Episodes

10 years ago, Chef Nkesi officially launched HSE Gourmet, her restaurant that serves gourmet comfort food classics inspired by her travels - think aromatic Pho, indulgent Mac & Cheese and a hearty Beef Pot Pie . What initially started as a private catering service, expanded into a cafe when she got a kitchen space and, as an afterthought, added a small sitting area to function as a restaurant. That small space became HSE, a homegrown staple in the Lagos’ dining scene. Today she’s also the co-e...

What if the future of Nigerian cuisine isn't about reinventing our food, but rediscovering what has always been ours? To premiere season 2 of Uncooked Women, food writer Adaorah Oduah sits down with Chef Moyo Akinbo, founder of the Atije Experience and winner of the Kitchen Season 1, to discuss her journey from culinary school in Switzerland to becoming one of the leading voices reimagining West African dining. From the moment she realized how misunderstood Nigerian food was on the global stag...

Chef Wu keeps it spicy in and out of the kitchen. After running a successful Afro-Caribbean food catering business in London, she moved to Lagos to start Oùnję Co. — her hospitality consultancy firm. Braised ox cheek pepper soup, and plantain brûlée are some of the dishes she serves at private dinners, and on the side, she’s on a mission to make Nigerian hospitality better ‘One Bite at a Time’. She chats with Ada & Lamisko about moving to Lagos and standing on (food) business.

Cobi-Jane Akinrele wants Nigerian female farmers to get paid. She’s the founder of The Aké Collective, a health and wellness company that’s making fonio more accessible. After leaving the Cambridge countryside for Lagos, she planned to start an agri-tech business in Jos after completing her NYSC. But, when she met women growing and selling fonio for extra income, she changed plans and business models. Ada & Lamisko dig into her work to promote women’s wellness.

Jumoke Toyobo makes a delicious garri sorbet. Known in the kitchen as Chef TYB, she’s a private chef and restaurant consultant who serves immersive dining experiences with menus that match her diverse culinary background. From pub kitchens in Portsmouth to Michelin starred restaurants in London, and now recently back from a gastro-tour of North America, she joins Ada & Lamisko to chat about the art of eba and her journey to becoming a chef.

Inside Chef FT’s Toronto apartment, you’ll find him serving guests fusions like banga risotto with sea snails, and garri tostadas finished with a honey bean puree. What started as a barbecuing gig evolved into Lamuren Inc., his company that curates contemporary Nigerian dining experiences across Toronto, and most recently New York. Ada & Lamisko dig into his life as a product designer by day and chef by night, living and cooking in Canada, and his supper club responsible for putting rectangular ...

Mosun Aderinokun, and her elder brother Dare, are the brains and bartenders behind Quacktails - a mobile cocktail bar and delivery service that’s refining the classics with fresh syrups and seasonal produce, while also mixing up signature cocktails like the Sapele ginger and the Okoroshi. Ada & Lamisko kick-back with co-founder Mosun who walks them through the ABCs of drinking, a brief history of cocktails, and how Quacktails was born.

Anjola Awosika has one of the most mouthwatering Instagram accounts in Nigeria. If you’ve eaten it, Anjola has most likely shot it. He tells Nigerian food stories through photography and film and is elevating West African food, one shot at a time. Ada & Lamisko dig their way into his journey from baker to blogger and finally founder of Ata Rodo Magazine.

Ada and Lamisko are officially back from sabbatical! Their kitchen, now under new management, presents the menu for this episode: Nigerian-Kazakh-Surinamese fusion origin stories, lightly roasted ex-business partners, and the podcast lore as the final apéritif. Enjoy!

When Nestle and Unilever introduced Maggi and Knorr bouillon cubes to West Africa almost 70 years ago, they took over an informal umami market run mostly by women. Before bouillon, we used fermented beans and seeds like iru and ogili, to deepen the flavours of our soups and stews. Today, both Maggi and Knorr market their seasoning cubes to Nigerian women as a means to the end of modern womanhood - a mythical destination where women can do it all in spite of the patriarchy on their necks. However...

In Nigeria, street food means tasty portable snacks like Àkàrà and Suya, but it also means bowls of pepper soup and loaded plates of rice and stew served from the many bukas that crowd street corners. Street food culture is run by the city with the most streets - Lagos, the port city that used to be a center for international trade. These Lagos streets keep most of Nigeria's working population fed, but food in the country is getting more expensive than it has ever been due to rising food inflati...

The West African jollof wars are friendly internet banter about an umami-rich rice dish beloved across the region. When we’re not fighting about who makes it best, we’re reluctantly agreeing that the region owes the recipe to Senegal, the real winners of the Jollof war. Food historian, writer, photographer, and all-round jollof connoisseur, Ozoz Sokoh, joins us to talk about the significance of West Africa’s favourite dish beyond the plate and across the region. When a grain shortage in Senega...

Amos Shackleford initially arrived in Lagos from Jamaica to work on the railroads, but he would go on to make Nigerian food history. When Shackleford started his bakery from Ebute Metta in the 1920s, he would use his business savvy to feed a growing appetite for bread across the country. On this episode we stop by one of our favorite restaurants in Lagos - Jamksi - to eat some hardo bread, the ancestor of Nigerian Agege bread, and also to learn about the history Jamaicans and Nigerians share. Ou...

Every bottle of Budweiser or Heineken is made to taste the exact same wherever you’re drinking around the world…and that gets boring. Cue, Craft Beer & Craft Breweries — smaller breweries that are popping up everywhere and making refreshing new twists to the world’s most widely consumed alcohol. Think pepper infused beers, or yam beer! They may seem new or even outlandish, but craft beers borrow from beer's beginnings — a pre-industrial time when people made beer from ingredients found in their ...

During the #EndSARS movement, several small businesses paused their day-to-day operations to feed thousands of people for FREE. On this episode we reflect on the anniversary of the #EndSARS protests and how food and those vendors gave Nigeria the longest protest it’s had in the past 4 decades. Special thanks to Taedo Bills whose song - ‘25’ is featured in the opening credits of this episode.

On this episode, the uncooked women dig into one of their favourite things - restaurants that provide food they didn’t have to cook! We head to the Syrian Club, a restaurant and social club that’s been in Lagos since the 80’s, to speak with Tamer about migration into Lagos and all the food that has come with it. The restaurant industry has become a natural hub for the migrant population and these communities have not only changed the way Nigerians eat forever, they’ve also ushered in Afrofusion...

We’re back baby! It’s a brand new season of connecting the food we didn’t cook to just about everything. Join us as we eat our way through Nigerias rich gastronomy and connect the dots between food, history, politics and ourselves as eaters. Stay tuned and subscribe!