Chef Roshara “Ro” Sanders didn’t know she was Geechee until she was already a trained chef.
She’d been eating her family’s okra stew her whole life, which was a recipe passed down from her World War II veteran grandfather to her mother to her. It was just what they ate. Then she started traveling to Africa as part of her work developing curriculum at the Culinary Institute of America, and food historians kept telling her the same thing. Michael Twitty told her: this is Gullah, this is Geechee. She went again with BJ Dennis and Mashama Bailey, and they confirmed it.
“Me, as a Black woman, I can’t speak for all African Americans, but I don’t know my history. I have no idea where my people come from. My mom doesn’t really know,” Sanders says. “I was born in the late ’80s, ’89, crack-cocaine era. We are just discovering who we are through food.”
That okra stew is now on the menu at Red Rooster Harlem, where Sanders is the first Chef Ambassador. Marcus Samuelsson handpicked her to lead the restaurant into its next chapter, and on paper, her credentials are impressive. She’s a decorated Army combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first Black female culinary instructor at CIA, and a Food & Wine 2024 Game Changer. But that’s not why Samuelsson chose her.
“At the end of the day, she is a historian and a teacher,” Samuelsson says. “She knows our African American history. She comes from a sense of place. Being a New Yorker, of course, but also a sense of place in history.”
Samuelsson spent seven years living in Harlem before he opened Red Rooster in 2010, half a block from Sylvia’s (open since 1962) and half a block north of where Lenox Lounge stood for 80 years. He knew the neighborhood didn’t need just another place to eat. “New York City doesn’t need another restaurant. It’s nice to have one, but it’s not. Harlem doesn’t need another restaurant,” he says. Red Rooster was built to be more than that – a space where spiritual events could happen alongside Friday night jazz, where Harlem’s culture could live through food, art, and music.
Red Rooster has hosted the Obamas, held events for Mayor Dinkins, and had Alicia Keys and John Legend perform over the past 15 years. But Samuelsson knows legacy isn’t enough. “How do you keep something interesting? It’s by change,” he says.
Sanders grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut watching her mother juggle jobs at restaurants and Sacred Heart University’s cafeterias. By 15, she was taking culinary classes at Bullard-Havens Technical High School, where a CIA graduate teaching there told her she had what it took to make it as a chef. Sanders applied and got in, but the tuition was impossible. So in 2008, she joined the Army. She spent 2009 and 2010 in Iraq and Afghanistan with the 4th Engineer Battalion as an automated logistical specialist, managing warehouse operations and equipment. When she came back stateside, she joined a different battalion and cross-trained in food supply. The GI Bill would cover CIA, but there was a cost she didn’t anticipate. Her roommate at Fort Carson in Colorado, a fellow soldier who’d been pushing Sanders to go after her chef dreams, was murdered by another soldier.
Sanders started at CIA in 2012. By 2014, she had both an associate degree in Culinary Arts and a bachelor’s in Food Business Management. Then came Chopped in 2015 (she won the Military Veterans edition), Forbes 30 Under 30, cooking at the James Beard House, and a position at Oceana in Manhattan. In 2020, CIA brought her back as its first Black female culinary instructor. She helped build the school’s curriculum on African and African diaspora cuisines, which took her to Cameroon in 2023 for the Diaspora Kitchen festival. That’s where she started piecing together her own heritage.
When Samuelsson approached her about Red Rooster, the weight of it hit her. “I’ve been watching Marcus my entire career. We call him the Godfather,” she says. “What he does is not only does he open up iconic places throughout the world. He has a habit of taking up-and-coming chefs and sharing his platform, and they completely and utterly take off. He triples and quadruples your career and your life.”
Samuelsson gave her one clear directive. “You’ve got to make sure that you understand your demographic, you understand Harlem. Harlem has to come first. The people have to come first, and then we can pull in the diaspora.”
Sanders ate around Harlem and consulted mentors like Melba Wilson, who she calls “the Godmother,” and Alexander Smalls. She wrote a two to three page menu and let the Red Rooster team choose what would work alongside their classics. Right now she has eight to nine items on the 30-item menu. Samuelsson says by next year it’ll probably be 15 to 16. “This is a gradual,” he says. “Change is hard, but it has to happen.”
Sanders has been working in New York for almost 15 years, grinding through kitchens and classrooms to get here. “Andrew and Marcus don’t even have any idea of how much this means to me. I get emotional,” she says. “It’s just all the sacrifice, all the hard work, all the sweat…I’m breaking glass ceilings.”
When asked where Red Rooster is heading, Sanders calls it “a new Renaissance.” She says, “Rooster has always been a staple. It will continue to be a staple. Rooster will continue to lead the way for Black excellence and New York, not even just Harlem.”
Samuelsson laughs. “She keeps putting me in my place. I like it. It’s good. You learn.”