Twice a week on a tree-lined street in Harlem, a team of chefs prepares locally sourced, three-course dinners for 300 people a night. Tables are set with fresh flowers and menus are printed for each meal. Waiters in dark aprons deliver plates, often accompanied by live jazz, poetry, or spoken word. Neighbors gather at communal tables, eating and chatting, sharing stories, breaking bread.

The restaurant in question may be one you’ve never heard of: That’s because it’s not quite a restaurant. Refettorio Harlem is a community kitchen from a nonprofit from Michelin-starred chef and UN Environment Programme Goodwill Ambassador Massimo Bottura and his partner Lara Gilmore: Food for Soul. Refettorio Harlem, the first in the United States, opened in 2020, and is part of a global network Bottura founded in 2015. It now features over a dozen Refettorios across nine countries.

The no-cost restaurants are built to tackle pressing climate and nutrition issues: food waste and food insecurity. Each Refettorio recovers food and offers neighbors in need no-cost elegantly served three-course meals with music, art, dignity, and hospitality. The Refettorios incorporate other services that benefit the needs of the community. In Harlem, that includes culinary training, life skills, rebuilding livelihood for those formerly incarcerated, and the arts. The organization also does community outreach: In Harlem they are partnering to help feed Children’s Aid Services on 118th Street and the Veterans Home down the block.

This past Monday night, at its home at the Emanuel AME Church on West 119th Street, a group of six Harlem-based chefs — JJ Johnson (Fieldtrip, Bankside), Russell Jackson (Reverence), Celeste and Khouri Beatty (Harlem Brew Soul), Asia Shabazz (Contento), Nino and Bilena Settepani (Settepani) and Aliyyah Baylor (Make My Cake) — gathered to cook a five-course dinner inspired by the Langston Hughes collection of poems, Montage of a Dream Deferred. The soiree was held to celebrate the launch of Refettorio’s newest initiative: The Harlem Chef’s Lab.

Launching in February 2025, the Harlem Chef’s Lab aims to produce a monthly series of collaborative ticketed dinners for the public blending art, music, and food to benefit the Refettorio’s twin missions of reducing food waste and serving meals with dignity at no cost. The list of roughly twenty chefs involved includes Una Pizza’s Anthony Mangieri, Johnson, Cortney Burns formerly of Bar Tartine, Nadav Greenberg of Shmoné, Jackson, Vijay Kumar of Semma, Alessio Rosetti of La Devozione, and Mattia Agazzi of Gucci Osteria Los Angeles, among others.

The Chef’s Lab was created to support the Refettorio’s work: The hope is to grow the list of 20 chefs to 52 so they can invite a chef to cook every week of the year. The idea for Chef’s Lab grew from the collaborative spirit among local chefs and Refettorios: Bottura has been inviting chef friends to come, create, and share since its inception in 2015, and in Harlem, guest chefs have been popping in every few weeks to cook for the community.

At the soiree on Monday night, chefs served bread miso maitake mushroom tartlets, escabeche of branzino with roasted plantains, braised oxtails with coconut rice grits, and beer mac and cheese to a group of nearly 100 people including local artists, musicians, and authors, friends from the community, sponsors, elected officials, and members of the city’s food policy team.

“The work of being able to ensure that all of the food that’s coming into our city is getting on the plates of New Yorkers is so important,” said Ora Kemp, senior policy advisor with the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, who attended launch event on Monday. “The Refettorio ensures our neighbors are getting the food and the social supports they need.”

The goal of the Harlem Chef’s Lab goes beyond fundraising. “We hope the Harlem Chef’s Lab dinners inspire people to reconsider the incredible value our food system offers before wasting, while preserving the dignity, hospitality, and beauty all people deserve, no matter their lived experience,” said Jill Conklin, Food for Soul’s executive director.

Conklin hopes the Chef’s Lab will create a way for the wider public to experience the joy of a Refettorio meal. “When you are trying to communicate the importance of cultivating social inclusivity, there is no better way than to invite people in to experience it,” said Conklin.

Since 2020, The Harlem Refettorio’s Food Rescue Program has saved more than 60,688 pounds of food. They’ve served 60,500 meals to neighbors in need, and their pantry program has delivered more than 5,000 pounds of fresh food to the local community. In 2024, they are on pace to eclipse the food recovery numbers in both weight and value.

“The ideology around dining with dignity is something that resonates with us,” said Russell Jackson, chef of Reverence in Harlem, a 98 percent zero-waste restaurant.

The meals do more than just feed folks; they address social isolation too. “We’ve always looked for a way in which we can bring immediate value to someone’s journey through life,” said Free Food Harlem founder and Refettorio Harlem director Bob Wilms. “Food is a connector. We do not just offer a free meal but create community around the table. The result is a place in which everyone involved benefits, volunteers, staff, and clients, feeling an immense sense of belonging and purpose. Everyone comes away with more.”

Refettorio Harlem at the Emanuel AME Church, 39 W. 119th Street, New York, NY 10026; Follow along on Instagram for the date of the first Harlem Chef Lab dinner.