By: Kennedy Miller By: Kennedy Miller | March 2, 2023 | Food & Drink, Community,
DC’s buzziest new restaurant tells the fictional story of Alonzo Bronze.
700 years ago, Bronze traveled freely around the globe, trading spices, ingredients, and cooking techniques on behalf of Africa and its displaced colonies. Eventually, Bronze and his people settled, with their mythic cranes, on a lush, bountiful island in the modern-day Caribbean.
Afrofuturistic, sci-fi restaurant Bronze retells this African diasporic story through a globalized menu and multi-level Afro-luxury design concept.
Bronze opened this past December and reviewers are already raving about the highly inventive and conceptual restaurant.
See Also: Gorgeous: Our Favorite DC Living Room of the Month
During the pandemic, founder Keem Hughley imagined the sci-fi, Afrofuturistic story of Alonzo Bronze, one of hope and connection, celebrating diversity and retelling the African diaspora.
Afrofuturism is the ability to create without limits, especially those limits that have been put on Black people in diasporic communities for centuries around the world. His vision for Bronze was to create a space for these communities to express themselves creatively and freely, says Hughley.
Hughley envisioned the menu to represent communities around the globe, extending past the notion that Black culinary culture is represented exclusively through soul food.
“There’s all different types of cuisines and traditions and different ways [Black communities] sit down and enjoy food together,” said Hughley. “I think it was important that we created a restaurant that embraced that overarching goal.”
Chef Toya Henry brings Hughley’s vision alive through a globalized and experimental menu, melding fantasy and gastronomy with the culture of the African diaspora and “breaking the mold on what is known to us and what we can and what we can’t use,” said Hughley.
The menu represents diasporic communities around the world, from Africa to the Caribbean, Brazil and South America. Bronze reimagines traditional diasporic ingredients, like cabbage, into elevated dishes. The heirloom carrots, served with cabbage and a pesto base, honor the history of the African diaspora with a futuristic, creative spin.
Hughley collaborated with DC-based architecture and design studio, Drummond Projects to bring the unprecedented concept to life. Designer Jimmie Drummond and his team began the process of creating the space by researching Afrofuturism rendered through different mediums of art.
We often see Afrofuturism represented in spaces of wonderlands or fantastical utopias, “but you don’t see it rendered in an actual, constructed environment,” says Drummond.
Driven by the narrative of Alonzo Bronze and the synergy between Hughley and Drummond, the design team created a variety of themes for the three-story restaurant that help shape the overarching story.
The low-lit and atmospheric ground floor is called “Pre-Earth,” a symbolic, theological reference to African folktales. The second floor, “Earth,” is illuminated by natural light and greenery. Guests are welcomed into a heavenly experience in the “Crane Room” on the third floor. The cocktail bar has crane-studded wallpaper and a large rounded cutout overlooking “Earth” and its patrons below.
The Black-owned and built establishment represents what the Afro-experience can become with support and recognition. For diasporic communities, Bronze symbolizes opportunity and what life could look like if social conditions were different.
“I want [guests] to come into the space and feel absolute peace with the way they are treated and in the quality of the food,” says Hughley.
Bronze is located at 1245 H St NE, Washington, DC 20002.
Photography by: Derek and Victoria Miller