A relaxed, communal space serving African cooking with a modern, but sentimental twist
Tatale, a new pan-African restaurant, arrives on the London dining scene at a time when it cannot help but make competitors feel slightly drab. Recent flash new openings in the capital have taken a familiar shape: posh pub revamps serving salt marsh lamb at almost £35 a pop, pricey patisserie by famous international chefs and 100-plus-cover, all-day brasseries that look alluring in the PR photos, but offer a menu so drab, you’ll be snoring into your chicken paillard salad like the dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Meanwhile, on the sidelines and making plans, was Akwasi Brenya-Mensa and his vision for Tatale, an upgrade of his popular supper club to a permanent home in the all-new Africa Centre in Southwark. His menus are broadly west African, but each dish is heavily redolent of a childhood in south London, travels in Israel and South Africa, and family trips to Ghana. So expect crisp, hot, panko-wrapped ackee croquettes, zinging with citrus and a scotch bonnet kick, as well as the silkiest, black-eyed bean hummus with red palm oil and a dukkah base note influenced by time spent in Tel Aviv, and served with crunchy plantain chips. This is very good, life-changing hummus. Brenya-Mensa also celebrates the casual joys of the Ghanaian roadside “chop bar” with a simple bowl of his mother’s “red red” black-eyed bean stew served with a whole, baked, edible flower-strewn plantain perched in the centre of the bowl. It’s a west African recipe with a modern twist, and delivered with a staunch, sentimental accuracy.
