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The MICHELIN Guide Presents: Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too

Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too

Norma Jean Darden is a fascinating storyteller. Her entire life - from growing up with her southern mother, to becoming a fashion model, to opening a celebrated restaurant in Harlem - reads like a novel. In addition to her vibrant way with words, however, Norma Jean is heartwarmingly generous. As she shared her story with Manhattan Sideways, she offered us sweet tea and even cooked up a plate heaped with southern fare, made from her mothers' recipes.

Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too

At the top of its menu, Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too promises an experience that’s “like going back home.” And even if its 1950s-style kitchen with red-and-yellow checkerboard tile and Motown soundtrack don’t resemble the house you grew up in, the laid-back atmosphere and home-style eats will quickly make you feel at ease. Celebs from Angela Bassett to Mike Tyson to Bill Clinton have all dropped in for a taste of owner Norma Jean Darden’s generations-old family recipes, like the perfectly seasoned and battered fried chicken, smoky collard greens, zesty potato salad or melt-in-your-mouth, fall-off-the-bone short ribs.

Norma Jean Darden - Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too

Norma Jean Darden has had a long and versatile career in the food and fashion worlds. As a Wilhelmina model, her photos appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Glamour, Ladies Home Journal, Esquire, New York Magazine, Life, Newsweek and The New York Times. She was a favorite model of Essence Magazine and also worked for European magazines, such as Italian Vogue, Italian Bazaar and Elle.

Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine’ still sets the bar for cookbook memoirs

Family legend has it that in 1868, at the age of fourteen, Charles Henry Darden walked into Wilson, North Carolina. He had no money, no relatives, no friends there, and no one knew where he had come from — he wouldn’t say.