“People were very supportive of Akadi during the pandemic, so we did get more traffic,” chef Fatou Ouattara said in a phone interview last week.
She studied dishes from her own Bambara tribe, as well as the Baoulé and Bété, and those from neighboring Ghana and Burkina Faso, where her mother was born.
Now Akadi, one of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s best new restaurants of 2019, is almost back.
The market carries Akadi sauces, house-blended spices, legumes, soursop and other fruits, African eggplant grown at Portland’s Happiness Family Farm, honey wine and Nigeria’s cold-filtered Star Beer.
“We turned it African, obviously,” Ouattara said of the wood-lined room, now brightened up with sunset colors, African artwork and new trees and plants from Arium Botanicals.
Akadi favorites including fried plantains, crispy samusas and goat stew with fufu will be joined by new dishes researched during Ouattara’s travels, including an African eggplant stew and stir-fried sweet potato greens.
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