The sizzle comes home to roast

Magic has always mesmerised human beings. It is no wonder then that chefs who, with simple abracadabra, can make a restaurant out of your plain living room, your ordinary backyard, your garden or your front porch, are charming their way into Nairobians’ hearts.

Every week, Mulunda Kombo, a chef who co-founded the food experience company Jumuuza, transforms two or three clients’ private spaces into intimate restaurants complete with all the friils and wait staff. One client who gave them her barnyard, could not believe its transformation into a fine dining experience where the guests sat on the hay as chairs.

“She walked in and she couldn't believe it. She kept on asking how much did it cost. Even though it was her own space,” says Kombo.

Over static restaurants, instant restaurants allow chefs to always introduce something fresh and exciting to their guests.

Chefs who curate instant restaurants are fervent that the food must always be excellent and, apart from that, the experiences around the food must also contribute to making it unforgettable.

Claire Ariri, who will be graduating from International Hotel and Tourism Institute this year and is curating her first Italian-themed restaurant, says she plans to“bring Italy to Kenya. Though the event is at a residential home in Karen, the music, the ambiance and the food give you a taste of Italy, you can experience it without going there.”

Instant restaurants are themed, according to clients’ requests. Once the chef has the theme, she works out the menu, the decor, the set-up, the utensils which could include Do It Yourself (DIY) plates, the lighting, the music and even the physical design of the menu.

Unlike magicians, however, these chefs are more than willing to show you what their tricks are.

“Every time I do something, I want to tell people ‘this is why I did it, this is where I got the ingredients from and it is easy to make’,” says Claire Ariri.

“I will avail recipes as well. It is going to be a learning process for the guests,” she adds.

Kombo agrees that interacting with the guests is fundamental for a successful instant dining experience.

“Guests get to interact with the chef whos not hidden in the kitchen. It’s like reading the forehand of a book. It’s the author actually talking to you about where they were going, what they were thinking, what they were feeling, what inspired them,” says Kombo.

Chefs prefer instant restaurants to be as intimate as possible, mostly ranging between seven and 20 people. “The beauty is the guests will have a one on one experience with the chefs so we are even able to serve the food, explain it and the ingredients that have been used,” says Ariri.

The intimacy of the easygoing space allows guests who may be strangers to interact with each other.

“During these dinners, we want strangers to interact with each other throughout the course of the evening,” says Kombo.

For them, this often means making sure the entertainment is not overpowering even when they bring in a live musician and also regulating the photography. In Jumuuza’s case, this is easy because Shifteye’s Zachary Saitoti is one of the three founding members, and his Canon 7D assures guests they can focus on enjoying the food itself as he curates the experience with a professional touch.

“You could end up eating together on the same table with different strangers. It has a surprise element and it’s exciting,” says says Jasmine Macharia, a chef who graduated from culinary school in Spain over 10 years ago. At her instant restaurants, she simply plays music off of Bluetooth speakers.

“Sometimes, we do a long table which means even if you come with a friend, you have to interact with a stranger during the whole affair. It’s an intimate conversation. I can talk to you across the table,” says Kombo.

“Especially when our guest lists is open to the public, we want perfect strangers to come together and even if somebody has never eaten asparagus before, we want the person across the table to tell you ‘oh, this is my experience with asparagus’,” says Kombo.

According to the chefs, this always has a beautiful effect by the end of the event. Kombo recalls a time when Caroline Mutoko attended an instant restaurant and said she only had an hour, but ended up staying for five.

“After every one is done eating, we play a game we have here called the Kenya 50 at 50 game. The meal can end at around 9 but people hang around until almost 2am in the morning just playing games and talking,” says Macharia.

“We are not able to make this much noise in a restaurant is what my guests say. They can be loud. They can have their fun,” says Macharia whose easy going demeanor is reflected in the concept of her instant restaurants.

Perhaps the reason all these chefs are eager to make food a magical and wholesome experience for Kenyans is that for many of them when the passion for cooking food walked into their lives, it announced itself with some ceremony.

Macharia’s first magic trick was that the minute she learnt to cook, her mother, relieved, disappeared from the kitchen. Instead, her mother would hire chefs from hotels such as Sarova and Hilton to come and teach the 13-year-old how to cook on Sundays. Macharia says those sessions had the greatest impression on her as a cook.

For Kombo, instead of going home for holidays, he would live at the staff quarters of a hotel with his brother who studied culinary arts in Lörrach, Switzerland.

When Kombo broke his right arm and could not play rugby anymore, he made food for his friends on Friday nights, something that grew into his love for instant restaurants.

Ariri had to quit school in JKUAT where she was studying Human Resource because she simply wanted to cook, a decision that she and her parents found very difficult. After that, she took up a job washing dishes at a restaurant while she saved up for culinary school.

“Having a passion for something and fantasising is not the same thing as doing it practically and seeing that it is long hours and you stand for long,” says 21-year-old Ariri, who runs the blog Food by Claire.

“My job was to do the dishes and maintain cleanliness in the kitchen but through the on-job training program I was able to learn by training, observing and asking questions,” she adds.

This curious eye of a child seems a prerequisite for these chefs’ creativity and they believe that Kenyans should demand more from their dining experiences.

“You say ‘Imagine a dinner for us’. We are there to cater to your imagination and get you what you think you can’t have. We are there to bring it out and give you that experience,” says Kombo.

Jasmine Macharia whose book Breakfast with the King just won top 3 in two categories in the Gourmand world cookbook awards, loves the element of surprise.
“I’m married and my husband and I have dined at almost all the restaurants in Westlands at this point. There’s something exciting about 'Hey,show up at this location’,” says the brains behind the Cooking with Jaz blog.

Meals often include 5 to 7 courses and cost anything from Sh2,000 to Sh11,000 per head. The guests could pay for the meals themselves, or the host could pay for all his guests.

Instant restaurants also have an edge over static restaurants in that it is easy to collaborate with other established as well as upcoming chefs to keeps the menus dynamic and creative. The marriage of two different styles of cooking means they create something new together. A guest chef at Jumuuza’s instant restaurant served dry ice drizzled with chocolate syrup for a dessert.

“It smelt amazing and looked incredible. It’s like you’re eating this cloud of chocolate smoke,” says Zachary Saitoti, a co-founder at Jumuuza and a fan of instant restaurants.

Instant dining is an attractive choice for food lovers who have specifications according to religion, allergies, environmental consciousness or because they are vegetarian. These needs are usually not catered for at static restaurants which have set menus.

For Ariri, an Italian menu is especially malleable to cater to different people.

“The ingredients are readily available. It is fresh. It is very flavorful and very enjoyable. Guys won’t have a hard time choosing what to eat from the menu. In my menu, courses have options for either vegetarian option and so on and so forth,” says Ariri.

“It’s not like they’re eating something completely different. We just substitute. If it’s pork you'll find another meat. If it’s vegetarian, there are vegetables that can have the same texture as that particular type of meat,” says Kombo.