Chef Scotley Innis Is Cooking Up Magic With New Aliya Restaurant
This feature is in our March '24 "Next Wave" Issue. Click here to subscribe.
Blacker the Berry cocktail PHOTO BY JILLIAN LESNER
After tantalizing Atlanta as the executive chef and co-owner of Continent, chef Scotley Innis is celebrating his Bronx, N.Y., roots and Jamaican heritage with newly opened restaurant Aliya in Brooklyn’s Hotel Indigo.
What sparked your passion for cooking?
Seeing my grandmother in the kitchen cooking dinner or breakfast, or making a Jamaican pastry, sparked my love for cooking because it’s just always that essence and aroma every time I passed the kitchen and wondering, ‘What you got going on in that pot today?’. New York is a big melting pot— not a lot of other chefs grew up in a large city with so many different ethnic backgrounds. You can just go right down the street and be able to develop your palate and flavor profiles from a young [age]. I’ve always wanted to open up a restaurant where it’s showcasing my culture, but not just a typical mom-and-pop. I wanted to elevate it. I wanted to refine it. I want it to be nationally known, even though Jamaican cuisine is the best in the world.
I know your cuisine is primarily Jamaican, but is there anything from the Bronx that you may apply to your style of cooking?
Growing up in the Bronx, I didn't grow up with much. So besides Jamaican food, I had a love well I have a love for Asian cuisine. You see in a lot of my dishes. The perfect example is oxtail lo mein. When I was the executive chef at 5Church in Atlanta, what really helped me take the next level as far as being a recognized chef, I came up with an oxtail ramen dish. That was probably 10 years ago. Asian influence has so much influence on the Jamaican culture. If you look at the last Dancehall Queen winners, they come from Japan. Japan is the highest export of Blue Mountain coffee. A lot of the same ingredients that we might use, Asian cuisines use them too. When you have your peppers, onions, scallions, ginger and certain spices, they just go hand in hand.
So me having a love for your local Chinese food spot, which to this day, when I come back to New York every time I have to grab a plate of some Chinese food. It's just that comfort, and it stays consistent. And that's what I'm about: staying consistent along with incorporating my Jamaican flavors. I've always wanted to open up a restaurant where it's showcasing my culture, but not just a typical mom-and-pop. I wanted to elevate it. I wanted to refine it. I want it to be nationally known, even though Jamaican cuisine is the best in the world. But at the end of the day, I am a Bronx Jamaican native. I wanted to make a name where I incorporated those two cuisines together and make one big melting pot, just how New York is.
Aliya’s lamb shank potpie PHOTO BY: JILLIAN LESNER
You’ve been a competitor on Hell’s Kitchen. What did that experience teach you?
What Hell’s Kitchen taught me the most was to humble myself instead of rolling with a big chip on my shoulder. I’m not cocky, I’m confident. But at the end of the day, I could be more of a silent killer and still showcase myself without even speaking a word about my food. It also taught me, ‘Hey, you’re making foods that might please everybody else, but you’re not making food that you love to cook.’ So it just brought me back to my roots where I showcased some of my Caribbean background, but also making it more refined and incorporating those flavors that are full of love. After Hell’s Kitchen, I became the executive chef at 5Church, a well-known restaurant in Atlanta. And that’s when I really started to showcase myself as a Jamaican American chef that’s putting his style out there.
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What is the vision behind the new Aliya restaurant?
That's my business partner's name. We came together and wanted to do a restaurant, which is the Continental restaurant and cigar lounge in Atlanta. When we first started off, we took Atlanta by storm and brought that more New York City upscale feel and energy. And Aliyah is just one part of our Trifecta that we're doing in the Indigo hotel. So this is the rooftop lounge where people would come in and have some great cocktails or a nice, sexy date, but also some fulfilling tapas. So the inspiration behind the name is Aliya, who is my business partner. And she was the one who basically got us in the doors because of her relationship with the owners of the hotel.
We’re just creatives coming together for one goal to inspire and uplift our community, but also showcase that wherever you put your mind to, you can accomplish. We have big dreams and big goals and we work hard for everything that we've accomplished in life. And we just want to make everybody proud of us and just bring something dope to Williamsburg.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO OPEN UP A RESTAURANT WHERE IT’S SHOWCASING MY CULTURE, BUT NOT JUST A TYPICAL MOM-AND-POP. I WANTED TO ELEVATE IT.” –CHEF SCOTLEY INNIS
Chef Scotley Innis. PHOTO BY: RYAN AARON
What are some must-try dishes at the new Aliya restaurant?
One of the signature dishes is oxtail fried rice, which incorporates zucchini, yellow squash, red onions and pulled oxtail, and is garnished with scallions and carrots. Instead of having scrambled egg s in the middle of it, we have an over-medium fried egg on top so once you cut into it, that yolk bursts and you just mix it all together. Our tamarind wings are marinated for 24 hours in a Jamaican jerk marinade. Then they’re cold-smoked, par-baked and then deep-fried. Then they’re tossed in a tamarind sauce that includes soy sauce, tamarind paste, honey and ginger. So going back to that Caribbean flavor collided with some of the Asian flavors. I have my lemongrass curry pot stickers with shrimp that’s paired with a sesame soy dipping sauce. The next one is my chargrilled octopus that I paired with a bean salad. You have your kidney beans, butter beans, gungo peas and green beans tossed in a green goddess dressing topped with the charred octopus that is sous vided in Jamaican Red Label wine, some fresh thyme and rosemary, pimento seeds and Scotch bonnet pepper. The next one for my vegans: my tempura fried salt and pepper oyster mushrooms. It has that Asian inspiration and is paired with a coconut curry calabaza squash puree. Th e last one I would say is our brown stew lamb shank potpie. So, nice braised two-and-a-half-hour lamb shank that’s fork tender with that flaky pie crust on top. It’s that comfort food that we’ve grown up eating in our households.
