This chef in Rwanda wants to create a revolution in African cuisine : NPR

KIGALI, Rwanda — Chef Dieuveil Malonga offers off one thing of a Willy Wonka vibe. His infectious smile feels impish, mischievous.

At his restaurant Meza Malonga in Kigali, Rwanda, there isn’t any chocolate river, however there may be a complete wall filled with seeds, spices and fermented fruits in wide-mouthed glass jars. Malonga calls this his laboratory. It bursts with parts ripe for experimentation. Baobab from Tanzania. Black lemon from Egypt. “The bottom of the delicacies,” Malonga calls it.

He reaches for one jar and pops off the lid. It is filled with a spice referred to as pebe. A spice which, when fermented, has the aroma of onions and garlic scorching on a range.

Every jar is like this. A way reminiscence. Vibrant and particular.

He takes a jar filled with peppercorns off the shelf. They’re from Cameroon, and he thinks these peppercorns are the most effective on the continent. “Simply the parfume – it is not too aggressive,” he says. “Slightly fruity, slightly smoky.” The restaurant incorporates these peppercorns into desserts, enjoying the smokiness off of pineapple, mangoes or ardour fruit.

Malonga was born in Congo-Brazzaville, the place his grandmother, who raised him from the age of three, owned a restaurant. He says his love for meals and cooking began there. He spent his teenage years in Germany and he began his profession working in high European eating places.

In 2015, he competed within the French Prime Chef TV present — he says he was the primary Black chef to take action. When it got here time to open his personal restaurant, he took a two-year tour of the African continent, looking for inspiration.

He opened Meza Malonga in 2020 on the top of pandemic eating restrictions. Restrictions that he says allowed the employees to innovate and refine the mission of the restaurant.

“Now we have a twin mission,” he says. “Our first mission is to advertise the superb substances and cuisines inside Africa.” The opposite, he says, is transmission: “That is why we focus extra on educating and coaching.”

Standing in his laboratory, it is filled with what seems like collective work. There’s no person yelling, “Sure chef!” and Malonga pointedly refers to “our restaurant … our menu … our venture.” His longest worker is Frank Buhigiro, who says “the way in which we work is like we’re like household. You already know, we do not have strain as a result of we get time to suppose and create.”

The restaurant is simply open for eight months out of the yr. For the opposite 4 months, Malonga and his staff journey the continent. Their purpose is to expertise completely different African cuisines first-hand, and supply distinctive substances. But it surely’s extra pushed, extra intense, than simply sourcing. Malonga has visited 48 African nations, consuming his method throughout the continent.

“That is why we journey,” Malonga says. “As a result of there’s some information you may simply get, like … can learn a guide however is not going to perceive very effectively.” Touring and consuming regionally turns into an antidote to globalization. He cites Congo, the place “you can not eat a mango if it is not mango season.”

Upon returning to Kigali, he brings again new flavors as souvenirs. He describes new tastes like a shiny new toy. “Proper now I am consuming cassava leaves — I find it irresistible!” However that may change as he discovers a brand new taste. He seems like a person on a quest to style and doc what he calls “the massive variety we’ve within the continent.” Malonga says he weighs not simply what substances to make use of, however which nation he ought to “placed on the map.”

Malonga desires to carve out an area for African meals within the world tremendous eating scene. One thing he thinks is more and more attainable primarily based on how individuals journey. Now, he says, individuals guide journeys not primarily based on the place they sleep, however the place they eat.

“Individuals now are open minded touring from Copenhagen to Brazil, from London to Nigeria, just for meals,” he says, including that “that is time for us, as Africans, to advertise the superb delicacies and our heritage.”

Nonetheless, there may be not a single Michelin starred restaurant on the African continent — Michelin doesn’t cowl Africa. These sorts of accolades aren’t what encourage him. What’s vital, he says, is making a sustainable ecosystem: “I would like the enterprise to work effectively in order that I pays my individuals, I pays my farmer. So I prepare dinner that to create an ecosystem.”

If recognition follows, that is a locally-sourced, seasonal cherry on high. “If a Michelin star comes, wow it is good,” he says.

An hour earlier than dinner service, Meze Malonga is a hive of exercise. The entire restaurant staffers are wearing black T-shirts and blue aprons. Their actions are exact, utilizing tweezers to garnish meals on small, spherical plates.

Dinners at Meza Malonga don’t have any menu — the meal modifications primarily based on seasonally obtainable substances and what’s thrilling Malonga for the time being. The multi-course dinner is served in a laboratory/eating room. Large home windows open onto the hills of Kigali. The cooks current every course: Cauliflower with a vibrant peanut sauce. Tree tomato sorbet cooled by liquid nitrogen.

“This one is beef filet,” one of many kitchen employees tells us. “On high we’ve cream of garlic and spices from Nigeria.” Spices that we will see filling the jars on the wall in entrance of us. Spices that shall be replenished on Malonga’s subsequent journey across the continent.