A culinary festival was chosen, he said, because he had worked with some of New York’s most renowned chefs and caterers, and felt that the theme of food would resonate in a city as diverse as New York.ĭuring the week, diners can take advantage of special, discounted prix fix menus at eight participating restaurants. This year, Akinsanya decided to launch the city’s first New York African Restaurant Week, a “ Food, Wine, Music, Dance, Networking” series scheduled for October 13 – 20 that seeks to raise the profile of African cuisine and culture in the city. “Food is where everything starts,” said Akin Akinsaya, a thirty-something banker and entrepreneur who came to New York from Nigeria twenty years ago, “it is an expression of the people’s culture in so many ways.” Listen to our Fi2W podcast about the growth of West African cuisine in Brooklyn’s Bed Stuy neighborhood. The restaurant, located in Bedford- Stuyvesant maintains a steady business serving Muslim, West African, and African-American patrons as well as curious newcomers to this traditionally black, working class neighborhood. In Brooklyn, established restaurants including Jollof-named for the distinctive Senegalese yellow rice dish-offer menus inspired by West Africa’s culinary heritage. Restaurants such as Les Ambassades and African Kine serve loyal African patrons, as well as a diverse clientele from across the city. But along a nearby commercial strip, in the heart of what is now known as Little Senegal, West African restaurants have moved in. The Senegalese street vendors who once crowded 125th Street in Manhattan can no longer be found on the main thoroughfare. Suppu kandje is a funky masterpiece of okra and fish and fatty lamb half-obliterated in sauce and suspended in an ether of thick red palm oil, the essential flavor conduit of Senegalese cuisine.Hors d’oeuvres prepared by Pierre Thiam (Photo: Nyasha Laing) But plates of accara, a kind of black-eyed-pea fritter, hop with enough life of their own, and the thiebou djeun overflows with two-tone habaneros and jumbo fillets of red snapper. In daylight, the festive dining room has the feel of a Dakar disco during bar-restocking hours, down to the Wally Ballago Seck music videos flashing across the flat-screen. Big bowlfuls of lamb mafe, cooked with peanut butter and spiced tomato paste, are as good as ever.Ģ046 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Smoky slow-braised chicken drumsticks smothered with citrusy yassa onions appear only on Fridays and Saturdays, the fish meatballs (domada djen) on Saturdays only. 21Ī beloved Little Senegal fixture since 1995, Africa Kine relocated farther uptown two years ago after being priced out of 116 th Street, but co-chefs Samba Niang and Kine Mar have ensured the restaurant remains an institution. Dibi lamb is an impressive allotment of browned chops that comes with boiled egg, couscous, and a mess of onions.Ģ267 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Most opt for hearty portions of thiebou djeun, Senegal’s beloved national dish of broken rice simmered with tomato and brimming with planks of carrot and cassava and whitefish. Pikine, which opened last fall, serves regulars who settle into its dinerlike booths at lunch. The buttery, coral-red sauce that covers the shellfish riffs on groundnut stew, albeit one smoothed out with chicken stock and invigorated with shallots and ginger.Ģ43 W. He sears immense, head-on prawns plucked from the Gulf of Guinea and serves them with fried curry leaves brined in palm sugar. 21Ĭhef JJ Johnson meditates on Ghana’s rice culture in one dish (lamb plus rice), then invokes Nigerian suya in a grilled-short-rib appetizer. And don’t be surprised to see ingredients like red popping sorghum and nutrient-rich fonio on supermarket shelves sometime soon.Ģ10 W. You may not yet have heard of mafe, but then you hadn’t heard of Thai larb 20 years ago. And the appeal of these diverse cuisines has begun to grow outside immigrant enclaves as American chefs like Sean Brock of Husk in Charleston and the Cecil’s Joseph “ JJ” Johnson take inspiration from the African diaspora and the aftermath of the slave trade on foodways and culinary traditions throughout the world. The good news is that several have reopened nearby, joined by newcomers serving food beyond West African, from places like Somalia and Ethiopia. And as upper Manhattan continues to gentrify, beloved neighborhood spots clustered around 116 th Street’s “Little Senegal” have been displaced. Harlem’s African-restaurant scene has been fairly insular, mainly attracting immigrants homesick for their native dishes.
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5/21/2024 01:01:32 am
Welcome to Altus, a culinary haven where the essence of Ethiopian flavors meets the mastery of Altu Tadesse, our celebrated owner, founder, and flavor virtuoso. Altu’s journey with food began in the vibrant landscapes of Ethiopia, where she transformed simple ingredients like lima beans and cabbage into extraordinary delights through her loving and intuitive preparation.
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