Cookbook Club: The Contemporary African Kitchen

For our Christmas edition, run in partnership with Afrackers, we'll cook our way through The Contemporary African Kitchen together, then sit down to a festive table filled with every dish we've made.

Why this book

This is a cookbook built by many cooks. It brings together 120 recipes from 33 chefs, restaurateurs, cooks and writers at the forefront of African food today, arranged across five regions of the continent. Dishes range from classics to new creations, from North African couscous and East African curries to Central African peanut sauce stew and West Africa's chicken yassa. Each comes with history, personal stories and ideas for serving.

Your station, ready and waiting

Cook dishes from our curated selection of recipes from The Contemporary African Kitchen. We do all the shopping, so when you arrive your ingredients are measured out at your station and ready to cook. No hunting for ingredients, no washing up at home.

Meet the authors

The book was put together by James Beard Award-winning chef and author Alexander Smalls, with Nina Oduro, whose work champions Africa's culinary heritage and connects it with audiences around the world. Contributors include Pierre Thiam, Selassie Atadika and Michael Adé Elégbèdé.

One table, every dish

Once everything's cooked, we'll sit down together, share every dish and talk about how we found cooking from the book. With recipes from across the continent, this is a chance to taste far more of Africa's food than you'd ever cook alone, and meet people who love food as much as you do. Dessert is on us.

Seconds, to go

There's always something worth taking home, so bring a container or two.

What's included

Three to four hours of cooking, learning, eating and conversation.

Arrival

• A welcome drink inspired by the book

Your cooking

• Dishes to cook from our curated selection of recipes from The Contemporary African Kitchen
• Every ingredient bought, measured and waiting at our fully equipped station
• A printed recipe to cook from on the night
• Hands-on cooking, with our chefs guiding you throughout
• An apron to use for the evening
• No washing up, we'll take care of it

At the table

• A sit-down meal, sharing every dish cooked on the night
• Drinks and dessert, made by us
• Leftovers to take home

Christmas edition

• An Afrackers Christmas cracker to pull at the table

Loved what you ate? Take every recipe home with a copy of The Contemporary African Kitchen, available as an add-on at checkout and supplied by our bookshop partner, Ebi's Cookbook Store & Pantry.

Good to know

For food safety reasons, we can't allow food cooked elsewhere to be brought in. Everything eaten on the day is cooked on-site.