Jardin Kazaar (Coos Bay) is an African American chef, nurse, storyteller, and musician. His cooking has been inspired by his mother's as well as the French chefs he apprenticed with in NYC and France. A professional nurse, Kazaar loves to care for others, whether by healing them in a health care setting or by feeding them in his restaurant, The Black Market Gourmet.
Bio
Jardin Kazaar is an African American chef, nurse, storyteller, and musician. He first learned to cook from his mother while he was growing up in the South Bronx. During college he apprenticed with a French chef in NYC and then spent two summers with chefs in France. A professional nurse, Kazaar loves to care for others, whether by healing them in a health care setting or by feeding them in his restaurant, The Black Market Gourmet. As a child, Kazaar recalls that he "learned how to cook by necessity; . . . and it's because it's kind of bred into you. It's like you understand that if you are going to eat, then you best know how to cook, and no one is going to be around there to just fix it for you all the time. . . . So you paid attention, but also you learned what you like." He remembers his first experience with dishes from another culture was the Eastern European Jewish food of a junior high school friend. Taking the bus from his mostly African American and Puerto Rican neighborhood in the Bronx to a predominately Jewish school, he encountered latkes (potato pancakes), knishes (baked dumplings stuffed with potatoes and onions), and more. His high school jobs in restaurants further piqued his love affair with cooking. Kazaar's parents encouraged him and his sister to learn and benefit from their education as much as possible. In college, he majored first in journalism and then in nursing. At the same time he continued to work in restaurants, which led to an apprenticeship at New York’s Chez Michelle whose chef funded him to spend two summers training with chefs in France. While awaiting his nursing board results after college, Kazaar joined the Air Force Reserve, which led to travel and more cultural and culinary exploration in Europe. After the military, he moved to LA. While working 12-hour shifts as a nurse, he was inspired to renovate an old store front and opened the Beaux Tie Grille in North Hollywood. He hired migrant day workers to help, and they, along with his girlfriend, became part of his staff. For the French-trained Kazaar, blending the African and indigenous flavors of New Orleans and the Caribbean came naturally, and the restaurant took off with his eclectic mix of African American, Creole, and Jamaican inspired dishes. Before he knew it, well-known musicians like Smokey Robinson and actors like Bruce Willis and Mariel Hemmingway were patronizing the Beaux Tie. After the LA Times gave the restaurant a favorable review, the small dining room filled to capacity every night. In the late 1980s, Kazaar planned to take his eatery to the west side of LA, but he promised his girlfriend, who wanted to move to Oregon, that if things didn’t work out, they'd head north. In 1989, he started a job as a hospital nurse in Coos Bay. Two years later, he found himself opening another restaurant, The Head Hunters Grille, which he ran for some years until he and his wife started The Black Market Gourmet, which caters events and serves as a popular music venue. Kazaar himself enjoys playing jazz and performing spoken word poetry at his restaurant, which has become well known on Oregon's south coast. Kazaar has always been drawn to African and African American expressions: jazz, blues, spoken word, and French Creole/Caribbean threads in food. And his philosophy of cooking is akin to jazz: "jazz and soulful cooking are kind of one, like one kind of begets the other one or inspires or stimulates the other one." He is especially passionate about ingredients being good, coming from sustainable farming and fishing, producing good flavors—"what we are drawn to in food, besides sustenance." What centers his work is caring for others, creating community, and introducing people to his African American roots and heritage. For Jardin Kazaar, caring for his community--as a nurse, a chef, storyteller, or musician—is his mission. During the Covid-19 pandemic, BMG provided carry-out Creole and Jamaican food to old and new friends. Kazaar uses food as a bridge to other cultures. "And because food is a deal breaker, . . . it's a meal, it's . . . a gift from God. It's something . . . which should be revered. And when you share something like that, when you share food, . . . that's an eye opener, it's a door opener. . . . Taste what I'm tasting, experience food the way it was meant to be, nourish your bodies and heal your soul. That's why we call it soul food. It does it heals the soul, because when you don't feel good, when you eat something [that] really tastes good, you do feel better, don't you?"
