“African restaurant,” proclaims the Google Maps description of Ikoyi. “We are not that at all!” Chinese-Canadian chef Jeremy Chan warns me when I arrive. What do the gastronomic guides say about it? “Its surprise tasting menu uses premium organic produce from the British Isles, combined with West African spices to create dishes that are as unique and creative as they are bold and balanced,” Michelin indicated after awarding it its second star a couple of years ago. .
We are on the Strand, that iconic street in the London neighborhood of Conven Garden, full of luxurious hotels and high-end dining rooms, the border between Westminster and the City. Chan and his partner Iré Hassan-Odukale came to settle here at the end of 2022, after Ikoyi was revealed as one of the most innovative restoration projects in the British capital at its original location in Saint James Market, near Picadilly. . These two thirty-somethings had just won the One to Watch award given each year by The World's 50 Best Restaurants. Today they occupy position number 35 in the prestigious planetary top.
The son of a Hong Kong lawyer and a Canadian ballet teacher, Jeremy studied Philosophy and Modern Languages at Princeton University, where he added Farsi to his collection of languages. He then took a post-graduate job at a renewable energy investment company. But in 2011 he decided to dedicate himself to cooking, going to train at Noma, Hibiscus or Heston Blumenthal's Dinner. A few years later, he reunited with his childhood friend, Iré Hassan-Odukale, who did not want to follow in his father's footsteps in the insurance sector, and they decided to set up this project together, named Ikoyi in reference to its residential neighborhood. name in the city of Lagos (Nigeria) where Iré spent his childhood before moving to the west of England.
“Our culinary proposal revolves around British micro-seasonality: slowly grown vegetables, sustainable line-caught fish and well-aged native meat,” explains the restaurant's website. “We cook the products in their optimal state, taking advantage of the greatest possible flavor and respecting the true nature of the ingredient. The basis of our menu is a wide collection of spices from sub-Saharan West Africa, selected with the greatest care.”
“Ikoyi was born when Hassan-Odukale asked Chan for help to open a contemporary Nigerian restaurant,” says Patricia Mateos in Jeremy's presentation text for Madrid Fusión 2020. “Given the inability to connect with a cuisine that Chan was not familiar with , make an inspiring trip to Lagos, where some ingredients, the context itself and the intention, are affirmed in their proposal to give birth to Ikoyi.”
In its new location on the Strand, Ikoyi has gained more spaciousness in the dining room and open kitchen, in addition to a sober and minimalist interior design signed by the Danish architect David Thulstrup, which includes walls covered in copper, an original ceiling adorned with a fabric curved metal, as well as light oak furniture and a limestone floor. Everything, according to those daring combinations of ingredients with which Chan creates tasty and apparently simple dishes, which involve not only inspiration, but also a lot of reflection and refined technique.
The customer does not know what the menu will consist of when making the reservation, but the frontal view of three ripening chambers when passing through the door is a good clue as to what will arrive at the table later. There hang ribs and bacon, plucked birds and large fish, headless and cut open to remove bones and viscera. No floral centers, but a declaration of gastronomic fundamentals. Here you come to eat and the product is taken care of.
“Aging begins with two weeks with the whole pieces, to continue for four months already sectioned. It might seem like it is dry, but not thanks to the play of temperatures,” says Jeremy, then goes on to explain this meat maturation procedure, which starts with a high temperature and ends with a lower one, so that the juice is not lost.
The Ikoyi tasting menu costs €300 and is served for dinner from Monday to Friday and also at lunchtime on the latter day. Without knowing it, we had reserved Friday at noon: the best time of the week to see the restaurant with natural light and in its true atmosphere, with numerous customers who know and greet each other. Many will not return to the office that afternoon, so they can peacefully enjoy a meal that easily lasts three hours and in which there is an abundance of ingredients not so common in fine dining such as seeds and cereals, peppers and other spices – in very small doses. controlled –, citrus fruits and nuts.
The sommelier shows us an extensive wine list full of cult labels and bottles from small producers. The house proposes three pairings, with wine, sakes or teas. We opt for a mixed formula and the agape begins.
After some canapés, among which a trout with pepper and a beef rib tartare with citrus emulsion and caviar stood out, we started with a Gola pepper broth – a variety from Sierra Leone – that is more Japanese than African, with its base of dried fish and kombu. We continue with a thin slice of smoked sirloin that is pure umami. The prawns seasoned with egami-buntan zest reveal Jeremy's connection with that farm in Vessières, on the outskirts of Perpignan, where more than 400 varieties of citrus fruits are grown in pots.
Drunken squid with fermented rice. Scallop with Penja white pepper. Sorghum crepe and black beer fondue... Like an initiatory journey, all the dishes reveal a constant search for flavor through more or less intense combinations of contrast or enhancement, with few elements and artisan tableware as a formal counterpoint to plates with conceptual vocation. And there are games of colors and textures, but above all of sapid sensations where earthy and acidic are sometimes mixed, rarely spicy. Beef gizzard with peas. Monkfish with seeds and miso.
Greater lamb with chanterelle sauerkraut, accompanied by the iconic smoked jollof rice. A feast for the senses, but also a recital of author, traveling and avant-garde cuisine!
The desserts follow the same line of recipes that are as satisfying as they are intriguing, highlighting a citrus babá with salted pine, as well as a benne – a variety of Afro-Caribbean fritter coated with toasted sesame seeds –, filled with miso and truffle. Young, high-school service, but nothing corseted. Prices in line with London and with the ambition of a different restaurant, which is without a doubt the most exciting and innovative thing we have visited on the current British scene. It will go further.
