March is for All Women: Warda Bouguettaya
Warda Bouguettaya is Chef of the Year, Detroit Free PressBy: Emily Devereaux/Arab America Contributing Writer
What is home? To many people, this answer will vary. Sometimes home is a place, or land, or even a group of people. Wanda Bouguettaya, who was born in Alergia, has had many places to call home. However, what sets her apart is the way she fashioned flavors of her three homes into pastries to share with the Detroit community. Recently, she was recognized by the Detroit Free Press as Chef of the Year, 2020.
Algerian Roots
Oran, Mosaic North AfricaBouguettaya was born in Northwest Algeria. Her hometown, Oran, is located on the seacoast of Algeria and is a close neighbor to Morocco. The city is considered to be the second most important in Algeria, just following the capital Algiers. Nicknamed the Radiant, Oran is a commercial and industrial city. It is also a cultural site.
At the age of twenty-one, Bouguettaya decided to move to Detroit, to follow her love. Her husband, Mohamed, took a job in the automotive industry and his first post would be in Michigan.
Combined Experiences
Although there is not much information on Bouguettaya’s first venture into Detroit, one can only imagine how difficult it must have been to move across the world and away from your family. She described patisserie as a way to relieve her homesickness. By baking, she was able to capture moments from her life in Alergia.
However, Mohamed was on the move for work again. Warda followed, but this time the couple was headed to Shanghai, China for three years. In Shangai, Bouguettaya enrolled in the prestigious Paul Bocuse Institute. She initially practiced in the cooking curriculum. However, she fell in love with working with pastries, especially French pastries.
She decided to reshift her focus toward baking, which was her newfound passion.
Resettling in Detriot
At the end of their time in Shangai, Warda and Mohamed resettled in the Detriot area in 2016. Her experiences at the Paul Bocuse Institute made her path purposeful; she planned to open up her own cafe’. She began the process by setting up a booth of her own at the Corktown Farmers Market.
Her studies have her a knack for top-tier French-style pastries; however, her roots were in Algerian bread and pastry skills that she learned from time in the kitchen with family members. She even gained skills from her three years living in China, where she learned how to add elements of her experiences there. Therefore, it was no surprise that her typical menu would include all of these elements!
Opening Warda Patisserie
Algerian pastries called dziriyet from Warda Pâtisserie, Warda Pâtisserie InstagramIn late 2018, she opened Warda Patisserie in Detroit’s Eastern Market, where she shares a counter with an art gallery and cafe’ there. Her pastries became increasingly popular, and many people enjoyed her Algerian pastries to be enjoyed with afternoon tea, savory Swiss chard and leeks, and fruit tarts.
In her work, Bouguettaya uses locally sourced ingredients to support farmers in the area. She also tries to make the pastries in its most traditional form, which may be new to some people that have never tried Algerian pastries. She says, “The ingredients might be a little different here in the U.S. than the ones we get in Algeria, so it can never be 100 percent traditional, but I’m just trying to get people excited about something they don’t know.”
Earning Chef of the Year
Warda Patisserie, SaveurMark Kurlyanchik, of the Detroit Free Press, began his work as a food critic for the publication in 2016. Since he has begun his role, he aimed to recognize more people and places, specifically from communities that have been historically overlooked. It’s easy to identify Eurocentrism in many American food critics and preferences; therefore, recognizing Arab chefs for their excellence helps break down the barriers and shows everyone that differences are good.
This year, Kurlyanchik named Bouguettaya as Chef of the Year, due to her excellence in pastries. She expresses her thoughts on her experiences and her work, saying, “there is definitely not one identity to the patisserie. It’s just the inspiration of all these places combined in one space.”