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Irish Times
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Chishuru London restaurant review: This is the most exciting food I've eaten in years, and the head chef is Irish
Chishuru Address : 3 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 8AX Telephone : N/A Cuisine : West African Website : Cost : €€€€ It's not often a tasting menu floors you – but Chishuru has been top of my London list for good reason. Adejoké Bakare made history as the first black female chef in the UK to win a Michelin star , which she got in 2024 – and her head chef is Christine Walsh from Tipperary. Walsh comes with real pedigree, having worked at Enda McEvoy and Sinead Meacle's Loam, Galway's Michelin-starred restaurant that was one of Ireland's most influential until it closed in 2022. She was subsequently the chef behind Éan . Her move to London is typical for Irish chefs keen to build skills – but here there's the thrill of working with spices rarely seen outside west Africa. Chishuru in Fitzrovia is Bakare's first permanent restaurant, built off a Brixton pop‑up she started in 2019. She was born in west Africa – not a generic 'Nigeria' but a region of kingdoms. Her father is Yoruba, her mother Igbo, and she grew up in a Hausa area. Those influences run through her food – Yoruba heat, Igbo spice and Hausa fire‑cooking. You don't need a primer on west African cooking to eat here. Bakare shows you – offering a sharp, modern take on overlapping traditions. The £105 (€123) tasting menu opens with a snack that sets the tone: a delicate tartlet of puréed celeriac, smoke and spice drifting out in a single, tight note. READ MORE Bakare isn't playing at concept. She cooks what she knows: Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa. Photograph: Harriet Langford Nothing looks familiar when it lands. Abàchà – a cassava salad – gives little away at first: shredded dried cassava over plantain ash, pickled daikon and a dressing of ehuru – African or Calabash nutmeg – for a lightly pungent lift. It's all about texture and control – a quiet smoke that doesn't swamp but lingers enough to let you know it's there. Then Ṃóínṃóín – a dish that wrecks your sense of what beans can do. A soft, steamed black‑eyed bean cake sits on a bean milk salsa with anchovy‑red pepper sauce, touched with a gentle funk. On top is a scallop and monkfish boudin blanc – classic technique, clever spice – and then you're hit with toast soaked in beef fat, rich with that aged tang you would normally find under a dry‑aged rib cap. We pass on the £68 wine flight and choose from a list that's short but serious – mostly Jura, Loire and Alsace, low‑intervention, fair prices, good by‑the‑glass options. A lightly chilled Brouilly – Domaine Crêt des Garanches (£47.50, about €56) – does everything you want with all this spice and depth. Chishuru's interior. Photograph: Harriet Langford The pepper soup is another highlight. It's more broth than soup – spiced with uziza peppers and finished with torched line‑caught mackerel. There's a clean heat – restrained but persistent – in a stock built from chicken, beef and fish bones, layered for depth without weight. Vegetables are sliced to near invisibility – radish, apple, maybe squash. It is, perhaps, the most intricate thing on the menu. [ Maneki restaurant review: A showy start gives way to a muddled menu Opens in new window ] Then the main courses; you get a choice, which is rare. We go for both the monkfish (mbongo tchobi) and the hogget (ayamase). The monkfish is poached, served with a blackened tomato and spice sauce that brings slow, earthy depth, balanced by pickled greens and confit plantain. There's heat, but it's measured. Slices of hogget leg and shoulder, pink and yielding, sit on a green pepper and irú stew – thick, savoury, tangled with fermented locust beans, crispy tripe and smoked lamb's tongue, all deepened with fat and a steady heat that grows as you eat. It's an unfiltered expression of technique and place. Dessert is egúsí ice cream – melon seed, usually found in stews – with meringue sponge, caramelised brittle and a soaked blackberry. It's refreshing and textural. The ice cream is subtly nutty, not too sweet, and the brittle has a delightful crack. It's a smart, well-judged finish. Chishuru calls itself 'modern west African', but that barely covers it. Bakare isn't playing at concept. There's no forced nostalgia or claim to purist authenticity. She cooks what she knows – Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa – with discipline learned outside the system, using ingredients hauled from Brixton or Dagenham when the big suppliers fall short. It's personal. This isn't one of those bloated tasting menus that lose the plot halfway through. It's lean, alive and narratively sharp – each plate knowing exactly when to stop. The €45 lunch is a steal – different dishes, same jolt of energy. Dinner is the full tilt; it's refined, original, and brilliantly creative without ever showing off. It's a sharp, precise record of where she comes from and where she's going. A thrill to eat. Dinner for two with a bottle of wine and 12.5 per cent service charge was £289.68 (€339). The verdict: The most exciting food I've eaten in years. Food provenance: Seafood from Bethnal Green Fish Supplies and Fin & Flounder; meat from HG Walter, Billfields and Farmer Tom; and vegetables from Oui Chef, Shrub and Albion. Vegetarian options: Vegetarian tasting menu available. Wheelchair access: Accessible room with no accessible toilet. Music: Afrobeat, Amapiano and Fela Kuti.
Irish Times
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Feel the heat: Ten great restaurants that cook over fire
allta 1 Three Locks Square, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2; allta: Cromane oyster, sudachi and bergamot. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Always evolving, Niall Davidson's allta is returning to a tasting menu format for both lunchtime and dinner which is designed to showcase the restaurant's journey over the years from Library Place, Setanta Street and now the Dublin docklands. With an unwavering commitment to Irish produce in both the main restaurant and the buzzy allta bar, the punchy wood-fired cooking is well worth the trip. Joanne Cronin Coppinger 1 Coppinger Row, Dublin 2; 01-6729884, Conor and Marc Bereen, the brothers behind Coppinger. Photograph: Alan Betson Ever since reopening, Coppinger has captured the buzzy and fun vibes of the original venue. Listen to the cocktails shaking while you browse the Mediterranean-inspired menu which uses the best of Irish ingredients over a barbecue grill. Everything is delicious, especially when it's the incredible value 'menú del día,' available Wednesday-Friday, which offers two courses for €15 or three for €20. Where else would you get it? JC Daróg Wine Bar 56 Dominick Street Lower, Galway; 091-565813, Daróg Wine Bar: Line caught mackerel, fennel emulsion, crispy parsnip. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy Small plates, bigger tables, better chairs – Daróg in Galway has sharpened up without losing its edge. The cooking leans into smoke and charcoal, from grilled white asparagus with lovage hollandaise to dry-aged lamb with confit leek and swede. There's a five-course tasting menu at €55, or you can build your own from the blackboard, where more than 40 wines by the glass change weekly. Run by Zsolt Lukács and Edel McMahon, with Attila Galambos on fire in the kitchen. Corinna Hardgrave READ MORE Elbow Lane 4 Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork; 021-2390479, Ronan Sharpe runs Elbow Lane Brew and Smoke House, Cork There are two main features to the diningroom at Elbow Lane, the open charcoal grill right in the middle, and the stainless steel microbrewery tanks to the rear. Put simply, it's all about the grilling and the beer here, although the cocktails are pretty damn good also. Start with the intensely flavoured pork belly with fish sauce caramel, followed by the signature slow-smoked baby back ribs or wood-grilled steaks. JC Lottie's 7-9 Rathgar Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6; 01-5585969, Lottie's, Rathmines Flame-finished mains hold their own at this neighbourhood spot. Andarl Farm pork belly, crisped and tender, pairs with radicchio and hazelnuts, while monkfish is perfectly charred. For €29, the prix fixe (5–6pm Wed–Fri) offers a snack, main, and glass of wine – perfect pre-cinema. Otherwise, settle in for grilled lamb or free-range chicken, all cooked over live fire. CH Mister S 32 Camden Street Lower, Dublin 2; 01-6835555, Mister S, Camden Street, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill At Mister S, they proudly state that all mains are cooked over charcoal and wood. But, to be honest, every piece of produce that enters the kitchen is in danger of finding itself over the glowing embers. The smell of smoke permeates the entire room and everything is delicious, from charred leeks with romesco and smoked mozzarella, to piri piri chicken, or their incredible beef sourced from Co Donegal. Everything gets a turn on the embers. JC Neighbourhood 1 North Main Street, Naas, Co Kildare; 045-954466, Neighbourhood, Naas, Co Kildare Cooked over live fire on an Ox grill – tomahawk steaks, Black Angus chateaubriand, and porterhouse steaks are the stars, with pizzas from a full pizza oven and flatbreads to round it out. The recently renovated 'secret garden' provides a relaxed outdoor setting. Set menus (€34.50 for two courses, €39.50 for three) make it easy to dive into fire-cooked flavours, while a revamped cocktail bar adds a finishing touch. CH The Fern Grill at Knockranny House Hotel Knockranny House Hotel, Knockranny, Westport, Co Mayo; 098-28600, Knockranny House Hotel and Spa, Co Mayo The tomahawk for two (€79) is the headline at The Fern Grill – a slab of Hereford beef, carved at the table and kissed hard by the Basque Josper grill. Seamus Commons fires Black Angus, lamb and daily fish with the same precision, but nothing matches the depth and smoke of the beef. CH The Glass Curtain Unit A, Thompson House, MacCurtain Street, Cork; 021-4518659, Flavour is at the heart of everything that chef patron Brian Murray does. Under Darren Kennedy, the kitchen turns out smoke-kissed plates built for sharing, using local seasonal ingredients. The signature milk buns with cultured butter are mandatory, then try grilled cuttlefish with leeks and smoked aioli, or lamb saddle and belly with smoked carrots. A second live-fire restaurant, Birdsong, is coming soon to the Coal Quay. JC Vaughan's on the Prom The Promenade, Lahinch, Co Clare; 065-7081846, Vaughan's on the Prom in Lahinch, Co Clare. Photograph: Paul Sherwood Denis Vaughan runs this newly refurbished spot on the prom, firing meat and shellfish over a Spanish Josper to exacting effect. The menu is tight and fire-driven: barbecued Aran Island monkfish with a hazelnut crust, roasted chicken supreme with satay crust and fregola, and aged Irish Black Angus steaks with bone marrow butter, beef jus and dripping chips. It's about proper fire cooking, heavy plates and the freshest fish he can lay his hands on. CH
