Is one of the country’s best restaurants in a Johnson County strip center?
Inside a page in Swetha Newcomb’s childhood diary, second-grade script foretells her future.
“I can’t wait till I’m older, and I can walk up and down in my restaurant in my fancy outfit,” wrote her younger self.
Now 31, Newcomb’s words from long ago paint a picture that’s eerily similar to her present. On Tuesday, she sat in a leather booth, wrapped in a handmade apron, and chatted with The Star about her Indian-style restaurant: Of Course Kitchen & Co. in Overland Park.
Opening a restaurant is its own feat, but she never dreamed of catching the eye of the James Beard Foundation less than three years in. The young wife, mother and first-generation immigrant said she found out she was a 2026 James Beard semifinalist after everyone else.
Hoping to take a nap between shifts — it’s not light work raising a toddler and running a restaurant — she laid her phone down, ignoring a flood of texts and calls.
When Newcomb’s phone continued to blow up, she reached to investigate. Another restaurateur, Leslie Goellner, texted her a screenshot of the semifinals list. To Newcomb’s shock, her own name was there on the glowing screen, listed under the Best Chef: Midwest category.
“Wasn’t even checking for it, didn’t even know it was coming out that morning,” Newcomb recalled to The Star. “I don’t think I could believe it — still can’t believe it. I jumped up and down on my bed for an hour or two.”
‘It’s a completely different world’
One might expect Of Course to be downtown, not in a strip mall next to a GNC and Five Guys in south Overland Park at 159th Street and Highway 69.
Its brass light fixtures dimly illuminate a long, granite bar. White ceramic vases and flickering candles line booths and tables. While Newcomb’s chefs whip up dishes in the kitchen, bartenders shake and strain specialty cocktails.
Step outside, and customers will see cars pulling through the Swig drive-thru for dirty sodas. One would have to drive a few miles, past empty plots of land along the interstate, to find a fine-dining restaurant like Of Course.
“You walk in here, and it’s a completely different world,” Newcomb said. “People out here deserve a spot like this.”
She frequently gets “thank you” sentiments from neighbors who feel like there’s nothing comparable nearby.
Perhaps unlike surrounding chains, Of Course aims to be a far cry from generic. Newcomb offers a frequently rotating menu of dishes with inventive flares. She fuses cuisine from her South Indian heritage with dishes from the U.S. and beyond.
Newcomb recalled the time she was messing around with barbecue dishes — a Kansas City staple — and began to experiment with different ways to smoke meats.
She found that black cardamom gave the meat the perfect smoky flavor and added the Indian-style burnt ends to the menu. It’s now a beloved dish among her customers.
“We’re very different in the Midwest,” Newcomb said. “It’s really fun to see how the Indian flavors mesh with other countries.”
‘My mom is my biggest inspiration’
Her most sentimental menu item, however, is the only dish that’s survived Of Course’s semi-regular menu flip-flops.
The egg curry toast contains a fragrant tomato curry that’s cooked for several hours and steeped in cinnamon, clove, cardamom, garlic and ginger. It’s a fan favorite, but Newcomb also keeps it on deck because she remembers waking up to the smell of the dish on Saturday morning.
She’d waltz in the kitchen to find her mother fixing a proper Indian breakfast: a refreshing taste after a long week as a Johnson County high school student. Each bite of the savory dish washed over her tongue.
“My mom is my biggest inspiration,” Newcomb said. “Everything she does is from scratch. She cooked for us, every meal, every day.”
Another popular dish: gnocchi and scallops in moilee coconut curry with pancetta.
Newcomb was born in Hyderabad in South India, a place that’s heavy on spices and bold flavors. Her mother, like many Indian women, poured her affections into making thoughtful dishes for her family.
She moved to the U.S. with her family when she was just 1 year old. For the next year, the family lived in a motel in New York, where Newcomb’s mother made all of her food out of a miniature, plug-in rice cooker. Her parents moved to Overland Park months later.
Newcomb’s mother’s cooking heavily influences Of Course — Newcomb said she’s her biggest cheerleader and critic. She’ll often send boxes of food home to her mother and receive honest feedback.
“When I’m going through my thought process of coming up with dishes, I try and think back to a dish or a story or a memory with something that my mom has made, and then I go from there,” Newcomb said.
Explaining the James Beard Award to her parents proved a little difficult, Newcomb said as a smile pressed her lips upward. But when her parents understood what it was, they were proud of her.
‘There’s no limit to what you can do with food’
Whatever Newcomb’s cooking, she promises to pack a flavorful punch. It wouldn’t be Indian-style food if it didn’t feature some sort of spice.
“Do not come to this place if you have a garlic or cilantro allergy,” Newcomb said with a laugh. “I’m sorry, there’s just nothing we can offer you.”
While Newcomb initially learned to cook from her mother, she spent time in the kitchen at The Capital Grille, Cafe Trio on the Country Club Plaza and Rivers Lodge and Hunt Club in Linn County, Kansas, south of Olathe. She was also a private chef, sometimes for Chiefs players.
Standing at the precipice of a James Beard Award, Newcomb feels her tears and long days have been rewarded. She recalled the earliest days of the restaurant, and the shock when, two months in, she found out she was pregnant.
The expecting mother was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition that causes pregnant women to become extremely ill past the first trimester. During that time, she couldn’t stomach a whiff of the rich spices she once loved.
On days when Newcomb couldn’t make it to the restaurant, her husband, Jesse, would spend his evenings there. “Brutal” is how Newcomb described it.
During those days, she’d ask herself whether it was all worth it.
Even today, between parenting her 20-month-old Zev and running a restaurant, she sometimes wonders.
“Raising a child is what it feels like. I would say that owning a restaurant, for me, is harder than being a mom,” Newcomb said. “But being nominated shows that someone out there is recognizing our hard work and likes what we’re putting on the plate.”
Though difficult moments elicit occasional doubt, Newcomb said she can’t seem to stay away from the service industry. It’s in her veins, passed down from her mother and as decided as blue or brown eyes. Though at one point she took time away from working in restaurants, something compels her to keep cooking.
“It is such a way of expressing my creativity. I don’t know what I’d do without food,” Newcomb said. “There’s no limit to what you can do with food.”
‘One of a kind’
Newcomb said she couldn’t do this without her general manager, Betsy Smith, and sous chef de cuisine, Emily Thomas. She bragged about the restaurant’s bar program, run by Hunter Hebenstreit, who similarly bragged on her.
“If anyone deserves it, it’s her,” Hebenstreit said of the prestigious restaurant award. “I love working here, and Swetha’s a massive part of that.”
Hebenstreit loves taste-testing all the new items Newcomb comes up with. He’s sad to see some of the creations go but said he’s never disappointed by the replacements.
The nomination has put Of Course on many Kansas Citians’ radars for the first time. Newcomb has met several customers who heard about the nomination and hopped in the car to drive 30 minutes south or more.
To those who are contemplating the trek to Overland Park, Newcomb encourages them to come and taste something that they’ve perhaps never thought of trying.
“I would like to think that our food is one of a kind.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM.