Chef Tolu Erogbogbo brings Nigeria to Los Angeles at Ilé.
Somewhere in Hollywood, just below Los Angeles' famed Sunset Boulevard, a group of strangers gather for dinner. In a large and geometric residential complex, only a few glass doors are at street level; one of them has a small sign above it that reads “Ilé,” so guests know they’ve come to the right place.
This is where Tolu Erogbogbo, who goes by chef Eros, hosts experiential dinners — intimate affairs punctuated by stories he orates as each dish in a seven-course meal is served. The fare is inspired by the flavors and diverse cultures of Nigeria and West Africa. “Authentic with a modern twist” is how Eros describes it, and that modern twist gives him the creative liberty to gently bend and blend recipes, to give generations-old dishes a little contemporary flair, and of course, to plate things beautifully, since he knows that in today’s world “the camera eats first.”
This is not chef Eros’ first culinary project, nor will it be his last. He began cooking Nigerian food after he’d left his home country. Raised in Benin City, about three hours from Lagos, Eros went to university in England to study business. Homesick, he called his mother and grandmother, who walked him through a few of his favorite family dishes. The aroma and comfort of coconut rice and egusi (a soup thickened with agushi seeds) transported him home, and the experience made him fall in love with cooking.
What followed was multiple years of learning by doing. Eros went back to Nigeria and opened a restaurant with his mother that “failed awfully.” Then came Cookie Jar, a bakery that began with a humble tray of cookies but has since flourished, selling Parisian-inspired cakes and more. With interest in his work increasing, Eros started holding private dinners in Lagos, cooking mostly French and Italian food. He was soon serving some of Nigeria’s wealthiest people, including Folorunsho Alakija, a billionaire business woman and philanthropist, and industrial tycoon Aliko Dangota. One day someone called Eros “the billionaire chef,” and the nickname stuck.
Eventually, though, his menu nagged at him. He knew he was presenting food that people had tried over and over again, and wondered what would happen if he changed things up. He tested the waters by serving a few Nigerian dishes at dinners, and immediately noticed that those were the ones guests talked about most. So he leaned in.
“I started to apply international techniques and standards to Nigerian cooking, and the result was remarkable,” Eros said. “The food tasted great, it looked great, and it had a good story behind it.”
As a Nigerian aspiring to bring Nigerian cuisine into the global culinary conversation, authenticity in taste especially is Eros’ aim. He may play with the presentation of a dish – emulsifying carrots, for example, then plating them in a pretty puddle below a salad dressed in palm wine vinaigrette – but “it tastes like it’s meant to taste,” he told me. There’s no pepper soup topped with caviar, or jollof rice dehydrated into edible dust. Color and texture are prioritized, along with flavor, so that guests walk away with a memorable culinary experience that’s representative of the meals’ roots. To this end, Eros ships in spices every other week from Lagos. A Nigerian and West African soundtrack, curated by the chef, is a subtle and relevant part of the ambiance, too.
Of course, a good meal is no replacement for exploring Nigeria in person, but Eros hopes that dinner at Ilé is the next best thing. This communal dining experience is, in a way, a recreation of his happiest childhood memories, when cousins and grandparents and aunties and uncles would regularly crowd around one table to feast on whole roasted chicken, coconut rice spiced with crayfish, and afia efere, a white soup thickened with pounded yams and gently sweetened with aiden fruit. Storytelling was as integral to the occasion as the food on the table. Even at a young age, Eros mirrored his elders by telling tales himself, some true, some embellished, all earning him the title itan, or “story man.”
During the third course of a recent Ilé dinner, staffers poured pepper soup, a staple of Nigerian cuisine made with indigenous spices like erhe (calabash nutmeg) and alligator pepper (also known as grains of paradise), into individual bowls at the table. I’d never heard of the dish; the clear and unassuming broth was delicious, and so spicy that my eyes rained. As we sipped (and sniffled), Eros told an abbreviated tale of his journey as chef, from that first “failure” years ago to 2023, when he served this distinct soup to hundreds of people at an Outstanding in the Field dinner at Coachella. To see so many people eating this dish, in a desert so far from Nigeria, was testament to how far he’s come.
Eros is just getting started in the U.S. He has so much more to give, and so many more creative ideas dancing in his mind. He moved to Los Angeles in 2021 for the people, weather, and produce, and he is eager to see where his cooking and storytelling take him next.
“This is the city of entertainment, and I call myself a culinary entertainer,” Eros said. “I hope to tell our story as a culture on a global scale, maybe with Netflix, Hulu, or Disney — and to bring people to Nigeria, to the villages, to show them the real origin story.”
A culinary program that teaches West African cuisine is yet another idea he tinkers with, as is a Vegas residency, culinary style, allowing him to feed hundreds of guests every night.
“People will come to experience West African culture; everything from music and dance to fashion and storytelling," he said. "But the food will be the center of attention. It will become an experience to travel for.”
To have dinner at Ilé, in chef Eros’ live-work loft, book via Resy. For Nigerian rice and soup bowls, plus palm wine popsicles and more, visit chef Eros’ brand-new Ilé Bistro at Citizen Public Market food hall in Los Angeles' Culver City neighborhood.
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