Jeremy Chan: "Ikoyi will be the ultimate eating experience"

Is this a relaunch or simply a move?

It's a completely new restaurant.​​ The aesthetic is different, we will have a new style of service and use new cooking techniques. Ikoyi reflects myself and Iré's (Hassan-Odukale, Chan's business partner and front of house counterpart) personalities. We're getting older and learning more and that’s getting channeled into the restaurant. The new Ikoyi is a reflection of where we both are today as human beings. I’m excited to reveal it to our guests.

Ikoyi is a great name but it inevitably has some baggage. Did you consider changing it? 

No. We like the name and we embrace our baggage, it's part of the DNA of Ikoyi. We have a good reputation in London and more widely (the restaurants holds two Michelin stars and is now on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list.​ ​There have been a lot of different iterations of the restaurant in the five or so years we have been open but we’ve always given people the opportunity to experience something that’s very personal and delivered with passion.

Your approach to opening hours at the Ikoyi 2.0 is verging on revolutionary... 

We're going to open Monday to Friday for dinner and for lunch Thursday to Friday, so seven services a week. We're not open at all at the weekends. We're always busy Monday to Friday so we thought 'why not?'. We’re also asking our guests to eat relatively early on in the evening. Seating is from 6pm to 6.45pm to allow us to stagger the service. I would hope that the kitchen will serve its last plate of food before 9pm. We don't want Ikoyi to be an overly long experience. The changes are designed to create a better work-life balance for the team, many of whom have been with us for a long time.

How has the opening gone?

It's been stressful. We have had to push the launch date back a few times, most recently due to a big issue with our beautiful new lighting system. It was working perfectly but someone changed a bulb when they shouldn't have it and it blew the whole thing. We opened on Monday 12 December.

Tell us about the space

We're not too far away from our original St James's site having moved to the 180 The Strand building. It’s far bigger than our last place which means more space for both our guests and the team. The materials used are very different too, there is a lot of copper, metal mesh and oak. We had a lot of original ceramics at the old site, but we have taken things to a whole new level at the new one. I have been working closely with ceramicists over the last few years and they have now come to life, which is special.

The number of covers is roughly the same as your old place, have you expanded the team?

The back and front of house teams have each increased by around a third. We had six chefs and four front of house at the old Ikoyi per service, we now have eight to nine chefs and seven to eight front of house. We need a higher staff-to-guest ratio to create the caring and personal experience we want to offer.

What will a larger kitchen, a larger dining room and more staff allow you to do that you haven't been able to previously?

We have a massive open kitchen – the pass is seven metres. It’s not there so we can show off - Iré and I are quite low key – but it will give us far more control over the pace of services and allow us to interact with our customers. In our last place the kitchen was both tiny and tucked away in an awkward corner. Being able to see all the tables at once is great and will allow us to keep the dishes coming a fluid and relaxed way.

Will there be more dishes on the tasting menu?

Yes. The evening menu (a truncated menu is served at lunch) is 22 servings including snacks and petit fours. It's a lot of dishes but we want it to move at a good pace. Long tasting menus should be served quickly so it does not get boring. We've also looked closely at portion size. People will have just enough. When you have too much of a good thing you stop liking it. 

The menu has increased to £300. What is your justification for that?

The price reflects the ingredients. We’re using the very best of the season. Plus Iré and I have put years of work into the space and the experience. It’s also extremely spacious and comfortable. It will be the ultimate eating experience, we hope. 

Tell us about your new kitchen

We're keeping the kitchen relatively low tech. The old Ikoyi kitchen was falling apart by the end but we found a lack of equipment actually made us better cooks because it made us focus. The main source of heat will be a custom-designed hybrid hearth and grill – it has an oven door but it’s also open at the top. It’s cool to have something so basic and primal in what is a very modern space. Other than that it’s all standard stuff, including a plancha and a regular stove.

What’s on the launch menu?

We're launching with some beautiful aged ducks, aged turbot, ribs of beef handpicked by Phillip Warren down in Cornwall and some very high-quality chickens from France. We also have some great seafood, including lobster, razor clams and mussels. We will also be offering more desserts and petit fours than before. Pastry work was especially difficult at the old site because we had so little space to work and store things.

Will you still be developing dishes on the fly?

I will be doing that less this time round. At the old Ikoyi I would often serve people dishes before I’d tasted them myself. I got good at it - it was like I could taste it in my mind - and it was exciting to watch customers experience a dish for the first time ever. But we have had a few months in between the two restaurants so we had time to do development for the first time ever. I’ve found that process difficult but I’m happy with the menu that we are opening with.