Kelly Whitaker had no intention of going back to Oklahoma. He was born in Tulsa and had spent time in Oklahoma City growing up, and he didn’t love it.
He didn’t hate it, but as far as the restaurant scene went, he didn’t see it going anywhere.
“I said, ‘It’s not gonna turn a corner and all of a sudden someone’s going to think of Oklahoma City as like a Portland or an Austin or something,’” he said.
But he now says he was wrong.
“I'll say it out loud again: I think it's one of the most interesting growth cities in America, by far,” he said.
That’s two years into owning Nonesuch, an award-winning 18-seat fine-dining chef’s-counter restaurant in OKC’s Midtown neighborhood that Whitaker bought in 2024. He had been following the restaurant since 2018, when Bon Appétit magazine named it America’s Best New Restaurant.
Whitaker is the head of Id Est Hospitality, based in Boulder, Colorado, which operates a number of highly acclaimed restaurants and bars in that area, including Basta, the Wolf’s Tailor, and Brutø. He has a very strong sustainability ethos. Wolf’s Tailor in Denver was one of the first restaurants in the country to focus on fermentation, and through Dry Storage, Id Est’s Boulder-based artisan bakery and commercial grain milling facility, Whitaker has worked with 13 farmers to cultivate around 1,000 acres of regeneratively-grown heritage grains in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, including Antero Wheat and Ryman Rye.
“That was not happening ten years ago,” he said.
Nonesuch executive chef Garrett Hare has a similar approach, and to Whitaker’s surprise so does much of Oklahoma City.
“Oklahoma’s mostly oil and gas, but wheat grows really well there,” said Whitaker, who has also contacted local tribes to discuss more usages for heritage corn.
“There are lots of opportunities, but you need to create demand,” he said. “You need restaurants to buy it for them to grow it.”
With all the growth in Oklahoma City, including professional sports and some of the 2028 Olympics games being played there, “and the art, the chefs, the neighborhoods, there’s just an absolute collective — it’s almost like a magic formula,” he said.
“I’m also encouraged by the conversations I’ve had with some of the folks who are building new infrastructure … They’re having meetings with us, so Nonesuch can help inform what’s going on. We’re excited to be a part of that conversation for the city.”
Listen to the full podcast in which Whitaker shares his vision for Nonesuch, including a reworked bar called Somesuch, and his further plans for Oklahoma City.
“We’re in for the long haul,” he said.
