club & Tasting Room, in Kansas City, Missouri; Bar Stilwell at Loews Kansas City Hotel, a popular spot for evening cocktails.Anna Petrow
The same can be said for Helen Jo’s desserts.
The next morning, in the lobby cafe, I was introduced to her lemon-mochi doughnut with salted pistachios.
She serves coffee beverages prepared with beans from Vietnam.
Increasingly, that varied representation is what more of us want to experience.
The truth is as much in the story we tell about it as the taste.
Owner Fannie Gibson, a Liberia native, presents a menu reflecting a wide range of West African dishes.
However it began, we had a moment.
The man was fatherly; he may have shared that he was nearly 60.
We shared an unspoken but tangible energy of youth-to-elder respect and a presumption of intergenerational communal interest.
He told me he had moved to Kansas City in the late 1980s from small-town Arkansas.
“This city has been good to me,” he said.
“Anything I ever wanted, I got it right here.”
He told me, “People think marriage is law-abiding and strict.
To stay married you have to give and take a lot.
A lot of it I took.”
We laughed when I told him I knew something about that.
He rattled off nightclubs that he used to frequent, many in the same area as the jazz museum.
“We had 6902, Brook Street Lounge, Hanger Boyyou wouldn’t like that place.
It was off the chain.”
“How you know I wouldn’t like it?”
“Oh, you could see anything you wanted down at Hanger Boy.”
“What all were they doing down there?”
“Girl, everything.”
We cackledhim in recollection, me in amusement.
I’m not sure I realized I could miss a place I had never been.
As people travel and migrate, they bring their culinary heritage with them.
you’ve got the option to still come for the barbecueand you should.
It’s more that the story we tell is changing.
you’re free to still come for the barbecueand you should.
But unexpected delights emerge from all sides.
And yet, it felt appropriate.
Indulging, but moderately.
Buckwheat dumplings with osetra caviar.
I said countless thank-yous.
I drank a lot of sherry.
Every American city struggles to retain, or even acknowledge, the truest narratives of the past.
And what they didn’t know they wanted.
Tasting menu $125.
Entrees $12$23.
Yoli Tortilleria: Handmade tortillas a remade from non-GMO, stone-ground corn and Sonoran flour.
A version of this story first appeared in the September 2021 issue ofTravel + Leisureunder the headlineSecret Sauce.
