Nigerian-American restaurateur and recording artiste JohnPaul Arabome, popularly known as Chef P, is expanding his food business in the United States with two concepts aimed at taking African cuisine beyond the diaspora.

The owner of Jagabans LA and The Peppered Goat in Los Angeles is developing Jerk Ati Jollof, an Afro-Caribbean fusion kitchen, and Aboki & Co., a smoke and suya grill concept.

Unlike his existing restaurants, the new businesses will operate on a smaller scale, with a focus on food delivery and corporate catering.

Chef P said his decision to expand followed the growing demand for Nigerian meals among customers from different cultural backgrounds.

According to him, non-Africans now make up more than half of the customers dining at or ordering from his restaurants.

“You’d be shocked to see that the majority—and I mean more than 50 per cent—of my clientele dining in and ordering takeout are non-Africans and non-Nigerians,” he said.

“We have white, Hispanic and Asian customers coming specifically to experience our food. Egusi soup and jollof especially. And they have fallen in love with these dishes on a very intimate level. I’m serious. It’s wild.”

He said the response to Jagabans LA convinced him that Nigerian cuisine could reach a wider American audience when presented in accessible ways.

Describing himself as a “gastro ambassador”, Chef P said food had become his way of introducing people to Nigerian culture.

“Jagabans showed me that I could do it on a grander scale. It showed me that people loved Nigerian food and that it was my job to lead people to experience our culture through food,” he said.

Rather than place several Nigerian meals under one restaurant, Chef P plans to divide the cuisine into focused concepts that can serve different markets.

“Our cuisine is incredibly vast. If you allowed us, we could carry over 100 items. But then I ask myself: how good are we going to be if we overstretch ourselves?” he said.

“My approach is to fragment the whole into pieces that can serve different purposes.”

Jerk Ati Jollof combines Nigerian jollof rice with Jamaican jerk chicken. Its menu also brings together Nigerian pies, Jamaican patties, zobo and pineapple-ginger drinks.

Chef P said the concept would use familiar dishes to encourage customers to try foods from another culture.

“Someone may initially come because they know jerk chicken, but now you’ve introduced them to jollof. Someone else knows jollof but discovers something from the Caribbean. Food becomes the introduction,” he said.

Aboki & Co. will focus on suya, a popular Nigerian street food made with grilled, spiced meat.

Chef P said he developed the concept after hearing repeated complaints about the quality and authenticity of suya available in the US.

“People would always complain that the suya in America wasn’t authentic suya—and yes, I could see why they were saying that,” he said.

“Aboki & Co. is an attempt to correct that. It’s suya done right.”

The restaurateur recently visited Lagos to source Nigerian spices and cooking tools. He also used the trip to build relationships that could support his businesses in the US.

He said the visit gave him a deeper appreciation of the difficulties African chefs face while operating abroad.

Apart from high labour costs, he identified limited access to authentic ingredients as one of the major challenges confronting Nigerian restaurants in the US.

“American chefs working with Nigerian and African food are doing well considering some of the limitations we face—from access to the exact ingredients we want to the cost of labour and help,” he said.

Chef P said his long-term plan was to build several specialised food businesses instead of one large Nigerian restaurant chain.

“One concept may work beautifully in the corporate market. Another may work as a delivery concept. One might become a franchise because the operating model is simple enough to reproduce. Jagabans can continue doing what Jagabans does,” he said.

Despite the growing interest in dishes such as egusi soup, jollof rice and suya, he believes Nigerian cuisine remains underrepresented in the American food market.

“We haven’t even scratched the surface,” Chef P said.