Chishuru

Chishuru began as a Brixton market pop-up and is now one of the most significant restaurants in London. Adejoke Bakare, who is self-taught and learned to cook from her paternal grandmother, was awarded a Michelin star in 2024, becoming the first Black woman in the United Kingdom to hold one and only the second in the world.

The cooking is West African, drawing across Nigerian and wider regional traditions, and the thing that strikes most people first is the spicing: precise rather than heavy, built to bring ingredients forward instead of covering them. The sauces are the technical heart of the menu and the reason the kitchen has the reputation it does.

It won Time Out’s London restaurant of the year in 2022, before the star, which tells you the recognition was not a surprise to anyone who had eaten there. The move from Brixton to Fitzrovia gave it a proper room without changing what comes out of the kitchen.

Portions are generous by tasting-menu standards and the format is far less formal than the star suggests, which catches some people out in a good way.

Our verdict: the most important London opening of the decade, and the best West African cooking in Britain. Go for the sauces.

Go if: you want a genuinely new cuisine at Michelin level. Skip if: you want something familiar.

Book ahead. Great Titchfield Street, Fitzrovia.