With recent events, however, it seems that this is set to change, and it has got us wondering: is 2023 the year of the Nigerian cuisine global takeover?

Can African dishes be considered haute cuisine?

When we say haute cuisine, the focus is less on the classic French definition as it is on the dishes that incorporate its principles.

Back to the question above, you would probably say yes, but the reality is different. Most top culinary schools do not focus on African foods and ingredients, and, even when they do, there is usually no in-depth exploration of their capabilities. It is probably why African dishes are not considered fine dining, and also why you may be hard-pressed to find restaurants, whether top or mid-range, that include them in their menus.

Yet, as chefs like Chef Moyo and dining establishments like the Itan Test Kitchen are showing, our African dishes are as haute cuisine as they come, and it is only a lack of knowledge about their possibilities that has restricted their reach and adoption by non-African and even African chefs.

Until now.

Hilda Baci and the making of a world record

When Hilda Baci decided 5 years ago to break the Guinness World Record for the longest cooking marathon by an individual, her goals were simple: “Put Nigerian cuisine on the map [and] … inspire young African women to chase their dreams.”

Not even she could have fathomed the reach her cook-athon would have: by day 2, her official cook-athon handle announced that over 1 million people had live-streamed the event. On day 3, not only had it started streaming on DSTV, a popular satellite TV service in Africa but organisers also had to close the gates of the venue to visitors as it had reached full capacity.

yeah, so this is our best performing tweet of all time with nearly 25 million news feeds reached https://t.co/iGBDw0qdLK

— Guinness World Records (@GWR) June 15, 2023

Upon announcing that she had indeed broken the record, Guinness World Records received so much traffic that they confirmed that their Twitter post announcing her win was their “best-performing tweet of all time,” and also that their “website crashed for two days due to the immense volume of traffic … received from her legion of loyal fans.”

It is safe to assume that the popularity of this single event has definitely caught the attention of chefs from other parts of the world, enough to pique their interest and set them on a path of discovering and exploring African dishes and ingredients.

Chuku’s Nigerian Tapas Restaurant: from Beyoncé’s approval to global dining stage

For Beyoncé, giving a grant to the businesses around the venues of her ongoing Renaissance tour was her way of saying thank you to the communities that welcomed her and showered her with so much love. For Chuku’s, a Nigerian tapas restaurant in north London, the $10,000 grant was the beginning of a new chapter, one that afford them the opportunity to introduce Nigerian cuisine to the world.

Chuku’s is owned and run by siblings Emeka and Ifeyinwa Frederick. It started off as a pop-up in 2016, and following years of success, the siblings decided it was time to move into a building, a decision they actualised in February 2020.

Sadly, their opening coincided with the global coronavirus-induced lockdown, and, in spite of the love they received from their community, they soon began to grapple with soaring costs and shrinking disposable income among their customer base. The struggle to keep their doors open was on, and, by the end of 2022, it was clear that they were running (an increasingly lost race) against time.

And then, the Renaissance Tour came along.

Ahead of her highly-publicised tour, Beyoncé, through her BEYGOOD foundation, had announced that small businesses in cities along her world tour could apply for the Black Parade Route initiative, a fund that highlights and supports small Black-owned businesses. One of the cities was London, and even better, the concert took place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 782 High Road, a few kilometres from Chuku’s 274 High Road address.

Entering the last 6 months of the year after a media STORM >>

ICYMI, news that @Beyonce’s @BeyGOOD foundation has awarded us $10,000 created a bit of a media frenzy last week – with our sibling co-founders @efrederick90 & @Ifey_Frederick featured in a whirlwind of interviews pic.twitter.com/7bv3CAUGOp

— Chuku’s (@chukusLDN) July 5, 2023

The Fredricks wasted no time in taking advantage of this opportunity: they applied for the grant before its April 27 deadline, and quickly spread the word that they would be open even past their normal hours to cater to the Renaissance crowd, encouraging the latter to pre-book and creating a healthy feeling of FOMO around their service.

Their efforts paid off. They sold out their tables, secured the £8000 grant and dominated the headlines of major media outlets in the UK and the US. With the publicity they received, they now have a bigger customer base beyond their local community and the UK.

2023: the breakout year for Nigerian/African cuisine?

It may be a bit of a stretch to think that 2 Nigerian culinary brands whose efforts have drawn more attention to African cuisine translates to global adoption and acceptance. But, this is an excellent step in that direction, and, because of their achievements and those of countless others who continue to introduce our dishes to people of other cultures, 2023 might just be the year you walk into the Waldorf Astoria in say, Dubai, and staring right back at you on the menu is a dish of amala rolls dipped in spicy gbegiri and tomato soup, and topped with mint leaves.

The post Is 2023 The Breakout Year for Nigerian Cuisine? first appeared on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

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But, challenges are never-ending, which is why it would always be a great idea to take advantage of special days to celebrate love, whatever that means to you and whether or not you choose to direct it to someone other than a romantic partner.

So maybe this year’s Valentine’s day may not be the perfect moment for extravagance, but it is definitely a superb time to celebrate the most enduring and universal emotion ever. And, to help you indulge in the beauty of love on this special day, our edit this year is on food, a theme that is just as universal and important.

If, like us, you believe a romantic meal is the best way to say ‘I love you’, check out these delicious ideas curated specially for you

Celebrate your love with The Atije Experience

Chef Moyo is no stranger to ASPIRE, and for good reason. For the Swiss-trained chef, cooking – and by extension, food – is a journey and one she is clearly not afraid to go on.

According to Chef Moyo, the Atije table is where new connections are made and old ones renewed. But for those of us who have sat at it, the table is an expression of love — love of good food and a deep-seated love for the dishes that have nurtured us from birth.

If you’re looking to celebrate your love over a 5-course meal that offers you an experience of Nigerian food like no other, book a seat at Ayanfe, the Atije’s special culinary pop-up for the month of February.

Express love with the chocolate packages from Chocolate Works Gourmet

What do you get when you combine ‘love’ and ‘food’ together?

Chocolate. Yes, we know that it isn’t food food, but the answer nonetheless is chocolates.

This Valentine’s day, express your love in the most creative and sweetest, most decadent,  way possible with a chocolatey-themed gift box from Chocolate Works Gourmet by Chef Oyin. And if you’re feeling a bit more festive, there is the option of adding fresh roses to your order.

Trust us, it does not get more Valentine-y than that!

Spoon Catering

It may not be a destination Valentine for you and your loved one this season, but you can explore different cultures with Spoon Catering Valentine’s menu.

From its shredded duck vegetable wrap to its goat meat & jollof rice croquettes and its charcoal buttermilk chicken roll nori mayonnaise, there is something in each plate promising an experience that transcends whatever location you would be having the meal at.

Although it says February 12^th is the last day for orders, you may check with them here to see if there would be an extension or a suitable alternative.

The post ASPIRE Velentine’s Edit: Say ‘I Love You’ with Deliciously Decadent Dishes first appeared on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

The post ASPIRE Velentine’s Edit: Say ‘I Love You’ with Deliciously Decadent Dishes appeared first on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

“What is Nigerian food exactly? I cannot say that I know. And that is the beauty of our cuisine. We have over 250 ethnic groups, and that means we have over 250 methods of cooking. It might be [that the] asaro from Ijebu is different from [the] asaro in Abeokuta. And those variations really open us up … and it also shows our similarities. We all eat native rice, we all eat zobo, (sic) we all eat asaro in different ways.”

“Nigerians, I think in some ways we can have a sense of unity but when it comes to our food, we can be a bit tribalistic. People are like, ‘Ah! Me I don’t eat amala: what is that black Yoruba food?’ You might think it is not your food, but have you tried it? Have you truly experienced it?”

I first met chef Moyo at the premier Atije Experience pop-up back in May. Like other diners, I was shocked to see everyday dishes take on new forms and different food items, that I would have sworn before that day could not be eaten together, appear on the same plate. For example, the sweet potato puree and the egusi. I have seen the odd mix – egusi and white rice, egusi and bread – but uziza-flavoured egusi and sweet potato puree? That was a definitely first, and the main reason why the Atije Experience exists.

“I think one of our primary goals is just to encourage Nigerians to enjoy our food in different ways. I think Nigerian, West African food, we kind of relegate it to home food, celebration food, but it is not like special food, it is not like fine dining,” explains chef Moyo. “It is like we can all cook rice, we can all do this, but I think it’s opening our minds – including myself – to see that Nigerian food has more potential.”

Since Awari, Ms Odunfa has gone on to host two other food tasting events – Asiri and Ajowa. For now, she is focused on these pop-ups, which happen every 4-6 weeks, rather than on opening or running a traditional restaurant. “I guess in a sense, [what I do] is not very common, but I think it is something that a lot of chefs do. Even if I were to open a restaurant, I don’t think it would be typical. I think I would still want to do like a set menu. We might have different types of set menus, maybe for different days, or maybe like lunch versus dinner … but I don’t think it will be the regular ‘oh, let’s choose something off the menu.’ I think we would still use this concept because I really enjoy doing it.”

Moyo may have fallen into some sort of routine for the culinary pop-ups at the Atije Experience, but the challenges she faces in bringing people together to discover Nigerian food in a whole new way have not abated in any way.

“Nigerians, we love our food [but] if I can just get people to come, that is usually the major [challenge]: convince people to just come. Once they come, we [can] have beautiful experiences together and … show [them] what we do. Because people can be a bit dismissive of Nigerian food like ‘Ah, we know it, we don’t want to go out and eat it.’ So, truly being able to convince people that this is a worthwhile experience for [them is] just something.”

“[In terms of putting together the menu for each experience] having to do a new menu every month can be challenging, it can be interesting, it can be exciting and balance is very key for us. And that is another thing that can be a bit tricky because … let me use Ajowa as an example. To me, I think when we think of asaro, a lot of times, we eat it with fish – smoked fish, dried fish. But initially, I wanted to do the dish with chicken because I wanted to use fish for the main course. But we had to switch that around because we realised that no, this dish is simply eaten with seafood, so we had to keep that there and change the main course to accentuate that. So, even when we start off thinking that this is what we want to do, we realise that no, there has to be balance, everything has to flow. You cannot give people a palate cleanser and then a very spicy and overpowering dessert – the palate cleanser would have had no effect at the end of the day. So, we really try and make sure that everything … makes sense even as a person is eating it.”

“[Lastly], having the faith to put out that menu actually [is another challenge we face]. Because, if I use Ajowa as an example again, the desert was zobo. And it went through so many iterations because we really tried … at the beginning, it kinda tasted like a palate cleanser because zobo can be very light, and we were thinking, ‘ok, how do we make this a dessert? Something that people would actually, you know, want to relish and it’s sweet and all that.’ And, even after the dessert was done, I wasn’t sure that it was the right thing. And people loved it! I couldn’t even believe it! So sometimes, it’s really just that courage to believe that what we’re doing is good enough. What we’re doing is worthy of being experienced. As much as I believe in Nigerian food … there’s a difference between ok I believe in Nigerian food and I believe in my own Nigerian food. Having that faith to say I am putting this out, and I am going to believe that people would enjoy it. I am going to make sure that it is good enough to be enjoyed. And I think with every menu – even menus that we have done before – sometimes it’s just to click that button to say ‘post’ that can be a daunting moment but so far so good, we’re making it work.”

But in the end, the entire process appears to be paying off on both sides. “I think people have been surprised. Sometimes when people come, they’re sceptical. And they say, ‘let’s just go, sebi it’ll be a nice time.’ [But they] are surprised at the amount of networking they have there at that long table because it can be daunting. [But] the ice actually breaks over time, and [they] are surprised that the food tastes how it tastes. Because, they think, you know, in Nigerian restaurants there is a lot of hype. There is a lot of glitz and glamour, and the food might not actually meet up to your expectations. So people are actually surprised that [the] food is actually nice, [it] tells a story and they learn. They go home with new information about Nigerian food. ‘Oh, I didn’t that that dawadawa and iru were the same. I did not know that native rice, Abakaliki rice is also the same as ofada rice but not just fermented’ So that knowledge really really makes a difference, I think.”

“I have [also] learnt a lot! I have learned the importance of having a full overview of this kind of event [which] has been really important. Because for me, I am a chef, but doing this kind of thing, I have to wear so many more hats: to be a sommelier and think about wine pairings; to be an events planner; to be logistics [manager] … everything, too many moving parts at every time and it has taught me the importance of teamwork.”

“When it comes to the kitchen, honestly speaking, it has taught me that there is really no boundaries. This last Ajowa menu, we were trying to play on ileya and ram, and we had to buy a whole ram, so that we could control the parts of the ram that we were cooking. And that for me was something I would have felt afraid of before, but once you set your mind to something, truly truly – and it might sound cliché – but you’ll do it if you have to do it and that just gives you more boldness and courage to do it another time.”

Chef Moyo may be intentional about reintroducing us to our food in ways we did not think possible, but for her, the Atije Experience is deeper than that. The Atije table is the foundation of relationships. And the success it has recorded so far has actually amazed her.

“The networking has surprised me. When people sit on a table, sometimes we’re really privileged to have someone who is like a very engaging person and just draws everybody in. I don’t know, especially Fridays, Fridays can be so … they don’t even want to listen to me talk anymore: they’re talking to each other, they’re sharing about their careers. One time, someone was even playing their song because she was like a musician. I’m so encouraged when I see everyone truly just connecting. And there was even a person who said someone was sitting opposite him at one dinner and he didn’t say a word throughout dinner and he thought ok, he didn’t really want to talk. Later on, he sent a message on LinkedIn saying, I met you here, I would like to connect. You know, and those things, they really, I don’t even know how to say it, they really bring me joy because … that thing of, we’re actually eating together. We can all sit on one table from different walks of life, different tribes, different languages, different cultures. We can all eat together and it has an effect on all of our lives afterwards.”

At the moment, chef Moyo is planning a new pop-up that is set to happen from the 23^rd to the 25^th of September. And this time, the experience is a bit special. “This time last year, we were in a competition called The Kitchen, Nigeria, and I think that was an opportunity to really test out the Atije concept in general, like in public. [Now] we’re bringing that menu back so that people that did not get to experience it then [can do so]. [We’re] bringing it back a bit better, revamping some of the recipes, rethinking them. But still bringing back the same stories and the same essence.”

“So this menu is Atije, literally the original Atije, meaning how we eat. We’re exploring in general how we eat as Nigerians … we have dishes from Calabar, dishes from the South West … things like abula, things like banga and we’re really just bringing … I think a lot of the dishes were really delicious, and we are trying to think of a way to bring it back even better and enable our guests who didn’t know about us then to try it out once again.”

Want to get a feel of what The Atije Experience is? Register for the upcoming pop-up at www.atije.com  or click on the link in the bio of the Atije Experience page on Instagram.

The post At the Atije Table, Chef Moyo Delivers an Elevated Fine Dining Experience first appeared on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

The post At the Atije Table, Chef Moyo Delivers an Elevated Fine Dining Experience appeared first on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

“I think this happens due to a lack of exposure to the diversity and potential of our local ingredients,” explains chef Moyo Odunfa, the brain behind Atije, an African-themed culinary ‘lab’. “In most culinary schools and chef training academies, the focus is on haute cuisine which is based on French cuisine. Even when cuisines of the world are studied, Africa is brushed over. Maybe one class making South African malva pudding, an ‘exotic’ fruit dessert, or chicken Muamba is enough to summarise the cuisine of the continent.”

“This gives professional chefs the perception that French cooking is the epitome of fine dining, and African cuisine does not really have a seat at the table, so it becomes difficult to apply their knowledge to local cuisine and ingredients.”

Up until April 2022, Moyo was sous chef at the Itan Test Kitchen, one of the very few African-themed, fine dining establishments in Lagos, Nigeria. Before this, she had studied culinary arts and international business at The Culinary Arts Academy of Switzerland, and did various internships at Rosewood Hotel, Abu Dhabi, Restaurant Hofke Van Bazel, Belgium and Restaurant Veranda, Belgium.

Usually, the expectation is that chefs with these kinds of qualifications and experience would move on to high-end establishments where the available menu is nothing like Ms Odunfa has been experimenting with since her graduation in 2020.

“ I am inspired by the beauty and bounty of Nigerian cuisine: by the spices, the mixtures, the herbs, the textures,” she says of her decision to work with local ingredients and dishes. “Our food is beautiful, complex, and under-explored. I love Nigerian food because it tells me a lot about who we are as Nigerians. It is as much of an artistic pursuit as it is an anthropological experience. We have so much to offer, so much untapped potential and if I can uncover just a tip of the iceberg, I would be grateful.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why so many chefs are not keen on working with our African cuisine is that we have not successfully found a way to make a lot of our ingredients available in and out of season, thus causing them to constantly change their menu. According to Moyo, this is not the case.

“I don’t think so. We are able to make crops available out of their season; however, it is done on a small scale. We have purveyors who provide locally grown frozen mangoes, passion fruit, strawberries and so on all year long. All over the world … seasonality is seen as a muse for chefs. Cooking with what is in season is a great way to cook sustainably and in sync with the environment. Foods are at their peak in terms of taste and nutrition when they are in season, and I think this is something chefs should leverage.”

“However, other food production issues like varying quality and availability of ingredients even when they are in season can be problematic, but these are issues we need to overcome in order to make our food systems more reliable.”

From May 13 to 15, chef Moyo hosted a small group of friends and guests to Awari, a 5-course culinary experience that was more of a journey of discovery into the true – and largely unexplored – versatility of our food. On the menu were our everyday dishes like egusi, abacha, kunu and even ewa agoyin, and as we sat down to follow Ms Odunfa on this culinary voyage, the silent question on everybody’s mind was, ‘what should we expect?’

As each course was presented to us, followed by a brief explanation of the inspiration for its creation by the chef, nothing in our wildest imagination prepared us for what we got.

There was the familiar Abacha, but rather than the usual paste of potash and palm oil; the traditional garnish of stockfish, vegetable leaves and crayfish, Chef Moyo managed to mix sweet corn, seared chicken thighs, carrots, pepper and plantain chips to give us a dish quite unlike anything of the same name we had ever tasted.

Then there was the main, which frankly, was everyone’s favourite. (In chef Moyo’s words:  “I think the most loved dish was the egusi Ijebu. People who did not like egusi beforehand testified to loving the dish and that made me happy!”) Never before have I tasted Egusi so sweet and spicy, deftly flavoured with uziza (west African black pepper) and served with sweet potato puree, prawns and the softest snail.

People are generally very protective of traditional dishes, and Nigerians are no different – if in doubt, check out the jollof rice wars on social media. The average Nigerian may consider it almost sacrilegious to merge sweet potato and egusi together; that is until they taste Chef Moyo’s dish. Apparently, our egusi, like several other Nigerian foods, has been unfairly restricted all these years when it could have been so much more.

As stated earlier, the fine dining industry is changing, growing every day to accept largely-ignored dishes. In Nigeria and all over the African continent, it appears that this growth started, but slowly. Ms Odunfa is hoping this changes soon.

“I would like to see [more foreign-trained chefs] be more accepting of using local ingredients. We cannot be inspired by the same things, but we can always create beautiful things through what is available to us. In using local ingredients, we are creating the demand that might just be able to bolster the food production industry.”

“People have been quite accepting, especially after tasting [the dishes]. Beforehand though, [they] can be sceptical. Some Nigerians do not understand the point of trying out different interpretations of our dishes- and some foreigners do not think our food can taste as good as it does, but most people change their mind after they taste it.”

She makes a different case for wider adoption of our food in the fine dining scene. As she explains, they bear quite the resemblance with other widely celebrated cuisines from other continents, like “the food of the Caribbean and South America. Dishes like Acaraje from Bahia in Brazil find their root in Nigerian Akara and our Puff-puff is an ancestor of the famous Louisiana Beignet. Rice dishes, okro dishes and maize dishes across the South of the USA are also very similar in taste and constitution to our Jollof rice, seafood okra and the likes.”

“[Another similar, yet not-so-known cuisine our foods bear some resemblance to] is Sri Lankan cuisine. The use of ingredients such as plantain, mangoes, etc, and the general hearty nature of the cuisine is very nostalgic and reminds of food from home. [What we really need to do to put our dishes on a global stage and make them more ubiquitous] is an understanding, appreciation, and celebration of our food culture. Also, giving ourselves the opportunity to explore outside the existing boundaries of our cuisine can lead to creative successes that push the beauty of our food further”

Chef Moyo, who admits that her favourite cuisine to cook and eat is the Nigerian cuisine, hopes that fine dining establishments in the country include African dishes more on their menu while focusing more on the food. “Fine dining is more than just food, it’s a holistic experience, but sometimes we focus so much more on the ambience and entertainment than the actual food. I think this needs to change. At the heart of a restaurant experience is the food and of course, the level of service.”

At Awari, the two – great food and exceptional service – came together quite beautifully. However, what was most remarkable was the fact that the highlight of the experience, the dishes, were not the usual ones we had come to associate with fine dining. Chef Moyo has proven, through Awari, that our African cuisine is just as excellent as any other cuisine from all over the world. Hopefully, more chefs will tow this path and, just like our music, create dishes that are appreciated beyond the continent.

The post ASPIRE Loves: Awari Delivers a Thrilling Epicurean Experience first appeared on Aspire Luxury Magazine.

The post ASPIRE Loves: Awari Delivers a Thrilling Epicurean Experience appeared first on Aspire Luxury Magazine.