(Abidjan) In the kitchens of his Abidjan restaurant, Ivorian chef Charlie Koffi combines local products with French know-how: like him, more and more of his colleagues, sometimes trained abroad, are revisiting local specialties .
One of its signature dishes: an interpretation of gouagouassou sauce, emblematic of the Ivory Coast.
A rabbit simmers in a pot surrounded by African eggplants, red oil, akpi powder – an almond – and fèfè – a pepper.
It’s one of the “recipes that I enjoyed 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 the Ivory Coast, his native country, trained in France before opening his establishment, Villa Alfira, in Abidjan in 2017.
In a bright room of the restaurant, the view of which overlooks a pond where the fish on the menu swim between small succulent plants, Éric Guei tastes the gouagouassou in a cassolette that he ordered.
“I find flavors” and “boldness” in a dish that “mixes Western know-how” and “local flavors,” explains this customer.
He shares this copious, carefully presented meal with his friend, Yasmine Doumbia. “Gouagouassou is a traditional Ivorian dish”, “seeing it in a restaurant like this, frankly it’s a pleasure”, she marvels.
The place contrasts with the maquis, typical informal and lively restaurants where braised chicken and fish, traditional sauces, attiéké (cassava semolina) and alloco (fried plantains) are eaten with your hands.
A few kilometers further, a chef from the upscale restaurant La Maison Palmier presents her new creation: an appetizer inspired by placali, a typical Ivorian dish composed of a sticky okra sauce, pieces of meat and dried fish accompanied by a fermented cassava paste.
In the hands of Hermence Kadio, an Ivorian trained in Abidjan, the placali becomes light. The okra is grilled, the cassava puffed and made into chips.
The chef of this restaurant with its refined decor, the Frenchman Matthieu Gasnier, offers appetizers of this type every week, with the idea of “awakening a memory in people who know these dishes perfectly”.
Half of his clientele is Ivorian, he says.
“Even if our cuisine wants to be international because it’s a five-star hotel, I think it’s nonsense not to give a nod to all the beautiful products that surround us,” says he.
In the savannahs of the north of the country, where the climate is hot and dry, “we are going to have a lot of cereals” like “fonio” or “sorghum”, details Charlie Koffi, while in the forest zone of the south grow “leaves spinach”, “taro” and “typically tropical products” like bananas or yams.
According to chef N’Cho Yapi, founder of the Association of Chefs who Create Culinary Emotions in Côte d’Ivoire, more and more of his colleagues are revisiting local dishes. A trend that started in the mid-2000s.
Chefs in posh restaurants “were used to making Western dishes” with imported products, he says.
But “the cost of living became a little expensive,” so they turned to lower-priced products “that they had on hand,” he continues.
In addition to the financial aspect, N’Cho Yapi notes among these chefs a desire to give “access” to local cuisine to “large luxury restaurants” which have flourished in recent years in Abidjan.
For her part, Valérie Rollainth, an Ivorian chef trained in France at the Paul Bocuse Institute, believes that the cuisine of her native country must be reinvented, because it is no longer adapted to the sedentary lifestyle of the Abidjanis.
“Vegetables are non-existent”, dishes are “overcooked” and cause food to lose nutrients, she explains during workshops she offers around nutrition, “shocked at the quantity of oil” sometimes used.
According to her, local products should be eaten differently, such as okra, “very good for diabetes” if eaten raw.
Some “diseases are diet-related,” she says. And in Ivory Coast, “not everyone has access to healthcare, but everyone can have access to healthy food,” she assures.
