Kampala top chefs who make finger-licking meals

Cissy Nassolo

Every feast day, Easter, Christmas or the different special days in our lives, we plan our celebrations with a good meal at one of the top places in town in our minds. But have you ever thought about the chef who is responsible for the good food you enjoy? Today, we bring you some of Kampala’s top chefs.

Cissy Nassolo, Continental Chef, Faze 2
Her story is a classic tale of grass to grace, or thereabouts. Cissy Nassolo started out as a house help of the late Sam Patel and his wife Elizabeth Taylor.

Nassolo replaced her sister as a helper at the couple’s home in 1984.

Taylor explains that at the time she came into Patel’s life, Nassolo had stayed and served him for about half a decade. And for anyone who knew Patel, sharing knowledge and specifically his cooking skills simply rubbed off.

“As I did other chores, he always interested me into learning how to cook, specifically the Indian dishes.

Over the years, I got to learn how to cook a variety of dishes. With time, he gave me a placement at Sam’s, his first restaurant on Bombo Road,” 51-year-old Nassolo recounts.
Today, she is one of the lead chefs in the continental kitchen at Faze 2, a hangout joint and eatery that was started by the Patels in the late 1990s. She has been a chef since 2008.

Her favourite dish: Asian-fused dishes as well as fast food.

Away from cooking: Cissy spends time with children as well as learning new things that can add value to her life

James Nterere Kotikot, Senior Sous Chef, Hotel Africana

In 1996, James Kotikot was just another trainee at Diani Reef Grand Hotel, located in Mombasa. He did the simple things in the kitchen like preparing vegetables, chopping meat in the butcher section, dressing salads and the like.
He did this with passion because cooking was not going to simply be a job, it seemed like a calling because from an early age, he took interest whenever his mother was preparing a meal for the family. That keenness only grew into a passion.

His efforts were quickly realised. He was promoted to a commis chef at Diani. He was only a college student. He joined Nairobi Polytechnic in 1998 and graduated in 2000 with a certificate in ‘Food and Beverage Sales and Production’ after which he was offered a job at Seasons Restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya as chef de parte.

In 2002, he joined Havana Restaurant as head chef then to Windsor Golf Hotel and then to Eka Hotel in Nairobi as Executive chef.

“It was at Eka that I met my current employer, BMK (Bulaimu Muwanga Kibirige). He came in as a guest on a Sunday and he enjoyed the buffet.

So, he asked to talk to the head chef and I was called. I think he was looking for a chef. We talked and I asked him that I visit Hotel Africana,” Kotikot recalls.

He came to Kampala, visited the hotel and liked the hotel. He has been here since 2013.

Specialties: sauces, steaksand seafood.
He puts a couple of hours in researching about food and how to get better and improve his cooking and preparation skills of food.
Easter Tip: Try preparing a lobster this Easter. On preparation tray, have white wine, mushroom, cream, cheese, parsley, mustard, a shell and lobster meat. The preparation is nothing different from fish.
“If not, go to the local butcher for fresh kitchen, beef or fish then buy tomatoes, garlic, green pepper and anything you might need. If you are to prepare chicken, then slaughter it at home. For meat, I recommend you buy from Meat Packers along Port Bell road. It is fresh, good and affordable,” Hotel Africana’s sous chef recommends.

Ian Taylorson, Executive Chef, Protea Kampala Hotel

Passion drives him, and one thing that has kept Ian Taylorson going for the 33 years he has been in kitchens, is passing on knowledge to someone who is eager to learn.

Taylorson is executive chef at Protea Hotel Kampala. One sunny afternoon in 1983, he tried his hand at cooking and to this day he has not left the kitchen. He does not regret staying. With his mastery in the kitchen, he has travelled the world.

“The good thing about coming to new places is being able to dispense knowledge, that something somewhere is stuck after 33 years,” he says. He went on to marry a fellow chef.

“Chefs should marry chefs because they will understand when you go home after 15 hours,” he explains. He rates Ugandan produce as good.

“People everywhere are more or less the same but what is amazing about Uganda is your produce. Your fruit is mind-blowing. The small bananas here are the best bananas I have ever eaten anywhere in the world. Even my son who hates fruits says the fruits are the greatest. There is not a lot of GMO here.

Your beef is great and the lake fish is very good. And when it comes to food, I have fallen in love with kalo (millet bread) and luwombo (sauce prepared in banana leaves),” Protea’s executive chef explains.
Easter tip: Taylorson advises that the best food you can ever have is your mother’s cooking. If not, try something that you have not eaten in a long time.
In his other life: He loves reading, sipping beer. His favourite local beer is a Nile Special lager.

Vinz Leth Karlsen, Executive Chef, Sheraton Kampala Hotel

He has hardly been here for two months. It is Leth Karlsen’s first time in Africa and his first impression of Uganda was the beautiful weather and the friendliness of the people.

“In my first week, everyone was warm to me. They greeted me. We have a saying in my country that people reflect the country’s weather and I agree that it is warm here. I have worked seven years in Asia and six years in Philippines and it was so humid,”
He compares matooke to mashed Irish potatoes and with it, he enjoys groundnut sauce which he likens to peanut sauce.

His cut out into professional cooking back in 1989. He was an intern in his home town, Copenhagen, Denmark in a 40-seater restaurant that specialised in French cuisine which is his specialty.

“I’m not only into French Cuisine, I am also into Italian, Mexican, Philippine and more. The most characteristic thing about French cuisine is its simplicity and that is what I love. I try to keep it simple with top quality ingredients and intensity of the taste. I like using butter and I can tell you French food is not diet cuisine,” Karlsen explains.
Top of his favourites is: meat and the passion with which he talks about it proves so.

“I’m impressed with the quality of meat. The quality of meat in Saudi Arabia and Asia cannot compare to Uganda’s, which is tasty because it is grass-fed. American meat is corn-fed. Uganda has a big selection of fruits and vegetables,” he explains.

Easter tip: Meaty. “I like steaks. I would recommend you look for tender steak with fresh vegetables. When cooking, don’t overdo it so that you can retain a good bite and vitamins. Add butter or oil to the meat for taste and to raise temperature. If you choose pork or any meat, buy the cartilage, with some bone. You can put some lemon grass in it and brush it with milk for crispiness.”
Away from cooking: He enjoys an ice cold Nile beer. He has a passion for cars and precisely Subaru Impreza. He is a family man with two children.


Ali Matano Mwakulonda, Executive Chef, Speke Resort Munyonyo

He responded to a job advert in 2001 and was taken on as head chef of Speke Resort Munyonyo’s Stables Restaurant Kitchen. Ali Mwakulonda’s signature dishes are seafood and Italian. But that is at work.
Off duty, he craves Ugali (posho), fish with sukuma wiki vegetable toppings.

“This is my favourite dish because I grew up in Mombasa, on the South Coast in Diani where I also started my work as a chef,” he recalls.

He has been at it since 1989 when he was 22 years old. He worked in three properties run by Diani before moving on to Windsor. This Easter, he has drawn a menu that will include something for everyone.

Easter tip: Preparation of oven roast chicken. You will need oil, garlic, rosemary leaves, mustard, paste and paprika powder. You will mix those ingredients and use them to marinate the chicken. Add salt and pepper for taste and roast the chicken for 20 minutes at about 200˚C.

You can have the roast chicken with matooke or sweet potatoes,” Matano recommends.