Interview with London African Food
Celebrate the rich taste of African and Caribbean cuisines and support local Black-owned culinary businesses during London African Food Week #LAFW2024. Founded in 2019, LAFW, led by acclaimed chef Tokunbo Koiki, builds on her success with Tokunbo’s Kitchen, introducing Nigerian cuisine globally. Evolving to spotlight African cuisine, the mission extends to promoting nutritional awareness and celebrating the diverse African culinary culture in London.
Whether you’re a food enthusiast, aspiring entrepreneur, or a seasoned professional, London African Food Week offers an unforgettable experience celebrating both flavours and the business of food!
Indulge in a week of delightful dishes, diverse flavours, and cultural enrichment!
ALT A Review:
How/when did this love affair start with food? So what is it in your upbringing or who was the young girl who became this chef?
Tokunbo Koiki:
I actually called myself an accidental entrepreneur chef because my name Tokunbo actually means somebody that came from over the sea. It’s from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. And so I was born here in London, but I lived in Nigeria as a child. And so my taste buds was very, very much heavily influenced by the food that I grew up eating.
Things like suya, puff puff, meat pie, jollof rice all the great stuff. And so even when I came back to London as a child when I was about nine, my taste buds never acclimatized to British cuisine.
I still very much had Nigerian food growing up at home. And I remember from a young age when I was about 12, my mom literally forcing me into the kitchen. And I always remember that age because she always said to me, I started cooking for my family when I was eight, so you’re already four years behind.
So it kind of stuck with me. So, growing up, cooking was more like a chore, but one thing I did learn very early on was once I mastered a dish and it became my favorite dish, I would always cook that dish until the point where when we had family and friends, my mom would be like, oh, can have you tasted this dish from Tokunbo Koiki? And then I’d have to go into the kitchen and cook for somebody.
So I kind of had that upbringing of always having food as a way to welcome people into the home. Then when I was living in Washington DC in 2013 was when my attitude to food actually really changed because food was a great way that I connected with friends and some of my friends, some of my best friends now are from that era and a lot of activities, we walked around going out to eat or when I was feeling homesick, I would invite my friends over and cook for them.
And from that experience of seeing how much people got excited from the food that I made brought joy to people, it just really, it was like a light bulb went up for me. And that was when I started to think about food differently. And also where I was working in Washington, because I was working very close to the White House and on my way to work on a daily basis, there’ll be food trucks from all over the world.
And I actually remember tweeting at a friend saying, why isn’t Africa represented that we have amazing street food? And if I was to start a business again, this is the business that I would go into not knowing that two years later I would be back in London and then I would start a food business myself.
ALT A Review:
Wonderful. Just a little bit talking about that question you were asking about why was there no African food trucks? How do you articulate where we are now with African food? We’ve just had the first African woman chef get a Michelin star, but the image of chefs are not black or even female? Do you think we’re getting past that?
Tokunbo Koiki:
Oh yeah. I mean as somebody who has been in the industry for the last 10 years who has, it’s been an amazing journey to see us go from a place where people were like, what is jollof rice? To seeing Adejoké Bakare winning a Michelin star as the second black female in the world, the first black female in the UK. So its exciting time for African food. I think specifically also West African food because there is a dominance of West African cuisine in the culinary landscape here in London.
But then also globally, I was fortunate enough to have participated in New York, African Restaurant week in 2017. And again, that exposure of working with male and female chefs from across the continent doing incredible things, watching documentaries like Hog on the High Netflix where he connects the dots between the culinary landscape from the continent to the Caribbean to Black American and Latin American cuisine.
It’s definitely exciting time. And I think I remember being invited to speak at an event in 2017 where it was like West African food was deemed to be an emerging trend. And I ended my talk then saying actually we are not a trend. We are here to stay. And I believe that we are only going to get bigger and stronger.
And a platform like London African Food Week is just another way for people to be connected to the cuisine, to the culture. If you’re familiar with it, this is an opportunity to celebrate what you already familiar and know and love and enjoy. And if you’re not, this is an opportunity to discover a new cuisine that you can add to your repertoire.
ALT A Review:
What was your first professional cooking job? When was it like, I’m cooking, I know I’m a good cook, but here I am now I’m in a professional space. What was that?
Tokunbo Koiki:
Oh wow. So I think he, I started off as a Street Food, then he grew into Tokunbo’s Kitchen, which became a pop-up dining experience where I would curate a menu, post it online and people would buy tickets and come to my event. And so the first pop-up event that I did was in April, 2016. And then I remember a few weeks after that event, the venue that I’d used contacted me and I remember it was a Thursday morning and they said, Hey, it’s an emergency, our chef had to pull out because of an emergency, and we thought about you.
And I remember thinking, okay, how many people are you expecting? And they said about 300 people. And Joy at that time, the most I’d cooked for at one given goal was maybe hundred people at my festival.
And so this was a different type of experience also the timeframe was very short. And so I kind of leaned into my network, asked other chefs who I knew were used to doing bulk style catering and also I just said to them, I’m going to create a simple menu which is going to be jollof rice, chicken and plantain. And that was the first time that I felt like, wow, okay, I’m now a chef.
And also the experience of, because it was a very diverse audience, I remember this little old white lady who must have been in her seventies coming up to me to discuss the recipe for jollof rice. And I could just see in her mind this was something that she was going to go home and try for herself. And so it was an amazing experience. But yeah, it was definitely getting thrown into the deep end.
ALT A Review:
Before we get to the London Food Week, what are the three ingredients that you can’t live without in your kitchen?
Tokunbo Koiki:
Okay. So for me definitely, yaji which is the dry spice that’s used for the suya meat, it’s a very versatile spice. I use it not just for meat, I use it in to marinade fish seafood, but I also use it in day-to-day cooking as well. So that’s definitely an ingredient that doesn’t ever leave my kitchen.
Also prawns, I love seafood specifically king prawns . Again, it’s something that I love to be able to make for not just African dishes but also western dishes. So it’s an ingredient that I’m always usually have. And the other thing will probably be pound jam, a bag of pounded of yam. So those are the three things that I definitely cannot live without.
ALT A REVIEW: Let’s talk about London Food Week. I just love the idea. I just think that is something which is amazing. so maybe just give a bit of elaborate why you thought, okay, London needs this.
Yes. So it started from a journey that I took, a trip that I took to Dakar Senegal in 2016. This was my first time in, this was my second West African country outside of Nigeria and the name that I’d visited. And I remember just being blown away, the inspiration for London African Food Week started with a trip that I took to the car Senegal in 2016. I remember just being completely blown away by the cuisine and the food and how delicious it was.
And I came back and I remember saying to a friend, why do I have to travel all the way to Senegal to eat this amazing food? I should be able to, London is a multicultural city. I should be able to have food from the continent in London. And so that was when the seed started to grow. And then the following year I was a part of the New York African Restaurant Week. And again, getting to see the experience of chefs, restaurateurs who were all promoting the cuisine. And I thought, okay, this is definitely something that needs to be done in London.
It took another two years to be able to get to the point where we were able to have the first London African Food Week in 2019. And that was really an amazing experience. Just seeing the, because I think for me as an entrepreneur, as an ideas person, it is one thing to have an idea that you can see, but then the response from other people to validate that idea, that concept that you have. London African Food Week 2024 is going to be kicking off on Saturday the 25th of May, which is also Africa Day because I’m very, very intentional about the time that we chose, we wanted to celebrate Africa.
So we started on Africa Day with a coffee and chocolate festival, which is our main headline event, and it’s going to be a celebration of African and black, black-owned coffee traders, chocolate traders, as well as other lifestyle traders who we’re going to be occupying three rooms, three floors across the Africa Center in sort of South London. So yeah, please, it’s a free event.
It’s a family day out. And then we are also going to be having a bottomless plantain branch and a day party because obviously it’s a bank holiday weekend and we need to celebrate Monday. We are partnering with Pop-up Africa to promote Africa at Spitalfields, which is another festival that I myself have been involved with as a trader before. And then the rest of the week we’re actually having a chef takeover of the African restaurant space. So, there’s going to be chefs from different parts of the region.
ALT A Review:
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And just to ask obviously is African, so is say Northwest South African?
Tokunbo Koiki:
Yeah, so we are, as much as possible, trying to cover majority of the regions. It has been difficult to find Chefs from the Northern Africa to participate. So we are working with what we have currently, but we hope that as we grow, we’ll definitely be able to expand it as well as the opportunity for people to come and dine. We’re also going to be talking about the business of African food.
So we’re in business clinics at the Africa Center. We will also be having a business workshop day at LinkedIn’s office on the Friday, the 31st. And again, we really just wanted to encourage people, not just for these who are interested in dining out, but food entrepreneurs, people who may have an idea about starting an African food and drink business or may just want to expand their network. We’re going to be doing content creation workshops. We will be doing personal branding and masterclass. So it really is to grow the community but also to really offer support.
ALT A Review:
Wonderful Will you be cooking on any of the days?
Tokunbo Koiki:
So as much as possible, I’ve been trying to get out of the kitchen, but I keep getting drawn back in. So yes, I will be cooking at the festival and as well as at the day party.
ALT A REVIEW: So with this African Food week, what do you want people to take away? What’s the message? If you could put it in a paragraph, I suppose
I want people to eat African food the same way they would go for a local Chinese, or they will have a Nando’s. I think there are so many amazing African dishes. Personally, I think Jollof Rice is a great gateway dish to introduce non-Africans to amazing cuisine on the continent. But there’s amazing stew in West Africa so many, there’s a diverse range of cuisines in Africa.
I want people to consider the opportunity to eat African go and explore food from the continent. Our food is so rich and also a lot of things that people don’t understand is our food actually caters to all the dietary requirements. So our food is often vegan, it’s often gluten-free, often organic. So if you are looking for nutritional benefits and having an amazing experience dining out, then African cuisine adds all of that for you.
I speak for West Africa, which is the region I’m familiar with, but I know this cuts across most of the continent as well. A lot of our food is vegan based. Sometimes when you see an African plate because you see a lot of meat and fish you might think it is not healthy but actually is we eat a lot of grains, we eat a lot of beans, we eat, yam, plantain, sturdy food that also have great nutritional benefits as well. We eat a lot of super superfood in Africa, food that people are now just discovering here in the West.
ALT A Review:
Oh, wonderful. That sounds amazing!!
When: 25th – 31st May, 2024
Book tickets: Where Culinary Delights Meet Business Insights!
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