Ayo Balogun

Training in Nigeria remains visible in the way Ayo Balogun cooks: direct, legible, and unburdened by translation. Since 2022, he has been chef and owner of Dept of Culture, and since 2023, chef and owner of Radio Kwara. In Brooklyn, those two rooms point to the same discipline: putting Nigerian food first and shaping the dining experience around it with intention.

At Dept of Culture in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, Ayo Balogun works as chef and host, so the menu and the room read as one operation. He is also owner of Department of Culture in Brooklyn, New York City, and chef and owner of Radio Kwara in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, New York City. Across those titles, the constant is control over both food and frame: Nigerian cooking presented by the person responsible for how it is received. That gives the work a close, direct quality, with flavor, memory, and welcome handled together.

Ayo's signature dishes include IYA EBA, fish pepper soup with cilantro ashoké, goat meat pepper soup, wara ti abe, and okele. Read together, they show a kitchen working through broth, staple, and texture with clear intent. The names carry their own cadence; on the table, they register as Nigerian cooking stated plainly.

Ayo Balogun has received James Beard Foundation, Best New Restaurant nomination (2023). The clearest recognition in Balogun's record is Dept of Culture itself: a Brooklyn project led as chef, host, and owner, built around Nigerian tasting-menu cooking and communal dining. The value lies in how the work is structured—food, perspective, and hospitality kept under one hand. His 2023 role at Radio Kwara marks the same approach in another room, with each title reinforcing a consistent claim to presentation, place, and cultural authorship.