Marseille the African (2/4). King of octopus stew and lemon tart, Malian Gagny Sissoko learned his art on the job. A self-taught and gifted chef whose dream today is to open a restaurant in Bamako.
“Is he there, your boss?” »How many times has Gagny Sissoko heard this little sentence, with all its variations? Yet he still manages to smile, dismissing ordinary racism with philosophy. Here, at 153 boulevard Chave, he’s the boss. Moreover, it is written on the storefront: “La Cuisine de Gagny”.
Today, the owner offers a pan-fried sea bass fillet with butternut mousseline, carrot, pepper, zucchini, sweet potatoes, coconut and ginger juice. Or, since it’s Wednesday, a lamb breast burger with beetroot mousse, sweet potato and homemade fries. For dessert, the reputation of its lemon tart has long since crossed the borders of Marseille, it will be very difficult to resist …
Jewelers from father to son
From Kati (in Ivory Coast, where he was born in 1982) to Mali, where he lived a good part of his youth, Gagny Sissoko has come a long way before becoming boss! “I was born to Malian parents,” he says with a certain timidity. My father was a jeweler, like my grandfather. We are jewelers from generation to generation. I was about 8 years old when my father died, and we returned to the village, Diabigué, in Nioro-du-Sahel. It was hell. “
Gagny Sissoko should also have become a blacksmith-jeweler, but he fled the oppressive family circle and joined the capital. “I left alone for Bamako. I did everything except fly. I slept outside, picked up food from the trash cans, then found an odd job with a lady. I was selling ice water, bissap, ginger, beans and watermelon on the streets in exchange for housing. I also worked in the minibus network. »School? Never.
I cooked pizzas with bananas, cassava …
In the early 2000s, he met Julie Demaison, a French student from Clermont-Ferrand, who was renting a room in her Bamako neighborhood. “We got to know each other. In 2006, she invited me to eat pizza in a French-Lebanese restaurant. And there, I said to myself: “This is the job I want to do.” “
In a Lebanese school, training then costs around 150 euros per month, which is accessible, but Gagny Sissoko can neither read nor write … The director lets himself be convinced, for thirty days, on a trial basis. After three months, Sissoko replaces the chef pizzaiolo, but ends up regaining his freedom, not receiving a salary corresponding to his work.
Theater companies
“When I started to know how to make pizzas, I tried to cook them with everything you can find in Mali, bananas, cassava… I even tried to build my own oven, but it didn’t work, it took more than forty minutes to cook a single one! “Failing to set up his own business, he multiplies internships with restaurateurs, gaining experience.
Close to the Bamako cultural milieu – production manager, Julie accompanies artists, in particular Salif Keïta -, Gagny Sissoko meets the director Éva Doumbia who, in 2012, assembles Afropean (according to Writings for the Word and Blues for Élise by Léonora Miano) in La Villette (Paris). This is an opportunity to come to France (as a stage cook, with a three-month residence visa) and to meet many theater companies, for which he will provide catering and catering. A chance for those who know how to draw additional lessons for their own cuisine from each meeting.
Allergen-free meals
Installed in Marseille between 2012 and 2018, Gagny Sissoko works in the performing arts industry, participates in cooking workshops and offers an allergen-free meal service delivered to your home. Her son, Yeli, suffers from anaphylaxis, a hypersensitivity to different substances found in food. Forced to prepare adapted meals for him, Gagny and Julie realize that many other parents are in the same situation.
They then offer meals that they will deliver themselves… “Until I came across a business in liquidation, a former butcher’s shop on Boulevard Chave,” says Julie. Many banks refused to get involved. It was very difficult, we had no input. The family allowed us to buy the premises, and we received some help. At first, we only thought of doing take-out food, but very quickly there was demand. “
We never eat the same thing at home. Even the bread: I bake a different one every day!
Gagny’s recipes indeed stand out. In truth, he has no recipes. “When I get up in the morning, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he says. But when I start I know it will be good. We never eat the same thing at home. Even the bread: I bake a different one every day. However, the know-how is there, learned from some and from others.
“My cuisine is a cuisine of encounters and mixtures”, specifies Sissoko who discovered the cuisine of fish at Bernard Loury, specialist in bouillabaisse (Le Mistral, 3 rue Fortia, Marseille) and Bourbonnais potato pâté at Mémée. Didine, Julie’s grandmother! “He can’t read, so he doesn’t read recipes,” his partner continues. But he is inspired, he creates, he is curious. He is really in love with the products. “
Soumbala, kinkéliba, bissap…
The couple gets their supplies of quality organic products from the local Farmer Platform (PPL) and offers dishes between 13 and 17 euros, desserts from 3.50 euros. “I only work with fresh products,” explains the chef. I don’t have a freezer. »Africa? “She is present through me,” he replies with a touch of mischief.
He who stopped offering couscous because he overshadowed his other creations distils particles of Africa in each of his dishes: a little soumbala (a condiment made with seeds from the néré tree), a little kinkeliba (“long-life herbal tea”), ginger, bissap… or quite simply a “dibi sogo” cooking.
My dream ? Open a restaurant in Bamako
Although a Muslim, Gagny Sissoko does not hesitate to use alcohol in his preparations. As in one of its specialties, “octopus stew”, cooked with red wine. “I love seafood, I ate a lot when I was little, in Ivory Coast,” recalls this lover of pastis clams and whelks. And Julie confirms: “The whelks? He can eat kilos of it! “
Recognized beyond Marseille, Gagny Sissoko has not forgotten his roots. ” I am Malian ! My dream is to open a restaurant in Bamako, but Mali is still a country where food is hardly valued. Gastronomy is not in its culture, we eat to feed ourselves. Or, it takes girls to push young people to go to restaurants! However, things are changing. At the Palais de la Culture, chef Moussa Sissoko, for example, works hard. “While waiting to taste a thieb or a yassa revisited by Gagny, it is lemon pie that we will take again. In the matter, no doubt, he is the boss.
–
