S.T.A.R.’s ‘Soul Féte’ Scheduled for Friday [Q&A]

This Friday, New Canaan-based Stand Together Against Racism or ‘S.T.A.R.’ is hosting its major annual benefit: “Soul Féte: A Culinary Immersion.” The nonprofit organization’s mission is “to equip residents of New Canaan, CT and neighboring communities with tools and resources to understand systemic racism — including its history, root causes and the structures that perpetuate it— and to proactively advocate for racial equity and bias elimination.”

Starting at 6 p.m. at the Carriage Barn, the event features dinner, dancing and live music, and it’s catered by Executive Chef Eric Bryson of Thelma’s in Bridgeport and Ripe in Norwalk (tickets here). Sponsors include Bankwell, Stewart’s Spirits and NewCanaanite.com. 

We put some questions to Bryson ahead of Soul Féte.

Here’s our exchange.

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New Canaanite: How did you come to be aware of S.T.A.R. and involved in this way? 

Eric Bryson: One of the members of S.T.A.R. comes to the restaurant every so often, and she basically inquired if I was interested in doing something with S.T.A.R. as far as their Juneteenth event was concerned. And that’s initially how we got started with S.T.A.R.

OK, so you were selling food at that event last summer?

Yes, we were in the tent that had the big smoker.

And now you’re doing Soul Féte, so you’re getting even more involved. 

Right. As far as the Soul Féte is concerned, I just opened a second restaurant in Norwalk. It’s called Ripe and it’s a Caribbean- and soul food-based restaurant. And I thought it would be a great fit for that event. 

So you’re executive chef at Thelma’s in Bridgeport, and you’re also chef at Ripe in Norwalk. Talk to us about the concepts of those restaurants and your own background in the profession.

I came to Thelma’s about seven years ago and changed the direction of the restaurant. What I infused in the restaurant was a modern twist on soul food, just elevating a little bit compared to the traditional settings of soul food. And we infused it with a lot of Caribbean elements because—through traveling and being in the industry—what we noticed was basically a lot of people are the same, just a spice or two difference among them.

This Friday will be the fourth edition of Soul Féte. Without giving away too much, talk to us about what attendees can expect there on Friday in terms of the cuisine. 

As far as the cuisine’s concerned, you’re gonna get a twist on everything. So can you imagine for instance a Thanksgiving meal. Most people refer to soul food as similar to Thanksgiving type food and stuff like that, but it’s elevated and definitely with a twist on it. Like for instance, collard greens, we’re going to do it a totally different way from what people traditionally know it as and how they’ve had it in their homes. We’re introducing a lot of vegan dishes for people who don’t eat meat and items like that, so if you were a meat eater before you became a vegan, you can bring that taste back without eating meat. We’re basically going to tell the history of food, as far as soul food and Caribbean food. We’re going take it through a history of that and showcase certain elements of the food spices so people can enjoy and see that for themselves.

You said you came to Thelma’s seven years ago. Give us some of your own professional background and training.

As far as being trained. I went to iic ICC [International Culinary Center] in the city for things like knife skills and background in restaurant ownership and management and things like that. And I’ve been doing food my whole career. 

What else, if anything, would you like to tell our readers about your restaurants or S.T.A.R. or Soul Féte before I let you go? 

We’re going to showcase food, and not in the ways that people might be traditionally used to. And even if they are traditionally used to it, we’re going to show them a little twist on stuff. We’ll showcase how much we are more alike than we think when it comes to food, and hopefully that can translate into people looking at soul food and Caribbean food in a different light. They’ll see that it’s a lot more than they realize, and we’ll showcase food in a different way for them to enjoy.