AfroGourmets
AfroGourmets’s vegetable tagine spoon featuring spiced and slow-cooked seasonal vegetables
Thunder Bay’s New Culinary Experience Curators
Story and photos by Sidney Ulakovic
From Senegal to Morocco and now all the way to Canada, AfroGourmets, a newly launched culinary experience provider, has recently set roots in Thunder Bay. Siblings and co-founders Awa and Ibrahima Diop, who were originally from Senegal but lived in Morocco for 22 years, settled in Thunder Bay earlier this year, bringing with them a world of flavours and culture along with a passion to share it with the community. Although they’ve only been here a short time, the business partners have already dipped their toes in our culinary scene with a soft-launch at Festival BONJOUR earlier this month and have now officially launched AfroGourmets with a tasting event at Goods & Co. Market this past Tuesday.
(L-R) AfroGourmets co-founders Awa and Ibrahima Diop
The Diops bring over a decade of experience in the hospitality industry to their latest venture. “We are African, and we love food,” Awa says as she explains their business name. “It’s not that we are doing [just] African food.” But if you want African food, or cuisine from many other parts of the world for that matter, they’re happy to oblige. AfroGourmets offers diverse international foods with Moroccan flavors and spices as their foundation, but the food itself is just one slice of what the Diops intend to provide.
Chicken tacos served with AfroGourmets’s signature sauce Ami
Aside from catering for private events, AfroGourmets offers private cooking classes and workshops. “We call it a culinary event company,” Awa says. Their hope is that by organizing workshops centred around cooking, they can forward the culinary arts as an exciting career path to young people in the city. “More and more people are not interested in working in hospitality jobs and restaurants, so we want to promote that here.” The duo will also be hosting their own culinary events and have a chic picnic in the works for this August with plans to continue hosting exclusive food-centred occasions throughout the rest of the year.
A mini crispy plantain served with AfroGourmets’s homemade hot chili sauce
With AfroGourmets, Awa says her hope is to bring people together to connect over food and celebrate the bonds we build by cooking and sharing meals together, a sentiment carried across in the food itself. Their sauce Ami, a lemony-onion sauce which they served on chicken skewers and tacos at their launch event, is named after Awa’s mother—whose kitchen she says smelled like lemon, carmelized onions, and comfort.
Awa says she and Ibrahima look forward to immersing themselves in the community through AfroGourmets. “We are here to put our print on Thunder Bay.”
Follow @afrogourmets.inc on Instagram to stay up to date with their latest culinary events and visit their website afrogourmets.ca to browse and purchase their products.