The Edge Harlem’s Juliet and Justine Masters Love Patties for Lunch, and Pasta for Dinner

Juliet: I try to give myself until about 8:30 or 9 o’clock on a Monday. I do some stretching and try to be present in the moment without looking at my phone or thinking about everything that I am supposed to or should be doing.

Around 10:30 a.m., I go downstairs – I live right above the restaurant – open up, make my espresso, and close again. Forty Weight Roasters was our very first vendor at The Edge. It’s also another family-run business and it’s located in Ithaca, N.Y. They roast their coffee on Monday and they Fed-Ex it Monday afternoon, and I get that roasted coffee on Wednesday. So it is always super fresh and super flavorful.

Justine: I wake up at 7:30 a.m., 8 a.m. I always go for a walk in the morning with my dog. She’s still kind of a puppy. About an hour later, I come back home, make myself an espresso, and take a shower.

Around 10:30 a.m., I walk over to The Edge to meet up with Juliet. I live a few minutes away. We get into the car and usually drive across the George Washington Bridge to Palisades State Park. The cliffs are incredible. And we go for a hike. Then we head back to Harlem around 12:30 p.m.

Juliet: For lunch, we might go to Lucille’s Coffee & Cocktails, which is owned by Alex Trebek’s son, Matthew. It’s like a coffee shop in New Orleans. It’s located off the beaten path, and has beautiful light coming in. They have very nice plants. I like how it feels in there. I get a bagel or an acai bowl or a kale Caesar salad, and they’re just so beautifully presented.

Justine: Sometimes, we get a Jamaican patty from One Stop Patty Shop. We’ve been going there since 2000. It’s run by a Jamaican man, so we like to support them because our father’s Jamaican, and it’s our heritage.

The lady who works there always asks us, “How’s your father, Mr. Masters? How’s it going? How’s your family?” There’s something very familiar about it. So while it’s just a very basic patty, there’s something that feels good because it reminds us of home. It’s very comforting and familial.

Juliet: And they have the best patties, in our opinion. Their crust! Especially the crust of their curry chicken patty — I could eat three of those. They’re golden, flaky, buttery, delicious!

We take the patties to go, and then we split up. We’re together enough, and we’ve done our self-care routine together, so we say, “Goodbye! Enjoy the rest of your day!” Enough is enough! [she laughs]

Around 1:30pm, I visit my parents in the Upper West Side. My dad makes our sorrel, but I confess that I’m always under a lot of pressure and stress at The Edge so I try to take a moment and have a normal conversation with our parents outside of the restaurant. They’re always asking me how the restaurant is doing. I wish they would ask me other questions, but I know it comes from a place of love. They like to hear stories about what’s going on. As long as I tell them that we’re busy, I think they’re happy. My mother has a running list of employees now because over the last couple years, we’ve had employees come and go. Before, she had everyone’s names down and now she has a list so she can make sure she knows everybody. It’s very sweet.

My dad has me taste the sorrel because he makes little tweaks on it. He experiments with how many cloves he wants me to taste versus how much allspice or ginger, you know, that sort of thing.

Justine: After lunch with Juliet, I go home and do some cleaning, organizing, and gardening. I have an apartment with a garden, and that gives a good meditation for me. So I’m gardening and listening to music. I’m late to the game, but I just found this really cool album with Saint Jhn and Lenny Kravitz, that I’m listening to a lot these days. I also listen to a lot of Afrobeat and bossa nova, when I really just want to be calm.

Around 6 p.m., I cook myself dinner. I do a lot of roasted vegetables and salads with tempeh and chickpeas and hemp seeds.

But if I’m going out, one of my favorite spots in the community is Vinatería. It’s an Italian restaurant that’s owned by two women, a young Jamaican woman and her mother, and they’ve won [a Michelin plate]. They have exceptional service and such a beautiful aesthetic in their place. I just love the ambiance. And the owners are amazing as well.

I love to see them, talk to them, swap stories and feel like ‘we’re all in this together’ kind of thing. We try to support each other.

I like their calamari, and this black spaghetti with squid ink and scallops and mussels. They also have these polenta fries that are delicious.

Juliet: By 7 p.m., I go upstairs to watch Jeopardy! and make dinner around 8 p.m. My go-to is mushroom risotto with coconut milk, miso, and lacinato kale. And then after that, I do some more stretching, even if it’s for 10 to 15 minutes. It is very important! I turn on spa meditative music, paint with watercolors, and then I go to bed around 10:30pm.

But I might also go to Osteria 106 for dinner. It’s an Italian restaurant and it’s very cozy, comfortable, and quaint. I know the owner because I bump into him all the time at Jetro and Restaurant Depot. I usually get the mozzarella di bufala with prosciutto around it, and butternut squash ravioli or penne a la vodka. I can’t go wrong with that.

Justine: Around 9:30pm, if I’m feeling very adventurous, I head over to Bixi, a new lounge bar in Harlem, for a spicy margarita, and then I head to one of my favorite live music venues in Harlem, which is the Shrine.

Justine: The Shrine is owned by a family from Burkina Faso and Israel. They basically have live music every single night so you never know what you’re going to find — jazz, Afrobeats, a DJ. It’s where a lot of local talent choose to perform. I’ve seen people at the Shrine and then ask them to perform at The Edge. It hasn’t happened super often, but it’s happened over the years. Around 11, I head home and pretty much go straight to bed.