The life of a restaurateur isn’t easy at the best of times. Trying to bring something new to the table only makes it harder. But Ashley Vola had no choice with her eatery Vola Foods, which is bringing the flavours of her home country, Cameroon, to Brunswick.
“I’ve never been a follower,” she tells Broadsheet. “Everyone’s always trying to do the same thing – that’s not my goal in life.”
Vola was born in the west-central African country and raised in the UK and Australia – in a large family of “strong women that worked hard”, she says. Inspired by the tenacity of her grandmother and aunties, Vola knew from a young age that she wanted to forge her own path in the food industry. So, she set out to champion all that Cameroonian food – a lesser-known cuisine for many Melburnians – has to offer.
But that was seven years and countless hurdles ago. Despite Vola’s relentlessly positive demeanour (she has an infectious smile), ongoing barriers – particularly around securing a location – left her ready to throw in the towel.
“I got to a point a few years ago where I was like, ‘I’m done with this country,’” she says. “I took all my savings, packed my bag and went to Africa for the first time since I left.”
In an unlikely turn of events, revisiting her home country after 17 years reignited Vola’s passion for cooking. And being invited to appear with her sister on TV show Plate of Origin, where Aussies cook the cuisines of the world, gave her a good excuse to come back.
Shortly after the show wrapped, she took over her current site on Ovens Street, which was an empty, overgrown lot in those days. Now, it’s an expansive, purpose-built space with covered open-air seating, an orange converted shipping container that Vola does most of her cooking and prep from, and a charcoal grill beside it where she cooks Cameroonian soul food such as roast chicken and Borning fish (which Vola cooks whole, bones and all).
“That’s how we do it back home, so I’m going to do the exact same thing in Australia,” she says. “I try my best to do it as traditional as possible.” And she says it’s inspiring others to do the same: “I’m grateful, because since I did this, a lot of African people are starting to do this.”
Vola spices her dishes with hard-to-find native ingredients like pebe (similar to nutmeg) and njangsa (an oily seed used for flavouring and thickening) brought back from Cameroon.
Whole grilled proteins are accompanied by a variety of starches – fried sweet plantains and cassava, tomato-dyed jollof rice, and charred corn slathered in house-made chilli. There’s also puff puff, a dish of traditional fried dough balls that can serve as a side or a dessert.
On the site’s perimeter, Vola has two other shipping containers that she’s fitting out into a permanent toilet and, eventually, a licensed bar. “We have a long way to go but I’m doing what I can,” she says. “I put so much love in my food and the rest will look after itself.”
Vola Foods 30 Oven Street, Brunswick
Hours: Wed & Thu 12pm–9pm Fri & Sat 11am–10pm Sun 11am–9pm