Bintü Atelier Brings Charleston a Take on Its Own West African Heritage

At first, the talk about Bintü focused on the civic virtues of a Senegalese restaurant in Charleston, a longtime capital of the transatlantic slave trade: About one-quarter of the enslaved Africans forcibly brought to this country hailed from the Senegambia region of West Africa, so this was bringing full circle many of the food traditions that would ultimately morph into Lowcountry cooking. But over time, the story rightfully expanded to acknowledge the enormous culinary talents of N’Daw, a classically trained pastry chef who worked at Chez Nous after relocating from New York during the pandemic. Last fall, Bon Appétit joined the fray of praise for N’Daw, naming Bintü Atelier among the nation’s 20 best new restaurants, wowed as others have been by its sonorous goat egusi and flash-fried crab buttressed by peppery rice.

What’s truly stunning about Bintü, though, goes well beyond the form of momentary chef worship that national attention seems to bring. It’s a study in consistency and care showing up impeccably in every dish, every day, applied by a chef who’s adamant about quality in a way that’s all too rare these days. Working in a city where many diners are tipsy out-of-towners, N’Daw has committed herself to cooking that’s refreshingly free of cynical shortcuts. Yes, her food directly links Charleston to its complicated history and its African influences. But that only tells one part of N’Daw’s story; her relentless focus on quality would draw attention to any chef doing any sort of cooking in nearly any city. And the focus is relentlessly on the plate, down to Bintü being one of the city’s few BYOB establishments, which again prompts diners to stop and pay attention (and also to browse some of Charleston’s standout wine shops).

N’Daw recently sat down with me to chat about her culinary philosophy, the reception of her restaurant, and the complicated state of the Charleston food scene.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Hannah Raskin: I know your personal culinary history has several different facets. Can you tell us about your first encounters with cooking?

Bintou N’Daw: It really started with my French grandma. My mom was working a lot, so I would go on [school] vacations to France from Senegal. She had this cookbook that smelled really old and had old French recipes in it, and she would say, ‘Today we’re going to do this pie,’ or poulet blanc, or fish with vanilla. That was my way of bonding with my French grandmother.

My grandmother in Senegal was a caterer. So, anybody that had anything to celebrate, they would hire her to cook roasted lamb and couscous, really lavish dinners for 300, 400 people. When something like that happened, we kids were helping her — we had to organize who was cutting, who was peeling the carrots.

Basically, my grandpa had two wives, so it was my grandmother in Africa, and then my grandmother in France. They didn’t know each other, but they knew about each other. It was a little weird being in the middle, but we cooked, and we didn’t have to talk about the uncomfortable stuff. And they traded through me: I brought a carrot peeler to Africa, and calabash [spoons] to Normandy.

As two complete opposites, I think they made me see the connections that people have.

How were they opposites?

My family is Muslim, and my French grandma is Catholic. I went to church with my French grandma, and I went to the mosque [in Senegal]. And I was like, ‘OK, you guys are doing the same thing.’ My French grandma was all about the set of the table, so we had a plate for this and a plate for that. Then, in Africa, it’s one big bowl and everybody eats at once. There’s no appetizer, there’s no dessert. So, it’s just a clash, and I kind of embraced both.

At what point in your professional career did you know you wanted a place of your own?

Never. I didn’t know it was possible. Then, somebody texted me about this building. I ignored it for a couple of months but, I was falling in love with Charleston. We came and visited, and I was like, ‘Let’s take it.’

As an African and a chef, I felt like it was time to go where I wanted to go. I never had a chef telling me, ‘Cook African food and put African food on your menu.’

I’m still the only one cooking [at Bintü]. I have help, but I’m still the only one there making all the plates and making sure everything is right. I want to keep it like that. I love to cook my food, and it is really hard to explain to someone who has never cooked African food how to warm it up, or how it’s supposed to taste and smell.

Tracy said sometimes people will go to the [International African American] museum, and then come to the restaurant, and they don’t put together that the stories they’ve seen there inform the food here.

The whole history of all of the dishes … there’s so much more to say, so I need to start doing more of that.

It seems like when you opened this place, you just wanted to make good food. It didn’t seem like you wanted to teach people the history of Africa.

No, not at all. I just think these dishes are super good. I wanted to bring them here because not only was there a complete lack of anything African, but also because I was just frustrated by the food in Charleston. It’s a lot of mediocre places that have the same things, and I’m like, ‘Is that for the tourists? Is it because we are downtown?’ I needed something else.

I’m curious about the college French class that was in here earlier for a cooking demo. When I took French, there was nothing beyond France — they didn’t talk about the Francophone world at all. How does the French influence show up in your food?

The new generation needs to know France is not just all those kings. They did build their empire on us. But we all kind of built France.

Of course, I had to do a bit more research to see how I could make it work and respect the history, but I did cut things that I don’t like — Maggi cubes and all those powders. I was like, ‘Let me use the French technique.’ Maggi is just a stock.

I bet there are chefs who are starting out who think, ‘That looks doable. It’s small.’ When those potential restaurateurs come to you, what advice do you give them?

They don’t ask. I mean, we just [worked with] a chef from a [well-known food] festival, and it was my first time having a chef take my recipe for an event. It was a lunch for 100 people, and my name was on the menu, but the chef didn’t want any help. We talked over the phone, I explained the dish, and he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ The day before, I texted him and told him I was still available to come (free of charge). I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I was scared.

When the event happened, it turned out exactly the way I thought it would — completely wrong. The rice was uncooked. They used bacon that wasn’t rendered. It was completely off. I wanted to go to the bathroom and hide because I couldn’t explain that I hadn’t cooked the food.

I felt really, really hurt by the whole thing. If you do something for the first time, you should humble yourself and actually work with the teacher to learn properly. That dish was absolutely not something that I would serve at the restaurant.

When I worked at the newspaper in Charleston, oftentimes people would say, ‘Why don’t we have this-or-that food?’ And I would say, ‘Do you want the people that go with it?’ It’s not just about the food. You have to respect the people behind it.

To me, the [event] was a poisonous gift. It was detrimental to what they were trying to do for the Black community. If you’re going into a completely new territory, in this case with traditional African food, why not put in the effort to collaborate with chefs who have a little bit more knowledge than you? There’s a lot of trends and stuff that gets these people to look at you and call you and want to make you somebody, but if they don’t do it artfully, it just hurts.

That’s interesting because there’s often an outsider perspective that this restaurant must be so meaningful to the people of Charleston. But it sounds like you may not be getting that many local customers.

We are so happy with the attention that gets us tourists. Now, we are part of what you have to come and check out in Charleston. We have people that come in who are trying to squeeze in a meal before they get back on the [cruise] ship. But, they’re not like diehard Charlestonians. They’re people that went to Africa once, or know African food from Detroit or L.A.

Which maybe goes back to what you were saying about people appreciating when food is fresh and delicious, even if they don’t have an ancestral connection to it or know the history of the dishes.

This guy brought me a fish three hours after it was caught, and it was like, ‘Wow, now I have this fish for three days. We are just going to sell this fish until it’s finished.’ And it is beautiful to see that and have the freedom of no freezer. It’s costly, but people have to understand, even to get plantains at the right ripeness, you have to buy a certain way. It’s more expensive, but all those little things matter. I don’t want to take those frozen shrimp that everybody gets. I don’t want to cut corners.

I also feel like as Black people, we need to present something not as Black food, just as good food. These dishes have so much influence from Portuguese to French and all those things that weren’t originally African, with ingredients that don’t even grow there. Everyone wants to put a label on it, but my version of modern African food is just a combination of good stuff — dishes that anybody can say are just ‘good.’

Hanna Raskin is editor and publisher of The Food Section, a newsletter covering food and drink across the American South. She’s based in North Charleston, S.C. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.