Bala Tounkara opened his Mande Dibi West African BBQ Grill in the southeast Memphis Hickory Hill neighborhood earlier this month.

But that wasn’t quite the plan until pretty recently.

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Tounkara is a chef and restaurateur who grew up in Mali but moved to Memphis roughly 20 years ago, following a brief stop in New York. He was initially looking for a second location for his Whitehaven staple, Bala’s Bistro, a popular blend of traditional West African and American soul foods that first opened in 2019.

“The idea was just to find a location and do the same thing that we have over there,” said Tounkara. “And then I think it was maybe a few months ago, they start talking about this ‘Memphis in May.’”

So at least one good thing has come out of the Great Memphis Barbecue Contest Wars: A rare new and truly novel addition to the rich, crowded Memphis barbecue scene. 

Tounkara and his family of collaborators noticed all the barbecue drama and a proverbial light bulb came on.

“Then we start talking about, oh, you know what? We do lamb dibi already. That’s a form of barbecue,” said Tounkara. “We don’t serve it with the barbecue sauce and stuff like that. So we can do maybe like a West African type of street barbecue.”

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“Mande” essentially means the people of West Africa. “Dibi” is essentially a West African type of grilled meat. So “Mande Dibi” roughly translates as the second half of the new restaurant’s name: “West African BBQ.”

In this case, the redundancy seems necessary: For something this good and previously unavailable, the people need to know. 

In West African street barbecue, as Tounkara describes it, meat is grilled over an open flame by outdoor vendors. Separate vendors will offer fried foods, such as plantains or yams. 

Tounkara’s Memphis spin on West African grilling exchanges the open flame for a safer charcoal grill, but brings what you’d get in Mali from separate outdoor vendors under one roof.

There’s lamb and beef dibi and chicken suya, all chopped into smaller pieces and grilled on the bone for maximum flavor and tenderness, with a herbaceous marinade, lots of onion and jerk and barbecue seasonings.

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What’s the difference between dibi and suya? 

“It’s both the same, both the same,” said Tounkara.

“Dibi” is a word common in Mali, Tounkara’s home country, and Senegal, his wife’s. “Suya” is more common in nearby Cote d’Ivoire. The diversity in terminology is a nod to the range of West Africa.

Where the jerk chicken at Bala’s Bistro is baked, the version at Mande Dibi is roasted as whole chickens on a spit, rotisserie-style. The brisket is smoked. 

In a nod to Memphis-style barbecue, the chicken and brisket are both available pulled into sandwich form, something you’re unlikely to find in Mali. 

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The pulled chicken sandwich is served with a house-made “Memphis BBQ” sauce (which incorporates Tounkara’s jerk seasoning), jalapeno cheese and simmered “yassa” onions. The pulled brisket sandwich comes with spicy onion, pickle and “Mande sauce,” which is a creamy sauce with cilantro, parsley, jalapeno and garlic.

Joining both of those sauces on the table if you eat in at Mande Dibi is a house-made mustard sauce, which a server suggested (correctly!) goes well with the lamb dibi and a red pili pili sauce, which is made with habanero and ghost pepper and is absolutely no joke. 

Sides range from trademark jollof rice, made with tomato paste and “burnt” onion and more spicy here than at Bala’s Bistro, to macaroni and cheese, collard greens, black-eyed peas, plantains, yams and more. 

The home-brew juices and slushes (ginger turmeric, tamarind, hibiscus and others) made at Bala’s Bistro are also available at Mande Dibi.

If the recent drama on the Memphis barbecue scene proved a revelation for Tounkara, his first experience of Memphis barbecue, a generation ago, was a different kind of surprise.

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Tounkara, just getting started in the Memphis-area food scene, was working as a cook at Bally’s casino in north Mississippi.

“When I went to my first orientation, they had us going to the buffet to eat. I see these pork ribs. I was like, ‘Oh, this looks familiar, you look like lamb.’ So I grabbed one and then I ate one, and I went back again and grabbed another one,” said Tounkara. 

“There was a guy that worked there. He’s from Africa. So he saw me come around. He said, ‘Do you know that’s pork?’ I said, ‘No way,’ but it was good. So I still remember that.”

Tounkara is Muslim. 

“We don’t eat pork, but everything else is on the table,” he said.

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Hey, sometimes mistakes are made.

“That was my first experience eating ribs and then also eating something that is mostly regionally from here,” he said.

Now, with Mande Dibi, he’s adding his own spin to the Memphis barbecue scene, sans the ubiquitous-elsewhere pork, blending where he’s from and where he’s at into something new. This is not so much unlike the emergence of Bain BBQ, on the food truck scene and then in Cooper-Young, a couple of years ago, which brought in a Texas style and then blended in.

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Tounkara is no stickler for “authenticity” anyway. He already cooks differently at Bala’s Bistro than he does in Bala’s home kitchen, knowing that, as flavorful as his restaurant food may be, many customers don’t have the palate for the intensity of the home version. 

He’s also seen the food of his native Mali change as more imported goods have become available. Sometimes “authenticity” is not a choice. Cuisines evolve where there are options.

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And, really, how authentic to West Africa is meat on the menu every day?

“You know, as farmers back home, the only time you will see us eating meat is maybe a woman had a baby, a wedding, like a holiday or something happened in the family. That’s when they might kill the lamb or the chicken and stuff like that,” Tounkara said. “But any other days it’s mainly pure vegetables.”

With that in mind, and with Bala’s Bistro very popular among vegans, Tounkara will look to add more vegan and vegetarian options at Mande Dibi over time. (There’s a vegan mushroom sandwich on the menu, in addition to mostly vegan side dishes.)

“You know,” he said. “You can make meatballs with black-eyed peas.”

For now, though, Mande Dibi’s is mostly a place for delicious meats. And Memphis barbecue has a new addition. 

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How about the now rival contests? Will Mande Dibi enter the fray in the Memphis Barbecue Contest Wars.

“Next year!” Tounkara says with a sly smile.

He’s a little busy right now.

“After I settle here? Oh, we are definitely gonna stand up out there for the Memphis barbecue.”

Memo to Memphis in May and SmokeSlam: There’s a new free agent on the scene.

Mande Dibi West African BBQ Grill, 6825 Winchester Road, Ste D, is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. 901-672-8995. mandedibi.com.