A Cook Islands couple is expanding their business from umu making and shows to opening a café, hoping to bring the authentic taste of local food to the modern culinary scene.

Ngametua Mamanu and Mania Clarke-Mamanu started their umu business six years ago and after a successful journey, they decided to take their passion for cooking to another level by opening the Arorangi-based Tumutoa Local Café.

They will be making most of the recipes using local produce, replacing milk with coconut cream, using fresh fruits and vegetables from the land, and introducing umu burger to add to their menu.

“We love the café, we’ve been talking about it for some time because I love cooking, it’s my passion, the same thing I do with the umu for our guests and that’s why we thought we’ll have the café,” Mamanu said.

“And not just the café, we’re trying to put our food together in a little bit of local theme and not just to compete with everybody.

“We try and balance it out, not everything is always going to be local but at the local food, we’re trying to keep it there to see if it is being straight up and being honest about it.”

Tumutoa Local Café, also known as the TLC Café, opened earlier this week in Arorangi with four new staff, including two chefs. They are selling a range of coffee flavours, smoothies, food and sweets, right next to their famous umu experience business.

Clarke-Mamanu added that they had the privilege of opening their café after being the first to make umu pies. They started making these pies because they prepare umu with their guests on Mondays and Thursdays, which inspired them to create a umu chicken pie, a umu pork pie and a maniota pie for vegans.

“So now they can have it in pie and they’ll have it in a burger as well so that’ll probably happen next week. So we love our point of difference as well as an extensive coffee range and then we’ve got ice drinks too,” she added.

“And we’ve done takes on our own coffees as well. We’ve got for example the coconut iced latte because friends of ours said we used to not have milk so I really thought about what are some coconut milk recipes and we’ve come up with our own ones.”

Clarke-Mamanu said the café had been a vision for many years, “at least six”.

“I think for me the confirmation really just came this year when we were looking at it and for me a real vision from God,” she said.

“I think the name TLC which is who we are and my husband is keeping it local but also, we could take the acronym TLC and look at just that whole ‘tender loving care’ and just moments for people to chill and relax.”

The couple is optimistic about creating an atmosphere where people can simply come in peacefully and enjoy their time, savouring the taste of local food blended with modern culinary elements at the café.

Another goal for the couple is to provide local employment through their business, helping their community through their passion.