EMEKA FREDERICK’S OGBONO SOUP & EBA
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
