West Africa hasn't competed with the likes of Paris or Barcelona as a culinary destination, but a handful of food lovers there are making inroads to change that.
Visitors to Ghana can now sample the work of mixologists who specialize in liquors made with local ingredients. In Bamako, Mali, vinophiles can head to the annual Beaujolais Nouveau wine festival. And in Dakar, Senegal, there's Trio Toque.
Trio Toque is a group of chefs — Michka Seroussi, Amy Regalia and Selassie Atadika — who are committed to serving high-quality, locally-grown food. That commitment is helping to raise the bar for what Dakarians can expect from a restaurant meal.
They've run their nomadic restaurant in this capital city on the westernmost tip of Africa since 2012. Once a month, they serve five-course meals at a location that is disclosed only to confirmed guests. The idea was the brainchild of Ghanaian-American chef Atadika, who had heard of pop-up restaurants in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, but never in Africa.
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