The story
At Kin, chef Hugues Mbenda builds a cuisine of bridges. He works local, seasonal products from Provence and the Mediterranean, then marries them with African ingredients and the techniques he honed in some of France's great kitchens. The result is a deeply personal, author-driven cuisine that earned the restaurant a place in the Michelin guide.
The name Kin is short for Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo where the chef was born and raised. It was there, as a child, that he first fell in love with cooking, watching his mother Jeanne run a small street-food restaurant. Those memories of sharing food are the foundation of everything he does today.
Born in 1989, Mbenda began his formal training at the Lycée Escoffier. After graduating in 2009, he worked in prestigious houses across Paris, Bordeaux, and London, including Taillevent, Apicius, and Le Violon d’Ingres with Christian Constant. He later became chef at Le Céladon, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Nice. In 2021, he opened Libala, a street-food lunch spot in Marseille, before launching Kin in February 2023 with his associate Mathilde Godart.
The menu changes monthly, following the seasons. It is presented as a five-step voyage, priced at 80 €. Recent examples of the chef's African-French cuisine include grilled line-caught fish with a spicy watermelon and pepper condiment, and farm chicken brochettes with Dibi spices, green pepper ketchup, and cassava fries. Desserts might feature a moringa and Granny Smith ganache with cocoa crumble, or a tamarind sorbet with cassava chantilly. A vegetarian version is available with 24 hours' notice.
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