In Performance: Conflict Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront, which will rotate identities every four months to highlight another country. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration is augmented by events, performances, and discussion about the culture, politics, and issues at stake with each country they focus on.

They are currently presenting the third iteration of Conflict Kitchen via La Cocina Arepas, a Venezuelan take-out restaurant that serves homemade arepas, grilled corncakes served to order with a variety of fresh fillings. Developed in collaboration with members of the Venezuelan community, our arepas come packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Venezuelans both in Venezuelan and the United States on subjects ranging from Venezuelan food and culture to issues of geopolitics.

Through food, wrappers, programming, and daily interactions with customers, Conflict Kitchen creates an ongoing platform for first-person discussion of international conflict, culture, and politics. In addition, the project introduces a rotating venue for culinary and cultural diversity in Pittsburgh, as future iterations will focus on North Korea, Libya, and more.

Conflict Kitchen is a project by Jon Rubin, and Dawn Weleski and is funded by the Sprout Fund, The Waffle Shop, the Center for the Arts in Society, and the sale of food. Graphic design by Brett Yasko. Architectural design by Pablo Garcia of POiNT. Special thanks to Illah Nourbakhsh, Sohrab Kashani, Marti Louw, Najibah Tursonzadah, Mohammed Sidky, and all of those from the Iranian and Afghan community who supplied us with their input and perspectives.

For questions about Conflict Kitchen feel free to CONTACT
Press Inquiries can call Jon Rubin @ 510-912-2221
Conflict Kitchen is located at 124 s. Highland Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CONFLICT KITCHEN is open 7 days a week. Saturday and Sundays from 11am to 2:30pm, and Monday through Friday from 11:30am to 2:30pm.

(Source – Conflict Kitchen)