The people who cook for Umi Kitchen, an app that delivers meals crafted by home cooks instead of restaurants chefs, are people you’ve probably never heard of — and that’s part of the charm. But next week Umi will be adding a little star power to the humble home-cooked meal, with a brand new sandwich from Emily and Matt Hyland of the Pizza Loves Emily restaurants.
The Umi ❤️ Emily Sandwich will make its debut on Umi before it appears in their restaurants, and you won’t want to miss it. Barbecued pulled pork will be covered with crispy onions, smothered in their famous Emmy Sauce and topped with some red cabbage slaw, all sandwiched in a Tomcat pretzel bun.
“We decided to do this collaboration with Emily kind of as a way to elevate further the home cook,” Hallie Meyer, co-founder of Umi, said in an interview.
And there’s another collaboration within their collaboration — the pulled pork on the sandwich is from Red Hook restaurant Hometown Bar-B-Cue’s recipe. The sandwich was first dreamed up during Taste Talks Brooklyn’s BBQ throw-down event, where Matt Hyland and Billy Durney of Hometown met.
“Billy just started playing with some of the ingredients that we had,” Emily Hyland said, and it led to a sandwich she dubbed “ridiculous.”
Umi seemed to her to be a “great Launchpad” for sharing the sandwich. “We’re hoping that it can be a regular special on the menu at Emily,” she said.
The flavor profile will be familiar to diners of the Pizza Loves Emily duo of restaurants, Emily in Clinton Hill and Emmy Squared in Williamsburg, Hyland said: rich and savory.
And while food from a restaurant is a departure from Umi, Hyland and Meyer said it made sense given the homey feel of the Pizza Loves Emily restaurants.
“We can’t fit 50 guests in our apartment and serve them food and serve them drinks,” Hyland said. “But we can do that in a small neighborhood restaurant.”
Unlike Seamless, since the meals are usually being cooked in a home, Umi requires you to order in advance, and quantities are limited. The same will be true for the Umi ❤️ Emily sandwich — 36 portions a night will be available for delivery on Nov. 15 and 16 to Brooklyn and Manhattan, but you can begin ordering it Friday. It will cost $16, and proceeds will benefit a local animal rescue group.
If you fire up the app and find that the sandwiches are all snapped up, never fear — there’s bound to be a meal from a home chef you’ll love, Meyer said, and they come with personal touches like handwritten notes.
“We’ve got this awesome community of home cooks who are preparing small batches of their signature meal each night,” she said. “From Whole 30 kitchens to paleo kitchens to authentic Indian food that doesn’t make you feel gross after you eat it.”
