What is your process for creating a menu?

We are a restaurant that has a lot of respect for ingredients. And I know everyone says that, but I've really come to appreciate working at Ikoyi and the culture that we built because there's a genuine passion for ingredients including caring for and handling them. By handling, I mean from the moment they arrive to how we wash, touch, put them away, and slice them, we really handle them with care and I think that care is part of the culture of the restaurant. It’s about doing things well but also thoughtfully and I think the inspiration comes from that relationship we have with ingredients.

It starts with seasonality, flavour, aesthetics and the concept of an ingredient. Then, we think about how we can give it personality and a bit of attitude and quirkiness while retaining authenticity. I use spices and have my own aesthetic but at the same time, I keep the ingredient’s core identity. Everything at Ikoyi is very much itself but intensified.

Some of us in Asia haven’t had the chance to come to visit Ikoyi in the new location. How does Ikoyi 2.0 differ from the original?

It's very different. It has a completely new interior design and aesthetic. It's very material-inspired. We use a lot of metal, stone, dark and matte surfaces. It's like sitting in a living, metallic art sculpture. The food is, I'd say, more complex. It's deeper and more serious but lighter as well. It was brighter and more powerful before. Now, it's a little bit more mature and thoughtful.

I think the restaurant is a reflection of my age, where I am in my life, and where my business partner is too. It reflects our mindset and our characters as men going into their late 30s. We were in our late 20s, and early 30s, with the first restaurant so we had a little bit more to prove. We were more spontaneous and the food reflected that.

We've also had a lot more time to train our staff and think about how we want to interact with guests. So I think we’ve levelled up our service. I mean, the service was always great but now we really aim to give people a special experience, but I don't think of Ikoyi as fine dining, it’s refined dining. There's a lot of technique and precision which is why it might be associated with fine dining, but it's not awkward, stiff or slow. I just see it as a very creative restaurant that's trying to connect with its customers and share its passion for the style of food that we're doing.

On the subject of fine dining, what are your thoughts on it today and where it is going?

I don't particularly enjoy it. If I have my own time, I tend not to go to fine dining restaurants. I like to eat quickly and lightly, and I like to choose what I eat. I think fine dining can feel like you’re submitting to some kind of ritual that's very expensive and exhausting, and I don't really enjoy it. I believe that there are people that want an amazing culinary experience or want to celebrate something special in their life and go somewhere to have a connection over food in a really intense way. And I think that's what a restaurant like Ikoyi is good for. There is a time and place for it, but I don't think it's an everyday thing.

Fine dining restaurants will always exist but I think the way that they're run might change because fewer people want to work in these kinds of restaurants that are so labour-intensive and demanding. You’re basically working for the ego and the success of the owner. It's hard to feel like you're part of it. So I think businesses are changing and trying to become more democratic.

Is that why you wanted the new location of Ikoyi to not open on weekends?

I wanted the weekends off for myself and for my team. I genuinely think that Ikoyi is one of the best places to work at. It's one of the most organised, clean, and efficient kitchens I've ever been in because that's what I wanted to create. It's a caring environment, but it's also extremely proficient. The chefs that work with me are very high-level, but they’re also able to leave early. They’ve got good hours and they don't work weekends.

They also work with the best ingredients and it’s exciting for a chef to be able to work with outstanding products. That's the most special part of cooking, so to be able to do that every single day in a place that doesn't force you to stay until 2am is even better. I've tried to combine those things and make a restaurant that's ambitious and challenging, but also fair and comfortable to be in. Ikoyi has a specific culture and I think we're setting the standards for how a high-level restaurant can operate. I'm proud of that.

What can we look forward to on the menu at this version of Ikoyi?

We have an amazing rice dish, which I think Hong Kong and Chinese people would love. It’s smoked rice with lobster custard and grilled lobster. It's similar to fried rice, but it's got a custard sauce on top so it’s creamy, but it’s also a little bit crunchy, very smoky, the spice tastes a little bit like Chinese chilli oil, and it has all the umami and shellfish flavour that you would ever want.

But everything [on the menu] is amazing. And I don't say that because I think I'm amazing, I say it because we get ingredients from great suppliers. I have some of the best things I've ever eaten in my life. The beef that we get, for example, is just incredible. We have grass-fed beef from a farm in Cornwall which is dry aged up to four months and handpicked for us. The flavour that you get from an animal that's been grazing on pasture is just incomparable. Commercial beef just doesn't have this depth of flavour. You can't imitate it and it can only be made in small productions. That's the kind of thing we do at Ikoyi, these types of flavours that you just can't capture on a mass scale.

Can you tell us a bit about your new book Ikoyi: A Journey through Bold Heat with Recipes?

We were in [Covid-19] lockdown and I thought this is a really good time for me to just smash out a book. So that's what I did. I sat down and I wrote it in three months. Then lockdown finished and we did the photography. People don't believe me when they see the book because chefs don't usually write their own books, but I wrote it cover to cover. I really hope that people enjoy it because it's kind of a memoir. There are a lot of funny stories in there about my childhood, family, and memories. It’s also about culture and what it means to be half Chinese and half Canadian, growing up in the UK and having a multicultural background. What it means to not know who you are and what you want to do in life, the book has that too. There are essays on creativity, spice and the meaning of cooking. There's a lot of great stuff in the book that I'm excited for people to read.

You recently popped up in Seoul to collaborate with Mingoo Kang of mingles. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

I'm good friends with Mingoo and I've always wanted to come to Seoul, to explore the culture here. It’s a very unique way to explore cultures by working with people locally and seeing how they think and how they work. So, it's been very interesting and I’m very grateful that I have had the opportunity to be able to come to another country like this and do an event for a few days.

Do you miss Hong Kong at all? What do you miss about it?

I lived there for eight years, from zero to eight, and my dad lives there. I haven't been back in a long time, maybe six or seven years, I don’t really remember. I miss the culture of dining and people. I miss the groups of friends going out to eat, treating each other and the culture of hospitality and hosting, you don't get that in the UK. When I went to Hong Kong, my dad's friends were almost competing to take me out to dinner.

This idea of giving face to your friends and respecting your friends, it’s really different to the West, or Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, which is don't ask and don't offer. Whereas in Hong Kong, there's a busybody culture and people are up in each other's business. It can be gossipy and bitchy, but it’s also hospitable and when you go out for dinner in Hong Kong, it's always such an occasion. It’s a lot of food, you sit at a big table and a lot of people get involved so I find that quite warm.

Ikoyi, 80 Strand, Temple, London, WC2R 1EA, United Kingdom; ikoyilondon.com

NOW READ

A Food Lover's Guide to London

André Chiang on creating culinary masterpieces that he wants to introduce to the world

Hong Kong’s newest restaurants and bars to visit right now