Jikoni.

Jikoni

Kuku paka is a Kenyan Asian chicken curry, and Ravinder Bhogal put it on a Marylebone menu because she was born in Kenya to Indian parents and that is the food she grew up on (Time Out, andyhayler.com).

Why go

For the crossing. Jikoni means kitchen in Kiswahili, and the menu runs from a Keralan hake and clam moilee to a prawn-toast scotch egg with banana ketchup to cheddar croquetas, which sounds like a stunt until you know that Kenyan Asian cooking has been doing exactly this for four generations. Bhogal calls it cooking across borders and warns you off in advance: as Time Out put it, if you want authentic food from any one of those regions, go somewhere else (Time Out).

The kitchen has also spent money where it does not show. It has run on solar, wind and carbon-neutral green gas since September 2019, and in June 2021 it was certified carbon-neutral by the non-profit Climate Neutral, the first independent restaurant in the country to do it. Wahaca had done it as a group in 2016; a fifty-seat room doing it alone is a different job (The Caterer).

The room opened on 20 September 2016 and is Bhogal's first restaurant after a career writing about food. Half the menu is meatless and there are vegan and vegetarian menus of their own (Jikoni).

Order this / avoid

• Order: the hake and clam moilee, and get the rice, because the sauce is the entire argument. Then the prawn-toast scotch egg, the aloo avocado chaat, and the kuku paka if you want the Kenyan half of the kitchen on a plate. At lunch, take the set menu and the caramelised aubergine.
• Avoid: going in hungry for one tradition done straight. Also go easy on the wine list, which Andy Hayler priced at two to three times high-street retail on three separate bottles.

What locals & experts say

• India Lawrence, Time Out London, five stars out of five, May 2023, on the moilee: If I could drink a pint of that glossy, golden, coconut-y sauce, or better yet, take a bath in it, I would. She was less taken with the puddings: the crème caramel was not particularly orange-y or saffron-y and the banana cake didn't give much banana.2
• Andy Hayler, the dissent, from a visit datable to about 2017: the execution of the dishes left a lot to be desired tonight, with several problematic dishes and nothing that really stood out. On value: around £55 or more, which seems to me an awful lot for the level of cooking. He then wrote the fairest sentence in the piece himself: the Jikoni dining room was crowded on a Tuesday night, so clearly I am in a minority in this opinion.3
• Harden's survey diners, most recently on the tenth anniversary, call it a magical Marylebone room whose fresh, light, aromatic Indian-fusion cooking delivers flavourful food in unique combinations, with combinations of ingredients you might think won't work but really do. Their value tip: the set lunch is a steal and the caramelised aubergine is amazing. The guide also records the counter-view: The odd reporter accused it of being hyped. Unbylined survey copy, so it carries no personal endorsement.4
• No chef vote for Jikoni. All 622 lines of the London industry-vote file were searched on 1 August 2026. Bhogal herself appears four times as a voter, naming other people's rooms, and the own-venue rule keeps her tag off her own restaurant.

Good to know

• Where: 19-21 Blandford Street W1U 3DH, off Marylebone High Street. Bond Street or Baker Street.
• Sites: two now, doing different jobs. The restaurant on this page is Blandford Street. Cafe Jikoni opened at the V&A East Museum in Stratford on 18 April 2026, cheaper and museum-hours, with Workshop Coffee and its own coffee cart. Nothing written about Stratford applies here.
• Money: the hake moilee was £38 with rice charged separately when Time Out ate. Time Out still files the room at price band 2 of 4. The set lunch is where the value sits.
• Diet: the venue runs vegan and vegetarian menus of its own, in its own words, and roughly half the carte is meatless.
• Sustainability: solar, wind and carbon-neutral green gas since September 2019, and Climate Neutral certification from June 2021 as the first independent restaurant in the UK to hold it. Nothing more recent was found, so treat the certification as five years old.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 6 February 2026, which is the freshest inspection of any venue curated in this batch.8

Verdict

should-visit — Worth the detour for a tradition you cannot get much of anywhere else in London. Ravinder Bhogal was born in Kenya to Indian parents and raised here, and Jikoni cooks that: kuku paka, the Kenyan Asian chicken curry, sits on the menu next to a Keralan hake and clam moilee and a prawn-toast scotch egg with banana ketchup. That is two food cultures held properly rather than a fusion gag, and the venue names the position itself as a no-borders kitchen. India Lawrence gave it five stars for Time Out in 2023 and told people to order the moilee. The kitchen also spent real money on conviction: solar, wind and green gas from September 2019, and certification as the first independent restaurant in the UK to go carbon-neutral in June 2021, which is a harder thing for a fifty-seat room than for a group. Against that, Andy Hayler ate here early and found nothing that stood out, called it poor value at £55 a head and pointed at Trishna next door, and he was pricing wine at two to three times retail. He noted himself that he was in a minority and the room was packed on a Tuesday. Six years separate those two verdicts, so the entry weighs the recent one heavier and keeps the old one visible. Not a plan-your-night room, and a genuinely distinctive one.