When Ayo Balogun was a young person who cherished Nationwide Geographic and spent his summers cooking along with his grandmother in Kwara State, Western Nigeria, his uncle took him for an thrilling night within the capital Lagos, the place he indulged in every kind of eating places, from dive bars to stylish golf equipment. 'Prefer it was only one evening. And I've been attempting to relive that evening ever since. It's such as you're at all times chasing that factor'.
Now in Brooklyn, Ayo is the manager chef of Dept of Tradition, one of many hottest new eating places within the metropolis, praised for its heat ambiance, its heartwarming pepper soup, and its genuine mission to create extremely regional Central-Western Nigerian delicacies. introduce it to the American palate. Meals journal Eater has simply named it among the finest eating places of 2022 and the celebrated James Beard Basis has shortlisted it for the annual award, to be introduced in June.
Dept of Tradition – Ayo's mother and father had been civil servants, therefore the title – opened only a 12 months in the past in a former barbershop in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, not removed from the Civil Service Café, the place Ayo hosted his first pop-up dinners. Small however elegant, it has just one communal desk and a counter with 4 stools. It might accommodate 16 individuals per evening and it has been totally booked for months.
Written and directed by Anna Bressanin
Director of images Ilya Shnitser
Edited by Laura Plasencia and Anna Bressanin
