Cafe Spice

Peckham’s Best Restaurants | Where to Eat in Peckham and Peckham Rye | Eater London

"That Rye Lane’s most visible Nigerian restaurant isn’t Nigerian-owned, just like it’s fishmongers and butchers, is a thorny issue far more complex and interesting than the ‘cultural appropriation vs appreciation’ argument normally served up as circular foodie discourse on Twitter. Indeed, it would be forgivable to walk past the ‘Asian and African’ sign on Cafe Spice’s awnings and mistake it for a South Asian restaurant, although the meat pies and moin moin in the window would soon correct this. The best thing at Cafe Spice isn’t actually anything made in house, but the bags of kilishi it sells from the now resurgent Alhaji Suya, which is on Peckham Park Road but not, for this guide’s purpose, in Peckham. Kilishi is a type of jerky made from dried, flattened muscle, the bright purple colour of a bruise, which packs a sweet, honeyed heat that builds and builds and builds. The only way you’ll get any better in London is through a connect not declaring it in their suitcase and a customs officer turning the other way." - Jonathan Nunn