What does Melissa Thompson love?
South London-based food writer and author of Motherland shares her most delicious things with us this week. Plus some delicious things happening in London this Saturday!
This week I’m delighted to share with you Melissa Thompson’s top London tips but, first:
A few bakery things happening this weekend in London
FREE COOKIE!
Guess the cookie difference at EK Bakery
This weekend EK Bakery are asking you to guess what minor changes they’ve made to their cookies. Just pre-order or buy anything and you’ll get a free cookie! This also works for any orders sent on Friday if you can’t make it to London. 😘
You can preorder for Saturday collection here: https://ek-bakery.slerp.com/order/store/ek-bakery
📌 Unit 1 Broadway Market Mews, London E8 4TS
NEAREST STATION: Cambridge Heath
(An interview with EK Bakery founder is coming soon!)
A Citrus Extravaganza at Toklas
I went to this last year and loved trying so many different varieties of citrus at once to compare them. Plus the citrus bakes and treats.
This time Toklas have got special guests with market stalls, as well as their own range of citrus treats.
Pop in from 10am to try sweet and sour things from Brat, Mountain, Burnt, Shrub and La Grotta Ices. These are some seriously good businesses, all in one place.
Last year Toklas sold a blood orange Pump Street hot chocolate. I didn’t expect to like it (I have mixed feelings on orange and chocolate) but I loved it. Hopefully they’ll do it again!
📌 9 Surrey St, Temple, London WC2R 2ND
NEAREST STATION: Temple
Also, Toklas are now selling their pastries elsewhere, like Moonstruck Cafe in South London.
📌 153 S Lambeth Rd, London SW8 1XN
NEAREST STATIONS: Nine Elms and Stockwell
what Melissa Thompson loves
If you don’t already know Melissa then I highly recommend following her on Instagram. She tells it like it is and is a huge supporter of other people in the food world as well as sharing incredible recipes and food discoveries of her own. Her current dehydration series (on her Instagram) is awesome.
I met Melissa when she was pregnant with her daughter and winding down her popular chicken-centred pop ups. She is a regular writer for BBC Good Food and the Guardian, amongst others, and is a frequent panellist, too.
Her debut book, Motherland has the following plaudits:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 ANDRE SIMON BEST COOKBOOK AWARD
The BBC Radio 4 Food Programme Books of the Year 2022
The Observer New Review Books of the Year 2022
The Telegraph Top Cookbooks of 2022
The Financial Times Top 5 Cookbooks of 2022
The WeekBest food books of 2022
Delicious Magazine Best Cook Books of 2022
It’s not just a cookbook but a story of how all the people who came to and through Jamaica brought their own cooking traditions and a history of the island and its people.
Melissa lives in South London with her partner Kate and their six year old. She’s a huge advocate for BIPOC and queer people in hospitality and beyond.
She shared her answers with me via audio so I hope that my transcription is clear!
I loved hearing more about Melissa’s childhood and can definitely relate to sitting for hours at the dinner table because I wouldn’t eat everything on my plate. I used to sneak bits of meat up my sleeve at sporadic intervals when no one was looking - the dog (who wasn’t allowed inside) loved seeing me after dinner. It took me years to unlearn finishing all the things on my plate rather than listening to my body as to whether I was hungry still.
Here’s Melissa:
Portrait by Patricia Niven for The Observer
What brought you to working in food?
I think life pushes you towards food because you love it. Food was such a massive part of my childhood growing up. Especially my dad cooking all the time and experimenting with different things. I feel like I spent a lot of time watching food being prepared.
We lived in Hong Kong from when I was six months old until two and a half. I don't remember anything of living there, but my parents would say that because me and my brother were quite cute kids we would disappear in a restaurant and then come back holding crab claws and stuff like that, given to us by the restaurant owners. They loved us and they'd love to give us food.
I guess from quite young age a lot of stuff was very ordinary to me and I had a kind of appreciation of food, even if I wouldn't have called it such. I just loved food from such a young age. It's not that I ate everything. I definitely remember sitting at the dinner table and I was not allowed to leave until I’d finished and I’d watch the sky turn dark behind me as I sat there with some sort of unidentifiable mush. That was always the thing, a mix of vegetables which included ones I didn’t like and just being unable to actually eat it because I really didn't like it.
But on the whole, I guess, I just always loved food. It wasn’t about stories to begin with, just because it tasted good. It's magic isn't it? Creating food is a magical process where you start with something and then through heat and ingredients and ingredient combinations and time it becomes something else. And I love that.
What food memories from growing up have shaped you or stuck with you?
Whenever we went to see my grandmother in Darlington there would always be a pot of curry chicken on the go, with rice and peas, and it was just incredible.
My dad would cook something and in some part of the cooking process, it doesn't smell that pleasant. I'm not sure if it was something with black beans, I think it might have been. And I remember thinking, oh, God, what is this? I'm not going to enjoy it, and then sitting down to eat and it being delicious. It took me a long time to link the two, that the bad smell didn’t mean something wouldn’t be really tasty. When I did, I got even more intrigued by it. It's like, well, why doesn’t it smell pleasant as it's cooking?
Back to Hong Kong and I must have been about 13 and the whole place was such a glorious assault on the senses and I remember going to this place - it was near where the tailors my dad used to get suits made when we lived there; it was so affordable to get suits made. We had this dish of chicken - it must have had turmeric because of the colour – it was lightly spiced, just chopped up bits of chicken and just a gentle sauce. Eating it you knew it was tasty but you wouldn’t be blown away by it, except you kept going back for more and about ten pieces in you realised you could eat it forever. It was so beautifully measured. I remember that really well.
What’s the most delicious thing (or things!) you ate recently that you’re still dreaming about?
I went to Akara which is Aji Akokomi’s sister restaurant to Akoko. And that was delicious.
📌 Arch 208, 18 Stoney St, London SE1 9AD
NEAREST STATION: London Bridge
📌 21 Berners St, London W1T 3LP
NEAREST STATIONS: Goodge Street, Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road
For Christmas we went to my parents’ house. We all chipped in and on Christmas Eve we had oysters grilled in butter.
What’s your most memorable meal and why?
So many to choose from.
One I remember is when I was pregnant. I couldn’t eat anything because I was so sick. All I could eat was McDonald’s fries with brown sauce. Kate would try to offer me plain and nutritious things and I still couldn’t eat them. I was doing pop ups at the time – in my first trimester – and I came home from one and Kate had made me sausages and mash with onion gravy and it was probably the first nutritious thing I’d eaten and I remember it so well. I was still so sick but this was perfect. It made me feel so happy and content and loved. It made me feel loved.
Where are you most excited about visiting?
I really want to go to Devonshire Soho. I love Guinness and the restaurant looks like it does meat really well.
📌 Devonshire Arms, 17 Denman St, London W1D 7HW
NEAREST STATION: Piccadilly Circus
I’m keen to go to Mountain and I really want to go to Chuku’s in Tottenham but it’s very far from me in South East London – that makes me sound so lazy. It’s so far!
Mountain Beak Street, 16-18 Beak St, London W1F 9RD
NEAREST STATION: Piccadilly Circus
📌 Chuku’s, 274 High Rd, London N15 4AJ
NEAREST STATION: Seven Sisters
I also want to go to Luke Farrell’s restaurants [Plaza Khao Gaeng, Bebek! Bebek! and Speedboat Bar]. At first I was a bit wary. When people outside a culture start getting celebrated for food from a culture it always makes me a bit nervous. But I interviewed him for something and I got a very good feeling from him; I think he’s a sound guy and I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve eaten at his restaurants and they sound amazing.
📌 Plaza Khao Gaeng and Bebek! Bebek!, 103-105 New Oxford St, London WC1A 1DB (inside Arcade Food Hall)
NEAREST STATION: Tottenham Court Road
📌 Speedboat Bar, 30 Rupert St, London W1D 6DL
NEAREST STATION: Piccadilly Circus
What items do you think are underrated?
So much is underrated. I think generally this idea of Ugly Delicious… because social media is so image led there are things that aren’t classically beautiful. People say “curries don’t photograph well” but I think they do. If you look at a photograph of an amazing curry it will communicate that it’s going to be delicious. So how is that not beautiful?
What about overrated?
I think miso gets overused. I think a lot of Japanese ingredients get overused – and I’m saying this as someone who had a Japanese-inspired pop up. It feels like they get rinsed on social media and in the restaurant scene. I often wonder why there aren’t more British-led ferments of a similar ilk. That's why people is like Pratap Chahal (https://www.thathungrychef.com) who does incredible ferments using British ingredients, and Kenji Morimoto as well is another one. And Jelena Belgrave makes amazing ferments using British ingredients and I'm really excited to see where that goes and I've had some of hers, so I'm quite excited the growing movement that celebrates ferments with British ingredients and uses Japanese ingredients as a start off point.
It’s the same with barbecue, right? When you try to recreate American barbecue in the UK, it doesn't work because the meat that you're dealing with is so different. Rather than importing Japanese goods let's just make our own, right? Let's just make our own.
Your top places for delicious things in London
Maureen's Brixton Kitchen for amazing Jamaican food (takeaway)
📌 52 Railton Road, London, England SE24 0LF
NEAREST STATION: Brixton
Dida's Jamaican Produce - a stall in Brixton on Pope's Road who do an incredible range of Jamaican spices and the best pimento berries (allspice) you can find in the UK. It’s been going since 2011 and Dida will find you any Jamaican natural product.
NEAREST STATION: Brixton
Chatsworth Bakehouse. Their sandwiches - my god! So good.
📌 120a Anerley Rd, London SE19 2AN
NEAREST STATIONS: Crystal Palace Rail / Anerley
Bleecker Burger - I had my first a few years ago on my birthday and I am now unable to eat a burger from anywhere else. They set the standard in London. I love them.
Dine in locations in in Spitalfields, Victoria, Bloomberg Arcade and Westfield White City.
Miss Margherita in Honor Oak for pizza. Delicious.
📌 76-78 Honor Oak Park, London SE23 1DY
NEAREST STATION: Honor Oak Park
What recipe do you make most often?
My curry fried chicken is the one I make the most. I don’t mean to choose my own recipe but it’s something I would eat every day it was healthy to do so.
What treats do you buy for yourself most frequently?
I’ve got a massive soft spot for sweet pastry. I dislike royal icing immensely, I don’t want something to be covered in sugar. I don’t mind granulated sugar as you can shake it off. A thin glaze, like on a lemon cake, is fine. But not when you can see it.
I really appreciate the layers and lamination. Holly Cochrane, who ran Taymount Bakery, she used to do these drops on the weekend. She’s really local to me and her creativity and technical skill is mind blowing and I mourn her baked goods. They were some of the best I've ever had.
Do you have a favourite thing to eat?
Not just one single thing.
I love, love fried chicken. All fried chicken is amazing apart from bad fried chicken.
Also Adejoké Bakare [Chef and owner of Chisuru] does this dish, it’s fermented rice pancakes – sinasir – and the texture of those is so good. It’s crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Stunning.
Sinasir / Cambaabur / Injera / Hoppers / Appam
These are all traditional fermented pancakes (sometimes referred to as breads or skillet cakes, but usually just by their name).
They bear some resemblance to dosas (Indian), which are lacier in appearance and less spongey, but also made with a fermented batter.
They’re all served with savoury food or include savoury ingredients, traditionally.
The spongey texture make them excellent for mopping up soups and stews. Injera is often laid down first on the plate or platter and peeled off in pieces from the edges, taking the curries and stews on top of it, straight into your mouth.
Fermentation is crucial to the flavour as it gives a slight sourness. The longer and slower the ferment, the more intense the tang.
Sinasir are a Norther Nigerian (Hausa) dish made with a blend of cooked and soaked raw rice which is fermented, usually after the addition of yeast. It typically also has sugar, oil and salt in the batter, and onion.
Cambaabuur (pronounced “ambaabur”) is a Somalian pancake and is specially eaten on Eid, and referred to as Eid Bread. It is also eaten on other days for breakfast, often with yoghurt, sometimes just sprinkled with ghee and sugar. The batter includes garlic, onion and spices. The grain is usually a blend of wheat and millet.
Injera is from Ethiopia and it is a sourdough pancake/bread, naturally fermented rather than via the addition of yeast. There are typically only two ingredients: teff flour and water. The starter or levain is known as an “ersho” and it is saved from previous batters, much like the starter you’d create for sourdough bread. Teff is a low yield crop so often it would be mixed with wheat, barley, corn or rice flour. There’s an Ethiopian stall in Spitalfields market and I love getting their salads and stews with their injera.
Appam / Hoppers are found in Sri Lanka and South India. They are typically cooked in a deep pan like a wok and are served in the bowl shape they take on. The base is quite spongey but the edges can be more dosa-like: thinner and lacier. Like Sinasir it is made from a batter which is a mix of raw, soaked rice and cooked rice, usually also urud dal as well, but blended with coconut milk and usually without onion or spices, just some sugar and salt. Traditionally it’s left covered for 24 hours to ferment, but sometimes yeast is added.
Here’s Adejoké (Joké)’s recipe for samisir: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/sinasir-squash-ginger-recipe
📌 3 Great Titchfield St., London W1W 8AX
NEAREST STATION: Oxford Circus
[NOTE FROM JEN: This month Joké was given a Michelin Star for Chishuru, making her the first Black Female Chef to get a Michelin Star.]
What’s your favourite thing to eat outside of your home city?
Pastizzi. A traditional savoury pastry from Malta. Flaky, crispy and filled with ricotta or piźeli which is curried peas. They are so tasty and they’re really hard to get in the UK. They cost like 40 cents and they’re proper artisan pastries. There’s nothing else like them. They’re extraordinary. The closest I’ve had is the Italian sfoggliatella which look like little clam shells and are filled with sweet things.
Where would you most like to go on holiday next and why?
I’d love to go to Mexico or Ghana. Both of them for the food. Ghana also for the heritage and history and just because – from what I’ve seen – both places look like beautifully vibrant places, just beautiful and also hot, which helps because I’m currently sitting without a jumper and wishing I had one on.
Thanks, Melissa!
Now, over to you wonderful delicious seekers:
Which one of these places/foods are you most excited to try?
Did you have to finish everything on your plate as a child?
What were the foods that kept you sat at the table?
Have you had sinasir, appam, injera or hoppers? Anywhere you’d recommend for them?
I’d love to hear from you where you’re going on holiday next (it doesn’t have to be abroad!). Please share it with us in the comments - and if there’s a particular restaurant, bakery, food item you’re excited to try while you’re there.
See you next week! With more on my recent trip to Suffolk and London bakery and restaurant news…
love and happy eating,
Jen xx