Georgina Viou calls herself a “UFO”, championing free and daring cuisine straddling two continents, from Cotonou’s lively street markets to the kitchens of her Michelin-starred restaurant in Nimes, southern France.

In the alleys of the historic Saint-Michel market in Benin’s bustling economic capital, unchanged since her childhood, Viou goes from stallholder to stallholder.

At one she buys bright purple aubergines “like in the south of France”, at another four spices and smoked long peppers – which are often used in traditional medicine.

“I’m sure that apart from the preparations they make to treat themselves, the people here have never thought of putting that in food,” said Viou, 47, who runs L’Ami restaurant at Cotonou’s luxury Sofitel hotel.

“I try to look at these products differently.”

Viou blends West African staples with French ingredients, fusing two cuisines and cultures together in her food. — AFP

L’Ami opened its doors this year, offering “French bistronomy with a local touch” such as pesto risotto with tchayo (African basil), red mullet with local nere mustard and hibiscus pavlova.

Viou, in her trademark felt fedora hat, is keen to push boundaries and blend her two worlds.

“It’s also interesting for me to win over my public. Little by little, we’ll move towards things that get a bit closer to our culinary heritage, while keeping French cuisine as the technical foundation,” she said.

“I once made a shrimp tartare with raw okra. I know Beninese people called it a scandal,” she added.

“People don’t necessarily get me, they don’t necessarily understand. But that’s OK... that’s my personality, this thirst for freedom but freedom in every sense of the word.”

Inspiration

Born in Benin in 1977, “Gigi” as her friends call her, was inspired by her mother, who ran a small “maquis” or popular restaurant in Cotonou.

She described her as “my foundation, my origin” in her recent book Oui, Cheffe ! Du Benin A L’etoile Michelin, Itineraire D’une Battante (Yes, Chef! From Benin To Michelin Star: Journey Of A Fighter).

In the book, which came out in March, she also recounts difficult moments in her life: a rape at aged 14, secret abortions during her studies, divorce as an adult.

When she arrived in France in the early 2000s, she first enrolled in applied foreign languages at the Sorbonne university in Paris.

But it was in the southern city of Marseille, where she arrived in 2004, that her passion for cooking gradually became her vocation. Viou, who has three children, entered several amateur contests before taking part in the Masterchef competition on French television in 2010, then opened a cooking workshop.

Recognition from the industry came at Rouge, her restaurant in Nimes, which was awarded a Michelin star in 2023.

Pass it on

In the kitchen when AFP visited, she replaced the usual meat dish on the menu with red mullet stuffed with black pudding topped with afiti – fermented nere seeds.

Once crushed, the beans give off a strong smell similar to Maroilles, a cow’s milk cheese from northern France.

“It’s a sort of umami. Once you have that, of course you can add fish or meat. But if you don’t, it doesn’t matter because it’s already going to strongly flavour your dish,” said Viou.

She then took a blowtorch to add a “smoky” touch, which she describes as being in her “DNA” as she grew up “with the smell of charcoal and smoked fish”.

A dish of fermented mushrooms, seaweed and buckwheat with fermented mushroom juice, served at Viou’s restaurant. — Georgiana Viou/Instagram

As a side, she offers fonio, a popular grain in west Africa which she takes out of a plastic bag roughly closed with sticky tape, brought straight from her last trip to Cotonou.

For the sauce she added onion, garlic, pastis and fish guts. “That’s Marseille!” she said of the city that has inspired her for the last two decades.

“I grew up for 20 years with flavours, aromas, ways of cooking that are etched into me. Coming here to Nimes, I felt that it was time to bring those things back and put them into what I’m doing,” she added.

The Michelin star isn’t the be-all and end-all for her, though.

“If this star is just for me to put there and brag about saying, ‘Ah, I’m so great, I’m a star’, I’m not interested,” she said.

“I now want to pass on to other people what I’ve learned.”

That transfer of knowledge is what she intends to do in her home country.

“We don’t have a... proper hospitality school, we can’t buy tickets to leave. That’s OK, I’ll come to you. I’ll show you a bit of what I know how to do,” she said. – By JOSUE MEHOUNEN with VIKEN KANTARCI/AFP