This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of revisiting 39 Restaurant — the flagship eatery located inside the First Americans Museum along the Oklahoma River.
Although I enjoyed my first visit when the restaurant opened a few years ago, I wasn’t aware it had recently closed for a full-blown reboot under the leadership and tutelage of Loretta Barrett Oden (Citizen Potawatomi Nation).
An acclaimed chef and restaurateur, she's best known for incorporating pre-colonial Indigenous culinary traditions — ones that America tried to erase — into today's modern cuisine.
Fortunately, Chef Oden recently sent me an email inviting me to check out 39's renewed offerings, and I made a reservation as quickly as possible.
As a result, I can now say with both moral and culinary conviction that 39 is an incredible, true, and powerful representation of Indigenous food culture — one that not only Oklahoma, but the entire country, should be proud to celebrate.