It's been a journey for Layla Chen, who started feeding her neighbors back in 2017 when she quit a soul-sucking "corporate situation" and opened Maya Congee Cafe, a casual spot on Gates Avenue that specializes in hearty bowls of warm, creamy grains topped with things like Chinese sausages, century eggs, and wild mushrooms.
"I've lived in Bed-Stuy for 15 years, I had just had a baby, and I wanted to open something close to home," Chen told Hell Gate (her daughter's name: Maya). "I wanted to build something in my community." She added groceries to the Bed-Stuy location during the early pandemic, and in 2022 opened a second, more spacious location on Fulton Street in Clinton Hill, adding brunch and booze into the mix.
And now comes the third—and what she says will be the final—act of Chen's restaurant expansion adventure, a brand-new dinner service at the freshly renovated Fulton Street space, with a whole new menu that focuses on, in her words, "a part of Chinese cuisine that is often overlooked: the preserved, the cured, the fermented, the aged."