A highly passionate chef whose loyalties lie with discovering and redefining Nigerian cuisine, Chef Michael Elegbede is the owner and executive Chef of Ìtàn, a test kitchen in Lagos, Nigeria. Chef Elegbede has a passion for sustainable feeding and scaling Nigerian cuisine to a global level. He tells us at Foodie in Lagos about his impressive background in the culinary arts, what drives his creativity, and his journey so far.

Tell us a bit about yourself? 

My name is Michael Elegbede, and I’ve been cooking for a large part of my life because I grew up in a food family. My mother and grandmother are both chefs, so food was a constant in my upbringing. I decided to be a chef in my senior year in college, studying biochemistry at the University of Illinois Chicago. Then, I went to The Culinary Institute of America (“CIA”) in Napa Valley and did a three- year degree in culinary arts. After, I started working around the Valley and then moved to New York and worked at a respectable restaurant. I moved to Nigeria four years ago, to explore what is indigenous and use that as my source for inspiration.

When did you start cooking, and what were the influences that set you on this path?

I think I’ve always cooked. I have been cooking since I was young, but there’s a difference between a cook and a chef. So, professionally, I started cooking in my late teen years; around 18, when I was still an undergrad. I started out my culinary career at a French Patisserie – Alliance Bakery in Chicago because I thought I was going to be a pastry chef. This was because both my mom and my grandmother were pastry chefs, so naturally, I’ve always dabbled in pastry art.

That’s interesting. Why did you decide to deviate from pastry itself?

I think I’ve always been in love with art. I love the art forms that pastry art has with it, but at that point, I wasn’t very exposed to the creativity of the chefs. I didn’t realise at the time how much creativity that could be expressed with food. My mom had her restaurant in Chicago, and it was just casual food, it felt like it was something for consumption and sustenance – I wanted more than that. I wanted to have what I do with food to have a creative element to it. I’ve always loved to cook more than bake; I’m not a big dessert fan. It was not till I got to Napa Valley and saw how diverse voices could be in the food space. It became apparent that I could be very creative with food, express myself, and tell stories that are so much more integral to food and that was when it became evident that I wanted to switch to food.

Tell us about your culinary institute experience and why you decided to pursue this.

I think in anything you do, trying to get an education is vital. It solves a lot of preliminary issues that one could have in going to the industry. I contacted a lot of chefs that were doing cool stuff and telling stories with their food and asked them via email what culinary school they would recommend. The best culinary school in America at that time was the CIA, because of its extensive program. You find that a lot of people spend about six months to a year in culinary school.

The Culinary Institute of America had an extensive program for three years that delved into every single facet of what it means to be a chef. The molecular theories of food, understanding every single ingredient from soil to plating, appreciating every component, and knowing how to manipulate them. I think having that in-depth understanding of food directs the way I approach food. That’s how and why I chose to go to the CIA; I wanted to acquire the best education.

That’s great, and I think sort of feeds into your advocacy for sustainable feeding if I’m not wrong?

Exactly.

Can you tell us more about that, your approach, and how you’re doing your part to make sure that sustainable feeding is something that we practice in Nigeria? 

You know, I honestly think the majority of Nigerians already practice sustainable culinary practices. I believe accessibility is our major issue. For example, when we make palm oil, every single part has a purpose; the oil is used for food, the shaft is used for soap, the husk is used for fire etc. If you look at our indigenous food, you find that nothing is wasted and that is a sustainable practice when it comes to food culture. The problem that we have in Nigeria is access. Access to nutritious and diverse food that is indigenous to us. So you have a lot of incredible farmers who are growing biodiverse ingredients like passion fruit, grapes etc. I mean Jos is becoming a Mecca for agriculture when it comes to biodiversity.

The problem that I’m seeing is that the accessibility to it is still minimal, unlike in other parts of the world where there’s a biodiverse culture. And because the access is so limited, the demand isn’t as much, so it’s kind of like this catch 22. So you’re wondering; which comes first, is it the demand or availability? That’s kind of the place we’re in, and that’s why we created Abóri. We had a food summit last year, and this year we created an online database platform that brings small-scale farmers and food producers on one platform so people can have access to them. So there’s a place individuals can refer to for contacts of farmers and producers.

So do you have any ideas on how we can bridge this gap, solve the problem of demand and have Nigerians be able to access these kinds of food?

I think part of it is the people in culinary spaces allowing the choices they make for food, in general, to be more diverse. I think more than often, we stick to the norm, the typical. We need to start pushing the envelope, and I’m not even saying gastronomy or fine dining. Being conscious of what is available and using that to create a more diverse and unique menu option and offering to the consumers and once that begins to happen more often, then the demand from the population will increase. The chefs, cooks, and food producers are the ones that drive the need of the people.

That’s true, but I have a contrary opinion. Don’t you think this issue might also stem from the type of training other chefs had? Unlike you, many chefs didn’t get the extensive training you had.

Absolutely. I’m not asking people to start growing their ingredients, but I think it takes that little conscious effort to be intentional about including more diverse elements. It’s essentially doing some research, trying recipes, and experimenting. Yes, because of the experience that I have, I’m able to do this almost automatically, but I don’t think the people without those experiences are limited. I think it’s just a conscious effort to want to create a more diverse experience for their guests, or having something unique on your menu.

I agree, and I mean, we already have things like that with agbalumo ice cream and whatnot, we just need to expand the scope of that.

The grocery lady, for instance, has some remarkable tropical fruits that we make into so many different things at the test kitchen. Another lucky part is that I run a test kitchen so I’m able to experiment and develop using the other products that we have available. I think that’s why Abori is essential because, for people like the grocery lady, we can showcase people creating unique ingredients that anyone can use.  You can’t just walk into any store and ask for micro grapes.

The test kitchen shops from Abori, so people that are on those platforms are people that we source ingredients from.  That type of relationship is important in creating more demand. So when people eat at the test kitchen and ask “oh where is this from?”, we can direct them to Abori, and like that we create demand. But we are still so small, and the level of traffic we can bring is minute in comparison to the future we want to see so this is why we encourage people to utilise these platforms and allow for greater demand for various products that we have locally.

I think it’s scalable and I am personally excited to see what comes next. Speaking of consciousness, was there an ‘aha moment’ while you were at the Culinary Institute of Art?

The thing about aha moments is that they are never really ‘ahas’. It’s like those overnight success stories; it’s never really overnight. It’s like twenty years of work that finally just makes sense. I grew up with a grandmother who was very grounded in nature. We never used bullion cubes; we made everything we ate from scratch from the ogi to the garri. It was just for us because she wasn’t selling any of that; she was a pastry chef. She started during colonial times, learning under a French Chef in Nigeria. She had a bakery in Surulere, and also a baking school.

I often forget how different my upbringing was from most people as I thought my childhood was the norm. A lot of things I was eating were not typical to the average Nigerian diet, as well as the way we approached food in our compound. I think for me, that moment of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it came in Napa Valley when I was both going to culinary school and working in farms. Just seeing and understanding the cycle of food—being exposed to chefs who were at the top of their game and grounded like Thomas Keller. He had a farm in front of his restaurant, which was what they would use primarily in the food that they were cooking. There was a story behind the approach of using these ingredients that were nostalgic to his upbringing and his development as a chef. All of that just came together and just created a consciousness.

I don’t think there was a singular spark; it just became part of it and became growth.

It’s fascinating to hear about your growth and how that has brought you to be that Chef that’s creating what Nigerian food should be. 

I always try to make it clear that I don’t think what I’m doing is making Nigerian cuisine better. The reason why I’m doing what I’m doing is that Nigerian food is already great. What I’m doing is merely presenting a different perspective on how we can experience Nigerian food. It’s like using Aso-Òkè to do Iro and Buba and then using it to make a suit. It doesn’t make Aso-Òkè any better; it’s just different. I try to make people understand that fine dining doesn’t make a cuisine better and it’s just a different perspective that might sometimes open doors to allowing other people to become more curious about the core of what that cuisine is.

You mentioned working at a three-star Michelin restaurant; I assume this was after leaving the Institute. Tell us more about this job?

I worked at Eleven Madison Park in New York for about two and a half years then I worked at The Nomad, its sister restaurant. It was challenging, and in my understanding, that’s what it means to be a chef. You just don’t go to culinary school, and then you’re a chef. It’s how you don’t study biology as an undergrad and then call yourself a doctor without going to med school. The restaurant you work at after education is where you hone your skills, you practice what you learnt and understand what it means to approach food; because what culinary school gives you is fundamental.

So, Eleven Madison Park was the best restaurant in the world at the time, and I started as a commis, moved up, and understood how food is curated. It’s not even about the fine dining aspect of it, it’s about the story of their food, and they curate for how people should experience their food. It’s ownership.  Once you start telling a story that is yours, the narrative begins to change to what you want it to be. Working at 11 Madison Park allowed me to see behind the scenes of how European chefs work in general and how they tell the stories of food that is indigenous to them and ingredients that play a role in the structuring of their cuisine.

It was also challenging in a race perspective, and I think Black Lives Matter has brought a lot of these issues to the forefront. Most of the time, I was the only black person in the kitchen. The kitchen can also be socially dissociative from the norm of what is acceptable in society. There are all these shows of chefs throwing plates and yelling and being abusive, that is not a proper way to treat people in society. But I think that also gave an excuse for the culinary industry to be unapologetically racist. Having to battle that in my time in these types of environments informed many of my decisions, as well as the one of coming back to Nigeria. It was like, the only difference between us is that these people had multiple people before them who have had the opportunity to decipher and create narratives around your cuisine that unfortunately, we haven’t had the chance to.  So instead of waiting for an African/ Nigerian chef to step forward; get the level of education and training that it takes to be able to create food at that level.

I’m already there, so I am the change that I desire to see in the industry.

Fantastic, so that’s what informs your decision on all things indigenous?

It plays a role in the core desire and why I thought it was so necessary for me to come back to Nigeria and be a part of the narrative. And if it’s going to happen, we don’t go anywhere else; we know that this happened because of Nigeria, from Nigeria. And that begins to change; already, it is changing. What we’re doing is changing the narrative of how people perceive the diversity of the ingredients and food that we eat and have.

Before we get into your latest baby, tell us a bit more about what you were doing before the launch of Itan? 

This is the second version of Ìtàn Test Kitchen; the first one was in Lekki 1. It was a smaller space, and we were doing private dinners and tasting menus in that space as well. So we have always done private dinners and curated tasting experiences. This is just the most recent expression of in Itan.

Any particular reason why you left Lekki for Ikoyi?

First, more space, and then the second reality is that most of my clientele live here. I also found that the people who were able to understand and express the narrative are primarily in Ikoyi. It’s not an elitist thing; I just find that the people with the most money don’t understand what we’re doing in trying to nurture our culture and our cuisine. I’ve had someone that is very elite say to me “you’re wasting your time in Nigeria, go back to America”. Sometimes it hurts because these are people that are supposed to be our leaders. They think they mean well, by saying that all Americans will love this immediately, but Nigerians won’t appreciate it. But what they are also saying is that we should not invest in our people and our culture and we’ve given up on the idea that things can be better and can grow from nothing to something.

You know, it’s easy for them to be like: this is good, export it. So to answer that question, Ikoyi just felt right. Nature, the surrounding, the space was very relevant to the type of story we were telling.

Tell us about Ìtàn Test Kitchen; what spurred you to open a test kitchen in a place like Lagos and the idea behind it?

Contrary to what they think, I honestly believe Nigerian food is excellent, Nigerian ingredients are great. Yes, I believe in Nigeria food and the experience that I have with flavour profiles of cuisines around the world, and knowing what people appreciate about food,  I know it’s just a matter of time. And given the amount of love I do have for Nigerian cuisine, I knew that it’s just a matter of time before things began to make its ground when it comes to our expression of Nigerian food. And I think just seeing other chefs all around the world that have been in similar positions that I have been; I think it’s the nature of every ethnic space, people don’t appreciate what they have.

For example, you read the story of Massimo Bottura and his restaurant Osteria Francescana, and he went through the same thing, the Italians said he was wasting his time expressing Italian cuisine. Now, his restaurant has become the best restaurant in the world many times over; and Italian people currently support him. I’m not also someone who wants everything handed to me. If the culinary space in Nigeria were already thriving, there would be no reason for me to do what I’m doing. I like the work, and I like knowing that I’m able to (hopefully) eventually have an impact, and the work that I have done influences the next generation of our culinary artists and chefs and cooks and ‘foodies’ in general.

What interesting ‘experiments’ have come out of your test kitchen?

I don’t think there’s one singular thing; there’s always something exciting, something fun to create. I believe the things that we find the most interesting, and I don’t mean to be brash, but the things that most people find fascinating are the things that are known. Things that we don’t have to try to execute, they’re just what we know from practice and knowledge.

For the last menu at Ìtàn Test Kitchen, we were using Sugar cane juice for sorbet, and one of the staff left it out overnight, and by the time we came back to it, it was fermented, and it sort of tasted like palm wine. So it was somewhat like fermented sugarcane liquor. That’s the fun thing about having a test kitchen, things sometimes happen with mistakes, and those mistakes become some of the most remarkable things that we use so yeah, that was very interesting.  We made a sugar cane wine that tastes like palm wine.

What have you learned so far from this experience?

Keep going.

I’m learning every day.  If there’s a lesson that I’d like to share, it would be just the value of sacrifice. When you look at the most impactful movements, the people that become legends and the thighs that last the longest; those are things that people have sacrificed for. Images of what it means to practice it so like you know it’s about you know just allowing the process, allowing yourself to go at a steady pace not wanting this idea of an instant blow up that is a thing here.  It’s not sustainable.

One thing that has been rewarding are the sacrifices that I’ve cultivated in spending a lot of time creating a strong foundation that I can build on. So that’s something that I have learned over and over again, and it has been so rewarding. It’s creating a solid foundation. If you want to be good at anything, spend the time in understanding what it means to practice that art, that craft and not taking shortcuts because it will come back to bite you in the ass.

What exciting story/experience from the guests at Ìtàn test kitchen can you share with us?

We’ve had some emotional responses, especially with the elderly crowd. We had a moment of being moved to tears with an older woman who sat us down and told us you’re doing more here than they’re doing in Abuja. She said the narrative and our story is just as important as anyone else’s story. She said this is something she was happy to witness in her lifetime. It was very heartfelt, and I think when people get it, that’s usually the response we get from people.

That is beautiful. So can we say that was your fondest memory at Ìtàn?

I never have any ‘fondest’ anything; it’s just what I remembered.

Fair enough. So what sort of difficulties have you experienced with Ìtàn Test Kitchen & doing business in Nigeria?

I don’t know if it’s a difficulty. I think it’s just an acceptance of the reality of what Nigeria is. I just realised that there’s nothing certain in Nigeria. No one gets the menu before they come in here. The reason for that is that we get everything fresh, so if for instance, the fresh fish that I ordered doesn’t arrive, I can safely use another fresh fish without any sort of disappointment. Therefore, understanding the system enough to work with that uncertainty and allow that to just shape the experiences that people have is essential.  It also limits the frustration that I have to deal with it. It’s allowing yourself to change and evolve at any moment and accepting that as a reality of Nigeria.

What is the one thing you’re most proud of?

I’m proud of the growth that I’ve seen in Nigeria in the last few years. I remember like four years ago to find fresh thyme in Nigeria was hard. The idea of people having this kind of conversation wasn’t a reality.  The awareness of our ingredients and the desire to take our food system and our culinary art space to the next level has grown drastically, and that’s something that I’m so proud of. I would like to think I had something to do with it so yeah I’m very proud of that just the level of awareness that we now have when it comes to who we are in food culture.

I agree with the concept of awareness around food. I remember a dish of yours that went viral a few years ago; the Eba crisp. It sort of spoke to how versatile our food is and how someone can manipulate it into a western kind of dish.

You are right, but I always try to fight this mentality that creativity is Western. I mean in the East, we have a Garri chips – Kokoro or something, so it’s not something new.  We are very innovative when it comes to our food.

I feel like if you had made the Eba in the way it’s regularly done, it wouldn’t have made such a viral round. It wouldn’t be appreciated. 

It wouldn’t be exciting.

Exactly! That’s the word. Nigerian or African food can be exciting. 

But that’s the goal, right? It’s not about the Eba crisp; it’s the fact that a lot of people are now talking about Eba, because of the Eba crisp. And that’s what it’s supposed to do. When we narrate food properly, it triggers curiosity. There are so many different ways to get there. Creating a different interpretation of the food is just one way.

What are your thoughts on the dining space in Nigeria?

It’s another thing that is growing immensely. I think a lot of people are now taking it upon themselves to create more diverse food experiences. I like that different expressions and different ethnic groups (not necessarily only Nigerian) are being expressed in our culinary space.  I think that the true-tell of a megacity with a thriving culinary scene is the diversity of food that is available to experience. I would like to see more Nigerians owning restaurants in culinary, experiential spaces but that will come with time. It will also come with us sacrificing time to get the knowledge, experience and education; because the reality of the food industry is that if you go into it without the background, you will fail. It spares no novice, especially if it’s a restaurant business. So I love that it’s growing, you can tell from like it was four years ago, the number of restaurants we had then and the amount we have now. It shows that the demand and the willingness for people to go out to eat has increased. Because when I got here, I didn’t notice a lot of people going out to eat. It wasn’t a culture; people would instead invite people to eat in their homes. So it wasn’t a big thing, but now it’s grown. Though it’s shifting towards Western food right now, I’d like to see more Afrocentric spaces opening up as well, different expressions of different food from all around Africa. When it comes to Nigerian food, I want to see places that are more specific to an ethnic group. For instance, I would love to go to an Ibibio restaurant, where I can get real quintessential Ibibio food. Yes, Lagos is Yoruba, but it’s also a hub for different kinds of people so I would like to see more expressions of those different cuisines so people can experience the diversity of food that we have in Nigeria.

What do you consider your most important ingredient that is never missing in your pantry?

I think everything has a role to play.  I’ve never felt like I couldn’t live without something. Food is never one ingredient, it’s an orchestra, Because it’s an orchestra, every single tune of that is necessary to create that music.

Any exciting plans for Ìtàn Test Kitchen and other aspects of culinary arts?

Not that I’m willing to share.

Haha, fair enough. Before we go, let’s play a quick this or that game.

Sweet or savoury? Savoury.

Black Pepper or Red pepper? Black.

Breakfast or dinner? Dinner.

Pancakes or waffles? Waffles.

Pizza or burgers? Pizza.

Michael Elegbede is available for booking via his website and on Instagram

Ìtàn Test Kitchen: Instagram | Reservations

Abori: Instagram | Website

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