Photograph by Catherine Viox
Jeffery Harris of Nolia and Elaine Uykimpang Bentz of Café Mochiko bring distinctive culinary perspectives to Cincinnati’s dining scene, which has gotten them nominated as part of the James Beard Awards several times over, as well as other praise. Nolia was named one of Esquire’s “Best New Restaurants in America” in 2023 while Uykimpang Bentz and her husband, Erik Bentz, have made _The New York Times’s list of the nation’s best bakeries and Bon Appetit’s “50 Best New Restaurants” list. The pair dish about how the recognition boosted their businesses and who inspired them.
Uykimpang Bentz: It was a huge shock for me. I didn’t even know we would be considered, but it was awesome. It was nice to hear from other chefs and hear congratulations from your peers.
Harris: I thought people were playing a joke on me! I called my wife and said, ‘A lot of people [are] texting me congratulations. What’s going on?’ She was like, ‘Holy f—–g shit! You’ve been nominated for a James Beard!’ I couldn’t focus on work at all. I didn’t know how to contain what just happened.
Uykimpang Bentz: It was a big surprise when it first happened, but it’s been great for business. People approach you with a more critical eye, which is not always fun, but it opens up the doors to so many other people trying you for the first time and then hopefully becoming regulars.
Harris: Yeah, for me, it was more like a jolt, basically. We went from being super calm and normal and then insanely busy. And we don’t have standing room here, so to have people standing in your restaurant waiting to be seated was something different, something new.
Uykimpang Bentz: Yeah, it was pretty immediate. It’s a lot to handle at first, but it’s a nice boost during those slow periods of the year, so I’m grateful for it.
Harris: Especially after the first time we were nominated, I don’t think we saw a slow season at all. Right now, everything’s balancing out. We have a normal night—like, 50 people—and we’ll be like, ‘Yes!’
Uykimpang Bentz: I mean, that’s a really great feeling that people would travel to see you. Sometimes we would get that sort of thing from when we do popups with other restaurants, but it’s so nice to get that sort of feedback from people and then to hear what they think of the meal after. Pretty amazing, too.
Harris: It was weird the first time it happened. We had a lady from Manhattan that was traveling here, and she got the news from social media. She was trying to look up places to eat in Cincinnati, and she came straight from the plane—here—like, she had a suitcase and ate here…. She said, ‘I’ll be back next week with my husband.’ Just taking it for a grain of salt, I said, ‘Oh, thank you.’ She came back, like the next week with her husband, and they came three nights straight. We had people from Detroit and South Carolina that met here on their first date. They came back, and they were engaged like a year later. That type of stuff means a lot.
We asked the chefs about the people who inspired them.
Harris: When I worked for Emeril, that was like working for an idol when I was growing up in New Orleans. But my great grandma is the reason I cook anywhere. She was everything to the family. She kept everybody in line. She kept everybody in check, and she’s the first person who ever put me on the stove. For her to do that, and this is what I’m doing right now, I just wish she could see it.
Uykimpang Bentz: I was gonna say my grandma on my dad’s side. She’s the only grandparent I’ve ever known, but she’s always been cooking for us. She has lived a crazy life: She raised seven kids on her own, she would do beauty pageants, and then she owned a little café, and then she brought all the kids to the States. Anytime we have a big party, she’s always the one who’s cooking and kicking people out of the kitchen.
Harris: I just always loved being a chef. I just wanted to have my own restaurant, no matter what, no matter who I worked for, I always wanted to do this. And when I got the opportunity to do so, I wanted to take full advantage. I took all my experiences from working under other chefs and made my own experience in my own restaurant and created my own culture, my own food, and everything. Once Nolia became a restaurant, I knew that I wanted to put southern food in a different light.
Uykimpang Bentz: I grew up in Southern California in the San Gabriel Valley, close to L.A. The food over there is just so diverse. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, so it was kind of a natural transition to turn that into a career. Then, I moved around; I moved to Napa—I met my husband there. We moved to Chicago, and then we ended up here. This is where his family is. We knew when we came here that we wanted to have our own shop. The pandemic kind of shifted the trajectory of what we ended up doing, but we’re so proud of what it is today. I get to infuse my own cultural influence into our food, and it makes a nice personal connection to our menu.
Harris: I don’t like cornbread. When I opened Nolia, the two things that I wanted to have were a good cornbread and some really good hot sauce. Cornbread goes back to my mom and everybody—my mom would tell you that I eat cornbread, and I don’t. There was a lot of stuff I didn’t like that I had to eat [when building a food profile]. That’s one thing that will probably never come off my menu.
Uykimpang Bentz: Our ube halaya croissant, it’s a pretty good representation of us and me. It’s because I spent years training with a French chef, and a lot of my pastry background is in that, and croissants are so quintessentially French. But the ube part, I’m Filipino, and it’s just a food that I grew up eating my entire life. And to be able to cross those two together just fits so perfectly.
Harris: For sure. I can go there and get milk bread. That’s one of my favorite things. [You have] something with yuzu, and I love yuzu.
Uykimpang Bentz: Anytime I see you guys post about crab or shellfish, I am all over that.
In late January, Jordan Anthony-Brown of The Aperture and David Jackman of Wildweed were nominated in the “Emerging Chef” and the “Best Chef: Great Lakes (IL, IN, MI, OH)” categories, respectively, of the 2025 James Beard Awards. Winners will be announced on April 2 and celebrated at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in June.
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