RJ Smith’s Afro-Caribbean pop-up is staying put, and the Ocho Supper Club Lacroix residency now has no end date. Smith, a recent Drexel graduate who just turned 22, is moving his Sunday dinners into the Lacroix dining room at the Rittenhouse Hotel after six months in the hotel’s former Scarpetta space.
The room is smaller this time. Ocho Supper Club Lacroix seats up to 30 people at a time, twice a night, at 5 and 8 p.m. on select Sundays. The space Smith just left had 120 seats.
What Changed at the Ocho Supper Club Lacroix Residency
Smith started out cooking tasting menus for small groups while he was still at Drexel. Then he took over a 120-seat room at the hotel and ran it for half a year. Now he has traded those seats for 30 and a different room, one that looks out over Rittenhouse Square.
The food didn’t shrink to fit. It’s still rooted in his Afro-Caribbean heritage and built on fine-dining technique he picked up in other people’s kitchens. Smith says the team is “getting better every single night,” and he thanks the hotel for letting him use the space. Nobody extends a residency indefinitely when the first run went badly.
He has also proven he can cook away from home. In September he spent four nights in Liz Grothe’s Queen Village restaurant, using the same 5 and 8 p.m. seating pattern, and in August Ocho had a station at the Best of Philly party.
The Ocho Supper Club Lacroix Tasting Menu
The dinner is six courses at $160++, and the menu is Afro-Caribbean cooking with fine-dining technique behind it. It starts with Trinidad Doubles, curried chickpeas in fried roti with the traditional Trinidadian garnishes. Next come Oxtail Festivals: braised oxtail stuffed into a lightly sweet Jamaican-style festival and glazed in curry honey.
From there the menu moves through a Berbere-Spiced Tartare and madai with hibiscus, aguachile, salsa verde and pickled turnip. Mole Negro arrives with white masa, and a scallop comes with grilled squash salad. Lamb saddle with mustard pesto, sheep’s milk yogurt and pickled mustard is the main.
Dessert is watermelon granita with caramelized miso ice cream, a hibiscus mousse cake and a trio of petit fours. The Ocho Supper Club Lacroix menu is seasonal and built on local ingredients, reworking produce and pantry staples from across the diaspora.
Bar 210 and Room Service at Ocho Supper Club Lacroix
Not everyone wants six courses on a Sunday. Dinner at Bar 210, inside Lacroix, is à la carte, with a seafood plateau, braised oxtails, Escovitch mussels, a crab tostada and madai ceviche. There’s also a New York strip with a jerk-spice reduction and curry lamb with coconut, turmeric and scallion.
Hotel guests can order Smith’s menu through room service, and diners can add Ocho’s cocktail program, designed by James Beard Award-winning author Danny Childs of Slow Drinks, for $75 per person.
Where Smith Learned the Ocho Supper Club Lacroix Style
The technique comes from time in several kitchens during his college years. Smith spent time at Provenance, at Core by Clare Smyth in London, and at Californios in San Francisco, which holds three Michelin stars. For someone who just turned 22, that is a hard résumé to argue with.
What he brought home was a point of view. Ocho isn’t Caribbean food dressed up for a fancy room. It’s a Philadelphia cook putting his heritage through the discipline of kitchens that take every plate seriously, and the Lacroix room gives him the space to show it.
Booking the Ocho Supper Club Lacroix Dinners
Tasting menu seatings at 5 and 8 p.m. are booked through OpenTable. Sundays are limited to select dates, so check the listing for what’s open, and see Ocho’s own site for the latest on the concept.
Pop-ups are supposed to end. Ocho has already outlasted its first run, moved into a smaller and more formal room, and picked up the word “indefinitely” along the way. It’s a big promise from a 22-year-old, and the only way to learn what it means is to keep showing up.
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