CULINARY CORRECTNESS: Nigeria Breeze Carrying West African Cuisine To National City
BY CANDICE WOO
NATIONAL CITY, CA (SAN DIEGO EATER) Nigeria Breeze is aiming to open by the end of the month in National City and hoping to widen the spotlight on West African cuisine. This will be owner Maria Onisemo’s first establishment in the United States although her family has operated restaurants in their native Nigeria.
After having run a private catering business together for several years, Onisemo and her mother, who is the restaurant’s head chef, are looking forward to sharing their regional family recipes for traditional West African food. Their menu will include jollof rice, a tomato-based rice dish paired with chicken and plantains, a spinach and pepper stew called efo riro, egusi soup, thickened with ground melon seeds and served with starchy pounded yam, or fufu, and asara, a savory yam porridge.
Though she’s starting with this 1,788-square-foot space in the South Bay, Onisemo says she would eventually like to franchise the business and see it open in malls and hotels to help bring Nigerian food more into the mainstream.
Nigeria Breeze will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and plans to offer beer and wine in the future.
The South Bay restaurant should open by the end of December
NATIONAL CITY, CA (SAN DIEGO EATER) Nigeria Breeze is aiming to open by the end of the month in National City and hoping to widen the spotlight on West African cuisine. This will be owner Maria Onisemo’s first establishment in the United States although her family has operated restaurants in their native Nigeria.
After having run a private catering business together for several years, Onisemo and her mother, who is the restaurant’s head chef, are looking forward to sharing their regional family recipes for traditional West African food. Their menu will include jollof rice, a tomato-based rice dish paired with chicken and plantains, a spinach and pepper stew called efo riro, egusi soup, thickened with ground melon seeds and served with starchy pounded yam, or fufu, and asara, a savory yam porridge.
Though she’s starting with this 1,788-square-foot space in the South Bay, Onisemo says she would eventually like to franchise the business and see it open in malls and hotels to help bring Nigerian food more into the mainstream.
Nigeria Breeze will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and plans to offer beer and wine in the future.
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