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Since 2017I have arrived
Mídé is Yoruba for I have arrived. It was a catering company for nine years before it was a room you could walk into.
Arrival, in
both senses.
Mídé means arrival — of a person, of a moment, of something that has been coming for a while. It is what you say when the thing you were waiting for is finally in the room.
Lagos is the second half because that is where the food comes from and where the energy comes from. Not a softened, exported version of Nigerian cooking, but the thing itself: loud, precise, generous, and unwilling to be polite about heat.
Chef Centia,
from Ikorodu.
She learned at home, the way most Nigerian cooks do — standing next to someone who never wrote anything down. Then she spent nine years cooking for rooms of two and three hundred, which is where the precision came from.
Her rule is that a dish should taste the way it tastes in Lagos, not the way it tastes when someone has decided a British palate cannot handle it. If you want it milder, she will make it milder. She will not do it behind your back.
Nine years, briefly
A kitchen and a van
Started catering Nigerian weddings around the Midlands, mostly by word of mouth, mostly on weekends.
The first four hundred
A wedding in Edgbaston that ran two full services in one day. It taught us how to scale without dropping standards.
Afterparties
Late-night catering for touring artists, including Burna Boy and Tiwa Savage. It is also why our kitchen still runs until four.
Corporate rooms
Canapé service for firms across Colmore Row who wanted something other than the usual. It became a third of the business.
A room of our own
Twenty-eight covers in Digbeth. The first place you can eat this food without booking us for two hundred of your friends.
Three rules
No dilution
The food tastes the way it tastes at home. We will adjust for you on request, but the default is the real thing.
Everyone is welcome at the table
Half our guests grew up on this food and half have never tried it. Both should be able to order well without feeling stupid.
The kitchen gets paid
It is why we push direct ordering, and why we would rather you booked with us than through a platform taking a third.
Come and see
Twenty-eight seats in Digbeth, open until midnight in the week and four at weekends.
Book a table