Calling for help: Emeka (left) and Ifeyinwa Frederick are fighting to keep their Tottenham restaurant open
(Picture: Matt Writtle)The brother and sister owners of London’s only Nigerian tapas restaurant have turned to social media to save their two-year-old business from closure.
Posting on the Instagram account of their Tottenham restaurant Chuku’s, Ifeyinwa and Emeka Frederick have launched a “Six Week Charge” to ensure the survival of their business into 2023. The siblings hope to secure 600 bookings, or 100 bookings a week, between now and December 11.
The challenge may be simple but the challenges facing the restaurant are not. “We must admit, we’re struggling to keep our doors open,” Emeka said in a video accompanying the post. He and his younger sister have blamed the combination of lockdowns, staff shortages and the urgent problems piling on the UK’s belegured hospitality industry for the threat of closure.
Since the Fredericks’ post two days ago, the siblings have been overwhelmed with a flood of supportive DMs. “The amount of responses we’ve had has been insane,” Ifeyinwa told the Standard. “I’ve had messages from people as far away as New York saying they’ve never been to Chuku’s but our restaurant looks like something worth fighting for. The last few years have been difficult for everyone and at times the world has felt a bit cold. This campaign is about saving our restaurant but on a personal level it has been so heartwarming to see how people will rally for something that they think is important.”
The siblings grew up in Ilford and dreamt of making Nigerian cuisine and culture approachable. They opened their first pop-up in 2016 before successfully crowdfunding for a permanent bricks-and-mortar site on Tottenham High Road. Chuku’s opened in early 2020, five weeks before the first lockdown hit. Rather than pivot to delivery during the time the restaurant was closed, the siblings instead refined their food offering.
Reviewing the restaurant in the Standard in September 2020, Jimi Famurewa called Chuku’s “a levelling-up moment for Nigerian-inspired hospitality in the capital”. Praising the sharing plates of cassava fries, adalu (stewed beans), caramel kuli kuli chicken wings and, especially, the egusi bowl, which Famurewa wrote was: “a striking tricolore of spinach, tomato and egusi (melon seed) stews studded with creamy pounded yam dumplings and balancing aesthetic elegance with a fireworks display of deftly conjured flavour.”
Chuku’s is already on course to hit 100 bookings this week and the threat of closure might ultimately be the restaurant’s salvation. “We never had the opportunity to enjoy the buzz and momentum that you get when you first open a restaurant because the pandemic cut that short, and then cut it short again and again with each lockdown,” Ifeyinwa says. “We’ve wanted to recapture that opening energy ever since and it feels like we’re kind of getting back there. We’re really excited for what is going to happen over the next six weeks.”
Last month Chuku’s hosted a lunchtime literary supper club to celebrate Nigerian Independence Day. “We’re proud to share our Nigerian heritage with so many people and we want to keep the celebration of our culture going right here on Tottenham High Road,” Ifeyinwa said.
It has taken centuries to transform London into a city that can sustain a Nigerian tapas joint as part of its melting pot of cuisines. Here’s hoping that six weeks is enough time to save that.
