Akwasi Brenya-Mensa’s Tatale to launch next month
Originally set to launch early this year, the contemporary Pan-African concept takes its name from the plantain pancake tatale, a quintessential Ghanaian dish.
Brenya-Mensa - who self-identifies as Ghanaian-British and ran a supper club series called Mensa, Plates and Friends which incorporated a charity element by requiring guests to donate to food banks - spent the first half of 2022 gathering cultural knowledge of the cuisines of the Black diaspora through numerous international events.
The menu will showcase dishes and techniques originating from the world’s second largest continent in a bid to ‘introduce people outside of these communities to the vast array of amazing dishes, ingredients and techniques’.
Dishes will include chichinga buttermilk fried chicken wings with dill emulsion; ackee croquettes with curry emulsion; and red snapper moqueca with onion and tarragon.
“I view myself as an African Futurist in this sense, as I am really excited by the prospect of having a healthy, thriving and varied African culinary scene and what this will look like in twenty or thirty years’ time. There’s a lot of positive change, innovation and excellence ahead,” he says.
Tatale will be located within a former 1960s office block that is now a space for contemporary African culture and heritage in London (The Africa Centre was until recently based in Covent Garden).
The restaurant and bar, designed by Freehaus Architects, will be situated on the ground and first floors with outside space in the form of a street-level terrace and balcony.
Interiors are being led by multidisciplinary designer and creative director Tola Ojuolape, who uses contrasts of indigo and terracotta, baked, clay, and live edge timber throughout the space.
The restaurant will seat 33 and the bar has capacity for 100 people standing. Both spaces will embody the same spirit of the old Chop Bars - bustling roadside joints who open their doors to all.
Like Brenya-Mensa’s supper club series, Mensa, Plates and Friends, Tatale will have a remit that is wider than food, providing a space for Brenya-Mensa to flex his talents as restaurateur, broadcaster, curator.
Bookings for the restaurant open on 14 July.
