Everything You Need to Know About New York’s Ramen By Ra

1. The pandemic allowed Purdie’s interest in ramen to really take hold.

The decision to focus on ramen first came to Purdie during the pandemic. She, like so many of us, was quarantined inside her home with much more time than she was used to. “I was able to watch documentaries, read cookbooks, and read up on the history of ramen culture,” Purdie says.

Having lived in New York for 15 years, she’d had ramen before. But now, with her newfound time, she took her interest to the next level.

“Quarantine was something that brought stillness and calm. It brought a newfound love, which was ramen,” Purdie said. “I was able to buy the ingredients, taste the ingredients, feel the ingredients. It brought a sense of awakening for me as a chef.”

Neighbors soon became regular customers of her in-home ramen shop, as well as friends and family in the area. The success of her home kitchen grew into a pop-up with Ada Supper Club and now, it’s a brick-and-mortar spot, becoming the city’s first Black woman-owned ramen spot.

For Purdie, ramen stands out because of the deep “soulfulness” of it. She adds, “There are lots of similarities between the way you feel eating [ramen] and the way you feel eating soul food. Ramen will bring this warmth to your life. During that time, that’s what we needed. We needed to feel stillness, we needed to feel calm, but we also needed to feel warm. The world was so cold at that time, right?”

2. She wasn’t always a chef.

Before Purdie was a chef, she worked for nine years in fashion, as a stylist for luxury department store Henri Bendel. Transitioning her career into the kitchen wasn’t a decision she made lightly, especially after working for so long to build her list of clients and expertise. But once she saw how fashion retail was becoming increasingly more online, she decided to become a chef in 2015.

“I saved for about three years so that when I enrolled in culinary school I could have debt removed from my experience. I knew that being a cook in a kitchen was going to be a different world financially, so I wanted to take that burden off of myself early on in my career,” Purdie says. She credits chefs like Marcus Samuelsson, Melba Wilson, and JJ Johnson, with helping her define her cooking style and career.

“I wanted to work under individuals that were in the neighborhood and community of Harlem, where I live,” Purdie says. “Also, it was important to have both a male and female perspective of the industry that also looked like me: chefs who were Black, and of color.”

3. Be sure to plan ahead and make a reservation.

Ramen By Ra is housed within the Bowery Market, with only five seats that remain in incredibly high demand. For now, Purdie is the only person who works regularly behind the counter, although she adds that her partner does sometimes come to help her break down the spot for the night.

Despite the high demand for the seats, Purdie says an expansion isn’t currently at the top of her wish list. “I enjoy having the small space because it’s a very intimate way to pay homage to the ramen shops in Japan and execute the idea respectfully as much as I can through visuals and through the story, the journey, and the food experience,” Purdie says.

The counter is a warm, inviting space complete with lots of natural wood and many of Purdie’s kitchen tools on display right behind her. “The idea was supposed to be something feminine in the ramen industry, because the industry is so male dominated,” she adds. “It’s a little bit dark, a little bit new, a little bit old, and a little bit feminine, mixed in one. It’s definitely a canvas of my style.”

4. The menu is highly slurpable.

The menu at Ramen By Ra is simultaneously hyper-personal and new, while focused on respecting tradition. Japan’s Shida district and its tradition of asa-ramen, most commonly eaten earlier in the day or for breakfast, inspired Purdie.

“From there, I started to develop the idea of having breakfast ramen. But I felt like I needed to have the ramen speak a little bit more to the concept of breakfast and brunch as it relates to New York, so that people could be excited about the fusion and the newness, and how it connects to the city,” Purdie says.

Each of the bowls has one thing in common — meticulous presentation. “I went from styling people to styling with food. People eat with their eyes first,” Purdie laughs.

There’s a bacon, egg, and cheese ramen on the menu, as well as steak and soy egg. Another dish, the gravlax ramen, has a salmon and egg cream cheese foam. Purdie also makes various “limited edition” ramens, like a potlikker ramen she created in celebration of Black History Month.

“I think food should represent the community. Fusion is bringing people together because that’s what the world represents right now — diversity. Food, for me, speaks in that same language. Food represents the community, and the community represents the food, so we have no choice but to hope that diversity continues to win,” Purdie adds.

5. Don’t sleep on these four bowls, in particular.

In her own words, Purdie takes us through Ramen by Ra’s top two best sellers and her two personal favorites.

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese

Lard-shoyu, smoked bacon, seasoned egg, Parmesan, black pepper, scallions

“The battle for most popular dish is definitely between the bacon, egg, and cheese and the steak and egg. I feel like people enjoy the bacon, egg, and cheese because it represents New York.

“Each of the ramen broths is made with chicken stock that’s mixed with shoyu. Shoyu is a soy base for ramen, and each bowl is infused with a different oil or paste to differentiate the broth from one bowl to another. The bacon egg and cheese has a shoyu broth infused with lard oil.

“Lard oil is basically pork fat that’s yielded from bacon or pork. Then you also have another layer of pork fat from the bacon in the ramen.”

Steak and Soy Egg

Chimichurri-shoyu, seasoned egg, crispy shallots, sesame, leeks

“The only time I eat steak is when I go to brunch and have steak and eggs, so I definitely wanted to add this to my menu. There’s something hearty about it. This broth gets infused with herb oil and chimichurri.”

Gravlax

Nori-shoyu, salmon, seasoned egg, cream cheese foam, crispy capers, pickled red onions, dill

“This is the wild card. It’s my favorite and it’s my partner’s favorite. It’s smoked salmon, and it’s inspired by the sea. It has nori, it has cream cheese foam, crispy capers, pickled red onion, and smoked salmon. I call it the wild card but at the same time, when people order it, they [love it] from beginning to end because of the flavors. It’s infused with nori oil; that’s where the taste of the sea comes in.”

Everything Egg Drop

Sesame-shoyu, everything crunch, fluffed eggs, crispy shallots, chili threads

“I’ve heard from my diners that this one takes them home. I’ve heard that on the coldest day, when someone has the everything egg drop, it makes them feel so warm and cozy. It’s fluffed eggs that have been cooked in broth and lays on top of the noodles like clouds. Then you have the texture from the everything mixture of seasonings and the crispy shallots and chili threads. Everyone tells me that it’s a taste of home or a taste of warmth because of the textures — how well the soft and crunchy do together. The broth here is infused with sesame oil.”

Ramen By Ra is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Ellie Plass is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). Follow Resy, too.