The moment is joyous and almost historic. On August 31, at Kin (for “Kinshasa”), a semi-gastronomic Marseille restaurant with a Congolese inspiration, four chefs of African origin are busy in the kitchen to the rhythm of old hip-hop hits. There is Hugues Mbenda, the owner of this Marseille establishment with a ceiling dotted with ferns and walls decorated with bassa characters. But also, with her hair protected by a waxed scarf, the media personality Anto Cocagne, alias “Le Chef Anto”, who has just opened Baraka, a delicatessen at 15my district of Paris. Not forgetting Patrick N’Diaye, who runs the bistro Okra in Bordeaux, and Senda Waguena, who runs the Racines restaurant in Etretat (Seine-Maritime).
Eight hands prepare dinner: crispy yuca waffle; tender leeks with smoked parmesan mousse; duck ravioli placed as if weightless on an emulsion of taro, a delicious tuber. Logically, the exercise should turn into cacophony and discussions, but everything goes smoothly, as if these cooks working together for the first time have known each other for a long time.
“We speak the same languagesays Senda Waguena enthusiastically. When I work with European chefs, it takes me a good month to get organized. We agreed on a specific menu there yesterday and everything is working. Hugues, who helped me with my dishes, knew instinctively that I wanted to season them with smoked fish instead of salt, and to season my ravioli with onion, ginger, garlic and chilli – a basic mix in West African cuisine. And obviously, I didn’t have to explain to him what taro was! »
The four chefs meet at the initiative of Vérane Frédiani, who watches them in the dining room while sipping a Congolese peppered gin. This author and documentary maker celebrated that afternoon the publication of her latest work, Africa cooks in France (Ed. de La Martinière, 272 pages, 29.90 euros), for which he travelled all over France and conducted extensive interviews with around twenty chefs. Among the guests expected are Georgiana Viou (star of Nîmes), Jules Niang (owner of Petit Ogre in Lyon) and other talents.
“These professionals of African origin have long been overshadowed by tenors, who remain predominantly white men.observes Vérane FrédianiBut today it is also this diaspora that is writing a new chapter in French gastronomy. Its representatives find it difficult to shine because the banks do not support them. As a result, they do not have the budget to invest in an establishment or pay a photographer to properly present their dishes or a press officer.
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