sapphic & the city by grotto: issue no. 06
Singles Mix & Mingle, Chef Ella Schmidt of Maite, Lunar New Year Photos & more
Happy Friday, my grotto gaylentines, and welcome to everyone who is new to Sapphic & the City! This newsletter is still a little baby, only two months fresh, but it's already been so heartening to see it grow as it has. If you ever have a suggestion for the newsletter, please feel free to email us about it at hello@grottonyc.com. I love shining a spotlight on the amazing things you do! This week, we’ll be directing that light onto Chef Ella Schmidt, the iconic Colombian chef who built Bushwick staple and queer safe space, Maite.
I’ve also received a bevvy of questions about whether grotto is throwing a Valentine’s Day party this year. We are not, but you can catch me at Dave’s Lesbian Bar’s Sweetheart Skate at Xanadu on February 13th. Instead, we’re hosting our first Sapphic Singles Mix & Mingle this month on the 20th at Cecilia in East Village. Paid subscribers get first dibs at tickets at the bottom of this newsletter, and thank you so much for supporting queer journalism! For non-paid subscribers, we’ll be sending out an email with the link later this afternoon before the Instagram audience gets it.
This will be a fairly intimate event, and each participant must fill out a short questionnaire that you’ll see on the booking page. You will be provided with qualitative potential matches, so rest assured that everyone will meet some amazing new people to connect and vibe with. I’m so excited. If you do decide to book, please make sure you actually intend to show up, as it will not be fun for your matches to have to sit there alone during your time slots together!
In Conversation: Ella Schmidt, Chef & Founder of Maite Bushwick
Entering Maite from the blistering cold of New York winter, the first thing I noticed was the art and photography. It lines the walls with shameless exuberance: depicting queer love, naked bodies, drag kings, dykes, and, of course, Jodie Comer as Villanelle. Fair warning: there are also plenty of dicks on those walls.
In the back I see Ella Schmidt in her kitchen, busy cooking up a menu that is both Colombian and contemporary American in feel. Schmidt grew up in a small town called Victoria, Caldas Colombia, before making her way to New York City, where she lives now with her wife and their daughter.
“We met at a barbecue that I threw at my house. I threw barbecues to try to meet girls,” she tells me.
After a string of long term relationships in her early twenties, Schmidt took a long personal break from dating. When she was ready to get back out there, “that’s when I started the barbecues.” It didn’t take many of them for her to meet her wife, a lawyer, who is now her biggest supporter and partner when it comes to running Maite.
“I started this restaurant almost twelve years ago. At the end of this month will be twelve years. Obviously I wanted a place to create my own food, my own dishes, but I also felt like at the time there wasn’t much happening in Bushwick. Now there's a lot happening, but I felt like the neighborhood really needed a place. Bushwick was and still is very gay, and so I felt like I wanted to create a space here that has good food and good drinks.”
Despite Maite’s more than a decade long history in the neighborhood, Schmidt didn’t actually feel emboldened to decorate the restaurant with queer art until the pandemic.
“I was like ‘fuck it—fuck it all’ I started [putting up art] that was getting raunchier and raunchier and I said I don’t care. This is who I am. I never meant for it to be a gay space—I wanted it to be for everyone, but it’s like you’re coming into my house. So if you feel uncomfortable, don’t come in.”
Today, Schmidt is wrestling with a quickly changing neighborhood that has seen a dramatic amount of gentrification in the past decade. As a longstanding establishment, she also has to contend with a constant onslaught of new bars and restaurants that open up in the area, and she tells me that lately business has gone down.
For those who want to support Schmidt, and taste some absolutely delicious, hangover-busting empanaditas, you can visit Maite for brunch or dinner at 159 Central Ave.
Event Review: Burlesque & Lunar New Year
Thank you to everyone who attended our two most recent events! We had such an amazing time partying at Peachy’s for LNY—celebrating the start of the Year of the Wood Snake. You can find all the photos here. A big shoutout to UME, our sponsor for the event and a friend of grotto.
A female-owned and New York founded company, UME makes a delicious and low ABV plum liqueur that can be sipped on its own or mixed into a cocktail. Those who remember our first-ever cocktail menu at Ludlow House might have recognized the return of the Plum Negroni featuring a float of UME. Perhaps you will see a recipe for it in a future issue of Sapphic & the City.
Our burlesque class with Peekaboo Pointe was also one for the books—an incredible time for us to bond and throw our inhibitions aside in ways we don’t often get the opportunity to. For those interested, Peekaboo is also hosting a strippers story hour this Sunday!
That’s all for now! Look out for another email from us with the ticket link to our singles’ event if you don’t have access just yet, and follow us on Spotify for a special Valentine’s Day playlist dropping next week.