G LIFESTYLE
BLONDENT,
$2,314,
Blouse, $456, both
Temperley London
Earrings, $425,
Laurence, Coste
OPPOSITE
DSTYLETO $1,980,
Alberta Ferretti
at Harrods
Boots, $324, Aeyde
Earrings, $345,
Laurence Coste
Ring,$6,800,
Tessa Packard
Pouch, $250,
Mulberry
Coste
Ring,$1,200
Tessa Packard
Pouch, $250,
Mulberry
SWEADEN ROY
Ravinder Bhogal is a British chef, food writer and stylist.
She rose to fame when she was named by Gordon Ramsay
as his new Fanny Cradock, on The F Word.
BEAUTY DIRECTOR CHARLOTTE JOLLY PHOTOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER FENNER
C
hef Ravinder Bhogal
recently moved into a new
apartment in northwest
London; in the kitchen,
there’s a marble-topped
butcher’s block, where
Bhogal can sprinkle flour
and knead dough. Since she opened her
restaurant, Jikoni, in fall 2016, though, that
butcher block hasn’t seen much action.
“I’m at the restaurant 90 percent of the
time,” says Bhogal. “It’s more home than home
is at the moment. I was warned it’d be like this,
but I can’t complain—it’s a privilege.” Diners
who make their way to Bhogal’s comforting
space in Marylebone, which is adorned
with vintage-inspired tablecloths and plush
pillows, aren’t complaining, either: Jikoni’s
rich, inventive dishes have earned rave reviews
from critics, including four stars in the Sunday
Times. Her regulars have also helped boost her
confidence. “It’s a huge compliment when we
have repeat customers,” says Bhogal. “We’ve
only been open four weeks, and some people
have already been back six times.”
Bhogal grew up in Nairobi, Kenya,
among an extended family “for whom meals
never seemed to stop,” she says. “It was just a
constant feeding frenzy, with between 15 and
25 people at each meal.” She learned to cook
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from her mother, whom she refers to as “the
commander-in-chief of the kitchen.” At 5
years old, Bhogal was enlisted to help out
with prepping and cooking: peeling carrots,
potting peas and making pastry.
“She sort of dragged me in kicking and
screaming,” she laughs. But she credits her
passion for cooking to her grandfather,
who encouraged her earliest efforts in the
kitchen, however amateurish. “He bought
me a little aluminum stove and I’d make
flatbreads on it,” she says. “They were very
charred and not very nice, but he would
gobble them up with sheer delight, and
comment on what a brilliant cook I was. I
thought, ‘Wow, if you can garner such praise
through something you’ve cooked, this must
be a wonderful thing.’ ”
At age 7, Bhogal moved with her family
from Africa to the U.K., and she wasn’t
especially thrilled about the transition. “I’d
been running wild in a lush, tropical garden,
and then suddenly I was in this gray, wintry
landscape.”
But decades later her food career
blossomed in London. Bhogal was working
as a fashion and beauty journalist but was
still infatuated with cooking in her free time.
A friend saw an ad for a reality show in
which superstar chef Gordon Ramsay would