Review: Yebo Kitchen is a Positive Addition to the Old Goucher Scene

Like many of the best dishes at Yebo Kitchen, the new restaurant in Old Goucher, chef Sammy Davis’ shrimp and grits are engineered with unapologetic decadence, a trait that’s found throughout the Southern-Asian fusion-inspired menu. Thick, rich, and delicious, the dish will delight your soul, if not your scale.

Davis earned his cooking chops in Atlanta and at upscale chains like Roy’s and Nobu before landing on the Food Network’s Chopped. In May, he opened Yebo Kitchen in the former home of Church, the ill-fated cocktail bar that crashed and burned (figuratively) in 2023.

Here, he’s exorcised those demons and opened a restaurant with upbeat, welcoming vibes. Organ pipes hanging from the ceiling over the bar are the only remnants of the previous occupant. A small lounge greets visitors through the main entrance, and there is outdoor seating in the front and a dining room in the back. The music is loud, service is friendly but not overly formal, and a welcoming feeling permeates the place.

The centerpiece of the space is the open kitchen, where guests once could watch Davis do his thing. But over the summer he suffered a heart attack. It’s not certain when he will return, but for now, his nephew, sous chef Chris Davis, runs the kitchen, adhering closely to his uncle’s recipes and methods.

Yebo hasn’t missed a beat. During our visits in the fall, we started with cocktails. The maple Old-Fashioned included the requisite bourbon and bitters, along with maple syrup and a cinnamon stick. Like many things here, the melding of sweet and bold worked nicely. There are a host of mocktails as well, and the mango-ginger lemonade crush was quite refreshing. A small happy hour menu (available from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays at the bar) includes grilled chicken wings with copious amounts of jerk seasoning. They were excellent on their own, yet got even better when dunked into a wasabi-ranch sauce.

The regular menu features several small plates, including standout red curry Thai basil mussels with a rich, coconutty sauce. Crab egg rolls, Chinese ribs, and fried shrimp and dragon fruit exemplify the restaurant’s fusion concept.

“I wanted to give people the Asian influence, but with a twist of Creole,” Sammy Davis says over the phone. “We take influence from Louisiana and places like that and [combine] it with the Japanese techniques.”

That philosophy is evident in the entrees as well. The honey jerk lamb chops, for example, are coated with plenty of the seasoning—which gave our lips a tingle—yet the taste of the meat remained juicy and tender.

The lobster pasta arrived with copious amounts of Cajun cream sauce and truffle oil on the rigatoni. Each bite felt like a mini meal in its own right—and that’s before we even dove into the large piece of fried lobster that topped the pasta. The dish is served with a purple orchid and the lobster tail shell, which make for a lovely presentation, but the award for showiest plating goes to the crab and shrimp fried rice. A tower of Dungeness crab legs shoots toward the sky, inevitably attracting eyeballs from nearby diners.

The restaurant’s calling card remains those shrimp and grits, which include chunks of andouille sausage and tomato. (Grits with salmon are available as well.) Davis says he’s been called the “King of Brunch,” and a few forkfuls of grits tell why.

“We use the [city of] Charleston technique, which is where it was first invented,” he says. “We don’t use water. We don’t even cook it in milk. We cook it in heavy cream. That’s where you get the richness from. You want grits to taste just like mashed potatoes; you want that creaminess texture. The way that’s achieved is through cream and cheese.”

Be forewarned: Not much at Yebo Kitchen is light. That’s particularly true of the sides, which include lobster mashed potatoes, fried mini corn, fried rice, herb fried potatoes, and fried green beans. Many of them are terrific, including the green beans that are flash-fried for less than a minute.

“American cooking is based more upon recipes,” Davis says. “The Japanese, once you learn their technique, you can take that technique and apply it to any genre of cuisine.”

In Zulu, “yebo” means “yes,” which is the answer we’ve given to several questions we’ve been posed since our visits to the restaurant. Should we take a break from counting calories when we eat here? Is the food worth those calories? And most importantly, will we be going back?

YEBO KITCHEN: 2219 Maryland Ave., Old Goucher, 443-900-4891. HOURS: Mon. and Thur. 5-10 p.m., Fri. 5-11 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. PRICES: Soup and salad $12-14; tapas $10-26; mains $28-55; sides $7-13.