African

Akoko: Broad horizons

Akoko: Broad horizons

It’s a difficult feat for any restaurateur to pull off. Intrepid diners constantly want to be surprised by the novel, to boast that they are eating cutting-edge, boundary-pushing cuisine. The sub-Saharan African dining scene, especially at the high-end, has been long-neglected in London. It also provides a fertile ground for experimentation, where even more seasoned and sceptical diners such as your reviewer can be impressed. Look no further than Akoko.

Stork: Long journey

Stork: Long journey

The stork, after whom this restaurant is named, is famous for the long distances (up to 2,000 miles) that it can travel. That’s an impressive achievement and so is the ambition of the backers behind Stork, whose aim is to bring the joys of both African food and its broader culture over many miles to other cities. While the concept is laudable, your reviewer felt that Stork remains on a journey. To continue the bird metaphor, great you’ve travelled so far, but now you seem a bit tired to perform.

Enish: A taste of Nigeria

Enish: A taste of Nigeria

Do you know your egusi from your abula? This reviewer certainly didn’t and had only once previously tried anything close to Nigerian food. That was almost four years ago in an over-priced and far from authentic restaurant in St James. Fortunately, this gap in Gourmand Gunno’s culinary knowledge was recently rectified after the kind offer of a Nigerian friend to take me to his ‘local’ in the far reaches of south east London. It’s certainly worth the ten-minute train ride to Lewisham from London Bridge for a taste of what Nigeria has to offer.

Ikoyi: Jollof cuisine – not the next big thing (November 2017)

Part of the beauty of the London dining scene is that there is a plethora of choice. Like the citizens of this city, there is huge diversity. However, the darker side of the city’s culinary dynamism is that it is relentlessly Darwinian: if you don’t get it right, you will fail. The statistics bear this out: some 50% of central London restaurants shut within a year of opening. I fear Ikoyi may be one of them.