Vanessa Cole: We Deserve to Put West African Cuisine on Global Map

Vanessa Cole, internationally trained chef and founder of Cole Cooks, draws on Lagos and London influences to promote Nigerian and West African cuisine, preserving indigenous techniques and advancing hospitality. Funmi Ogundare brings the excerpts:

You began in fashion and creative spaces before becoming a professional chef. What was the moment you knew food was going to become your career?

It’s funny because food has always been central to my life, but seeing it as a career only became a recent thing I pursued. I have always seen myself as a leader, and I wanted to have my own business ever since I was young. I knew I wanted to create a business that made people feel excited and thought of, and as time went by and I saw how natural hosting and curating experiences was to me, I took the leap. I also received critical feedback from my father when I told him I wanted to launch a business in the culinary industry. He told me that if I wanted to be respected, I should ensure I can do every job in the establishment I run. That meant taking my natural culinary skill and refining it through culinary school and restaurant exposure. Working in that field solidified it for me that this is what I want to do.

How did growing up between Lagos and London shape what you cook and how you think about food?

I didn’t grow up traditionally. I was open to all sides of my cultural heritage while also being exposed to a very international way of life. That meant my first introductions to food were not sheltered around a specific identity. My earliest memories involved learning dishes from home as well as internationally. When I cook, I look at the ingredient and the flavour profile I am after what is available around me and how I can make it work. I spent much of my childhood in a small town in the UK where Nigerian ingredients weren’t readily available. So, when we had the chance to find a few, we would always look for ways to use spices and flavours in traditional and non-traditional ways. My culinary expression has therefore not been defined by one or the other, but rather a blend of culinary curiosity and ingredient-led innovation.

You trained professionally in Europe at Chef Academy London and worked in a two‑Michelin‑starred kitchen at Bibendum. What’s one myth about that world you wish more people understood?

Culinary school is not enough to make you a chef, funny enough, it’s not even essential to becoming one. You cannot graduate from culinary school and assume you have all the skills you need to succeed. School provides a foundation for learning, but the real work begins in the kitchen, working under pressure and learning on the job. So, stop thinking you need to go to Le Cordon Bleu to become a respected chef. Find the training that works for you and push yourself to work in the kitchens where the greats are.

You describe your cuisine as refined comfort food that also evokes nostalgia. How do you balance comfort and sophistication when you design a menu?

Comfort is a feeling. Sophistication is the craft. For me, when I design a menu, I first ask myself what the client is after and what feeling I want to give them. My craft then comes through in the way I take humble ingredients and reinterpret them in an elevated and well-thought-out way.

• How do you approach creativity in the kitchen differently now than when you first started?*

When I first started, I was trying to work with what I saw the industry doing, playing it safe by giving clients what they were used to: import-heavy dishes, with creativity coming through in the accompaniments. But now, I am a lot more unapologetic about what I serve. I truly believe we can create menus that are just as refined using our local produce. Because of that, I push myself to turn what clients think they know into a completely different experience, one that still feels relatable but is innovative. Now I ask myself: how do I make garri into a dessert, or turn uyayak into a beautiful demi-glace?

You created platforms like The Setting the Standards Brunch to shift how food and hospitality are perceived. What is the core message you want the broader industry to take from that work?

Rather than looking outward for validation and a stamp of approval, why not look inward to truly see what is working, what needs investing in, and what needs unlearning? We spend too much time trying to copy other cultures when our infrastructure isn’t even able to support it. When we highlight the parts of the industry that deserve respect and support, people can better see how much untapped potential there is here in Nigeria, potential that leads to better investment, job creation, infrastructure development, and international tourism.

• As someone positioning Nigerian food for global recognition, what do you think the world still misunderstands about West African cuisine?*

West African cuisine has shaped a lot of diasporic cuisine, especially across the Americas. When we stop putting so much pressure on whose dish is whose and instead look at how ingredients are used, their versatility and their ability to endure through generations, we can truly celebrate and position West African cuisine as a global pioneer. Techniques that feel natural to us are the same techniques people pay to learn in culinary schools abroad. We deserve to document these traditions with pride and establish West African cuisine on the respected global culinary map.

If you could sit down and cook a meal with anyone, dead or alive, chef or not , who would it be and why?

My two late grandmothers. My maternal grandmother was from Calabar, Cross River State. I hear stories about how she moved with such ease, elegance and warmth when it came to food. I have been blessed to witness her sisters in the kitchen cooking afang and edikang ikong. My mum still uses many of her mum’s recipes to this day, including her famous fruit cake, which has been passed down to me. My dad’s stepmother was from Buguma, Rivers State. I remember coming to her dinner table every Christmas and seeing her onunu at the centre. I never learnt her recipe and can only recreate it from memory. They were both angels in the kitchen, with so many secrets to share. I wish I could document their knowledge. We deserve to have these things written down.

Ten years from now, what concrete change would you like to see in how Nigerians eat, celebrate food and think about gastronomy?

I want us to be more open, more welcoming to expression, and more focused on the details that make us who we are. Our food is not divided by geographical area; it’s expressed through ancient passages. There is an invisible journey our ingredients and dishes have taken. So, when we see another nation make jollof, or okro, let’s be open-minded to learn how they made it, taking inspiration from one another, and understanding that neither is better than the other.