Chishuru Restaurant, UK

A London restaurant worth shouting about.

The maître’d, Matt casually quips,
“At least we don’t have to step over bodies to get to the toilet anymore.”
Um, sorry, what did you say?
What bodies?
Where was this place?
Kabul ? Aaaaaah Brixton.
We will return to the powder rooms later.

One of the most compelling reasons to eat in London right now is the proliferation of West African inspired restaurants, incredible venues such as Akara, Akoko, Ikoyi, Chuku’s and Stork are enticing weary London diners with an intoxicating modern take on West African food; a set of regional cuisines that were, up until recently, hidden outside their local communities. So, when my favourite waiter at Noble Rot restaurant in Mayfair asserts, "Oh my God, you must go to Chishuru, it’s mind-blowing!”, then only a fool or Gregg Wallace would choose to ignore such an informed suggestion.

Adejoké’s inadvertent journey as a chef is a Masterchef producer’s wet dream. A self-taught cook, she grew up in Nigeria where she operated a fish and chip cart (as you do), whilst studying biological sciences, then 20 years ago,moved to the UK with her family, worked in health and safety and property management before starting a food van outside her church in Southeast London.

Chishuru serves West African inspired food and is located in Fitzrovia on the edge of the West End, but it hasn’t always occupied such a salubrious location, it started in September in 2020 in a Brixton shopping mall as a three month pop up after Adejoké Bakare won a cooking competition. After some great reviews, the restaurant kept popping up in different spaces before finally finding a permanent home in Fitzrovia September 2023 and gaining a star from that prominent tyre company.

The handsome room is bathed in muted terra cotta hues and aqua blue accents, handmade pottery, and colourful vases add vibrancy and warmth, the tables are custom made from pink coloured stone sourced from North Africa. Whilst the space is attractive, the first thing I notice is the ‘founder’s wall’ - it’s like a wailing wall with less weeping and more bequeathing, just inside the door over a hundred names have been inscribed in cursive black print. It’s at this point that I start chatting with Matt Paice, the co-owner. Apparently when Matt and Adejoké decided to move from Brixton (site of the life-threatening latrines), they had to think of creative ways to finance the building of their new restaurant. Cue, the “don’t ask what your restaurant can do for you, but what you can do for your restaurant” moment. Loyal customers bought dining vouchers in advance to help the cash flow, other friends and clients donated money, and in exchange they were added to the founder’s wall.

Remember back to when people helped each other? When their only return on their investment was the simple unadulterated joy in seeing someone else realise their dream? No? Neither do I.
But the Chishuru story does offer a sliver, a minuscule, tiny ray of promise that there is still hope for all of us.

Apart from being a gracious host, Matt has also worked out how to make okra, that hideously gummy mucus laden, thorny green bullet, edible. Put it in a martini.
Brilliant. Although to be fair, you could add puffer fish sperm to a martini, and it would still walk out the door. Martinis tend to have that effect. Unfortunately, I have to pass on the okra martini as my liver function test numbers are increasing at the same expeditious rate that Elon musk is procreating. An alarming number for everyone.

Lunch at Chisuru is exceptionally good value, the set four course menu is £45 per person with a choice of main course. The food here is mostly inspired by Nigeria, but you can’t really accurately describe Chishuru as a Nigerian restaurant; the food crosses three tribal communities from different areas in West Africa.
Hausa: lots of grilled meat.
Igbo: lots of spice.
Yoruba: lots of heat.
Add a French only natural wine list, gracious service and high-quality British seafood and poultry cooked with passion and skill, and you have a restaurant to fall in love with.

The first dish is 'Sinasir’, a fermented rice cake, arrives all deliciously golden and crusty in the right places, topped with roasted cherry tomatoes, puffed rice, clementine and fennel fronds. It’s a moreish bite of sweet, sour and nuttiness. Adejoké flys the flag for the Make Okra Edible Again movement and coats the tiny green vegetable in a fine crisp batter wedged into an akara (a bean fritter), with fermented rhubarb and candied chillies. Damn you okra! I think I am beginning to tolerate you.

The following dish is titled ‘Asaro’, which translates to yam porridge, originating from the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Adejoké steams a delicate piece of smoked eel, which rests on a purée of luridly yellow sweet potato, crushed yams, pepper relish and broccoli. The eel itself is moist, creamy and rich as it should be, the relish is appropriately vinegary, the starchy yams and sweet potato the ideal foil for the subtly smoky fish. The broccoli tastes disappointingly like broccoli.

The second main course is a char-grilled breast of Guinea fowl served ‘Yassa’ style, a Senegalese dish. The bird is perfectly rested and sliced to reveal a moist texture sitting on a piquant sauce of lemon, caramelised onions and chilli, pickled red onions and steamed bok choy are welcome additions. You must add the set side order of jollof rice, roasted plantain, spiced eggplant and pickles (£7). I am certain that hiding among the pickled carrots, celery and cucumber, was a slice of okra. These two definitely own an okra farm.

The only dessert is fun, simple and flawless: a plate of crisp filo pastry and soursop cream, coffee and tiger nut praline with iru caramel. The dish is essentially a West African interpretation of a classic French mille feuille, soursop is a sour citrus fruit with the texture of banana, the rich and creamy tiger nut (an edible tuber) is grated over the leaves of pastry, the caramel sauce is infused with iru, a fermented locust bean that has a distinctive umami laden flavour. It is a dessert that is familiar and novel.

Chishuru is one of those increasingly rare business relics of the past; an owner operated restaurant; an endangered species that needs saving, which can only happen with our zealous custom and Attenboroughesque devotion. There really is nothing quite like dining at a place where the owners are ever present. There is always that little extra care, the smile is a little wider, the focus a little sharper, the produce has seen a little more love.

Chishuru is that perfect distillation of hospitality: Matt is a wonderful host, he is informed and passionate about West African cuisine; the food is curiously deceptive, some dishes that might be described as “comfort food” are cleverly restrained and nuanced and reveal Adejoké’s supreme skill in deftly combining spice, heat and sweetness.
She is an exemplary chef. The okra whisperer.

The word Chishuru means to 'eat silently’
If that sounds good to you. Go. Quietly.

Chishuru
https://www.chishuru.com/