I always knew I’d write about a restaurant this week, but I wasn’t really sure which. Last week was unusually full of dinners out, from first visits to Spitalfields’ Noodle & Beer and Dalston’s Mangal II to a long-planned return to Manteca in its Shoreditch site (it’s still alright, but sits somewhere below the hype).
It only took one bite to realise Chishuru was all I could think about writing up. In fact, it was a bite so good we ended up having it twice: at the end of Joké Bakare’s £65-a-head tasting menu we promptly ordered the crisp sinasir rice cake again before the kitchen could close.
I say ‘we’ - of course I mean my American partner Vivian, more comfortable than I by half to ignore the social covenant of the tasting menu and just ask for what she wants while I sit by, Britishly. “An inspiration!” declared our table neighbour while I squirmed and she beamed.
Chishuru is a self-described ‘modern west African restaurant’, newly opened in a beautifully decorated Soho spot after a two-year stint in Brixton. There it had long been the restaurant that got away from me, my plans and tables’ availability never quite lining up right.
It’s a further source of some embarrassment to myself as a Londoner that I know next to nothing about west African food, so take everything that follows in that context: I’ll be your big, dumb, white tour guide today. Bakare herself is Nigerian, but I couldn’t tell you how closely Chishuru hews to that country’s traditions, how widely its dishes are sourced, or which ingredients have been smartly substituted and which painstakingly maintained.
What I can tell you is that this was the best meal I’ve eaten in London this year, and perhaps anywhere, and one of the few tasting menus that’s ever left me wanting more. I was plotting a return visit before I’d even reached Oxford Circus station on the way home.
The set-ish menu opens with a trio of fixed starters, starting with that sinasir. A light pancake of fermented rice, it arrives topped with a just-sweet-enough purée of crab, pumpkin, and sorrel, topped by crisp kohlrabi. For a dish with two fried components it never veers into the greasy, and using white crab rather than brown keeps it moreish. A dish I wanted to go on and on all night, and a perfect introduction to Chishuru and Bakare’s delicate but unfussy cooking.
The sinasir is followed by a dinky bowl of moi moi - a dense bean cake - topped with a sliver of tomato, a foamy duck egg sauce, a wedge of duck liver, and a sprinkle of crunchy, fried skin to complete the textural package.
Then a bowl of deep brown peppersoup broth shelters fudgy cubes of eko - helpfully described as a sort of corn tofu. A gentle warmth runs through both these bowls, chilli heat intended to comfort rather than shock, a weighted blanket of hot pepper.
The mains bring the night’s first decision, though not much of one: meat, fish, or veg. We opt for guinea fowl with taro root, and a pollock fillet with chard. These are simpler plates - protein, vegetable, sauce - but there’s something undeniably appealing about a tasting menu that still gives you a proper plate of food in the middle. No-one could deny that you’re given dinner here, rather than a sit-down series of canapés. Even my dad couldn’t complain.
There’s no shortage of craft here, either. Fish and fowl are both fork-tender, but the sauces are the stars. The nsala guinea fowl’s dressing of ehuru and uziza is the closest thing I’ve tasted to satay without a peanut in sight, the ehuru - nicknamed African nutmeg, or so Google tells me - lending that nutty edge.
The pollock comes in the form of mbongo tchobi, apparently a Cameroonian stew with a distinctively dark colour that comes from fire-roasted tree bark. The deep, earthy flavour - not a million miles from a Mexican mole - overwhelms the rest of the plate a little, but feels so sustaining that it’s quite hard to care.
Both are accompanied by a spread of rice, housemade pickles, and thick-cut wedges of fried plantain. I’ll admit the scandalous here: I’m not a big plantain fan, though mostly by association. Bananas are just about the only food in the world I won’t eat (some unknown childhood trauma, no doubt), and the plantain is too close a cousin for me to be entirely comfortable. All of which to say: I would have eaten more of this stuff in a heartbeat.
Alongside the food we sip an okra martini that smells incredible - bright chilli heat and brine - but, sadly, mostly tastes like a big glass of vodka and pickle juice. Which is pretty much exactly what it is of course, but the magic is a little lost.
More impressive is the £56 wine pairing. Exclusively French - at least on our visit - the highlights are a beautiful Aligoté (nope, me neither) from Burgundy and a savoury-tinged dessert wine. I won’t pretend to know more about the wine than that, but wouldn’t hesitate to trust in their pairings again.
I often fear the final course in a tasting, which in my experience tends to be either overwrought or downright dull. Chishuru threads the needle deftly; a dense rugby ball scoop of rice ice cream accompanied by spiced oats - more of that nutmeggy ehuru - and a ginger cream so light it might take off. Simple, subtle, still a little smart where it counts, and hard to beat as a cap to the courses.
That is, unless you feel the need to take it again from the top - and you just might.