“Thirty years ago, no one was going to Copenhagen to eat, right?,” says Rohan Shah, a Singaporean expat and founder of Imizi Rum, which uses local sugarcane and forest botanicals like avocado leaf to craft the spirit. “If you create an anchor space like a Noma that attracts talent from around the world, those people then set up breweries, distilleries, cool restaurants—now Copenhagen is a really exciting place to eat.”
That collaborative ecosystem is beginning to take shape in Kigali. Rwanda’s fertile volcanic soils burst with a staggering diversity of plants: it may account for less than one percent of Africa’s landmass, but the country is home to 15 percent of the continent’s plant species. This bounty—along with Rwanda’s safety and stability—is luring chefs and entrepreneurs from across the world.
Throughout the food scene here, Rwanda and its neighbors are the stars. At Kozo, the irreverent Thai chef Sakorn Somboon whips up an eight-course Afro-Asian chef’s counter experience with an unexpected bonus of endless laughs and fashion statements—as he serves tilapia with cassava-corn banku and Tanzanian brochettes in a Vietnamese summer roll, he models a Chinese hanfu he designed with Rwandan kitenge, Moroccan linen, and Masai art. “I’m bringing flavors of Southeast Asia mixed with flavors of Africa mixed with techniques from around the world,” he says, referencing his stints in Thailand, Holland, London, and Ghana. The next day, I have the best meatballs I’ve ever tasted, perfectly crisped and engulfed in a fiery piri-piri sauce, at Treasures of Ikoro, and I soothe my palate with a scoop of tree tomato ice-cream at Kunda Gelato.
In the tony Kimihurura neighborhood, Kevin Mbundu, who comes from a coffee-growing family, is part of an effort to reimagine Rwanda’s third-largest import: His hip café Kivu Noir, is at the forefront of Kigali’s burgeoning homegrown coffee scene, and in October, he added a new restaurant and cocktail bar, Ruä, serving steak drizzled in a coffee wine sauce and drinks made with local sage and green chillies.“When I started this I didn’t want to open a restaurant. I was more into curating something that someone would come to and say, ‘I’ve experienced Rwanda,’” he says.
But with any emerging culinary market, innovative chefs are just one piece of the puzzle. When Nicole Bamukunde moved back home after studying at the French hospitality management school Vatel, she saw a way to fill a gap in the fine-dining industry by bringing an outpost of Vatel to Kigali. She followed it up in 2020 with Nyurah, a serene restaurant on the mezzanine of a nondescript office building in Kigali, a space to train students in every part of the restaurant business, from cooking to finance to marketing. As I walk to my table, staff glide through the dining room in immaculate choreography.