In the kitchens of his restaurant in Abidjan, Ivorian chef Charlie Koffi combines local products with French know-how: like him, more and more colleagues, sometimes trained abroad, revisit local specialties.
One of its flagship dishes: an interpretation of the gouagouassou sauce, emblematic of the Ivory Coast.
A rabbit simmers in a pot surrounded by African aubergines, red oil, akpi powder – an almond – and fèfè – a pepper.
It is one of the “recipes that I liked so much during my childhood”, Charlie Koffi told AFP. “Revisiting them was almost an obligation as a chef,” he says.
This lover of dishes from his native Ivory Coast trained in France before opening his restaurant, Villa Alfira, in Abidjan in 2017.
In a bright room of the restaurant, whose view overlooks a pond where the fish on the menu swim among small succulent plants, Eric Guei tastes the gouagouassou in a cassolette he ordered.
“I find flavors” and “audacity” in a dish that “mixes Western know-how” and “local flavors,” explains this customer.
She shares this hearty and carefully presented meal with her friend Yasmine Doumbia. “Gouagouassou is a traditional Ivorian dish”, “seeing it in a restaurant like this is frankly a pleasure”, she marvels.
The place contrasts with the maquis, typical informal and lively restaurants where you eat braised chicken and fish with your hands, traditional sauces, attiéké (cassava semolina) and alloco (fried plantains).
– “Beautiful local products” –
A few kilometers away, a chef from the refined restaurant “La Maison Palmier” presents her new creation: an appetizer inspired byplali, a typical Ivorian dish composed of a sticky okra sauce, pieces of meat and dried fish accompanied by a paste of fermented cassava.
In the hands of Hermence Kadio, an Ivorian trained in Abidjan, the plates become light. The okra is grilled, the cassava puffed up and made into chips.
The chef of this refined restaurant, the Frenchman Matthieu Gasnier, offers starters of this type every week, with the idea of ”reawakening a memory in people who know these dishes perfectly”.
Half his clientele is Ivorian, he says.
“Since our cuisine is now international because there is a five-star hotel, I think there is no sense in having a clin d’oeil with all the beautiful products here,” he says. -they.
In the savannahs of the north of the country, where the climate is hot and dry, “we will have many cereals” such as “fonio” or “sorghum”, specifies Charlie Koffi, while in the forested area of the south we will grow “spinach leaves”, “taro ” and “typical tropical products” such as bananas or sweet potatoes.
– “Eat healthy” –
According to chef N’Cho Yapi, founder of the Association of Chefs Creating Culinary Emotions in Ivory Coast, more and more colleagues are revisiting local dishes. A trend that began in the mid-2000s.
Chefs at fancy restaurants “were used to making Western dishes” with imported products, he says.
But “the cost of living got a little expensive,” so they turned to the lowest-priced products “they had available,” he continues.
In addition to the financial aspect, N’Cho Yapi notes among these chefs the desire to give “access” to local cuisine to the “large luxury restaurants” that have flourished in Abidjan in recent years.
For her part, Valérie Rollainth, an Ivorian chef trained in France at the Paul Bocuse Institute, believes that the cuisine of her native country needs to be reinvented because it is no longer suited to the sedentary lifestyle of Abidjans.
“Vegetables are non-existent”, dishes are “overcooked” and cause the food to lose nutrients, she explains during the seminars she offers on nutrition, “shocked by the amount of oil” sometimes used.
In her opinion, local products should be consumed differently, such as okra, which is “good for diabetes” if eaten raw.
Some “diseases are diet-related,” he says. And in Côte d’Ivoire “not everyone has access to healthcare, but everyone can have access to healthy food”, she assures.
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2024-01-11 10:02:24
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