Superstar chef Marcus Samuelsson is tackling African cuisine in a big way. His new restaurant, Merkato, opens today, with an ambitious menu of traditional and reimagined dishes from across the vast continent. Editor in Chief Ruth Reichl visited him at Merkato for a first taste, and spoke to him about the challenge of introducing an entire new palate to American diners; the concept of taste memory; and the prevalence of culinary racism.
Q. Let’s talk a little about why you decided you wanted to do this restaurant.
A. I don’t think I had an option not to do it. I had to do it to satisfy the creativity within me. I think it started for me more than 10 years ago; [in Sweden,] all fine dining restaurants were French. It was Swedish food certainly, and we had Swedish ingredients, but it was filtered through French service, French wine, and French etiquette.
And then I came to America and saw that it doesn’t just have to be French. I started seeing American chefs doing Japanese cuisine and all of these different things, and I just said, “Why couldn’t it be African?” I don’t think I would have been able to see that if I hadn’t seen all these cultures and possibilities in America.
And certainly going [to Ethiopia] with Gourmet and having a chance to see more food, that was the starting point. I didn’t know enough about Africa, and I had to know more.
Q. I know that there’s not another restaurant like this in the United States. Is there anything in Europe?
A. Not one like this, I think. There’s Momo in London, which has a Northern African theme—Tunisia and Algeria and so on.
Q. And that’s the most familiar.
A. Absolutely. [Momo is] only looking at that region. Then there are some South African restaurants in Cape Town that have a similar sort of high-end approach, but they’re only looking at Malay cuisine and the Malay story of South African cooking. We are really looking at the whole of Africa, where Africa took influences from, and also what Africa influenced, like Brazil, like the Southern states of America. We can’t just do it in the 40 dishes or 50 dishes we have now, but in two years, three years, four years, that’s when people will see the broader map of Africa and what’s possible. That’s why we have things that cost $4 on the menu—the cheapest little street foods—and things like lobster that are very lush.
Q. It’s a very big task you’ve given yourself; you’re really trying to introduce an entire new cuisine. In your book, you divided the continent into quarters. Which quarter is closest to your heart?
A. Ethiopia because of my family. Every time I eat an Ethiopian meal I think about them. My reference point is my stepmother in Ethiopia and the way she makes berbere: This is how it has to taste, and the injera has to be a certain way. Like any good cook, she’s an elitist and a good editor. I think about all that when I eat Ethiopian food.
And I have to say that the palate that I’m very excited to introduce is South African Malay cooking, because I think it’s a palate that Americans will love. It’s not spicy food, but it’s flavorful food. Through trading, the Indonesian Malay was infused with the Dutch, infused with the black South African. There are tones of Indian [cuisine] in there, so Americans are familiar with it. And there are tones of Southeast Asia—like sambal and so on. I think that is a surprise, that there is so much Asian cooking in Africa.
We’re also doing what we call the kidogo bar. Kidogo is a Swahili word meaning “small bites.” It’s sort of street food from throughout Africa: There will be some falafel, there will be sambals, chutneys, different kinds of breads, olives from the North, accara from the South. Hummuses, olives that we marinate, pickled peppers; we go from spicy cucumbers to lighter sorts of chutneys, and we have tripe. And here we have shrimp accara from the…
Q. I’ve only had those from the Caribbean.
A. And Caribbean food is completely West African–influenced, from Haiti and Nigeria. Like all food, whether you’re talking about Persian food, or Chinese food, or Swedish food, it’s always a reflection of wars, trading, a bunch of good and a bunch of bad. But what’s left is always the food story. We know so much about the European food story, and we’re getting to know about the American food story; but we know so little about the African food story.
From left: Samuelsson’s traditional take on Ethiopian doro wat; a kidogo sampler; succulent shrimp piri piri.
Q. Why is that? It’s the cradle of civilization, right?
A. I think it has to do with the fact that we learn about food by going as tourists, by buying something from a given country; there have to be several steps before people start cooking it at their houses. Even Japanese food, we didn’t learn about Japanese food until we started buying their cars, trading with them on several levels, touring in their countries. So it’s not necessarily racism per se.
Q. I have to disagree with you, though. I think there is real racism in cooking, and the place you see it most is in the difference between the ways Americans look at Japanese food and Chinese food. It’s not so much racism as classism. Japanese is high-end expensive; Chinese is supposed to be cheap. I think you are going to see that in 10 years, the American perception of Chinese food will change dramatically because suddenly China is a wealthy country.
A. You’re probably right. There is a lot of African food in America already, but it’s always immigrant to immigrant. You can go to Sengalese restaurants [in New York] that are fabulous, but they’re not necessarily where you and I are going to entertain. You need [a restaurant] to hit it out of the park and make it okay for the non-foodie. That’s what Nobu really did for Japanese food and Tabla did for Indian food.
Q. They took two cuisines that people were very comfortable with, and they made them their own. They took it and said, “You know sushi, but I’m going to give you sushi like you’ve never seen before.” You have a much bigger burden here, because you have to introduce the cuisine to people.
A. But it’s yummy.
Q. It is yummy. Of all the things you’re going to serve here, what do you think are the things Americans are going to be the most excited about?
A. Well, you have some of them right in front of you. You’ve got to try the peanut soup.
Q. This is peanut soup? It doesn’t look like any peanut soup I’ve ever seen before.
A. No, no. But a friend of mine’s mother cooked me peanut soup from Ghana, and I thought, well, we can’t serve just heavy food—so how about making it with the most elegant, almost simplistic, clear chicken broth, and have some peanuts in there? So sometimes I’m not cooking traditional at all.
Q. This sure isn’t. Because every ground-nut soup I’ve ever had was heavy.
A. Sometimes I don’t give a damn about the tradition. You don’t have to know a ground-nut soup from Ghana to like that chicken soup.
Q. How did you find people who could cook this food?
A. We didn’t. [Executive chef] Andrea [Luz Bergquist] and I worked together for six months, and I took guys that I worked with for a long time. One of the guys, Paul, he’s from the Caribbean, so he grew up with a little bit of this food. Andrea’s from Colombia, but she worked at Tabla. This is a challenge. You know at Aquavit, I have eight Swedish guys and three Americans, and everything is fine. This is a little bit different.
Q. Because there is no restaurant tradition in Africa, right?
A. Not on this level. It’s not a Moroccan guy doing South African food; it’s not a Nigerian restaurant doing Egyptian food. It’s very much the Nigerian guy doing the Nigerian local thing. This is the challenge. We have a great kitchen now, but I can’t say that it’s easy.
Q. Do you have any African cooks in your kitchen?
A. Some, but I don’t think it would have helped [to have more] because there’s no reference point for this food. You have to be a good cook, and you have to build a sense of food memory. So I tell them, “Okay, close your eyes.” And we season it and we taste it, and I said, “Do you remember now? It’s not spicy. It’s flavorful. Do you understand the difference?” So it’s hard. But you know, we’ve had it before. I’ve had Americans learn how to do pickled herring.
And at first the staff was learning about Aquavit and my sensibility: We take something very traditional and go as far away from that tradition as possible, and then come back to something fabulous. Here, this doro is very traditional—it’s the Ethiopian chicken dish that you have to have. To do that and do [the peanut soup], it’s a completely different mindset.
Q. How did you decide what dishes would be traditional?
A. I felt that there always has to be something light and something very hearty and big. There always has to be something where you can sit here by yourself and eat for $26 and have four different tastes, with a beer; and also something for the occasion of celebrating and being fabulous. But it can’t be an African hit machine; then people won’t learn anything.
Q. If there’s one spice that you think Americans should know from the African kitchen that they’re not familiar with, what would it be?
A. I would say piri piri is one of these things. When you’re in Portuguese-African Brazil, or Lisbon, or Mozambique, sometimes piri piri is used as a condiment. Sometimes piri piri is just spices from a jar, and sometimes it’s made with garlic, olive oil, cilantro, parsley, and some light chilies. That’s almost like chimichurri in Argentina, or sofrito in Puerto Rico. So many people already know those flavors, but they take on different names. I can see three billion people digging that.
Also, it’s not necessarily for the average person, but chefs will love the berbere because it has a smokiness and a depth that can translate into tuna tartare, racks of lamb, whatever suits you.
Q. What’s this?
A. This is an item that we’re going to have for dessert: pistachio lassi. Desserts were the hard part, because desserts are not necessarily what you see in Africa. Most desserts there are fruit purées or fresh fruit. South Africa is the one that really has a dessert tradition. This is malva pudding, which you find in South Africa.
Q. You typically see lassi in Indian cuisine.
A. All through East Africa, you have Indian influences. Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, it’s all Indian-influenced, so there are lassis and kulfis. And it’s not sweet-sweet. That’s the whole idea.
Here we have plantain fries for dessert—you’re going to dip the fries in these sauces. We haven’t decided on the level of sweetness yet.
Q. I like it way too much for it to be popular. I’m not a dessert-eater, but I really like these. My guess is that people will want to have them sweeter.
A. These are the discussions that we’re taking on right now.
Q. Part of it is that your customers are going to have to participate with you in creating this. I always feel like the unspoken thing about restaurants is that it’s a conversation. Part of it is what you bring to it as a diner. One of the reasons why New York is such a great restaurant city is because you have a lot of diners who bring a lot of experience and excitement and are willing to talk about it.
A. You travel. What American city do you feel really excited about the food in?
Q. I still think New York is it, although Chicago has really interesting food. For ethnic food, Los Angeles is still the most interesting place in the U.S.—it’s is as close to Singapore as we have in this country. Huge neighborhoods where people never learn to speak any English at all and can live perfectly happily, and so you can have restaurants that serve only black goat soup. They have places that specialize in those weird Japanese curries that only Japanese people like—strange curry on spaghetti—and Chinese places that serve Islamic Chinese food. Really particular.
A. In Singapore also there are so many influences from other people, the Arabs and the Chinese and the Indian. Here, our aesthetic—especially on the East Coast in America—is very European-influenced. In a place like Singapore, what we would consider tacky is beautiful. They have pink desserts with blue, with gummy bears, with cooked veal. It makes sense there, but you can’t translate that and put that here. Chinatown has some of that, but we’re still too edited to what’s beautiful here, I think. Singapore doesn’t have that. It’s just, boom, there it is.
Q. You’re exactly right. Our idea of tasteful is very narrow. We’re still struggling out of the Puritan aesthetic. The people who settled this coast were people who believed that you shouldn’t enjoy things too much. Pleasure was a bad idea. You weren’t supposed to like your food. Nothing was supposed to be too bright. And we’re still struggling against that in some really serious way. It’s really interesting when you go down to Florida and you go into Little Havana, and suddenly there is no struggle.
But because of you, I think we’re going to start seeing people do articles on African food—at least I hope that’s going to happen. We have this big continent to discover.
A. Let’s face it, it has to also be travel-friendly. And now, thank God for South Africa; Morocco, Senegal, and Kenya will eventually calm down. It’s important that you have people feel comfortable, because just to read about it, they can’t do anything with that.
Q. People have to go there and taste the food; that’s how they learn to eat it.
A. Then the time will come when you can find the ingredients not just in the mom-and-pop stores, but when Whole Foods starts to carry them.
Q. Right—when you see injera mix in a bag.