The singular vision behind London’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Ikoyi

It started with jollof rice. As much as I hate to give the algorithm credit, it has a way of driving new restaurants or chefs into your consciousness. Which is how I came across Ikoyi on Instagram: a critically acclaimed restaurant in central London, named after a suburb in Lagos, where the signature dish appeared to be a unique take on jollof rice.

I started following the chef, Jeremy Chan, and discovered he wasn’t Nigerian, or African at all, but born in Hong Kong to a Canadian mother and Cantonese father. He also studied in the USA before settling in Britain. Now that’s third-culture cuisine, I thought, right? (I was wrong.)

This was long after Jamie Oliver’s fateful publishing of his jollof rice with vine-ripened tomatoes and lemon in 2014. And even after our own Instagram-bashing when we posted Mogau Seshoene’s “personal take” on the treasured dish back in 2020. It seemed so unlikely, in these times of cultural protectiveness and sensitivity, that I was curious. So, the next time I was in London I took the Tube to Embankment, braved the tourists thronging up the Strand, and located Ikoyi behind a wall of sleek panelling and discreet signage. There was no lamppost, but it felt very much like entering a parallel, fantasy realm.

 

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Ikoyi is… many things, including closed on weekends

I should mention that Ikoyi has two Michelin stars. It is on the World’s 50 Best list and has one of the more expensive tasting menus in London. (It is also closed on weekends.) The interiors feel like a mid-century space-movie set – copper-clad walls, bespoke oak and caramel leather and light ingeniously filtered through steel mesh curving up from the windows and covering the ceiling. It is owned by Chan, 37, and his business partner and childhood friend Iré Hassan-Odukale, who is Nigerian. But, after eating 12 astonishing courses there, I can confirm that it is not a West African restaurant.

“We are never going to get away from it,” Chan says. “We just have to accept it.” I’m asking about the expectations of his customers, when, aside from the “nod” to jollof rice (which isn’t how Chan wanted to name the dish) and quite a few West African spices, there is nothing about the menu that references anyone cuisine at all.

“We don't follow other trends,” he says. “We don't follow other restaurants. We don't copy ideas. We create our own ideas. You’re always seeing something unusual and unique because I want to make something very personal, something uncompromising and special, that no one has experienced before.”

Micro-seasonality: the Ikoyi menu changes every day

The menu is built around micro-seasonality and changes every day, with the exception of the jollof rice, which is cooked in a burnt broth, smoked to order and laced with a seafood custard – the day I ate at Ikoyi, it was lobster.

Chan is openly fixated on the produce coming into Ikoyi. He shows me WhatsApp messages from his beef supplier in Cornwall who has sent him the dates on which animals were slaughtered so he can track the ageing and know when certain cuts will arrive. “They hand pick ribs for us and age them for up to five months,” he says, amused by his own enthusiasm, “And then they drive them up here in the middle of the night.”

These ribs, along with several kinds of fish and game birds, are suspended in copper-framed glass cabinets near the entrance, quietly ageing their way towards becoming dinner. It’s an important statement about Chan’s food philosophy. “It's all about the produce,” he says of his work. “It's all about getting produce into the kitchen and cooking it – that’s my whole life. But I don’t think about it as work, that’s the thing.”

The produce combinations at Ikoyi are like nothing I’ve ever experienced, but also not in the least contrived. Squid is cooked in wine and topped with fermented rice and shavings of truffle; brick-red spiced smoked octopus is lined up with an identically spiced sorghum crêpe filled with collard greens and a Montgomery cheese fondue; a perfect Orkney scallop is served with Japanese brinjal and peppery leaves; aged pork is hidden beneath a wafer of air-light pork skin, with mulberries, peach and grits. And then there is a perfect wedge of vegetable marrow, cooked confit-style in tomato water, glazed with invisible spices – flavours of shiitake mushroom and tonnato – and served with a sunshine-yellow polka dot of melon-and-hazelnut milk. It was a highlight for me, because it looked so simple and was so fresh, yet rich with umami and unexpected depth.

“That is exactly what I’m about,” Chan says, looking gratified, “making something incredibly complex but unknown and unseen. I think a lot of people want to put all their skill on the plate, but my dishes are not like that – it’s all done in the cooking and the layering.”

Inspiring Ikoyi: more about chef Jeremy Chan

“What I do here is all self-taught,” says Chan. “I started with very little knowledge of cooking and we built up the restaurant.” But you only need to spend ten minutes in his company to understand that, for this extraordinary chef, the acquisition of knowledge is a bit like breathing. He has an honours degree from an Ivy League university, speaks six languages and has worked with Claude Bosi, Heston Blumenthal, and René Redzepi. He’s about as knowledgeable as a self-taught chef can get. When I talk about him to other chefs – Tom Kerridge for one – they describe him as someone who stands apart.

“I have a psychotic memory and a very specific sense for details – in people and moments in my life,” Chan says of his influences. “All of that is a bank for what goes into Ikoyi.

 

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“It’s emotion and this invisible kind of energy that I have to create to expand my customer base. I need to be drawing people in from around the world. And what draws them in is an aura of intensity. And passion. That’s what drives me. I am striving to create an aura of intensity and passion; and real craftsmanship and originality. I use cooking as a way of taking everything inside me and flame-throwing it out into the world.”

I wonder about the personal cost. When we speak on a video call a few months later, he’s in the midst of prep and visibly tired. He describes the work as “exhausting” and “not necessarily fun, but it’s something I have to do. There's nothing else I want to do. Cooking is my way of channelling emotion – passion and joy and sadness and frustration… Sometimes I feel very numb as a person,” he says, “I feel like my body and my mind is a husk, it’s all getting put into the food.”

I mention the “cherry cola” dessert that I ate and so much enjoyed at Ikoyi because it has stuck in my memory, and his expression lifts as he realises he’s succeeded. He has reached into the senses of a total stranger and made them feel something.

“That is one of the best dishes I’ve ever made,” he says. “The combination of the smoked aubergine and cherry and liquorice and the cream thickened with dried mushrooms and vanilla and the acidity … you just don’t think of these things together, but it works.

“I love that dish because it was inspired by a moment in my life where I was trying to recapture the feeling I had when I first got excited about cooking.”

I can relate. It’s like trying to fall in love again. It is the feeling you get when you have the germ of an idea and know that it could be great; that shiver of anticipation. It is so fleeting, so hard to describe, but so pleasurable – like the perfect bite.

Follow Ikoyi on Instagram at @ikoyi_london; chef Jeremy Chan is at @jeremychanikoyi

Photographs: Irina-Boersma