After arriving in St. John’s, Newfoundland from London, England, it was not long before Christiana and Sunday Emmanuel experienced what is perhaps an all-too-common realisation for newcomers here: “Oh my God,” Christiana says, “We cannot eat!”
Accustomed to the great wealth of international foods and markets available in London, Christiana says they were essentially stuck eating the closest thing they could find in St. John’s, namely a Chinese buffet restaurant near the Avalon Mall. They made three visits there but after that, Christiana thought, “Let me do some research to see if I can bring African cuisine.”
They quickly found there were a lot of Africans “having the same experience,” as they were. The comfort foods of home were not only hard to find, they were non-existent.
So, as luck would have it for the people of St. John’s, the Emmanuels decided they should do something about this. They began the early experiments with a food delivery service they would come to call Afro Kitchen NL.
Before leaving Nigeria, Christiana had already expressed a great interest in food. She and Sunday both grew up in the Middle Belt, in a state called Benue.
“We are like the food basket of the nation,” Christiana says.
She grew up in the city, but would visit her grandmother in the country, surrounded by the crops of the region: cocoa, cashews, maize, oranges, and mangoes.
“In Africa, our avocado is so sweet,” she laughs.
Entrepreneurship runs in the family. Christiana’s brother opened a gas station and had a start in real-estate. Her sister has a fashion design factory and her little brother is selling cars. Christiana was lecturing at a university, but at the same time she was also in the process of potentially buying a Nigerian fried chicken franchise of a restaurant called Republic of Chicken.
“I think it runs in the blood,” she says of entrepreneurship.
That’s when her husband, Sunday, was approved to continue his engineering studies at Memorial University. When they first met, Christiana was living in London, studying for a master’s in international business at the University of Lincoln. They met in 2014 while Sunday was in the city for a conference. He was actually living in Finland, where he had been studying for a master’s in engineering. They married in 2015. However, after a while, Christiana says, Finland was “not approving” her residency, and so the couple began to make other plans. Sunday decided to pursue an engineering program that specialized in oil and gas, and Memorial offered the right program at a relatively lower tuition.
“When the dream of the business was in my head—ahhhh!” Christiana sighs. The idea to make food was, at first, just for friends and hungry students. They would cook a large quantity on Sundays and, Christiana says, “I would tell my husband to drive around.”
Afro Kitchen NL was incorporated in February 2021 and the couple has found themselves in commercial kitchens all over St. John’s, including in the Community Market, a well-known incubator of small startup restaurants and take outs.
“African food is difficult to cook,” Christiana says. “All the food is freshly made, we don’t use preservatives.” In Nigeria, she says, “we don’t have a lot of electricity,” so scratch cooking is a must. Preservatives sometimes change how food tastes, so they’re avoided. Her rule of thumb is deceptively simple, “cook ‘till tender.”
Afro Kitchen has gone from a tiny kitchen delivery service to a formal operation that can now be ordered on Skip the Dishes and Door Dash, which is saving Emmanuel from driving all over the city.
“We want to unite Africa with St. John’s,” Christiana says. “Food is something that can bring love.” Newfoundlanders and Canadians don’t know her country, or her culture maybe, but “there are some locals that love adventures,” she says. “I’m coming to eat your beans!” they tell her.
Even other African families ask about her recipes, wondering how she cooks her food. Her restaurant is known for its jollof rice, a Nigerian specialty, cooked with tomatoes and spices, as well as lamb suya (kebab), which was made in the beginning with locally-raised lamb from Newfoundland’s west coast.
“If there’s jollof rice, there’s a party,” Christiana says. “If there’s no jollof rice, there’s no party.”
The food is spicy, which is not something Atlantic Canadians are known for handling all too well, so for them she has found a way to tone down the heat, while still maintaining the taste.
However, even some locals have ventured into the spicy food. “I want to eat the spicy one,” they tell her, “sometimes it’s good to cry!”
At this point, less than a year in business, Christiana is a bit desperate for good help.
“The locals cannot cook my food,” she says. The methods and taste is just too different. “To be frank, I am still overwhelmed,” she says. “We are the only African restaurant in Newfoundland and Labrador.” The demand for her cooking has been intense.
Sunday just finished his master’s degree at Memorial University and, looking at the impact of climate change on the market for oil and gas, he is now looking to transition to the tech industry. He has a background in mechanical engineering.
The Emmanuels have found a community in Newfoundland, with the Nigerian-Canadian Association of Newfoundland and Labrador and an active church congregation, who organizes picnics in the summertime. The association says there are 2,000 Nigerians in the province and the number is growing rapidly.
Afro Kitchen now has three employees, mostly for deliveries, and the Emmanuels are hoping they can get some government support. At the moment they say they experience a lot of issues with red tape and feel generally a bit confused, trying to navigate the system. Although, Christiana says their experience with food inspectors has been excellent.
Their dream at the moment is to open a proper restaurant, where the community who enjoy her food can sit down and socialize. She seems to have an urge to increase connections and to be able to build relationships and be more hospitable.
“I am so glad they love my food,” she says. “I am happy, I am overwhelmed.”
