Buka
African restaurant · Bedford-Stuyvesant ·
Aromatic Nigerian cuisine & candlelit dining room
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Aromatic Nigerian cuisine & candlelit dining room
"Buka is a casual Nigerian restaurant, and on weekends, people gather around the big central bar until 2am. Sometimes, there’s even live music. It’s a great place to come with a group and order a bunch of beer and food for the table, like suya skewers, red snapper, and a side of fufu. If you need to clear your sinuses, or just need a reason to buy more beer, order the goat pepper or fish pepper soup." - will hartman, bryan kim, willa moore, neha talreja
"The fish pepper soup at Buka is not f*cking around. Your waiter will bring you a bowl of broth with a whole fish in it—a tilapia that’ll stare straight into your soul and ask you how it got here. You’ll understand the tilapia’s plight when you take on a mix of spices and habañeros that’ll leave you staring straight ahead in shock too. Fish pepper soup is supposedly one of the world’s hottest dishes, and Buka’s version is certainly formidable, but the delicate, flaky fish deserves a mention too. You can also get this soup with goat." - neha talreja
"Between the yellow Danfo (a van as ubiquitous in Lagos as cabs are here) parked inside, African art hanging on the walls, and a bar stocked with Nigerian beers and palm wine, Buka in Clinton Hill is one of the best spots to enjoy a little slice of Nigeria without ever leaving the city. This place has a comprehensive menu with many Nigerian dishes, including the classic jollof rice, fufu and vegetable soup, and moi moi. Besides serving great food, Buka usually has a busy bar on the weekends, DJ-hosted Friday parties, and a mini stage for comedy nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays." - jiji ugboma
"Sometimes it so cold outside that you need two kinds of heat in a soup: the temerature as well as fiery spices. The fish pepper soup ($15) at Nigerian restaurant Buka is not only splendid tasting, it may just be the spiciest soup in the city, laced with several kinds of chiles and peppers; in the latter category ther’es the toasty African spice, grains of paradise." - Eater Staff
"I noted that Buka’s short-lived Manhattan outpost—an expansion of the original Clinton Hill location that opened in 2010—has been closed since June and now sports a “for lease” sign; the Brooklyn location has relocated to a larger Bed-Stuy storefront that continues to operate, and the restaurant’s fish pepper soup was one of Eater critic Robert Sietsema’s favorite dishes last year." - Luke Fortney