Kansas City Cooks as Site for National Anti-ICE Dinner Series

As a thunderstorm brewed over the Yoli Tortilleria test kitchen Tuesday evening, some diners raised their frosty margaritas, gesturing toward the dark clouds mixing with bursts of barbecue smoke.

But the marinated chicken wings sizzling on an open flame distracted many others from the severe weather menacing the eatery at 3125 Bell St. in Kansas City.

Other diversions included 50 pounds of pork ribs bathed in fiery, sticky sauce, trays of smoky, peppery tacos de discada and carne asada fajitas, and an ice luge laden with fresh oysters.

The gathering, however, was much more than a way to enjoy dishes from some of Kansas City’s most celebrated chefs.

You might call it dining for a cause, since the Yoli Tortilleria event was the second of three meals that raised money locally this week to assist immigrants and oppose the crackdown by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). 

Kansas City was the 10th stop of the Anti-ICE Supper Club organized nationally by Roads & Kingdoms. The media and travel company is built on the belief of the late chef and partner Anthony Bourdain that “food offers a powerful window on humanity,” according to its website.

Another investor and advisor is José Andrés, founder of the World Central Kitchen.

I think we all need to be doing what we can right now, and the easy way to do it is to eat some delicious food,” said Laura Hughes Cahner, 58, who signed up for two nights of the Anti-ICE Supper Club. 

The Kansas City dinners benefited Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR), a Kansas City-based nonprofit.

“Food has always been another form of language,” said Berak Ven, 40. “We need to be more vocal about it, and about what’s going on. We have to speak up for those that can’t speak for themselves.” 

Restarting a tradition 

The Anti-ICE Supper Club series is the spiritual successor to Roads & Kingdoms’ Banned Country Dinner Series from 2017.

Bourdain launched the event with chefs from the Somali, Persian and Syrian diasporas. At the time, the series was largely a protest of ongoing federal immigration enforcement policies, said R&K Executive Editor Charly Wilder. 

Wilder is a Kansas City native who now lives in Berlin, according to her biography on the website.

“The idea was to highlight these food cultures and go from banned country to banned country, talking about the richness of the culinary tradition, but using that as a way to talk about this unjust scapegoating and persecution that was happening under the first Trump administration,” Wilder said. “If you look at food, you’re looking at the way people actually live.”

The company resurrected its dinner party tours last year to raise awareness for the immigrant communities targeted by escalating federal immigration enforcement operations. 

The Anti-ICE Dinner Parties started in Los Angeles to sold-out crowds. Now, R&K has organized 20 dinners and counting, in cities including Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago, and Key West, Florida.

The group chose Kansas City in part because of Wilder’s ties to the city, but also because of its progressive politics compared to the more conservative-leaning areas around Missouri. 

Even so, organizers did not expect the event to sell out as quickly as it did here.

With two to four dinners in each city, R&K tries to include at least one high-end, sit-down dinner with limited seats and one looser event in a large space. That’s how dozens of Kansas Citians came to be chatting around a seemingly endless buffet of meats and sweets at Yoli Cocina, the tortilleria’s cozy test kitchen.

Yoli joins the party

Marissa and Mark Gencarelli founded Yoli Tortilleria in 2017 with a focus on Sonoran tortillas made from heirloom corn. The tortilleria, a local favorite with products now sold at Whole Foods, won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bakery in 2023.

Earlier this year, Roads & Kingdoms contacted Marissa Gencarelli to see if Yoli would be interested in either offering event space or hosting a dinner. Alongside dinner parties at Clay & Fire and Room 39, the Yoli Anti-ICE Supper Club quickly evolved into the backyard barbecue of Gencarelli’s dreams. 

Gencarelli fondly remembers a childhood in Sonora, Mexico, with dozens of backyard parties featuring carne asada.

As diners explored rows of fresh vegetables and herbs growing outside the test kitchen Tuesday night, Gencarelli was excited to introduce more of her neighbors to the feasts that continue to bring families, neighborhoods and towns together in Mexican communities from Sonora to Kansas City.

“People move their cars out, bring out their grill, and then people start dropping in very casually,” Gencarelli said.

Wilder, meanwhile, said she’s been getting reacquainted with a Kansas City restaurant landscape that far outstrips the meat-and-potatoes fare from her childhood. 

“You didn’t really feel like you had much of an interaction with real immigrant communities’ food scenes,” she said.

Culinary collaborations

The restaurateurs who participated Tuesday night accepted Gencarelli’s invitation without hesitation. It was a who’s who of highly regarded chefs, with many who have earned James Beard recognition.

Brandon Hayden from The Shucker’s Union served up oysters, while Fernanda Reyes of Taco Naco introduced diners to tacos de discada, a traditional preparation from the Mexican state of Durango.

Johnny Leach and Helen Jo Leach of Town Company and Dear Donna brought morita ribs with salsa seca and chewy masa blondies. Diners also sipped beers from Nick and Tania Mader at Alma Mader Brewing and cocktails from Diana Condori of Condor’s Cove and Bar Ojo.

“The best food comes from immigration,” said Bridget Paliwoda, 39. “Food is always a conversation between people that are mixing, and I think it’s a good way to invite people into your culture.” 

Gencarelli wanted to introduce diners to multiple regional traditions in Mexican cuisine. She cooked dozens of cheesy steak lorenzas — a tiny Sonoran taco — along with the chicken wings.

Manu Rattan, 54, said that his favorite dish was either the bacon-wrapped Sonoran hot dog from Jeff Workman or the carne asada tacos from Casa Ama’s Robin Krause.

But the best part of his night was seeing so many people gathering to eat for a cause. 

“Food is always a good icebreaker,” Rattan said. 

Supporting immigrant communities

Proceeds from every Anti-ICE Supper Club go to a “frontline organization” dedicated to defending immigrants.

All funds from the $95 tickets to the Kansas City dinner will benefit AIRR. Organizers are still tallying the local total.

The immigration justice nonprofit has fiercely criticized ICE agents in Kansas City, with its social media feeds often alerting community members to enforcement operations across the metro.

Organizers and residents overwhelmingly recommended AIRR to Roads & Kingdoms as a worthy beneficiary of the dinners.

“We were so speechless at that support, that people’s immediate thought was to support our organization,” said AIRR Program Director Itzel Vargas. 

Vargas was excited to see gansitos, an iconic Mexican snack cake enrobed in chocolate, on the dinner table.

But as AIRR stares down an empty emergency fund, nothing on the menu could compare to her joy at diners’ excitement to replenish the organization’s resources. Beyond donations, AIRR is also for help with court watching and rapid response.

“People are just so fed up with the way everything is happening,” Vargas said. “Tonight is one example.” 

Roads & Kingdoms reimburses partner restaurants for the operating costs of the dinners, though Wilder said some owners insist on making donations. However, every Anti-ICE Supper Club relies heavily on volunteer labor from chefs, servers, and others in the dining industry.

After the trio of events in Kansas City, the Anti-ICE Supper Club is slated to pop up for four nights in New Orleans, followed by stints in Cape Cod and New York City. As of mid-September, the series had raised more than $100,000 total for the beneficiaries at each stop.

Last year, AIRR supported 25 families whose primary breadwinners were detained or deported by ICE. This year, that number is up to 60, Vargas said. AIRR is looking to expand assistance beyond financial support, Vargas said, including childcare staff, interpreters and court watchers. 

“Our goal is to give our community the tools to speak up for themselves,” Vargas said. “I invite all of you to get involved. It can’t stop here. The stakes are too high.” 

Dinner as discourse 

Gencarelli managed her expectations in case the event spurred criticism or anti-immigrant rhetoric.

She was as surprised as anyone that Kansas City became the fastest Anti-ICE Supper Club to sell out. The excitement spilled over to her email inbox.

The Supper Club has not been popular everywhere.

Wilder said critics flooded one social media post advertising an upcoming session in New Orleans with comments accusing the publication and partner restaurants of “support[ing] criminals.” 

“Right now, everybody has a lot of extreme views, and so we were a little bit cautious how it might be received,” Gencarelli said. “But I was just incredibly grateful…it just made me very proud that Kansas City is standing by the immigrant community.”

Wilder, meanwhile, sees the discourse as a major argument for the supper club’s existence. She hopes that the dinners shed some light on the ongoing entanglement between the food industry and federal immigration policy.

“We purposefully called it the Anti-ICE Supper Club because we want to live in a country where you can say something like that,” Wilde said. “We want to put ourselves in some way in the crosshairs to create more of a space to talk about what’s happening.” 

The Midwest Newsroom reported in April that ICE agents in Missouri had arrested more than 3,200 people from 80 countries since January 2025, and that roughly 20% of people arrested in Missouri under Trump have had no criminal convictions or pending charges.

As lightning crackled over Bell Street and the Tuesday night storm began, diners crowded nearly shoulder-to-shoulder inside the warmly lit test kitchen, cheering as Wilder and Vargas criticized ICE enforcement actions in the region.

“I think people would be surprised to find how much joy there is here,” said Amber Cansler, 51. “Anger and joy are not mutually exclusive. We can be angry, and join as joyful people with hope together, and that’s what you’ll find here tonight.”

Gencarelli hoped her neighbors would walk away understanding that it’s impossible to separate a night out at a restaurant from the ongoing plight of immigrant communities nationwide.

Without immigration, she said, the restaurant industry as we know it could not exist.

Immigrants flock to kitchens, Gencarelli said, because they’re looking to share something they love with others in a new place.

“It’s innate for us,” Gencarelli said. “In general, food is love. Food is something that we do because we want to go ahead and make others happy.”