Although Redding, who turns 47 next Tuesday, grew up in a Harlem, N.Y., public-housing project built in the early 1960s on the site of the fabled Polo Grounds baseball stadium, his gastronomical roots can be traced to his mother's family's 300-acre Alabama farm, where he spent his childhood summers.
Redding's doesn't just dabble in trendy, Southern-style dishes. It goes whole-hog, as it were, on such regional delicacies as chicken and waffles, fried turkey chops, chitterlings (pig intestines) and okra, collard greens and barbecued ribs, done North Carolina-style, with a vinegar-based sauce.
Redding is most proud of his eatery's emphasis on fresh ingredients, and that all dishes are prepared from scratch, "from salmon croquettes for breakfast to fried chicken for dinner."
He boasted that his grits are from South Carolina, and that the pecans are from Georgia and Alabama. That go-to-the-source philosophy is such that even the maple syrup he serves with the large variety of waffles offered (and with which he finishes his "mapled" chicken wings) comes from Canada and is, as he put it, "100-percent maple syrup."
The bright, cleanly decorated restaurant is marked by laminated wood tables and maroon vinyl booths and chairs. A bar area in the back is separated from the dining room by a small lounge. Along the Pacific Avenue window is a counter where cakes, pies, cookies, peach cobbler, cinnamon buns and the like are sold, along with soft drinks and Redding's barbecue sauce, which comes in mason jars bearing handwritten labels.
