I can’t remember exactly when I started seeing Tonia Pfi Afrofood on All Nigerian Recipes Facebook page. 2012? 2013? She was one of the very active Nigerian food lovers on the page. She posted appetizing Nigerian photos on the page. Seeing that she is white, I was very impressed with the meals she prepared. I assumed she was one of our foreign Nigerian wives who try everything possible to prepare authentic Nigerian meals for our brothers.
But my assumption was wrong. Tonia and Belinda Pfi Afrofood (her sister), prior to opening a Nigerian restaurant in Switzerland, do not have any connection whatsoever to Nigeria nor Nigerian food. I receive and read lots of stories about what connects people to Nigerian food but this one right here blew my mind.
The following meals were prepared by Tonia:
I’ll let Tonia tell their story in her own words. She is not only a great cook, she’s a great story teller too. For someone who English is not her first language, she did a great job telling her story below:
“My dear Flo,
Cooking has always been a hobby of mine. After a hard workday, cooking was very relaxing for me.
After more than 25 years working in an office, I wanted to change my life, the children were almost grown.
I have made my long thoughts to my future. What I want to do? What really makes me happy? I knew it must be something with a lot of social contact. I love sharing my time with other people and the people appreciate my attention and kindness.
But to become self-employed is very risky here in Switzerland. Too many laws and specialty papers to open the own business. Finally I have chosen a bar. It was clear to me that I cannot do alone this business, so I brought my sister on board.
The first bar we visited was a direct hit. I fell in love with it. 🙂 Small and colorful, warm and cozy. ♥
So we concluded the lease and purchased the whole inventory. The previous owner was a lady from the Ivory Coast. She had a friend from Ghana who had to give up his restaurant. He came to us and asked if we might be interested to take over his guests.
But now what? We had no kitchen in the bar, and here it is forbidden to cook and sell food if it is not prepared in a professional kitchen. And we had no idea of African food. 😀
However, outside of the city was an African restaurant and we contacted the owner. We made an agreement with her that she cooks for us and provides the food.
So we ate and sold for the first time Nigerian food. After a few months, we have seen that the people were not satisfied with the quality of the food 😉 So we had to find another solution. We then decided to incorporate a professional kitchen. And we even decided to cook Nigerian food.
But how should we merely learn everything?!
YouTube will help you! 😀
We discovered the “all nigerian recipes” page.
According to your video, love Flo ♥, we have learned to cook effectively.
We started to cook your recipes. Then we gave the food to our regular customers, so that they give us constructive feedback. And so the whole thing started. Now we could cook fairly well, but the people there did not want to try.
They could simply not imagine that white women can cook traditional Nigerian food.
Because there is no Nigerian husband or boyfriend around and we have never being in Nigeria!! 😀
It really took a lot of patience and persuasion of our regular customers, so that people ate.
Then it was rumoured that we secretly have a Nigerian in the kitchen, because it is not possible to cook so well 😮
You see, we had a lot of challenges and there was desperate moments last year. Honestly, I was hurt because of these prejudices :'( But I have not given up. The best advertising is word of mouth. 🙂
Today our customers are even proud of their two white women. They come with their visitors from Nigeria or other countries in order to show them what we can do. We were already many times photographed .. lol
Timaya..Bracket..African China..Kcee..Terry G have all graced our restaurant. 🙂
In one year we have learned very well to cook Nigerian food and the only help that we had was you and your so helpful page dear Flo! ??
My dear members our story shows you that everything in life is possible. Believe in what your doing. Do things with heart and passion. Don’t give up too fast. And everything is possible! ♥ ♥ ♥”
To say that I was surprised when I finally got to know the truth about her journey to cooking Nigerian food is an understatement. I never expected this turn of the story! All these while, I thought she had some kind of link to Nigeria. Talk about inspiration! They built a business out of nothing. They only used the information available to them online.
I loved the part where people were looking for a Nigerian husband or boyfriend in the picture. I am also guilty of that. Though I also get stories about people discovering Nigerian food after reading about them in novels by Nigerian authors, I don’t know why in her case I just assumed that behind every good Nigerian food cook there is a Nigerian man/woman. ♥ Maybe the fact that they have a restaurant threw me. How wrong I was!
There are so many lessons in their story. See how she turned her hobby into a business? I hope you will be inspired by their story to start that thing you think is impossible.
Everything is possible!
Well done Tonia and Belinda. Follow them on their First Base Afrofood page on Facebook.
And if you are in Zurich, abeg go and patronize them. Our Nigerian celebrities endorse them! 😉
♥ ♥ ♥
This is amazing. This has always been my dream too trying other countries food & making it a business because I find so much joy in cooking. Now I believe everything is possible. Job welldone by Tonia.
Their story greatly inspires,it takes courage and faith to have come this far.