DISH
BRINGING WEST AFRICAN CUISINE TO KC ONE FLAVORFUL DISH AT A TIME WRITTEN BY JUDY GOPPERT PHOTOS BY SARA CLANCE
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our first taste of one of owner Fannie Gibson’s dishes will transport your senses to her home region of Western Africa. She measures, seasons, mixes, blends, slices, braises, stirs, and cooks each recipe from scratch, making sure to emulate authentic, traditional flavors she grew up eating and learned to prepare at an early age beside her beloved grandmother. Gibson only uses fresh, healthy, organic, and natural ingredients in her creations. She designed her
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SIMPLYkc MAGAZINE
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AUGUST 2021
menu to reflect ethnic, cultural, traditional themes. She flavors and spices each dish according to her customer preferences, from mild to spicy to gluten free. “Our goal is to have people from all walks of life within the Kansas City and surrounding areas enjoy amazing, native African cooking under one roof,” she smiles.
When and why did you open Fannie’s West African Cuisine? I am from West Africa, Liberia, and moved to the United States in
2002 mostly due to the civil war in my country. We were refugees living in Ghana, West Africa, before settling in Kansas City. When we moved here, I began cooking my traditional dishes for my family and sharing them on social media, and people loved it. I decided I wanted to bring our culture, food, and music to KC as I felt it was missing and that people needed to experience it. I worked at different restaurants and any job I could to save enough money to open my restaurant. It took me 2-1/2 years
