Chishuru
Chishuru has nothing to do with Japan, despite the sound of the name. Adejoké Bakare's West African-inspired restaurant in Fitzrovia is newly Michelin-star minted, and at the forefront of the new African fine dining scene in London (others include Ikoyi and Akoko). It also happens to be one of the cheaper evening menus going right now, at £75 pp. On top of that, Chishuru is in the running for being the opening of the year at the National Restaurant Awards. So needless to say, I was very excited to attend a dinner service and wrap my taste buds around what I hoped would be a joyful culinary experience.
Well the good news is that Chishuru delivers on flavour by the bucketload. The set menu kicked off with sinasir (fermented rice cake with white crab meat and squash, sorrel purée and tempura sorrel leaf). Similar in many ways to a blini, this was my first taste of good things to come; the rice cake was soft and delicate, the tempura sorrel leaf adding a nice crunch, and the purèe melding it all together. A fine start to proceedings.
I then had my favourite dish of the night and the one that is the reason why people should go to Chishuru: Moi Moi (bean cake, lamb broth-cooked tomato, shrimp shitto and salted egg sauce). This was a total flavour bomb, with sweetness, spice, salt, fat...everything needed to make a wholesome, flavourful dish. It was reminiscent of a similar dish I had at Locavore in Bali (an amazing and fearless restaurant in its own right).
I then had the peppersoup (pickled oyster mushroom, compressed beetroot, uziza leaf, and apple). This was another good starter, and something as a palette cleanser before the main course.
For my main (pictured top), I had mafe (mutton cutlet with coffee and yaji dressing; peanut, uda and uziza sauce), which came with plantain, ginger fried rice, endive and preserved lemon. The rice and the sauce for the mutton cutlet were delicious. The mutton was a little stringy but aptly cooked, and the endive brought a nice textural component to the main. I would be intrigued to see how the same dressing faired with the cod, but overall was rather happy with my choice.
The dessert was the only dish that didn't really land for me. Consisting of moringa biscuit, soursop ice cream and burnt marshmallow (moringa and soursop two ingredients you do not see over here; the only time I've seen them on a menu so far is in Bali), this was aesthetically pleasing but didn't really coalesce into the type of flavour hit that the rest of the meal had been able to produce. I would hope that the dessert section of the restaurant is looked at and given more of a remit in the future.
Despite the lacklustre end to the meal, I was duly impressed with Chishuru on the whole, and feel that it more than deserves its Michelin-star status.
Value for money? £75 pp for dinner service (this has now been increased since my visit, to £95). Even with the price hike, this is still a restaurant that is absolutely worthy visiting for that price point.
Would I return? It's going into my Top 10 on the basis that Chishuru provides flavours and ingredients that you won't see elsewhere in the UK, or sporadically if so. I will probably return in the future, when they have had a rotation to their menu.
