Who Cooks Better - Insta Chefs or Pro Chefs? | Nigerian Chef Niyi (Novice Kitchen) Tells All

Niyi Obafemi-Olopade, founder of Novice Kitchen, joins us to talk about growing up between Nigeria and the UK, building a Selfridges-listed food brand, and why the history behind a dish matters more than most people realise.

We get into the real controversy — who owns jerk chicken? What is cultural appropriation in food and where's the line? Plus the ongoing debate between Instagram chefs and trained chefs, and why London has the best food scene in the world.

Full of strong opinions and genuine insight into food culture. One of our best episodes.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Making Healthy Easy, the Callo podcast, where we interview experts in food, nutrition, and fitness. And today we had the absolute honor of having Nihi on the podcast, who's the founder of Novice Kitchen. In the podcast today, we cover Ni's story from Nigeria. We get right into the controversies, but also helping us really understand cultural appropriation when it comes to food and the ethnicity of that food. And then, of course, we talk about Instagram chefs versus qualified chefs, what makes Nihi passionate about food? I want to start with a little bit about you because you have a fascinating background and you've been incredibly successful since you've been in the UK. But I'd like you to take us back to Nigeria and give us a first of all, like give us just the logistics. How long were you there for? What part of Nigeria were you born in and grew up in? And then I'd love you to follow that with tell us what it's like, like waking up as a child in Nigeria and what a day looks like there. Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Um, so yeah, I'm originally from Nigeria, but as a child, I spent quite a lot of time traveling around my dad, who was really keen that I learned about different cultures through food. Um, due to his work or through yeah, exactly, through his work. Um, and to be honest, most of the time I always tell people this, I really didn't like it, and I'd be at the dinner table kind of crying my eyes out. But I think over the years it's what gave me a real appreciation for different cultures. Um, and then yeah, I spent quite a lot of time growing up in Nigeria as well, but between Nigeria and the UK. Okay. Um, so during the summer, we'll come here or we'll go wherever his work was sort of taking him at that time. Um, so it could be Jamaica, it could literally be Miami, it could be Budapest, quite a lot. We spent quite a lot of Christmases in and around there. Um, but yeah, that was kind of like my initial childhood growing up. But I'm from a big family, so in total, there's like 15 of us. Wow. Yeah, and I'm the last, so it's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Sorry, 15 siblings?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Well, 14 siblings, 15 included me. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible. It's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Were you traveling with your mum or just your dad?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Um, so mainly with my dad, and then we'd have like, yeah, so we'd have like my stepmom. Sometimes my mum's there, and we would have like my sisters, my brothers. Um, yeah, but it was a big operation. Now I understand the real term around airport dad, because my dad was a serious airport dad. Like, I remember it have stacks of all of our passports and there's like little um side bag, everyone going through, and the like the there were tears at going through the security because it's like, why do you have this in your bag? And it was a complete nightmare. But it was like when you look back now, it's kind of funny because I can't imagine carrying like one person through airport security. Um, speaking of like four or five, maybe six at a time sometimes. Oh my logistics. I mean, kudos to your dad, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

It's strong work. Wow, and was uh like because you had such a big family, were there was mealtime like a big deal? Was everyone together at mealtime?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Um, no, no, not all the time. The main time where everyone would be together during mealtimes would be sort of Christmas time. Bear in mind, because obviously I'm the last, and my dad had kids relatively old, so he was like 45 when he started having kids. But um, my eldest sibling's like 50 something. So at that time when he would have been, when we would we would never really have crossed paths from a dinner perspective because maybe he's at uni or he was already sort of working when I was a child, so the times never really sort of overlap from that perspective. But um at Christmas, they tend to be like a big um family meet um gathering and we'll have sort of like lunch together, but not every single Christmas, but what's Christmas lunch look like for you?

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Is it turkey or is it yeah, turkey dry?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

It was so traditional, it was yeah, very own brand. No, but my dad was actually an amazing cook. Um, but in initially when I was younger, yeah, the it was like we'd get a big turkey. So my dad used to do this thing where for all of his friends he'll send them, especially in Nigeria, he'll send them like literally a live turkey. So like a real a turkey not like dead or anything. He'll send it like maybe a few weeks before Christmas. Maybe send I'd maybe say probably send like 20, 30 turkeys out to people. It's kind of crazy because like turkeys, yeah, yeah. Because in the house, it would have literally like turkeys in the house, like roaming around, and then every day, like there's one less turkey that's been sent to this friend. Like it's it's actually it's kind of funny, but yeah. So he used to always send it a Christmas as like a gift to people um during Christmas, and then on Christmas Day, we'd have turkey, would have jolof rice. We'll have jalof rice. It was like a mixture because my dad was also as Nigerian as he was, he was also very like British in the way he did things. So we'd have a lot of turkey, we'd have um like roast potatoes, would have um fried dry, sometimes we'd have things like Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts, he that was not his jam, but he loved Brussels sprouts. But you know, back in the day, people used to bore Brussels sprouts until the last inch of their life. Um, but he used to bore them and literally force us to eat the Brussels sprouts, which is like you gotta get your greens in, and they were so they weren't great, but everything else was delicious, like he made really good joloff rice, the turkey was pretty nice. Um, but I just Brussels sprouts just sticks out in my brain. But since then I've grown to like Brussels sprouts because I do this.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

I mean delicious. Underrated shaved raw in a salad, like orange, exactly stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

That's what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Oh, delicious, or even cooked and just not like done uh al dente with like really good, really, really peppery olive oil and like a little extra black pepper and loads of crunchy salt. I could I can smash those.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Exactly. Like for so for me, for example, who hated Brussels sprouts as a child. Now I I like Brussels sprouts, but I tend to like them when I make them because I know how I made them. So for example, I do like a really I don't even like marmite, um, but I do like a marmite butter Brussels sprouts. Delicious, and it's really good. Or, like you said, shaved with a bit of um orange, um, some mustard is unreal. Yeah, yeah. Some French mustard.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Super delicious. And just just one more time, like, take us back though. I I'm very interested in what a day in Nigeria looks like, you know, as what a 10-year-old, 11-year-old?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, yeah, a bit younger, actually. Um, tends so when I was really young, because I spent a lot of time with my cousins as well.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Um, because if my dad's working, we'll sort of go back together, we're living together for a while as well. So it'd be literally just back from school, get the PlayStation on, maybe put some WWE on the amount of times that we would like throw each other through like the mattresses practicing WWE moves. Um, so yeah, that's kind of like what it tended to be. And then we'll sort of wait for dinner time. Um, depending on what dinner was on the menu, then I'd have dinner. Because I as a child I was actually a really fussy eater.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Uh exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Like really fussy. That for example, I'd hate to see onions in my food. Like if I saw onions, I'm like, yeah, there's no dinner for me tonight. But the food, but the food was in general like really, really delicious. Okay. Um, but I was just like really fussy when I was really young. Um, but I think also probably the pressures of like being told to try everything, you know, um was probably one of the things that I was like, oh, I don't want to, maybe in my rebellious ways, being like, okay, maybe I don't want to try everything.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Um what age did you fully move to the UK?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Um when I was about 10. Okay. Like between well, but it was like sporadic to be honest, because like sometimes I'll literally spend like majority of the year here and then um go back um for like a couple of months to Nigeria.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

How did you feel about British food when you first got here?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Oh, it was trash. I'm not even gonna sugarcoat this. I literally would, like I said, I'll douse all my meals with Tabasco just to match like the level of spice that I was used to as a child. It was really bad. Like when because I went to a boarding school in the UK as well. Um, so I remember in my when I first like years, I honestly think 90% of my meal was bread and butter because it was kind of like what I was used to. And I remember just like the even like a Sunday roast, like the beef on the would be on the um because the food actually, when I look back now, it's like they gave us good food options for a boarding school. But when you're uh when the quality of food that I was used to, I was literally like, what is this like rubbish? You'd get like this big slab of beef, like the potatoes wasn't like seasoned well. I'd be putting to Basco in my gravy and be like, This is just I just need to get through this. Um, and most of the time it was literally bread. Breakfast was good because I I was used to eating bacon, beans, um, sausages, that sort of stuff, and like cereal. But when it came to lunch and dinner, like I never understood cold pasta because I had never had cold pasta in my life. So when I saw and the salad bar it had like pasta, I was like, and then it was tuna, mayo, sweet corn.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

I was they're quite weird concepts when you objectively think about them.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Completely. So I was thinking this is that in Nigeria we don't really eat cold food anyway. It's not really, yeah, it's not really a thing. Like you would never get, yeah, we it's not a thing. If you send if you gave somebody cold food at your house, uh the whole of Lagos will hear about it. They would definitely hear about it, so it's not really a thing. Um, so I was completely mind-blown by that. But now, obviously, as it's assimilated a little bit better, you get used to trying these different things, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, and has your opinion of British food culture changed?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So I think there's a complete misunderstanding of British uh British food in general. So I think people, especially Americans and Europeans, they think their food, well, British food is terrible. But I think London has probably the best food scene in the world in terms of like diversity, right? So if you were to look at it from that perspective, then the food in the UK is amazing. Well, specifically as well, London, because I don't know about the rest of the UK, is amazing. But then if you're breaking it down to English food, I can see why people might say, Oh, it's not the best. But I still stand on the hill that UK, England, Britain, uh they make the best desserts. I don't think any country can touch that because we've got what sticky toffee pudding, we've got a Victoria's sponge cake. Yeah, we've got so many good desserts, you know. So it's quite from that perspective, yeah. I think people are sleeping on the UK from that, from that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, I agree with you on desserts. I mean, France is probably good competition, even America, they have some stuff, but I actually actually really agree with you there. But I like I come from Australia and I always say to my friends, you know, when they when they say, Oh, I've heard British food's terrible. But I think you you have to look at that in the kind of context of you know, maybe maybe like pie and mash has been done terribly by a few places. That can still be a great dish, yeah, you know, with like pickled eels or whatever that that people do. Jellied eels. That's quite weird. But then, like if you think about London and like like right now, me and you could go for Michelin star sushi in in 20 minutes. Yeah, exactly. You know, or then we could go for like the best Indian in like you know, an hour down the road, or in 20 minutes in the other direction, we could have like the best pub roast in the world, you know, like like literally 15 minutes away is um the Harwood Arms. Yeah, it's like Michelin Star, you know, pheasants, roast, and all of this kind of stuff. So, and I've never seen that density in other cities. I think New York is kind of close, but you have a lot more, in my opinion, diversity in London inside like a very small area. And I think there's such fierce competition within restaurants to attract the specific customer that is eating out a lot that they've been forced to just up their game constantly and constantly and constantly. So, like the rate of improvement and like innovation, I think is also very impressive in the UK. Um, and you like tell us the story of how you made food, like kind of the commercial or the thing that like you know paid your rent.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So, with me, actually, food was not something that I stumbled across, but it was something that as I grew older I became more and more interested in. Um, so initially I actually I obviously I went to university, I did like a property degree, um, and then I thought I was gonna become like a presenter, like a TV presenter. Um, so interviewing artists, that sort of stuff, the entertainment side of things. But then I got an internship working on a TV show here in the UK. And from there I just sort of started understanding the food side of things. So I was really pushing to work within the food industry. Okay. Um, but at that time with the chefs that were on the show, it was sort of like the big, like really famous chefs, so it was really difficult to break in. And at that time I was about 21. And when you're 21, you think you can do everything. But when I look back in hindsight, I think I probably didn't have the skill set and I wasn't ready. But it gave me a real itch to really understand it. But then also during university, I actually started a food page then called Cooking for Students. Um, yeah, so it was I had tried to start two food things at university. So the first one was called Cooking for Students. Basically, I realized a lot of my friends didn't really know how to cook when they've just freshly left home, even though we'd like boarded together, so they understood understood independently. A lot of my mates still don't know how to cook.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Exactly. Sometimes I'm like, it's one of the things I gift as a birthday present. I'll like write on the card, two times cooking lessons. Oh it's a gift free.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, for me, it is actually as well. Yeah, um, but I think, yeah, so I I started that and um through Instagram, but Instagram was not in its infancy because Instagram's actually been since 2008, which is kind of crazy. But it was just starting to uh build up and grow uh grow at that point. Um the pictures are amazing, the page is terrible. Um, I found it the other day, it's not the best, but I I sort of like started early mob. But yeah, it probably started roughly the same time, but I think he did it significantly better than I did at that time. So, and I was sort of just getting into I was spending a lot of time playing rugby, socializing, that sort of stuff. But um then I also started another one then, but this one I never really took off because I realized it was basically called morning after meals, so it was like a pun on morning after meals. So after a night out, I'll come cook to you. But I realized that I'm also significantly tired after this to actually kick off. So I basically had to nip that in the bud back then. Yeah, dude, that's a terrible with the people that are like, can't wait for you to come around to eat. I'm like, okay, yeah, this isn't really gonna work out. Um, so that was kind of a fun thing, but I think uh throughout that period of time, I started sort of toying with the idea of um being within the food industry, but just not really knowing how to navigate it. I then actually went to just during COVID, um basically I was I we one of my friends um who lives in Ibiza, we managed to, it was like her it was her birthday, and of the week of her birthday, you know, when they were doing the colour system where this country is in a green, yellow, whatever. Um, we had booked just by chance to go for her birthday in Ibiza, and then Spain was put on the green list.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Um so then I spoke to one of the chefs that works with like their family, and I was like, hey, look, I'm really interested in creating some products, I'm really interested in food. I've been to Indonesia, I've learned about this. It's sort of like the recipes that I'm sort of thinking of, and it was literally like just do it, like just crack on, just get along and just do it. So after that, it was sort of like July time by August. I was taking products to different barbecues, taking getting people to try it. I was literally like a weird of being like, Okay, are you having a barbecue? I'll bring my sauces. I brought like different variations, try it. Does this work well with this? Do you like this? Um, and then people sort of find found it like tasty, they found it interesting. At that time, I had two main products. So I had the Barlinese jam, which is still probably our best product. It's well that uh I mean, I can never really say it's my best product, but it's I've tried it, it's delicious. Thank you, thank you. Um, and then I had a tropical heat, which is like a mango scotch bonnet one, which is sort of like a nod to my background through the scratch scotch bonnet um and the tropics as well. So the idea around that one was also during because like I said, from Nigeria, actually, we've got a real big problem in terms of um logistics and uh wastage of food. Um so actually in Nigeria during like the mango harvest season, about 300-400,000 tons of mangoes are wasted each year. Wow. So the idea was to then utilize like the wastage, the mangoes, um, to create this product. Um then I was speaking to my dad about this, and we're trying to work out the logistics and actually how to do that. But the big problem was the logistics, and which is why the wastage was happening because some of the roads weren't amazing. Um, so people didn't really know what to do with the product. Like, let's say um we could freeze dry them, for example, people weren't really doing that. So I think actually with the right person, if they want to do that, that's probably a big opportunity by just understanding actually how to do it better. Um, so I then created the product and then basically started pushing it out to different people. Literally, I was acting like a glorified stalker, I was reaching out to every man and their dog who would listen to it. Any luck? Uh well, I mean it did because we ended up getting listed as Selfridges um through literally stalking. I actually, weirdly, one of the buyers of the products, not he wasn't actually the buyer for my category, but I was I came out my house like in East London and I saw him walking across the street and I like went up to him and I stopped. No way. I took some sauces and I gave it to him. So he was literally with his family. I like took it, gave it to him, and then after that, I just kept reaching out. I was like, Can you give this to the right buyer? Can you and then eventually we ended up being listed there, which was quite fun and quite cool. So it's dark. I love the hustle. Yeah, I had to, I had to, yeah, yeah, yeah. I still in sausages. Um, and then some other retailers at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Amazing. I find something I one of the things I'm often trying to share with friends is that learning to cook is one of these things that you you kind of have this baseline of let's just call it life, and then you you go through a couple of cooking classes or you learn some knife skills or whatever, and that skill just stays with you forever, and your life becomes demonstrably better forever.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

You know, it's like, and I and I'm always trying to encourage people. I don't know whether you feel the same way, but I'm always trying to encourage people like invest a day or two days, and then everything you ever cook after this will be better. Whether it's knife skills, whether it's sortaing skills, whether it's like stocks and sauces, or you know, I went to a very traditional like cooking school regime when I was like an apprentice chef. So I did like French cooking. So I did stocks and sauces to begin with, and you know, everything from like you know, brown stock, white stock, and then into like your volutes and creamy stocks and things like that, and then through into butchery and all of those kinds of things. And each one of them, I just I sometimes want to impart that with somebody to say, you know, when you understand this or you know how to like cook a meat or break down a chicken or whatever, that that will be with you forever. Exactly. It's like riding a bike, yeah. You know, and and those skills don't go away because you regularly use them, and also I think they're quite easy to memorize. So I think it's it's very cool what you're doing. But speaking of passion, like I'm interested in do you remember what it was like early doors that made you think like made you become really drawn towards food?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yeah, I think actually, if I was to pinpoint it, um where I really was like, okay, this is exactly where I'm gonna focus and go down. It was when I was in Indonesia and Bali um and trying the different sambaals with the different dishes that I was having. Um, Indonesian food is amazing and it's so diverse and it's so it's just delicious in total.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

I have not invested enough time there, by the way. I I I'm at like Mi Gorang and the lights, which by the way is elite. Yeah, it's elite, it's elite, elite.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I mean, everywhere you go in Indonesia, you can get a delicious um nasi garango and mi gorang, you can you can you can for somebody who doesn't really eat eggs that much, I was getting stuck into them in the with the nasi garanges up there. Um, but I think that's really where I sort of thought, okay, because I just tried everywhere you everywhere I went, everybody had their own variation of sambal. Like every single um restaurant, every little side street um store store had their own version. And I was like, it's so amazing that something with with maybe four or five key ingredients can taste this different in every single place that I go to and be so delicious. Um and also it probably just helped that the weather was amazing. It was like in the sun. I like the whole idea of like just popping into somewhere random and you can have like as good a meal as you can where you're gonna pay like a hundred pounds for and you're maybe paying like two pounds for it. You know, I really loved that idea of it.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

And it made me what are those four or five ingredients in a sambal?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Um, I would say probably shallots, uh, chilies, obviously, garlic. Um, you can push with maybe say um bella chan, which is sort of like shrimp uh paste, but that's not essential um in every sambal. Um, and then yeah, maybe three of the three, and then maybe like a vinegar or like a lime juice or something as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Kind of give it some edge and freshen it up a lot.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, so a sambal is like a chili sauce, so you get it on the side of every dish, basically.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

And you you also have it in Sri Lanka, um, I think but it's slightly different versions, Thailand, they're mixing like coconut into them sometimes, and sometimes it's like two or three different ones with the same meal, right? There's like a green chili sambal thing or a coconut one or like a pure chili one. Um, and some of them are like spicy as fuck, by the way. Some of them are brutal. Exactly. You have to be really careful.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

You've got to balance it right. Because even in Malaysia, like Malaysian food, I will literally sing about Malaysian food forever. It's it's just amazing. And they obviously have their different variations of sambals as well, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They do incredible like um like broths and things like that through there as well, which I'm I'm quite obsessed with. Uh, I'm interested, like that early motivation and that passion for food. Is that still what like gets you out of bed in the morning or is that has that changed now?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, that's a really interesting question, actually. Yeah, that is a really interesting interesting question because there's certain elements within the food um industry slash my business that aren't as exciting as sort of like what I really really love. But if I was to pin it down, the main things that I really love about the food is learning about the culture through food and learning about what necessarily is making this like what has inspired like the history of this dish, like what's inspired the flavor of this dish, like the different combinations of what's creating this dish. And I'll sort of give you an. Example, I was just talking about Malaysia. Um, we've just created a Malaysian sambal, um, and this has probably one of being the most exciting part of why I really love food because uh in Malaysia you've got the three main cultures you've got the Chinese, Indian, and Malay. Um, and uh it allowed me to be really creative because with the sambal I got to combine a little bit of the Chinese, a little bit of the Indian, a little bit of the Malay. And this isn't necessarily a typical sambao because usually they would focus on, let's say, like the Chinese version or the Malay version of a sambao, maybe more like sort of the Malay version of the sambao. But I thought, okay, how can I combine this country that has such a diverse history, so diverse culture, such diverse people into one product and maybe an ode to all three um and try and do it justice without um, I guess, being a culture vulture or culturally appropriating the the um product, you know, and the thing that I love so much?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I want to come back to that a little later. But I'm interested, like you you've had a really like beautiful journey into food, and now you're you're coming at it from a multiple of different angles. Do you have any advice for anyone who's thinking about like getting into food um or and taking their career into either food on social media um or or food in like fit physical commission like commercial spaces? 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

So for me, I haven't really had any sort of training um per se in terms of like any Do you not think it's needed?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Like the Instagram chef versus the you know, the Casper, the the guy who's been to cookery school.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Okay, so this is amazing because I'm in that bracket. Okay because so I'm in a weird bracket within the food industry because so food content creators they reach out to me to give them tips on how to run a food business.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Food business owners reach out to me on how to create content around food, but I'm actually just in the middle of being like, I don't really know how to do both, I'm just working it out at the same at the same time. But I think because I fall in that bracket, I have a unique perspective on how things work because again, I'm not like a trained chef, but I put in the effort to learn about the food. So I try and starge at restaurants for let's say two months, three months at a time, and I'll do maybe two days a week just to really understand a cuisine that I'm interested in. So I've done it in like a North African Mediterranean restaurant, I've done it in a Ramen restaurant, I've done it in a Thai restaurant, um, and then maybe in the future I'm gonna try and do it in a Korean just food that I'm interested in because I guess maybe to give me a little bit of the credibility, but I think the rigidity of being in the restaurant is very different to cooking at home. Like the skills you're gonna learn in a restaurant, don't get me wrong, are significantly higher than you would as a home cook. But that doesn't mean that as a home cook it's wrong because they're also not necessarily transferable, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Like my my um my first year of cooking, I spent about 80% of the time washing dishes. My second year of cooking, I spent 20% of the time washing dishes and the other 80% making salads. My third year of cooking, I spent 10 months making mashed potato, just mash. Yeah. And so, like, I I probably got to the end of my third year of commercial cooking and I knew how to shuck oysters, make salads, make mashed potato, and uh like wash dishes. Like literally. And so, like, I I remember my first complete dishes that I was cooking in my like third year of cooking were were like the star food, you know. Like I learned how to make curry from star food because they were like, you know, it's your it's your day to make that. And then I'd say to the head chef, like, I literally don't even know how to make like I'm three years as a chef and I don't know how to make these things. Obviously at cookery school, I like started developing more of the fundamentals in and around it. But when you work in like fancy, fancy restaurants, you go through so many sections before you're even cooking like proteins, you know? And so you're actually learning like very, very basic things, which is a funny thing, and like, and it's a bit of like an arrogance thing from chefs, but like when a chef will say I to another like fancy chef, I worked at you know, XYZ restaurant, the the next question will be what sections did you work on? Yeah. Because like it's not actually that difficult to get a job at a three Michelin star restaurant if you're on the cold starters. Okay, you know, but like if you want to go in and cook proteins and you're on the source section, you're probably like 10 years in the game before you're able to do that. And so there are real, they're like there are levels to this game when you do that, but it also means there's not much crossover in terms of actually helping people cook at home, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And I think that's where the restaurants that you choose is really important if you're gonna do that. If I was speaking to uh Instagram chef, because there's this friction between Instagram chefs and real chefs, because real chefs are like, why isn't it? And I think maybe I might get in trouble for saying this, but a lot of real chefs maybe they look at it and think, um, why isn't it me that's getting all these brand deals? Like I can do this 10 times better. But maybe that real chef, you don't have the personality of an Instagram chef. Yeah, and sometimes in life, that's just what you've been dealt. But then the home cook is looking at the um chef being like, oh my god, I wish I could do this, I wish I could learn the skill to do that. Because somebody And I think both is super powerful, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Like, I think Thomas Straker would be a good example of both, balance, right? Or like cooking with Ben would be a good example of both. Cooking with Ben. He's like he's he's like blown up on social media, but he came from like that that background of like fine dining restaurants and stuff like that. And so he's got the skills to Matt Rao. Matt Raoul.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I think he's like Maison Francois or something. Okay, he's really good. Yeah, um, but he's got a balance of both. So, and I think that's where like the home cooked, a lot of home cooks would not survive uh a Saturday night shift in the restaurant. No chance.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

They would yeah, they would just Gordon Ramsay. We used to have like guys turn up who were like had been a home cook, gone and done like the cookery school, and then turned up, and within like 24 hours, people would be walking around behind their back, putting fingers up behind their heads as to how many weeks or days they thought that person. Oh my god. And it was horrible, like it was really me. And then sometimes like you'd be like four days in, and this person would be in tears at the back of the restaurant being like, I always wanted to work for Gordon Ramsay. And now, you know, I I distinctly remember like a guy starting who was a lovely guy, and he got chewed out after like 10 days and just didn't come to work the next day. And I remember the head chef thought it was funny who like the head chef was a total prick, but he thought it was funny when he was like reading out the letter from the guy's dad who'd written in and said, My son like grew up admiring Gordon Ramsay and wanted to come and work at this restaurant and did his cookery school and was super passionate about food. And after 10 days in your restaurant, he never wants to cook again. But to your point, like surviving in a restaurant like that isn't necessarily about being the best like at making a di a dish holistically. Sometimes it's you're you're you're really fast, you can survive on low sleep, and you can like put up with it like extreme stress and tension. None of those skills necessarily correlate to home cooking or like what you go home to do.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Exactly. And I think also, even in addition, um, from the home cooked Instagram, that sort of stuff, there's a real skill into doing that side of things, like understanding what looks good, what the audience wants, um, editing, um, showing your personality. Um, and it's it has to be digestible.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Like you have to like watch it and like understand how to cook that recipe after seeing it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

And it's so competitive now, like it's saturated as a market. So, really, for you to get to the top of that, you've got to be consistent. Like posting every day, every two days, every three days. A lot of work. Maybe a chef is not gonna have time to do that either. So I think both sides they have their different aspects that, and I think that's why there's a lot of friction within that. Because I have a lot of um Instagram friends that are desperate to starge. For example, one of my friends, really good friends, actually. Um, he's actually got a pop-up going on right now that's doing really well. They're doing like 300 uh covers, 200 covers a day or something like that throughout the whole day. But he the other day we were talking and he was like, Oh, I really want to starge at a restaurant, but I'm scared that they're gonna think I'm just doing it for content. And I was like, bro, just email and ask. Like, you really want to learn how to do it, and just why don't you try it?

SPEAKER_02 30:18

As long as you don't film while you're doing it and it's like not getting in the way, I don't think so. I actually like from we had a lot of starges at some of the restaurants I worked at, and and I've done a lot of stages myself. And honestly, the the reach out because that kitchen wants the free labor. Yeah, so like the I I tell your friend not to be too nervous about it.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

But it also helps restaurants now. Restaurants restaurants need help. That's what I mean. Um, so for them, even if they're filming it on the restaurant, as in like from a socialist perspective, exactly. Yeah, so if it's like, oh, I'm starging at this restaurant right now, all of a sudden you might have a million people view a thing, and then from you being on your last pound, your book for the next month, you know. So I think there's both sides can definitely work together to have an amazing industry because this restaurant industry is, as everybody knows, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

I think it 100% needs it. Tell us about the dishes that you've got on Calo. How many are there? Um, break down each of them for us.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Okay, so we've gone sort of like a spring menu, but also um it's quite an experimental menu, but it's also an exciting menu. So we've got jerk chicken on the menu, an authentic version of jerk chicken. Um, so we're actually gonna get it nicely grilled. We're gonna use actual, so we you can you can't make jerk chicken without pimento seeds. Um so we've we've got that in the pimento seeds are kind of the the large black pepper seeds. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

And make where do they come from?

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Pimento seeds come from the pimento tree. Um so sometimes actually use the the bark of the tree to actually smoke, smoke the jerk. Well, I think that's where it sort of comes from as well. Yeah, so it's super, super delicious. Then we're also going for jerk meatballs. So we're gonna use the jerk marinade and we're gonna mix that into the um. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Yeah, is that a beef or a chicken meatball?

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Um, we're gonna go for beef. Nice. Um, we're gonna use that in there as well, and then we're gonna create the jerk sauce, our own homemade calo, novice kitchen jerk sauce, which is delicious as well. And then we've gone for a note to where I'm from, so we're going to a Nigerian red stew. So this is really popular in Nigeria. You can't go to anyone's everybody in their house in an ice cream container in their freezer has stew. Because when you've got your friends coming over, you got nothing to cook. You just get your stew out of the freezer, defrost it, put some rice on, some plantain on, and then you've got that.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Oh, delicious. What's in what are the main ingredients of the red stew?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So we're gonna um we've got some tomatoes in there, some fresh tomatoes, some onions, some garlic, some chili, some ginger, a little bit of curry powder, and then also we scotch bonnet. But it's not to blow your head up, it's just to enhance. A lot of people misunderstand scotch bonnet because they think of the heat. But scotch bonnet is actually quite a fruity flavoured chili, and it's got a lot of flavour compared to like the regular chilies that you have. Um, then we're also gonna do a classic Nigerian uh dish, which is beans and plantain, but we're gonna do it a little bit different because we're gonna caramelize some onions through it as well, and then we're gonna use some buttered beans. So it's a twist on a classic Nigerian beans and plantain dish, but we're gonna just slightly change um the variation of it as well. But this is a dish that I did for a wedding, and the amount of people that sort of asked for the recipe after was crazy. Like the bride and the groom, like the first thing they said when they when we had the taste in was that this has to be on the menu. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it went down a tree. I'm excited to try it. Yeah, this is really, really good. That one.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

If you would like to try the delicious food that we have been talking about, use the code CALOPOD for 50% off the trial. So that is a no commitment. You do not have to subscribe. Trial, after the trial, you can decide if you want to commit, and that code Calopod will also give you 20% off the next order you make with us. With your menu, it's gonna be exciting. But I also want to get jerk chicken right, like that, like that's a big one. And I see a lot of brands, I'm not gonna mention any names, but they're like leveraging it in a massive way. Um, and I like let's get to the sticky stuff, right? Okay, let's talk about jerk chicken. Yeah, yeah. Um I wanna, I wanna on like I want your take on cultural appropriation within food.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Um, so in terms of that, like obviously, from my perspective as well, because like I said, a lot of my products are um either I've got a Malaysian one, I've got a Chinese Sichuan one, I've got um uh a Balinese one as well. Um, and obviously I'm not from any of those countries. And then today we're working on a Caribbean. Well, a lot of the dishes are also Caribbean, and it's quite a sticky topic because you've gotta really Because of the sauce, right? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Come on, come on, some dad jokes in that no, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

You've gotta you've gotta be super um respectful of different cultures because food means a lot to people, you know, um, because it tells different stories to different people, like it means a lot. Like it might be the first time you had jerk chicken, might be the time you maybe your wife's parents cooked it for you and that sort of stuff. So there's a lot of story uh behind it, and not just from that, also the history of it. So, for example, why is jerk chicken jerk chicken? Like, what was the history behind jerk chicken, right? It's when um people used to, like when slaves used to cook underground and they had to find a way of sort of like hiding the smoke, so they weren't their location wasn't sort of found, that sort of stuff. So there's history behind that, and there's reasons why people do it. And then it's not all not just that, it's also certain ingredients are indigenous to the places where these dishes come from. For example, like pimento seeds coming from let's say Jamaica. Um, there's a lot of history behind food, and it's not just okay, I like jerk chicken, I'm just gonna do whatever I want because uh it looks like it, but it doesn't taste like it, but I'm gonna call it jerk chicken because uh the idea that I had in my head was to create jerk chicken, so I'm just gonna make it seem like that. Um, so I think if I'm looking at from my perspective, I'm creating the products that I've created that aren't Nigerian, um, I really, really focused on doing as much as I can to respect the culture. So I go to the countries, not just that a lot of people in the US as well. We do the thing where, oh, I went to Bali one time, and now look, I've created something that's been a big hit in Bali for a hundred years, and now I'm bringing it to the West because nobody's seen that. But it's that, okay, I'm speaking to real people, I'm trying hundreds and hundreds of this product. Um, I'm going to like literally off the beaten track. I'm going to an auntie's house in the middle of nowhere. I'm spending a month there. I'm learning about the food, I'm learning about like what makes this this, I'm learning about the ingredients, trying to really understand this. Then when I'm there, I create my own version of what I sort of I've learned over that, like say three weeks prior to the end of the trip, of what I think is like what I'm trying to bring back in.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

But if you call it an Indonesian sambal or a Caribbean jerk chicken, and then you bring that to the market, are you still not leveraging like the history and the brand name like behind those dishes to then commercially sell more products?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yeah, yeah, you are you are doing that a little bit, but I think there's ways to do things that you can see when it's a money grab. For example, we've seen products. If I'm looking at it from a Nigerian perspective, we've seen a jalof rice packaged uh dish that had lemon parsley, those aren't things that we use in jalof rice in Nigeria, right? But because Nigerian Oliver, right? He's one of my favourite chefs in the world. So I don't know. I'd love, I do I love Jamie. I've literally got every single cookbook from his first till like um his best. It's a guess, throw him under the bus and have a channel. But we've seen things like that, you know, it's not necessarily something that's um what we use, but if Nigerian food was hot at the time, you can see where maybe somebody has completely misunderstood um the market and tried to push that as um gospel. Because a lot of people be like, oh, this really famous person has created this um product, it must be exactly what it is over there because they've not done their own version of the research, they've not done any research, they've followed the big name because he's or she's had a lot of history with success and delicious food, you know, and it's just uh there's a big, big difference between that. A lot of people um from countries that have been colonized, they see um people in the West, like I say, maybe British or um I guess maybe like yeah, different countries in in the West, um, they see uh their history as a lot of taking. So that's why they get a little bit protective over things like their recipes, because there's history of coming, taking what is considered the best bits, repackaging it, and then selling it to the masses as uh original idea. Um for example, uh this is so on topic right now, Ube. Ube is like a sort of like a yam. It's been so popular, it's like the purpose is purple. Oh yeah, yeah, delicious. Um yeah, it's uh been a thing in the Philippines since time him uh has started, but now it's becoming popular in the UK. But the way people are packaging Ube in the UK, it's like this is the newest invention in the world, and Filipinos are looking at like, bro, my auntie's been doing this, like my grand great, great, great-great grandma's been doing this, but then they do or matcha, they make like now they combine the both. I'm seeing matcha ube lattes, I'm like, this is my pure branding play, though, right? Yeah, but I think but people aren't seeing that people who aren't understanding the history or haven't done their research, they're seeing this as like, oh my god, somebody's invented Ube and they've invented matcha, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

So do you think it's important for a brand to like call out something's history and like you know, represent that in the dishes or the marketing behind it?

SPEAKER_00 40:30

No, I think if you're gonna do it, you have to do it justice. You have to really represent it correctly, you have to show um like respect to the people who um have been doing this. For example, I never see any um in the marketing of it, I never see any Filipino people in the marketing of it. All I see is like some uh basic person drinking it, cheersing it with their friend. I never see the right people being used in even the marketing, you know. There's just little things like that. I think people here we have a real um problem with packaging things um in a way to make it seem like it's originally ours, which is what there's a big problem in that.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Where do you think that comes from? Is just people are lazy or they or is it more the consumer because the the brand thinks I'm gonna package this in a certain way that best attract consumers and that it won't be attractive if I mention like the Filipino heritage, or is it just lazy of the brand?

SPEAKER_00 41:29

I think it's probably a bit lazy because now it's 2026, you know, the world has moved on, people are understanding other people's cultures more and they want to know the stories. So I think it's lazy if you don't want to share the stories of where they've come from. Um, because I mean, if I saw that and I'm like, oh my god, um, if I had two brands side by side and I've seen Ube Macha from a Filipino and a Japanese person, like they work together and they've created this, and then I see Ube Macha, and I see it's the CEO of let's say Starbucks or something, I know exactly where I'm going to get it. Yeah, of course. And I can guarantee it's probably significantly better on that side as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

We're gonna nail this. We've got an Australian and a Nigerian and guy.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

No, but that you know what though? That's also I think I think there's also a play to that as well, because um, I don't want to bring this to a race thing as well, but I think a lot of the people in the Caribbean, they've also got history within Africa as well. So I think also who's sort of like packaging as well, there's just a way to do things, and I think a lot of the big brands that it's a money grab to, there's not a they haven't necessarily done the work, it's all a formula, you know. They've not done the work to really understand it. Whereas what we're doing now is like one of the key things that you said to me when you said, Oh, let's do this collaboration, is that you said we have to make the jerk chicken as authentic as possible.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

100%.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

And I appreciated that.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

I want to just loop back like one or two quick ones at the end here. Um, but do you think it's a myth that British people just don't understand spice or you know, and they have like an intolerance, or is it something that you think's like changed over time?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

No, I think well I mean I I can only speak from my friendship group and my experience, you know. Um, and I think I think it that that theory is changing.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

And you can see it everywhere. Like you can go onto High Street next to a Thai restaurant, you might see a Nepalese restaurant, um, you might see an Indian restaurant, you know. So we are really interested in spices, but I think people, especially now, I guess maybe through social media helping as well, and through I guess pages like um Top Joel, for example, people are more willing to try new dishes and new cultures and new foods. So I think, yeah, I think I think that's changing. I can see if you asked me this question when I moved to the UK and when I was just starting a school, I would be like, Yeah, I don't know what's going on. On um, like there's no flavor or anything, but I think now and travel, like people being able to travel, travel being accessible. Um, but now I think people are definitely 100%. I think it's changing.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

I've heard you also talk about like food bringing people together and you know how it can bring communities together and and things like that. Um is there maybe you could just share with us like a meal or a moment in time that kind of speaks to you around community and food and the power it has to bring people together?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in terms of yeah, for me personally, I don't think there's a better way for you to bring people together than through food. Um and I think the best food for me personally that does this, um, and I do it with my friends all the time. When we want to socialise, we always socialise around food. I'm a big Arsenal fan, and before every before every Arsenal match, a lot of my friends we go to a restaurant to eat, and that gives us an opportunity to actually really catch up. Um, but also I think Korean barbecues. Oh wow, they're amazing at this because it's like you've got a barbecue in the in the middle, everybody's like chipping in, playing with the food, like playing with the food, they're talking, they're doing bits and pieces, they're you know like grilling the meat. Um, and it's like as guys, and I I I saw this somewhere, it's like guys, they always have to be doing some sort of activity to um catch up or um talk. Um, whereas like um girls, they can literally just one-on-one have a discussion, right? Um, so then when I was thinking, I was like, wow, this is actually so true because every time I'm catching up my friends, like we don't just sit down next to each other and just like talk, we're having a Korean barbecue. And for me, that's like the best way because yeah, we're doing something, but also like it's not the main focus of what we're doing. Like we can leave it there, we can still catch up, and then we can go back to it. And it's like a really wholesome and nice.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

And it's also not regimented, right? It's not the courses, and and also it's so flavorful, like so jam-packed with flavor. I also think that that kind of thing, like I always used to think like uh like the perfect date night is that is that kind of food, you know, or like uh even if you're sitting at the bar at like barafina or you know, like uh I don't know, if you want to spend a lot of money, go to Zuma or something, but you sit at the bar all the time because there's definitely something about like if you have no chat, but you could look at food the whole time. Oh my god, they couldn't do that. Or yeah, should we barbecue this one? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Exactly. That's exactly that. Um, but I think that's probably my favorite way. I I love the way it brings people together, and it always has been a thing for me. Like my dad, every single dad used to love Chinese food. Um, every time we're sort of meeting up um with like friends, the amount of his friends that I've met through going to a Chinese restaurant, um, like different he used to love this place called Water Margin and then Chinatank who would go with his friends, and that was really nice because I'm at the end of the day, like I'm like a child, I'm with adults really. Um, so what else can there be? What am I gonna really talk to them about? But yeah, yeah. He used to love the idea that I don't know, for example, like I I can use chopsticks, and I've always been able to use chopsticks, and like it was a uh topic of conversation amongst his friends who like, oh, he's so young and he can do this. Uh and then that gives you like a bit of a confidence boost, and it was a nice bit to socialize. So I used to really sort of enjoy that as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

What are you most excited about for 2026? Um other than the Callo Collab.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

Outside of the Callo Collab, um, I'm excited to hopefully create a food um travel series around um different countries talking about food that I really love and then getting our products into more retail. Um that's sort of the big thing, and then just to keep growing through either socials, keep growing, create new products. Um, yeah, those are the key things.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Amazing. We will put all of your links in the show notes below this. But honestly, this has been really fun and uh I love talking to people about food. I could do it all day. But we're gonna wrap here and thanks so much for doing the collab with us.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

No, thank you so much for having me. I'm actually super excited, and we've got our development day coming up. So I cut I'm actually excited to get in the kitchen, see the new rationale, see how you guys are doing the science behind it. Because for me and scaling up and understanding the way you scale up dishes and products, this is gonna be so exciting for me.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

It's a mix between art and science. Yeah, you'll see that in real time. Awesome, man.