2 hours Ago By Dani Valent
African $ $$$ Behind Carlisle Street, abutting a scrappy Coles carpark, the old factory space that houses Glass Merchants cafe by day turns into Malewa City, a Congolese restaurant by night. It’s unexpected, in the way that fumbling around in the back of your wardrobe and finding a nightclub behind your coats would be unexpected. Mother and son duo Yvette Nyanguile and Jedidia Zaka have been here for a year serving central African food three nights a week, with extended hours and music in summer.
It’s a true find. Congolese food is extremely varied but it tends to circle back to cassava, sweet potato, plantain, peanuts, tomato, chicken, goat and freshwater fish. The ingredients make sense when you realise the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Yvette and Jedidia are from, spans jungles, rivers and grasslands.
This huge country is rich and beautiful but the region’s story is troubled, riven by violent conflict, and the family arrived in Australia as refugees in 2010. Yvette is a registered nurse but she’s also a cook of long standing: her mum was a chef back in Africa and she is passionate about introducing Australia to lesser-known flavours. We have a lot of Ethiopian and Eritrean food from east Africa (hello, injera!) and there are more and more west African places (hi, jollof rice!) but central African food is rarely seen.
‘Fufu has gone ballistic’: Five West African eateries (and their signature dishes) to try Yvette’s health background comes through in her food: she’s allergy aware, can outline the digestive benefits of fumbwa (the wild spinach she cooks with peanut butter), and she’s proud to serve matembele (sweet potato leaves) from her organic garden. Smoked meats are a Congolese favourite: they’re served in parchment packages that emit fiery wafts as they’re opened. I’m a fan of the goat, which is served in bite-sized pieces tumbled with mayonnaise in a Congolese quirk that sees meat baked with mayo, adding a creamy, slip-slidey piquancy.
The chicken version called poulet mayo is a street food staple. Pondu is a key vegetable dish made with cassava leaves, pounded with leek, celery, garlic and green pepper. It’s a sturdy stew and nice to scoop up with fufu, the soft starchy ball made from cassava flour that can be pinched into pieces to work as utensil and filling accompaniment.
This is a huge kid-friendly space with tables and booths and the food is great to share. A communal, chatty vibe is fostered by Jedidia, who is a DJ and event organiser as well as your host and cocktail mixmaster. One day, the team hopes to shift into a permanent venue to expand their African story.
The food will go up a notch then, I’m sure. At the moment, much of the cooking is done offsite and that lack of immediacy is sometimes noticeable. This is a quibble: Malewa is the kind of place that makes Melbourne worth celebrating.
The low-down Vibe: A party about to happen Open: Thursday-Saturday 5.30pm-late Cost: Small: $8.50-$12.
50; Mains: $12.50-$29.
