“Rwanda is an avant-garde country and it feels like the African future is here now,” says Congo-born, German-raised Dieuveil Malonga, who travelled to as many as 50 African nations before settling on Kigali for his Afro-fusion food project, Meza Malonga, which featured on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2022. “We’ve had 20 years of miraculous green growth,” says Tanzanian model and Kigali local Winnie Kalisa. She opened Laini ceramics studio in 2019 in the Kimihurura district, near Choose Kigali and the studio of Afro-futurist fashion designer Moses Turahirwa. “Now, it feels like anything is possible.”
Designer Moses TurahirwaAndrew Urwin
Kigali creators to watch
The fashion futurist, Moses Turahirwa
“Rwandans have an innate creative eye,” says the statuesque 32-year-old designer, a trained civil engineer who studied an MA in fashion at Florence’s prestigious Polimoda. “We grow up surrounded by beauty.” His non-gendered couture pieces are structurally based on fluid, unisex Rwandan drapery and cleverly reference Bantu culture. The use of premium sustainable textiles, botanical dyes and recycled cow horn helped him win the Designer of the Year award for Africa at the 2022 Abryanz Style and Fashion Awards. moshions.rw
Chef Dieuveil MalongaAndrew Urwin
The revolutionary chef: Dieuveil Malonga
Dieuveil Malonga’s baseball cap and cheeky grin belie his steely commitment to changing the global image of Afro-fusion cuisine. His tasting menu at Meza Malonga – where he also trains chefs – features pan-African botanicals, pre-colonial matriarchal recipes and produce grown in his seven-acre allotments on Lake Ruhondo, near the Volcanoes National Park. On these volcanic soils, he is opening a second food project with rooms, featuring guest appearances from members of his 4,000-strong Chefs in Africa association, cementing the agricultural Musanze district’s status as a farm-to-fork hub. mezamalonga.com
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