He beat Bobby Flay, now he's bringing 'Bite' to Broadway

He has cooked for Jay-Z in Manhattan and defeated Bobby Flay on the celebrity’s Food Network show. Now chef Kelvin Fernandez is serving his edgy Latin cuisine on a quiet side street of Broadway.

“I want to bring the downtown exposure to uptown in Riverdale and the Bronx because I know people can appreciate that,” said Mr. Fernandez, who has previously run the kitchens of the Strand Hotel in Midtown and Antipasti in White Plains, among a number of other restaurants. “It’s great to give the community something new.”

After moving to Riverdale earlier this year, Mr. Fernandez opened Barcelona Bites at 220 W. 242nd St. at the start of the month. The restaurant brings a splash of color and new flavors to a nook filled with bodegas, a coffee shop and a construction site.

“I said, I just want some quality food,” the Harlem native recounted. “What better way than to bring the food that I cook into the community that I live in?”

While the name of the restaurant brings to mind tapas and sangria, Mr. Fernandez explained that the menu fuses a variety of cuisines, with a heavy emphasis on food from his own Dominican background. (In the event, the restaurant transforms into a nightclub open until 4 a.m. on weekends, when the sangria flows.)

“My team is so diverse. The sous chef is Mexican. He’s worked with me for the past four years. My other sous chef — I can’t tell you his nationality, but I know he’s Spanish. He’ll get mad if I say something else. But it’s good to have the diversity of hey, you create me a dish, you create a dish and we’ll create a dish together and have three components in one,” said Mr. Fernandez, 30.

He pointed to the braised short rib tacos ($9) as one such product of his team’s collaborative process. Classic ribs — a token of the executive chef’s traditional training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park — crown golden tortillas that are made on site. Cilantro crema, pico de gallo and salsa boracha with tequila in it crown the concoction.