Marcus Oyelaran
Chef de Cuisine
Nigerian-American cooking that does not apologise for itself. I run the kitchen at Ìsàlẹ̀ in Bed-Stuy, where we build a nightly tasting menu around West African pantry staples — egusi, iru, smoked catfish, scotch bonnet — using technique I picked up in French kitchens in Manhattan. I came up through fine dining and spent four years wondering why nothing on those menus looked like the food I grew up eating. Ìsàlẹ̀ is the answer to that question.
Signature dish
Smoked catfish egusi with charred greens
Melon seed stew cooked down slowly with palm oil and iru, finished with house-smoked catfish and greens charred over binchotan.
Cultural influences
Lagos market cooking filtered through a decade of New York restaurant kitchens.
Experience
Chef de Cuisine
Ìsàlẹ̀ · 2021 – Present
Nightly changing tasting menu built on West African pantry staples. Twelve-cook kitchen.
Sous Chef
Atelier Nine · 2018 – 2021
Modern French tasting menu. Ran fish and sauce stations, then the pass.
Line Cook
Brasserie Lune · 2016 – 2018
Every station on a 200-cover-a-night brasserie line.
Education
BA, Food Studies
New York University · 2012 – 2016
Awards
Emerging Chef, Nominee
Eater New York · 2024
Portfolio
Video