In front of the hand-painted sign sits a green, yellow and red bench in the colors of the Rastafarian flag. Behind the glass, shelves with provisions are available to passers-by. There are jars of spices, tomato sauce, coconut milk, and jars of rice, cassava flour or cowpea seeds. Inside, Formica tables open onto a dresser and a kitchen where mismatched pots and pans are hung. Here and there, wooden crates overflow with carrots, taros, sweet potatoes, plantains.
“This cuisine is our cultural heritage. It was important to highlight it – both for us and for all the vegan people from the Afro-Caribbean community who, in France, are relatively underrepresented. » Coralie Jouhier
It’s here, at Jah Jah, rue des Petites-Ecuries, in the 10and arrondissement of Paris, that the young thirtysomethings Daquisiline Gomis – alias Daqui – and Coralie Jouhier have put down their pots and knives. Since 2017, the couple has been serving cuisine there that draws on the culinary repertoire of their Afro-Caribbean origins – Daqui grew up between Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, Coralie, born to a Martinican mother, lived for a long time in the West Indies.
They thought of their little canteen as a place of life, with a family spirit, in which we meet around a balanced and entirely vegetable food. A place in which they transmit, the space of a meal, a little piece of themselves. “We were keen to give visibility to the recipes and products found in African diasporas around the world, explains Coralie. This cuisine is our cultural heritage. It was important to highlight it – both for us and for all vegan people from the Afro-Caribbean community who are, in France, relatively underrepresented. »
The restaurant’s menu reflects their project: it recounts African cultures in all their diversity. Which materialize in the form of daily specials that change over the weeks. All are tributes to recipes from the Caribbean, West Africa or the West Indies where meat has been replaced: vegetable mafé, Wolof rice, Jamaican curry, spinach ndolé, vegetable rougail…
Beyond their origins, Daqui and Coralie have set up a restaurant that reflects their way of life. “ We find ourselves a lot in the precepts ofitalian food, the rastafarian dietdevelops Daqui. The goal is to eat foods that have not caused human or animal suffering. It is a plant-based cuisine that is understood as a philosophy of life: a way of becoming more aware of one’s body, that of others and the way in which they are fed. »
Instagram: @jahjahparis