Jikoni, The Station: 'A taste of everything we stand to lose'
The St Paul’s cafe has moved to the centre of town
In Bristol, it used to be the case that you had to go to St Paul’s or Easton for flavours from the continent of Africa. But, slowly, recognition and appreciation for the cuisine of the East and West coast of Africa is creeping into the centre of the city and the conversation. It started with Afrikana opening a short-lived branch on Baldwin Street. Then Zara in St Jude’s serving great discs of injera. A little later Real Habesha, another Ethiopian, opened a second branch on Gloucester Road. A few months ago Suya Hut, serving the eponymous Nigerian specialty, moved to Upper Maudlin Street. And now Jikoni has landed smack bang in the middle of town, operating their lauded Somali and Ethiopian kitchen out of the ground floor of The Station (the old fire station, not to be confused with a train station. For the train station, Hart’s remains the go-to). Here’s hoping this encourages more exploration and understanding of the food and culture of the world’s second-largest continent.
It’s hard to ignore the tension in Britain right now. You can feel it in headlines, in offhand remarks on the bus, in the way people talk about who ‘belongs’. In Bristol, a city still carrying the echoes of recent protests, still wrestling with the shadow of empire and the statue it once threw into the harbour, those tensions feel especially close to the surface.
So when mum and I ducked into Jikoni for a recent lunch, it felt like a small act of optimism. A mother-and-daughter outing in a restaurant that represents everything Britain is currently arguing about — immigration, identity, who belongs — and everything it stands to lose if it forgets what makes it special.
Jikoni doesn’t make a fuss. There’s no concept, no exposed-brick sermon on ‘sustainability’, no menu designed to outwit the algorithm. Just a few tables, the scent of spices drifting through the air, and the low murmur of people who are comfortable where they are. Head chef and co-founder Iman — a Somali woman raised in Kenya and now a proud Bristolian — came out to speak with us before our meal with the quiet authority of someone who’s moved through the world and learned to feed it well.
Her layered story runs quietly through the menu. The word jikoni means “kitchen” in Swahili, but it also suggests something gentler: a place to gather, feed, and be fed.
We ordered a beer each (£5.50) and shared lentil fritters (£6.50), kuku choma (£14.50), and matoke paka (£13.50) — ours made with chicken instead of plantain.
The food was, quite simply, very tasty. The fritters were crisp and savoury, the kind of thing you could happily eat by the dozen, with a zesty, punchy green chilli sauce (I did briefly consider asking for a small bottle to take home).
The kuku choma — grilled chicken with ugali (a dense maize dough), sautéed greens, and a simple tomato salad — was hearty and satisfying, full of straightforward flavour and smoky edges. The matoke paka came in a rich, spiced coconut curry sauce with fragrant rice: balanced, satisfying, and quietly memorable.
In a city full of small-plate concepts and overhyped ‘modern European’ menus, Jikoni feels refreshingly unpretentious. You can eat well here, leave full, and still have change from £20 a head. In Bristol in 2025, that’s almost revolutionary.
Over lunch, Mum and I talked about the state of things — Brexit, borders, the weariness of the news cycle — and how easily Britain forgets that so much of what makes it great has come from elsewhere. That our best ideas, our most joyful flavours, have always arrived here on boats and planes and long, complicated journeys. It’s there on your plate at Jikoni: a conversation between continents that ends in something unmistakably local.
So if you’re tired of the noise, the cynicism and the same old sandwiches — go to Jikoni. Order the fritters. Mop up every last streak of paka sauce. Talk about the world, argue about politics, and then take another bite. Because this generosity, this flavour, this mingling of histories, is Britain at its very best.
All words and photos by S. L. Kinde
Jikoni, The Station, Silver St, BS1 2AG
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This sounds absolutely delicious, and not a place I would have spotted I think just going past! Definitely worth a visit sometime soon ;-)