EMEKA FREDERICK'S OGBONO SOUP & EBA

The co-founder of Nigerian tapas restaurant Chuku's pays tribute to his grandma and shares a recipe using the seeds of the African wild mango

- TONY NAYLOR

Emeka Frederick's grandmother was, he remembers, "a staunch lover of her Nigerian heritage". After coming to Britain in the '60s, she embraced community roles that helped Nigerians maintain "their culture and traditions, which, through the generations, can provide a rudder. It's important to know your roots."

As children in 1990s Ilford, Emeka and his sister, Ifeyinwa, sometimes chafed against their grandmother's habits: "She was very Nigerian in her ways." But, today - as if the duo absorbed that cultural pride "by osmosis" - they find themselves continuing their grandmother's work at Chuku's in Tottenham, the Nigerian restaurant they opened in 2020. "We weren't interested in Shoreditch or Soho," says Emeka. "We wanted to find a community."

In its contemporary dishes (such as the salted caramel chicken wings that employ the spiced peanut mix kuli kuli) and its small plates format, Chuku's has established itself as a welcoming haven for those familiar with Nigerian cooking and newbies keen to explore the food. "We didn't think Nigerian cuisine had the platform it deserved. We're trying to share the culture," says Emeka, who worked in the City before switching to hospitality. "My grandmother would be very proud.

"My parents, who are both accountants, worked together beautifully to support their children. I look and sound just like my dad, but, in food, Mum's Nigerian cooking was the main influence on me.

"I don't recall watching Mum in the kitchen, enamoured. But I always enjoyed cooking and, at 13, when I went to boarding school, I could prepare a decent family meal. I was never fazed in the kitchen. And I loved experimenting. At university, on Saturday afternoons, I'd put the radio on and cook. That time was almost a guilty pleasure for me. Everyone wanted to eat out or get pizza but I'd eat home-cooked food before going to a student rave.