In Their Words: Akadi PDX

Information
A Black woman wearing a chef's uniform shows off a plate full of fish and vegetables.
Image by Diego G Diaz Photography

Akadi means “tasty” in Bambara, one of many languages spoken in West Africa. Akadi PDX’s chef and owner, Fatou Ouattara, brings delicious, traditional foods from countries like the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso to the Pacific Northwest.

Fatou came to the USA in 2009, during the second Ivory Coast Civil War. She remembers it as one of the scariest moments of her life. The conflict prevented Fatou and her siblings from going to school for several years. She eventually moved to Portland to continue her education at Portland State University.

Fatou was frustrated by the lack of West African food in Portland, a city often praised as “foodie” town. In response, she opened Akadi PDX to share her culture and provide the diverse African community with a safe place to enjoy their traditional foods. What was originally conceived as a safe place for the West African diaspora to feel at home has become a cultural hub featuring food, music, and dance.

Fatou started cooking for friends and catering events. Encouraged by their positive responses, she took her food to farmers markets and other public gatherings. The success led her to start her own food cart business in 2015. But the difficulties and limitations for cooking her cuisine in the confinements of a food cart cause her to close her cart. She spent the next two years doing catering and working hard to open her restaurant, Akadi PDX. 

“In our first day there were more than 400 people. They literally broke our kitchen, and we had to close early,” Fatou recalls. But despite a great response from the community, issues with the aging building, the growing demand, and later the pandemic forced her to shut down.

Akadi PDX reopened in May 2022, but that process came with many challenges including sourcing ingredients, finding employees, and navigating the City of Portland’s permitting system. The City’s system of taxes, fees, and permitting can make it hard to find proper information and clear guidance, especially for people whose first language is not English. The language barrier can disproportionately impact immigrant-owned businesses by causing them to miss something in the process and incurring fees and penalties.

A shelf full of glass jars containing a reddish-brown sauce. The brand is Akadi.
Image by Diego G Diaz Photography

Cultural barriers like trying to source cooking ingredients can also be a challenge for immigrant business owners. Fatou has been able to source or substitute many ingredients for her dishes. Some local farms have managed to successfully grow foods like African eggplant. Some ingredients, like okra, were brought from West Africa by enslavers. These became key ingredients in popular southern US dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, jollof rice, and many types of open flame barbecue.

Opening a restaurant also allowed Fatou to combine her business education with her passion for traditional cuisine. She remembers, “I started cooking since I was what…six years old, seven, since you are able to hold a spoon, they put you in the kitchen. That’s the African culture, the women are always in the kitchen.” Fatou says this tradition is meant to teach women to cook to become a good wife and care for a family, but that it has been changing as women gain more independence. Through her food, Fatou and Akadi PDX are building cultural bridges, challenging stereotypes, educating new generations, and giving people a taste of home.