In February this year, Nigerian-born Adejoké Bakare won a Michelin Star for her restaurant Chishuru in London, becoming the first Black woman in Britain to do so. Daniel Neilson spoke to the chef about her journey from running a food stall in Brixton to earning the highest food accolade in the world. 

Firstly, congratulations on the Michelin Star. 
Thank you so much. It was a shock!

Was a Michelin Star something you aspired to? 
No, I’ve never aspired to it. For a chef, it’s always been a thing to attain background, but coming from my background, doing the kind of food that I do, I didn’t think we would be looked at in that manner at all. So it came as quite a shock. 

What was the ethos behind the food when you opened Chishuru? 
The food I cook in this location has always been the style I cooked when I was in Brixton; it’s always been food that I grew up eating. We’re using more seasonal British produce, but we’re getting to the heart of it. The food is authentic, or what my version of authenticity is. My parents come from different parts of Nigeria, so the food has always been an amalgam of those parts. Even though we’re one in Nigeria, we’re quite separate in how we eat. I wanted to introduce people to that way of cooking. We set out to make my food in its fullness, not specifically from a region. It’s Nigerian food.   

How did you develop the menu? 
I wanted to make it more modern, but the flavours are still what they’re supposed to be. If a dish requires one of the fermented spices, such as irú or dawadawa, these are the flavours at the heart of the dish itself. I never want to lose sight of that. 
    
Where did you grow up in Nigeria and how did your upbringing inform your taste?
I was an Army brat, so we moved around quite a bit! We mostly lived in the north, in Lagos, Jos, Kano, and Kaduna, and then moved to the UK. I grew up watching my mum because I was the eldest, and you are expected to do stuff like that. I’m really fortunate that my maternal grandfather loves to cook, which is very common. My paternal grandmother sold street food, and whenever we’d visit, I grew up helping her. My love of food grew from there, and I’ve always been fascinated by food, fascinated with how things come together and form something else. I started collecting cookbooks when I was 10 or 11 because I loved cooking. And I get excited when I see ingredients. 

When did you decide that cooking for other people was what you wanted to do? 
I started a supper club for a short while, and that didn’t pan out because it was such a lot of work and I’d given up on it and then a friend of mine showed me an ad for a competition which I won, and I got a space for three months. That didn’t materialise until COVID hit, but then a space in the market became available. It was a dream come true, a chance to prove the idea. I left work and gave it all I could. I was coming in around 7.30 every morning and not leaving until about 11. 

It’s worked out pretty well for you! 
I’ve been blessed. We’ve just connected with a community that really loved what we’re doing and was very supportive. London is the best place to have done something like this. There are loads of people who are quite discerning and very adventurous as well. We hit that small niche of people wanting something more authentic. It’s been a journey since Brixton, I have to say. 

West African food is no longer a trend; it’s just about the mix of food that people want to try in London. Is that your experience? 
The kind of guests that we have coming into the restaurant runs the gamut from retired ladies who do lunch to us being a place where families come and take their grandparents out. There are young people who are always looking for something new. I think it is reasonable to say we are a slight slice of what London looks like when you come in any one night. 

And do you get back to Nigeria often? 
Actually, I’m just about to take my chefs to Nigeria. We’re going to Lagos and Abuja. I would have loved to go further up north, but we can’t at the moment. They’ll be able to see the difference between the food of the South and the food of the North.