Ivorian Food: A Guide to the Dishes and Flavours

For Ivorians in Britain, food is a warm link to home and to the lively maquis and markets. It is the plate of attieke with grilled fish, the tender kedjenou, the golden alloco with spicy sauce, the garba from the street stall. Each dish carries the sociable, flavour-packed character of Ivorian cooking, and making them abroad keeps that flavour and that warmth alive.

There is real joy in Ivorian food, in the fluffy tang of attieke, the care of a sealed-pot kedjenou, the sizzle of alloco and grilled fish. When an Ivorian family in the UK steams attieke, cooks a kedjenou, or fries alloco with a spicy sauce, they are keeping home close and sharing the generous, sociable, sun-warmed spirit of Ivorian cooking. That lively, welcoming spirit is the heart of Ivorian food.

What Ivorian Food Is

Ivorian food comes from Ivory Coast, or Cote d'Ivoire, on the West African coast, and it is lively, generous, flavour-packed cooking with a famous love of street food. It draws on the country's many ethnic groups and its forest, savannah and coastal regions, so it is varied, but it shares a foundation of cassava, plantain, rice, yam, fish and a love of bold, spicy sauces rich with tomato, chilli, onion and palm oil. Fresh fish and seafood from the Atlantic are central, and grilling is a beloved cooking method.

Ivorian cooking is sociable and everyday, tied to bustling markets, maquis, the open-air eateries where grilled food and cold drinks are shared, and family meals. It is food to be enjoyed together, often with the hands, and it is warm and welcoming. It sits within the wider world of West African food, with its own distinctive character, especially its love of attieke.

Attieke the National Staple

The staple at the heart of Ivorian food is attieke, a light, fluffy couscous-like side made from fermented, grated cassava, which is steamed into soft, slightly tangy grains. It is uniquely Ivorian in its fame, eaten across the country as the base of countless meals, much as rice or fufu is elsewhere, and it has a lovely mild, slightly sour flavour that pairs with everything. You can read more in our guide to attieke.

Attieke is served with grilled fish or chicken, with sauces and stews, and above all in the famous street dish garba, attieke served with pieces of fried tuna, chilli, onion and tomato, a cheap, beloved, everyday meal sold from stalls everywhere. Light, tangy and versatile, attieke is the soul of the Ivorian plate and a genuine national treasure.

Kedjenou the Gentle Stew

One of the most celebrated Ivorian dishes is kedjenou, a gently cooked stew, usually of chicken or guinea fowl, with tomatoes, onions, peppers, ginger and spices. What makes it special is the method: it is traditionally cooked slowly in a sealed pot, a canari, over low heat, sometimes shaken rather than stirred, so it steams in its own juices with little or no added water, concentrating the flavour into a rich, tender, aromatic stew.

Kedjenou is a dish for gatherings and a source of pride, its slow, sealed cooking giving a wonderfully tender result and a deep, savoury flavour. Served with attieke or rice, it is Ivorian home cooking at its finest, and a great example of how a simple set of ingredients, treated with care, becomes something special.

Alloco Grills and Street Food

Ivory Coast has a wonderful street food culture, and near its heart is alloco, ripe plantains fried until golden and caramelised, served as a snack or side, often with a spicy tomato-onion-chilli sauce and sometimes grilled fish or a boiled egg. It is beloved across the country, sold from stalls and cooked at home, sweet, soft and moreish. It belongs to the same family as other West African fried plantain dishes we cover in our guide to plantain.

Grilled food is central to the maquis and street scene: braised or grilled fish, chicken and meat, seasoned and served with chilli, onion and attieke, as well as brochettes and choukouya, grilled spiced meat. Snacks like fried dough, roasted plantain and grilled corn round out the lively, sociable street food that Ivorian eating is famous for.

Sauces Soups and Main Dishes

Beyond the grills, Ivorian home cooking is rich in sauces and stews eaten with attieke, rice, foutou (pounded plantain and cassava) or foufou. Sauce graine, made from palm nut pulp, and sauce arachide, a groundnut, that is peanut, sauce, are rich and beloved, while sauce claire and kopé are lighter. There are also leafy-green sauces and soups such as sauce feuille and the okra-based sauce gombo.

These sauces, often cooked with fish, meat and smoked fish and plenty of chilli and seasoning, are spooned generously over the staple. Because the peanut sauce contains groundnuts, it is not suitable for those with a peanut allergy, which is worth noting. Rich, varied and satisfying, these sauces are the heart of the Ivorian home meal.

Drinks Hospitality and Where to Find It

To drink, Ivory Coast enjoys bissap, the deep red hibiscus drink, bandji or palm wine, ginger juice, and fresh fruit juices, as well as local beers and, reflecting the French colonial legacy, coffee, from a country that is itself a major cocoa and coffee producer. Cold drinks shared at a maquis with grilled food and friends are a big part of Ivorian social life.

Food and drink are enjoyed sociably and generously, and hospitality is warm. The UK has a growing Ivorian and Francophone West African community, so ingredients and food are increasingly findable, especially in London and other cities. African and West African food shops stock attieke, cassava, plantain, palm nut pulp, groundnut paste, dried and smoked fish, hibiscus and seasonings. If you want to eat out, you can find African restaurants near you, or book a cook through caterers near you. To cook at home, browse African food stores near you.