NF01 November/December 2023

18 Food and Drink
A CLASS ACT
We visit the social enterprise giving migrants and
displaced people the confidence to pass on their
culinary traditions and find their own path
Photos: Migrateful, Fede Rivas
From asylum-seeker to head chef
of a London Lebanese restaurant:
that’s the kind of career path
we love to see, and the kind that
this social enterprise helps to
make possible. Counting Yotam
Ottolenghi, Jamie Oliver and
Meghan Markle among its fans,
Migrateful is a Bristol/London
outfit supporting integration and
independence for people who find
themselves displaced. Chef Negla,
for example, fled the war in Sudan
ten years ago, while Mansura came
from a northern Ghanaian town
with the biggest slave market in
West Africa, where women don’t
have much of a voice. Dolores,
meanwhile, made the trip to the UK
from Jamaica alone in 2001, before
having her immigration status
taken away in 2005 and finding she
was no longer allowed to work.
“Migrateful brought joy into my life. They make
me feel I can fulfil my dream of cooking”
– Sereh, Migrateful’s Gambian chef
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