Poached prawn in banga soup. Mango sorbet with toasted coconut crumble and mint sugarcane agua fresca. Ayamase braised goat coated in puffed of ada rice. At ÌTÀN Test Kitchen in Lagos, chef Michael Elégbèdé is serving up Nigerian food in a whole new way. His goal: to raise the profile of his country’s cuisine. “I want to use my work to educate people nationally and internationally in how dynamic we are as a people through our food,” he says.
Elégbèdé’s focus is on Nigerian cooking, but his gastronomic journey began in the US, almost a decade ago. “I was at culinary school — the Culinary Institute of America, at Greystone, California — when I realised I could go into food to make a difference,” he says. “I saw other chefs using their profession to impact society and I knew I could do the same as a Nigerian.”
Learning the ropes at restaurants such as The French Laundry, in Northern California, and New York’s Eleven Madison Park (both of which have three Michelin stars) sparked in Elégbèdé a passion for haute cuisine. “Understanding the storytelling aspect [of fine dining] and being able to tell a story of my people — of the unheard, unspoken and silenced — through food was what drove me towards that form of cooking,” he says. “I always imagined being able to tell a Nigerian story through food, so it felt very natural to gravitate towards the fine dining approach.”
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