Amid this harsh winter, Syracuse’s North Side just got a little warmer with some southern soul food.

Last week, Onondaga Community College’s teaching restaurant and entrepreneur incubator, With Love, reopened on North Salina Street with their third menu. This time around, Venus Likulumbi crafted a menu with Filipino and Congolese influences that reflect her roots.

Likulumbi, the restaurant’s newest entrepreneur-in-residence and a Syracuse native, grew up around a host of different cultures. Her aunt was from the Philippines and introduced her to Filipino cooking techniques as well as traditional dishes like lumpia and adobo. Likulumbi’s mother whipped up spinach stew and fufu, some of the Congolese dishes of her father’s origins.

“I remember coming in the house and having Cambodian, Turkish dishes because people (my mother) knew, she brought them in, and we all sat while she cooked,” Likulumbi recalled. “My mother always opened her doors.”

The collection of lessons and experiences went with Likulumbi when she lived in the South. She she spent 20 years living in Savannah, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, working in Southern restaurants. This experience provided her with the opportunity to exchange ideas and methods with local chefs, expanding her culinary repertoire.

After catering events and venturing into real estate, Likulumbi moved back to Syracuse 18 months ago with an abundance of new influences.

The gastronomic mixing of cultures that Likulumbi grew accustomed to as a child helped shape the foundation for With Love’s new offerings. Filipino influences are evident with the lumpia repolyo, while the Kool-Aid pickles have both low country and Latinx origins.

The heart of the menu, though, remains soul food.

“Soul food is the cuisine of making do,” Likulumbi said. “Basically, you open up your back door and anything that flies, swims, crawls or walks can be on your table.”

This distinctive style of the food is not to be confused with the archetypal depiction of general southern cuisine.

“The recipes are African recipes that were derived in the South and then spread across the United States as soul food,” Likulumbi said.

Forget fried chicken — meat is not the focal point of the soul food diet as everyone assumes, she said. In fact, meat was typically smoked and used merely for flavor since the yard greens, rice and beans that form the basis of soul food are bitter alone.

Black-eyed peas, cornbread, smashed potatoes and green beans sit alongside entrees such as meatloaf terrine — the menu’s lone entree with meat — fried green tomato napoleon and lady pea stew. This concise menu will change from time to time during the six-month period in which this style of food is served.

Mason jars adorn each setting, channeling the famed Southern sentiment, while beverages include peaches and green iced tea and Salt City coffee. Alcohol is not offered because of the restaurant’s educational environment.

Every meal can be finished off with the ambrosia creme brulee. The menu itself even asserts that the irresistible dessert will “make you fat and happy.”

As for her future after With Love, Likulumbi said she would like to open up a bed and breakfast in Syracuse. She loves the local region and is accustomed to entertaining guests.

Program manager Adam Sudmann launched the restaurant in December 2016. With Love, Pakistan was the first iteration of the instructional eatery, headed by immigrant chef Sarah Robin. Last fall, chef Nancy Aye brought Burmese cuisine to the 435 N. Salina St. location.

The three chefs are now linked together through a framed photo they all signed on the wall, which states that every meal was cooked with love.

A young woman on a date looked down at the crisp salmon croquette and crimson Kool-Aid pickle on her plate, then locked eyes with her date and said, “I am so glad we came here.”

Published on January 28, 2018 at 7:48 pm

Contact Adam: aglehner@syr.edu