Ikoyi wins the American Express “One To Watch Award” 2021 by World 50 Best Restaurants

London based but African-inspired restaurant, Ikoyi, has won the American Express “One To Watch Award” 2021 by World 50 Best Restaurants.

The American Express One To Watch Award recognises a restaurant considered to be a rising star on the global dining scene and aims to celebrate gastronomic excellence and innovation.

Opened in 2017 by childhood friends and co-founders, Jeremy Chan and Iré Hassan-Odukale, Ikoyi distinguishes its dishes by introducing new and original ingredient combinations with a focus on sub-Saharan West Africa culture.

Some of the dishes include plantain caramelized in ginger and kelp with uziza jam, or squid with smoked Scotch bonnet and fermented rice, or Poppy Seed Waffle, Truffled Aged Beef & N25 Caviar. Of course, one must not forget smoked Jollof. Ikoyi explores ingredients such as Grains of Selim, a smoky peppercorn with the scent of eucalyptus, plantains and scotch bonnet chillies, which they ferment, burn and pickle. The restaurant builds its own spice-based cuisine around British micro-seasonality: vegetables slowly grown for flavour, sustainable, line-caught fish and aged native beef.

Jeremy, the chef is half Chinese and half Canadian but was born in the north-west of England while Iré is a Nigerian who spent his early childhood in Nigeria but moved to the UK as a teenager, and has been based in London ever since.

“This is the first year where we’ve reached a level where I feel like I’m actually a chef. The last four years, I felt like an apprentice in my own kitchen. I’ve been learning just by teaching myself things and learning my own voice,” say Chan. “We originally looked into the idea of a Nigerian restaurant. But I realised it’s not my story to tell, and the restaurant needed to be part of both of our DNAs, not just one specific culture. So that’s why we decided to start looking at it from the perspective of ingredients and use the fact that we’re located in Britain, which is a country of incredible produce. We can learn a lot from each other’s backgrounds and cultures and feed that into our interpretation of seasonality in this country.”

The award seeks to recognise outstanding emerging culinary talent and fresh experiences. Previous winners include Lido 84 in Italy (2019), SingleThread in the US (2018), Disfrutar in Barcelona (2017) and Den in Tokyo (2016). 50 Best will announce the list of restaurants ranked from 51^st to 100^th in the annual vote on 23^rd September, ahead of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants being announced on 5^th October.