I talk about outer space and death and these morbid, disturbing images in my head, which are part of the inspiration for the restaurant. Elsewhere, he charts Ikoyi’s struggle to stay open the first year, despite glowing reviews, and how a passion for exceptional seasonal produce has continued to drive everything on the menu. He encourages the reader/home cook to learn and adapt the beautiful dishes from the restaurant’s tasting menu - to take components and be inspired.

Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. There’s something interesting about creating minimal food that’s condensed and concentrated but multilayered and complex at the same time. Each recipe in this fascinating book features a story about how the dish was developed, plus the influences of seasonality and produce from local producers.

Chan acknowledges this in the book, declaring that “many of these ingredients will be difficult or at times impossible to procure” but that this challenge represents what it’s like to run a restaurant “with a kitchen comprising of a complex network of supplier and producer relationships”. Standout dishes: Smoked Jollof rice and crab custard; fried Landes chicken and chicken offal hot sauce. Thankfully, Phaidon Press is emerging from their earlier offerings that were overloaded, country-specific recipe reliquaries; whereas now, Phaidon Press is focusing the knowledge and passion of a chef’s personal journey and craft.

My intention was never to attempt to elevate any preexisting concept but instead to elaborate on an original recipe centered around the core ingredients of the dish: tomatoes, onions, peppers, chiles, spices, and a variety of meat, fish, or vegetables. Insert the nozzle of the smoker under the lid, smoke the rice, and leave to infuse for 1 minute before serving.In a blender, blitz together the whipping cream, milk, crab, egg yolks, ginger, garlic, and Scotch bonnet for 2 minutes. With “IKOYI”, Chef/Author Jeremy Chan illuminates the journey to creating, sustaining, and evolving the two-Michelin starred IKOYI in London. In a separate pan, heat the oil to 280°C (536°F) and then carefully pour it over the paste, stirring quickly.

The book includes narratives throughout illustrating Ikoyi’s inspiration and inception, as influenced by Chan’s experiences living, cooking, and traveling in Hong Kong, Canada, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. The visual presentation is worthy of a coffee-table place of honor, but the book would be equally worthy of a splatter-prone place of use on the kitchen island. In the hands of a less erudite chef such an approach could easily have been tedious and self-indulgent, but Chan’s prose is as captivating as his food. Vogue : I was surprised to hear you wrote a cookbook because Ikoyi’s dishes are quite elaborately prepared . This debut cookbook tells the compelling story and journey of Chan and Ikoyi, with 80 recipes that Chan has carefully developed to encapsulate bold heat: his signature style.Partnered with Nigerian-born Iré Hassan-Odukale, who handles front-of-the house, chef Jeremy Chan draws on a wide range of culinary influences even as he keeps an eye on the restaurant’s African inspirations. If you never have the great privilege to experience the extraordinary Ikoyi, then this book gives you an insight into the sheer brilliance and remarkable intelligence of Jeremy Chan. After witnessing the smoking firewood under pots of jollof cooked in Lagos, I knew that the concept of burning must lie at the heart of our dish, too. With two Michelin stars, Ikoyi is a London restaurant known for building its menu on the flavors of sub-Saharan West Africa.