Alhaji Suya

After a fire forced the Peckham site to temporarily close, Alhaji Suya relocated to a tiny, takeaway-only hatch on an industrial park in Greenwich—near the big IKEA. The Peckham site is now back in business (plus a site in Walworth), and the Greenwich one has stayed put—which is a great relief because it serves some of the best suya in London, if not the UK. Service is very functional and the whole cooking setup is hidden behind the pass. It’s much more like a ghost kitchen, with queues of delivery drivers waiting to pick up orders. Hausa cuisine (from northern Nigeria) is the speciality here, specifically that suya cooked on the barbecue and finished on an electric grill for efficiency—and to provide a crust. Everything is done well but the tozo suya is the real reason to visit. Fatty chunks of beef are deeply smoky with a fierce whack of spice, while the accompanying yaji is incredible.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch