KATE SULLIVAN: The Lower East Side of Manhattan has a vibrant, eclectic, and diverse restaurant culture and in the middle of it all is a recent standout: Dhamaka.

It is here that I'm meeting an award-winning chef, an expert storyteller, and a preserver of lost history.

SEAN SHERMAN: I see food as a language.

You know, I see food as something that all humans understand.

KATE: And a champion for indigenous and Native American cuisine.

SEAN: I realized that I didn't know anything about my own heritage food.

KATE: Wow.

SEAN: That I could name hundreds of European dishes off the top of my head.

But I knew like five recipes growing up that would've been truly Lakota and not like "fusion-ized."

KATE: Today, Chef Sean Sherman is taking me to his favorite restaurant in New York City to eat some incredible vegetarian cuisine and to discuss his journey from growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation to opening an award-winning restaurant.

SEAN: It shouldn't be so unusual to find a Native American restaurant in America.

KATE: Let's just stop there.

Like that statement alone.

KATE: And then, we hear what's next for the Sioux chef and how he hopes to shine a light on indigenous food around the world.

SEAN: We're reimagining, 'cause we have to evolve as humans, and we're just helping to evolve an indigenous cuisine.

You know, moving it forward.

♪♪ KATE: What's better in life than a bottle of wine, great food and an amazing conversation?

My name is Kate Sullivan and I am the host of To Dine For .

I'm a journalist, a foodie, a traveler, with an appetite for the stories of people who are hungry for more.

Dreamers.

Visionaries.

Artists.

Those who hustle hard in the direction they love.

I travel with them to their favorite restaurant, to hear how they did it.

This show is a toast to them and their American dream.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: the people who get things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community because it's their community too.

American National.

KATE: Today, I'm on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on my way into a much talked about and celebrated Indian restaurant called Dhamaka.

The person who chose this as their favorite restaurant is another celebrated chef in his own right, a true trailblazer.

I can't wait for you to meet Chef Sean Sherman.

Chef, how are you?

SEAN: Hi, how are you?

KATE: So nice to meet you.

SEAN: Nice to meet you, also.

KATE: I am so excited to try this restaurant.

SEAN: I know, me too.

Again.

[chuckles] KATE: The Lower East Side of Manhattan is a neighborhood with a storied history.

Traditionally a place for working class immigrants who found homes in crowded tenements, it underwent rapid gentrification and growth in the early 2000's.

In the Essex Street Market, just west of the Williamsburg Bridge, is one restaurant that unapologetically stands out.

CHINTAN PANDYA: So the name of this restaurant is Dhamaka, which literally means "a blast", in a sense, you know, when you are with your friend and you say, "I want to have a blast".

KATE: Chef Chintan Pandya and his co-owner, Roni Mazumdar of Unapologetic Foods, opened Dhamaka in early 2021.

Since 2017, the group has opened several restaurants and concepts around New York City, including the Michelin star earning, Semma, and critically acclaimed Adda Indian Canteen.

With Dhamaka, the team decided to do something completely different, inspired by Indian home cooking.

CHINTAN: My wife made this vegetable dish, and the first bite I took, I said, "My God, this is the flavor we missed in restaurant."

And I literally called Eric and Roni next year and I said, "I have this crazy idea.

What do you think that we do this food, which is the forgotten side of India, and not the commercial food of India?"

KATE: The restaurant's menu features Indian cuisine from several regions of the country, from Delhi to Punjab to Kashmir.

Dhamaka and Chef Chintan take pride in all of their meals, especially their Paneer.

CHINTAN: I want people to come here with an open mind, explore the versatility of this cuisine, explore the real form of this food that we grew up eating, and we enjoy eating and we love eating, and not just a westernized version of Indian food.

There's a very beautiful saying in Sanskrit, it says "[speaks Sanskrit]" that means a guest is a God.

So that is hospitality for me, any customer who walks into this restaurant is God.

He is giving me bread and butter.

KATE: That hospitality and love has led to great success for Dhamaka, including being nominated for Best New Restaurant in the 2022 James Beard Awards.

The winner of that award was Chef Sean Sherman's, Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni.

That was Sean's second James Beard Award after winning in 2018 for his cookbook, "The 'Sioux Chef's' Indigenous Kitchen."

These remarkable chefs and restaurants have a lot in common, especially their unapologetic approach to presenting their food, their cultures, and their stories to each and every one of their guests.

KATE: I'm so thrilled to be here.

So first of all, thank you for bringing me here.

SEAN: Well, I'm excited to be here too, so thanks for having me.

KATE: I thought we might end up in Minneapolis, where you live and where your restaurant is.

But instead we're on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

KATE: Why?

SEAN: I just had the privilege to be here, um, earlier this year in March.

And it was just a wonderful experience.

And then, so I just thought this would be such a great place.

And the food is amazing, and the chef's got a great story, and it's just a beautiful spot.

KATE: This restaurant really prides itself on featuring the forgotten food of India.

SEAN: Right, yeah.

KATE: And in many ways, Native American cuisine, which is what you do and what you showcase, in some ways is forgotten, don't you think?

SEAN: Absolutely.

That's been a big part of that work of just, uh, trying to showcase the, how much amazing diversity we have in North America through that indigenous lens and how much amazing food is out there, you know, and it's, it's food with story.

And that's what I really liked about this place too.

KATE: Chef Sean Sherman's story is an inspiring one.

He began working in restaurants as a teenager, working his way up through the industry but never seeing Native American cuisine represented.

By his late twenties, he was burnt out after overseeing four restaurants around Minneapolis.

He left that job and went on to create his own company: The Sioux Chef, a catering business, and his award-winning cookbook would follow, encouraging Sean to consider following his culture.

All of this was inspired by a trip he took to Mexico.

SEAN: I was just researching a lot because I saw so much commonality with them, and something just hit me that I realized that I had been studying food from all over the world and I knew food really well, but I realized that I didn't know anything about my own heritage food.

KATE: Wow.

SEAN: That I could name hundreds of European dishes off the top of my head in European languages.

KATE: And make it.

SEAN: I know exactly the ingredients.

And build them.

But I knew, like, I could think of probably less than five recipes growing up that would've been truly Lakota and not like "fusion-ized," you know?

KATE: Yes.

SEAN: And so I saw this path of what I wanted to work on and, you know, when I did a scan there was there, I couldn't find Native restaurants.

Um, there was a couple of Native cookbooks out there, but I couldn't, nothing of that was really what I was looking for.

KATE: You started, actually, as a catering company, am I correct?

SEAN: Yeah.

I mean, I, I just kind of started doing a lot of pop-up dinners early on.

I opened up the company in 2014 and we were doing pop-ups and we were started doing some catering.

I started working on the cookbook right away, which came out in late 2017.

And, uh, we put together uh, a food truck right away too.

So we had a food truck and catering and all these things going.

And I started publicly speaking, like I didn't know that was a thing.

And I started being on a circuit of just doing the talks about the subject that I- I focus.

KATE: And in those early days, what was the focus of your talks and your speeches?

SEAN: Really my focus was just trying to talk to people about what, why there aren't Native American restaurants in every single city, you know?

So, it became more than just identifying what Native American food was, but also talking about the history of things.

KATE: And why?

Why, when you think about Native American cuisine, is it so rare to find a restaurant dedicated to Native American food?

SEAN: It's literally just this history, you know, when it comes down to it.

So, it was just very eye-opening on my own part of it and just trying to understand, which took me a few years of researching and try to figure out like what were my ancestors eating?

Um, what were they, were they trading with other groups?

What were they growing?

Um, what was their knowledge about plants?

And so that became a big question as to why did I grow up on a reservation to have very little knowledge about my own food?

KATE: Yeah.

SEAN: And I looked backwards like who in my family history would've had the full extent of indigenous knowledge before things got changed.

KATE: Right.

SEAN: And it was only my great-grandfather's generation because he was born in the 1860's.

He was at the, um, Battle of Greasy Grass, which people might know as Custer's Last Stand.

KATE: Mm-hmm.

SEAN: Um, Battle of Little Bighorn, um, when he was 18 years old and he grew up seeing like all this change happen to Lakota people where I grew up.

So people, like his children having, having to go to boarding schools, having to learn English and cut their hair, and just seeing everybody being forced onto the reservation.

Um, and just so much change to witness in a single life.

KATE: Sean grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, an area devastated by violence and economic hardship.

The site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, the reservation is one of the poorest areas of the United States.

It suffers from high rates of unemployment and alcoholism, and has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the country.

Even on the reservation, Sean wasn't always taught the whole truth about the indigenous experience in America and faced a lot of pressure to fit in.

KATE: There's such a, a pressure to assimilate.

SEAN: Oh yeah.

That was a big part of all of it.

And it still is, you know, because reservation s- systems are still basically segregated communities.

KATE: Mm-hmm.

SEAN: When it comes down to it.

Um, and there's a lot of work to be had out there, 'cause when I grew up on Pine Ridge, like we didn't have restaurants on Pine Ridge growing up.

We had very few businesses as it was.

The only food access we had, literally was one grocery store that covered an area the size of Connecticut.

KATE: Really?

SEAN: Yeah.

So I grew up with primarily Commodity Food Program and FDPIR, which is basically the same of just government distribution of foods, especially to Indian reservations.

And it's not good and it has nothing to do with us particularly, um, our, our cultures.

You know, it was food.

We're happy to have food, but it's not good for us with all these like canned vegetables packed in salts, canned fruits packed in sugars, and all these white carbs with flours and you know, like government powdered milk and government cheese and all these things that, you know, there's a direct connection to that food system and why we have immense rates of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, all these things, all these foodborne illnesses.

KATE: In the Native American communities?

SEAN: Yeah and it's really high on the indigenous communities, inside the reservation.

KATE: So, this is fascinating.

I didn't know any of this.

So I didn't know that Native American history wasn't at least introduced on the reservation.

And I still don't know the answer why?

SEAN: Well, it's just that the school system was based on all this.

So we learn about American history, we learn about celebrating colonial history, you know, and celebrating things like the mythology of Thanksgiving and all the pieces that we, that we learn as Americans going to American education school.

So there's a lot of, there's a lot of story to be told with this situation.

And, you know, that's why food, um, became a really powerful tool because we, I see food as a language.

You know, I see food as something that all humans understand, no matter your political leanings, no matter the color of your skin.

Like everybody needs food.

KATE: Right.

SEAN: And, you know, to really open the doors for people to have better understanding of what happened here in America and elsewhere.

CHITAN: We've got these two dishes for you.

KATE: Wow.

CHITAN: Enough of talking... KATE: Yes.

[laugh] CHITAN: You always say that you should always talk after a filled up stomach.

SEAN: There we go [laugh].

KATE: And I've been hitting him with some tough questions right off the bat.

We, we haven't even taken a sip of water.

I'm so sorry.

KATE: As Chef Chintan said, it's time to stop talking and start eating.

Beginning with Pakodi Chaat, spiced potatoes, yogurt, pomegranate, and crispy wafers and Mirchi Pakora, long peppers stuffed with a potato mixture and covered in chickpea flour before being deep fried.

KATE: Wow, is that good!

I want, I want you to have a bite of that.

SEAN: I'll taste it, yeah.

Mmm!

KATE: There's so many flavors in that one bite.

SEAN: So much going on.

It's so, it's awesome.

KATE: It is spicy, but not overwhelming.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

I like spicy.

KATE: A story becomes known when it's told over and over, but when it is silenced or when that story is forgotten- SEAN: Mm-hmm.

KATE: Or is not spoken out loud, that story goes away.

SEAN: Absolutely.

KATE: And so, I see your role as one of, to keep telling the story.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I really feel, um, like there's a lot of responsibility to tell these stories to get out there.

'Cause I get invited to talk a lot, but, you know, and people will be like, "oh, let's go hear this Native chef and learn about Native food."

But I usually just go straight into the history and talking about- KATE: Yeah.

SEAN: All these really difficult pieces with colonization and things like that.

It's a normal story because it happens all over the globe.

Many places, even in, obviously in India, you know, it's awful what happened in, in that country also, right?

KATE: But if you don't tell it, who will?

SEAN: Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of the point is like we just need to wake people up and we need to talk about it.

And that's why when we're talking about decolonizing, we're talking about pushing back against those things.

We're not trying to pretend colonization didn't happen.

KATE: Right.

SEAN: We can't change the past.

But we can identify what happened in the past.

And we can move forward to do something better, 'cause we have to be better humans.

And we should be celebrating the immense diversity that the world has around, especially indigenous communities everywhere, 'cause colonization's still alive.

So it's... big reason why we don't see Native restaurants are 'cause we're still healing.

Like, we're still like figuring out what what's next like, and trying to reclaim our, our own identities that were stripped from us, you know.

CHINTAN: I hate to break this lovely conversation.

SEAN: No, it's all good.

KATE: For our main course today, we're treated to a mix of delicious vegetarian flavors.

Gobi Korma, a stew-like dish of cauliflower, cashew and mace, which is a sister spice to nutmeg.

We're also having Vegetable Pulao, seasonal vegetables and surti kolam rice, pressure cooked and served with freshly shaved coconut.

SEAN: Alright.

KATE: Let's dig in here!

SEAN: Excited for this too.

It's all so good.

KATE: It's delicious, yeah!

KATE: In 2021, Sherman and his business partner Dana Thompson, opened a restaurant in Minneapolis called Owamni, named after the Dakota name for the waterfalls now called the St. Anthony Falls.

The restaurant has what they call a "decolonized" menu and won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2022.

KATE: What were you thinking when you opened your restaurant?

What was the inspiration?

What was at the very heart of the story you wanted to tell through this restaurant?

SEAN: It shouldn't be so unusual to find a Native American restaurant in America.

I mean, 'cause like it just shouldn't be.

KATE: [Laugh] Let's just stop there.

Like that statement alone.

SEAN: I mean we're, we're here in Manhattan where you could find, you know, food from everywhere.

Um, except the food that's from right here.

Like the food of the cultures that have lived here for, you know, countless generations and so that's a big part of this is just making a statement, you know.

And we also just really want to help more indigenous entrepreneurs do this, 'cause I feel like we're helping opening a lot of doors and showcasing that this is entirely possible.

That we can have a decolonized-focused restaurant featuring just Native foods from the Americas.

You know, and this could be done everywhere.

KATE: When it comes to being a chef, right, in your restaurant, you're known for having a "decolonized" menu.

And that is about ingredients.

Can you explain?

SEAN: So that's a big question because obviously, it can have many meanings, but the philosophy that we built around understanding what it means to "decolonize" really comes from first just understanding what colonization is, right?

The policy or practice of acquiring a full or, or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically and just exploiting it in general, right?

So part of it was just identifying like, what is our indigenous pantry?

Like what is our, what is our playground in the kitchen to create all of these recipes and menus and food items and pieces like that.

So again, our philosophy was just removing European colonized ingredients because we didn't have dairy here.

Dairy was used for child rearing, you know, and sometimes an animal might've been hunted that had dairy and there'd be special recipes, but typically dairy wasn't a part of the diet.

Cane sugar, you know, it's introduced, right?

And cane sugar has a lot of problems, like it's hard to get away from it 'cause it's in everything that you see, right?

So just, eliminating that as part of the situation.

KATE: So basically all of the ingredients the Europeans brought over.

SEAN: A big chunk of them for sure.

KATE: And, and not what was used here, as you mentioned the turnips.

And you mentioned what you grew up on the reservation using.

SEAN: Yep.

Lots of wild berries, lots of wild fruits.

Um, lots of, uh, Native American agriculture.

I've been really close with a lot of Native seed keepers 'cause there was a lot of Native agriculture happening across North America.

And we have all these wonderful things that we're searching for and finding and also beans and squash and supporting Native farms where we can, and just showcasing what's possible to make food taste like a place.

KATE: I noticed on the menu at your restaurant in Minneapolis that bison has, is prevalent.

SEAN: Yeah.

KATE: You, you, whether it's a bison taco.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

KATE: Or a, a bison with a, a sweet potato mash.

Which sounded delicious.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

KATE: You take great pride in putting bison on the menu.

SEAN: Yeah and we're, um, buy, we're buying our bison from the Cheyenne River, uh, Lakota Sioux tribe, which is right in the middle of South Dakota.

So we try and prioritize purchasing from indigenous producers first because we're just able to like, push a lot of money into these producers and create this big demand over these foods.

So it's wonderful that some of the tribes are starting to grow bison and raise bison now.

And we're able to purchase and feature at this restaurant, you know, in many, many different ways.

So we have things like bison, of course, rabbit, venison, elk.

We've had moose, we've had bear, we've had beaver.

There's a lot of insects that go out on the menu.

KATE: How do they do on the menu?

SEAN: Great!

SEAN: Everybody, 'cause I kept them at a low price and everybody just tries them.

And like, we just fly through them so people, almost every table orders them.

KATE: It's a novelty.

SEAN: Yeah.

A little bit.

But it's also a statement and just, you know, different, you know, there's other proteins out there.

That are way more sustainable than, it doesn't have to be a cow, a pig or a chicken because those animals didn't even exist here.

KATE: Yeah.

SEAN: But we try to be very intentional about the ingredients that we put together to tell a story about region, space, culture, all those pieces.

KATE: In addition to his restaurant, Owamni, Chef Sherman also co-founded North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems or NATIFS, a nonprofit with the mission of creating more access to indigenous foods and to indigenous education.

His passion for indigenous cultures and foods has inspired a new generation of indigenous chefs and landed him on TIME's 100 Most Influential People list in 2023.

SEAN: It's been so important, you know, to travel, to look at the world through an indigenous lens and perspective and to be able to visit a lot of tribes all over the place.

'Cause we've been to...working with tribes up here in the Northeast, or tribes in the Southwest, or tribes in Alaska or down in Mexico, or places like Australia, you know, where there's a lot of indigenous communities out that way, or New Zealand or Hawaii.

And just connecting with a lot of this indigeneity out there and looking at their spaces through their lenses.

You know, hearing their stories.

Um, looking at what foods have special meaning to them, what plants have special meanings to them 'cause we should be really focused on like where we happen to be, the plants that are from there, how people have been utilizing them to survive off of for countless generations.

And there's again, so much wonderful story to tell just through something as simple as food.

KATE: How do you temper anger with what your mission is?

Which is to tell the story.

And, and how do you personally deal with it?

Because there has to be a lot of anger.

SEAN: That's a tough question because like, I- I, I focus my energy not in anger, but in finding solutions.

You know, so I identify problems and of course a lot of these problems people should be angry about.

KATE: Yes.

SEAN: Growing up in a place where there was no food access hardly at all.

You know, and just looking at the inequality in America today.

Looking at all these things that are a direct consequence of the American colonialism that happens.

Like, people with wealth have all the food access that they want.

They can get everything they need and want at any moment in time.

You know?

And again, growing up on a reservation like mine where Pine Ridge today is still, I think when I grew up there was maybe 12 businesses on the entire reservation.

None of them were Native-owned at the time.

And you know, the one grocery store to like service- KATE: None of them were Native-owned?

SEAN: Right?

Today, there's just some, you know, there's some more convenience stores.

There's some, a couple of fast food joints, but nothing of health and nothing that's relevant to the culture, you know?

KATE: Yeah.

SEAN: So we just need to make some huge changes and we're probably still over 80 percent unemployment today on Pine Ridge, you know?

KATE: Well, we talked about the power of storytelling, especially through food.

It sounds like what you're trying to do is make disciples in a way of your chefs and of your employees so that they go out and continue to tell the story of Native American cuisine.

SEAN: I just really feel responsible about, like we've talked about, but doing these talks and explaining to people what happened in American history and how devious it is.

'Cause even like you start with the Declaration of Independence, right?

So, in the Declaration of Independence, it completely dismisses all the indigenous peoples and labels us merciless Indian savages in that document.

KATE: Wow.

SEAN: So, it's right there.

And it's just a really- that sets the tone for how what happens over the next century, you know?

And so many people just don't know about the stories.

And there's, there's stories in every single region of the removal of indigenous peoples across America.

And people should be aware of like the land that they're sitting on, where they grew up, what happened to the Native peoples there.

Those stories are still there, you know, they haven't gone away.

And people can try to pretend like these histories didn't happen, but they're always gonna be there, you know?

KATE: And yet...as a chef, your job not only is to cook delicious food and to tell stories through food, but it's also to offer hospitality.

SEAN: Mm-hmm.

KATE: And I'm wondering, what is your definition of hospitality?

Especially in light of the fact that, before we ever talked about hospitality, Native Americans, were the first to be hospitable- SEAN: Right!

KATE: To the Europeans.

SEAN: Yeah and we are still, I feel like very hospitable and you know, our restaurant at, at Owamni, is very similar where it's family style, you know, you order a bunch of things and you share it and you have a conversation over that food.

And it sparks a lot of interest because there's flavors that people just aren't aware of.

But literally you can look out the window and see those flavors right outside the window, you know?

And so like, that's, that's what we want.

We want our, and you know, I'm so proud of our staff, you know, our back of the house, front of the house, everybody's doing such a wonderful job and everybody's extremely welcoming, you know, and we've had a lot of accolades.

But for me, it's not about myself.

It's not about me as a chef.

It's about this work just has to be out there.

It just needs to happen.

And I feel like I have "x" amount of years in my lifetime to do something about it.

But I want to put my time and energy into helping to see more of this happen, to help train more indigenous peoples.

Um, a couple of my chefs have already gone on to make their own businesses, you know, and I want to see more and more and more of that and just become a support system for other people to do it.

KATE: As we mentioned, it is a galvanizing mission, but at times, I'm sure an exhausting one too.

SEAN: It can be.

It's a lot.

And you know, the travel can be intense sometimes, but there's so much work to do and we just... trying to use this platform while we have it.

KATE: Yeah.

SEAN: The best we can.

Um, but, so there's a lot of work, but yeah, it can, there can be a lot of pressure.

KATE: When people hear the name Sean Sherman, what do you want them to think?

SEAN: Oh, I don't know.

'Cause again, to me, this isn't an ego project at all.

Like, I feel like I'm, I'm a voice, I'm a vessel to some of it.

But like, I don't try to center myself around this work.

I just want this work to happen, you know?

So I just hope that people just understand the philosophy and understand like, uh, that change is possible and that we can reconnect with our ancestry despite how broken it might be in some cases.

Especially for, again, Black and indigenous in America where our cultures have been so broken.

Um, we've lost so much connection to our ancestry, but we can start to rebuild those relationships and piece them back together 'cause I just wanna learn as much as I can from my ancestry so we can apply it to today.

KATE: Thank you.

Thank you for this conversation and this meal.

SEAN: Well thank you!

KATE: Um.

SEAN: And thank, thank you chef!

KATE: I know this has been incredible.

Uh, I respect you so much and I really admire what you're doing.

SEAN: Thank you!

KATE: Really.

KATE: I thoroughly enjoyed my meal with Sean Sherman.

The beauty and spirit of the restaurant and the intention behind the food did not escape me.

Chef Chintan is cooking a story of the forgotten India, of the kind of food not found in big cities, but in the kitchens of everyday people.

And Chef Sean, in a way, is doing the same.

He is trying to piece together a history that our country has tried, and in many ways succeeded, to erase.

With every dish he makes, Chef is trying to bridge the catastrophic history of his people with a future that remembers and hopes and dreams.

♪♪ KATE: If you would like to know more about the guests, the restaurants, and the inspiring stories of success, please visit todinefortv.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram at To Dine For TV.

We also have a podcast, To Dine For the podcast is available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: the people who get things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community because it's their community too.

American National.

♪♪