Cybille St. Aude-Tate’s remix on Haitian cuisine is a love letter to third culture kids

Two years ago, chef, artist, and children’s book author Cybille St. Aude-Tate and her husband, Omar Tate, a chef and artist in his own right, opened a grocery café concept space in West Philadelphia. It was 900 square feet and tight, but they made it work. Through their award-winning café, they sold Black made goods, catered events, made their own breads and sauces and had a fermentation process that turned their scraps into vinegar — an endeavor to be a zero-waste establishment.

Now, some months after closing their physical doors at Honeysuckle Provisions, she and her husband are opening  Honeysuckle Restaurant, which is five times the size, has a full bar, and seats 95 people. What’s most inspiring isn’t their rapid growth or St. Aude-Tate’s long list of accolades; it’s her ability to meld her upbringing as a child and sister of Haitian immigrants with her passion for food. 

When The Haitian Times sat down with Cybille St. Aude-Tate, she shared how she weaves personal stories into food and culture through imagination. Her understanding of how these elements build community — and how sustainability plays a role — is not only admirable but strategic.

St. Aude-Tate’s work tries to speak to others who share the blended cultural experience she grew up with — an experience one sociologist has referred to as being a Third Culture Kid, someone who grows up between the culture of their parents and the country where they live.

“My core audience is kids who grew up living their lives a little bit connected to Haiti, but also not feeling 100% Haitian and then connected to the States but also not really feeling 100% American,” St. Aude-Tate said when explaining who she tries to create spaces for, not just through her restaurants but through pop-ups, dinner parties, and events all under the Honeysuckle brand. 

“It’s being able to lean into these things that make you proud and also nostalgic and also just very rooted.”

St. Aude-Tate admits to not feeling fully Haitian enough. Being the youngest of four children and the only one born in the United States, the teasing during her youth convinced her that she didn’t have a fully cultural “home.”

The food she creates is a reflection of her own Haitian-American experience — a preservation of Black stories and interactions. While learning to cook Haitian food and catering to exclusively Haitian techniques, St. Aude-Tate admits it didn’t feel authentic because she always thought about doing everything differently. Her cooking practice developed into an alternative one, mirroring how she saw herself in the community. It became a practice of her settling in.

“I had a responsibility to myself and others who have always dealt with imposter syndrome around establishing ourselves as Haitians without having been born there,” St. Aude-Tate said. 

Honeysuckle answers the question: ‘What can it look like when different food stories come together?’

“My husband’s family, they’re from South Carolina. They migrated during the Great Migration and settled in Philadelphia. So he talks about Southern food, but then also just what that looks like throughout the Great Migration and what northern Black food can be,” St. Aude-Tate said. 

Her remix on Haitian cuisine through a Black empowerment lens has been one of her goals but for St. Aude-Tate, that experience does not have to disclude the preservation of other Black stories.

“So we put all our perspectives and leaned into influences from West Africa, from other parts of the Caribbean and other distinctly Black cities like Baltimore and Detroit. All of their food stories come together in our space,” 

This varied vision of Haitian food was underscored by how she got her formal training: she learned from a Jamaican-Italian chef in a Chinese-American restaurant in Long Island, New York. This, plus personal training from family, put her on a path to creating a mosaic of what she imagines Haitian food to be.

The menu at Honeysuckle

On the menu, you will find Haitian staples like malanga, plantain and pikliz, but you’ll also find a pikliz martini — a dirty martini, but spicy. 

The “Lajan Sal,” a Haitian Creole phrase meaning “dirty money,” uses pikliz two ways: they lacto-ferment it to pull out the salinity and vegetal flavor, then create a pikliz brine with pearl onions, scotch bonnet peppers and allspice to make the drink flavorful. Vodka and vermouth top it off to make a spicy, savory martini.

St. Aude-Tate blushed as she explained the inspiration behind her new restaurant’s drink menu.

“It’s really fun to be able to play around with ancestral spirits and just think about the ways that Black people convene around not only food, but drinks,” St. Aude-Tate said.

Through drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, St. Aude-Tate continues the trend of introducing a culture to patrons that may not have previously been exposed to it. This doesn’t stop at Caribbean or American traditional drinks — West African palm wine is also on the menu.

The name of the restaurant and the duo’s brand for the last few years is the first and final nod to the importance of storytelling. An allusion to a honeysuckle bush that welcomed her husband home during childhood reminds them of the sweetness of life’s experiences and the fun you can have when you’re curious. 

They are preserving stories of migration, immigration, ingenuity and innovation at Honeysuckle. It serves as an unerring commitment to create spaces outside the gaze of superiority complexes.

Honeysuckle is set to open in mid-April at Cybille St. Aude-Tate and Omar Tate’s new location, 631 N. Broad St. in Philadelphia.

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