Adejoke Bakare Makes Culinary History as First Black Female Michelin-Starred Chef in the UK
According to the Michelin Guide, The Michelin Star is given to restaurants with dishes with a distinct flavor and top-quality ingredients. Michelin Stars are awarded by a team of Michelin Guide inspectors who visit restaurants in around 40 countries as anonymous customers.
The Award is given to chefs and restaurants who can maintain high standards consistently. On Monday, February 5, 2024, Chishuru, a UK-based restaurant founded by the Nigerian chef Adejoke Bakare, was one of 18 Michelin-starred restaurants, making her the first black female Michelin-starred chef in the United Kingdom, and the second in the world.
Adejoke Bakare earns this prestigious award for running a restaurant offering food with exceptional culinary skills. BusinessDay sums up Bakare’s skills with comments from critics in the UK. Jay Rayner, a well-known food critic and BBC reporter, characterized Bakare's cuisine as "full of heat, vigour, and zest." Jimi Famurewa, a British journalist and culinary critic, described his visit to Chishuru last October as a "containment facility for the whirring dynamo of Bakare's blazing, intuitive talent."
Bakare grew up in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, with a Yoruba mother and an Igbo father, which influenced her culinary career. Bakare's earliest memories of food include watching her maternal grandmother prepare traditional East Nigerian street food such as dodo Ikire, and as the oldest child, she was responsible for cooking for her siblings, which she never saw as a chore as her deep love of food grew.
She said in an interview with The Guardian that her passion for food and cooking began at the age of 11 when she began collecting cookbooks, but she was advised to pursue more professional opportunities. Despite her love, Bakare finally moved to the UK to study microbiology at university, as she considered Cooking to be nothing more than a hobby. She worked in the health industry before moving on to a London-based property company. Cooking remained a hobby until she was persuaded by her friends to start a supper club.
Bakare won the Brixton Kitchen competition in 2019, which led to the first opening of her restaurant, Chishuru, in Brixton Village. Bakare, who had never worked in a professional kitchen before, chose to stage at another well-known restaurant, Ikoyi, to gather experience. After an interrupted year due to COVID, she finally opened her Brixton Village restaurant Chishuru in late 2020.
Chishuru's West African food grabbed the interest of Brits and consumers who grew up in regions of West Africa, it has achieved exceptional recognition for its distinctive and diverse menu. Bakare's recipes helped her brand become well-known. She has been featured on Great British Chefs and named one of the top 100 restaurants in the UK by the National Restaurant Awards.
Chishuru swiftly outgrew Brixton Village, and in 2023, Bakare moved her restaurant to a larger location in Fitzrovia. The restaurant only serves a set menu, priced at £75 for dinner and £35 for lunch. Chishuru's lunch menu includes fermented crispy rice cake with smoky, meaty mushrooms, creamy and light corn cake with fragrant coconut, date, and tamarind sauce, and grilled breadfruit. For dinner, the restaurant serves moi-moi, pepper soup, asun, and imoyo (Newlyn cod filet, fermented tomato sauce, Scotch bonnet, okra).