The new V&A East Museum has culinary as well as cultural clout. Café Jikoni is a fresh idea for feeding the public

Warm spring light spills across a dark-wood counter, fresh terrazzo floor and rows of tables studded with comfy cow-horn dining chairs. Laughter ricochets off tall walls as glasses of pale rosé glint in the sun from the generous full-height window. We’re at the pre-opening of Café Jikoni, tucked under a concrete pleat of the skirt-like O’Donnell + Tuomey-designed V&A East Museum in Stratford. 

The restaurant is buzzing with press, friends, family and the plates of soon-to-be-sampled delights being whisked to waiting diners. There is the whiff of warming baharat from the lamb sausage roll, a toasted sandwich with Goan aubergine achaar (pickle) and gooey cheddar, and rigatoni with lentils and anchovies. It’s a new site and a fresh challenge for the team behind Marylebone’s beloved Jikoni restaurant on Blandford Street – but one that the team appears to be handling with relish.

“What has been interesting for us is how you bring true hospitality to a public institution and make it feel fresh,” says chef Ravinder Bhogal, sitting beside co-founder and partner Nadeem Nanjuwany. “That’s something I feel really proud of. Everything, from our bread and pickles to dessert, is made in house from scratch.” 

Bhogal’s South Asian, Kenyan, Persian and British influences combine at Café Jikoni, resisting swift classification in ever more cunning and comforting ways. The menu touts curries and baked potatoes, buddha bowls and iced buns. But all made better – flecked, freckled and fizzing with unexpected spices, unfamiliar additions or unlikely ingredients. It’s culinary alchemy of the highest order. The inventiveness of the original restaurant is here in abundance, albeit in a subtly more museum-manageable format with plenty of sandwiches (hot or cold), nibbles for kids and takeaway packaging (if you prefer).  

As we talk, museum director Gus Casely-Hayford arrives, beaming and congratulating Bhogal and Nanjuwany on a seamless first service. “I could write an essay in praise of Gus – he’s a rare breed,” says Bhogal with obvious affection. “His vision for this place is to make a public institution feel like it belongs to the public.” It wasn’t just Casely-Hayford who the pair needed buy-in from – part of the consultation involved the V&A Youth Collective, a group of local 18- to 24-year-olds. “That was the most terrifying pitch; they are the toughest critics,” says Bhogal. The upshot was everything from greater sensitivity around price points to conversations around representation. “Stratford has a very young population, so it was really wonderful to sit down with them and ask them about what matters.”

On a practical note, and for the brand, there were hurdles, from engineering space for the extractor fan to making a window to give the chefs some natural light. But what’s it like taking a West End favourite to the East Bank of Stratford? How do you scale a bijou and beautiful restaurant to the appetites and obligations of a public museum? And what if people don’t already know Jikoni? “We might not explain anything [about ourselves] if the person is coming in just to experience the museum,” says Nanjuwany. “They might just want a nice coffee.” 

Bhogal agrees. “Our coffee is so thought about,” she says. “It comes from Uganda and there’s complete traceability [in collaboration with Workshop Coffee]. Whether we’re explaining it or not, someone will feel that they’ll taste it in the quality. So, it’s all those little touches.” It’s a refreshing thought. Not all restaurants need concepts. It’s the food, not the philosophy, that most people end up chewing over anyway. 

Hospitality is more about intention than simple brand building, how things are done rather than needing to interrupt people mid sip to explain the concept. The ethos here is in everything – but blissfully, it’s not forced down your throat along with the miso-cream banana bread.

As the plates are cleared, talk turns to business. Both Nanjuwany and Bhogal are optimistic about keeping their company culture intact while hiring more staff and reacting to the subtle differences between a sit-down dinner service and a café set-up. The entrepreneurs seem to adore a new challenge. Nanjuwany has worked in design, agriculture and orchard-fresh apple juice, while Bhogal is, among other things, a writer, journalist and broadcaster. Both believe that their endeavour can do good as well as being good.

“When you have a business that’s growing, [it’s important] to be able to point or spend in a really positive way: from incredible farmers who are really looking after the land to women’s co-operatives who make our tablecloth or healthcare for our team,” says Bhogal. “Or the fact that we only use wind and solar energy,” says Nanjuwany. “We’re calling that restorative hospitality,” he adds. “This idea that you can use purchasing [to do good]. We feel that we’re just completing that model because now even our rent goes towards a public good.”

Replete, impressed and feeling inspired by the ambition of the project (and the yuzu kick of the strawberry iced bun), Monocle asks about the area. “Whether you’re in Stratford or Marylebone, the purpose of a restaurant is to restore,” says Bhogal. Coffee cups clink as the sun catches the London Stadium outside, visible like a halo beyond a landscaped garden amid the fast-changing former Olympic site from 2012. “[That means] restoring each other, our team, our guests, our neighbourhood, the wider community,” she says. “And hopefully the wider world around us.” It’s a big responsibility for a humble museum café. But you sense that Bhogal and Nanjuwany aren’t a pair to bite off more than they can chew. 
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