Good morning everyone,

I went to an amazing restaurant last night, it's called Chishuru and it's in Brixton. You should definitely go if you are in London, and imagine my joy when I found out that the chef was a woman! It's a pretty dreamy story as well, she was a home cook who won a competition and now makes incredible West African food for you:

“There’s a perception I think that it is just one thing we cook, but the region is diverse and vast, and not general at all. I want to shine a light on the food, the produce, the spices. I’ve always wanted to go into hospitality and champion our ingredients.”

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/adejoke-bakare-chishuru-restaurant-brixton-london-interview-637138

In case you haven't guessed this is a Fem Fri of London women chefs.

Another excellent London restaurant with a woman chef is Mere, Monica Galetti's restaurant. It's a lovely setting as well, especially in the summer, you're in a basement so you can look up at the sky getting more intense as the evening wears on. Here's an interview with Monica:

The menu is an accumulation of the past 25-odd years. I’m classically trained in a French kitchen, but I hail from the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, and my husband is French. It’s an amalgamation of all that, plus my love of travel and learning from other cultures. For example, I bring in elements of what I love about New Zealand, like hokey pokey ice cream [vanilla with small pieces of honeycomb toffee] — my favourite.

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/07/meeting-masterchef-interview-monica-galetti

In the slightly more affordable category, here's Erchen Chang of the incredibly successful and also excellent Bao mini chain:

We love cooking and making things with our hands and when we were travelling, we talked about ideas on how to make the perfect BAO and how to search for the perfect balance of flavour. We firstly launched as a pop up and quickly settled into Netil Market where we built our first six-man shack.

https://www.tablemagazine.co.uk/blog/bao-noodle-shop

Happy Friday!

Alex xxx.