NOK by Alara — Restaurant in Lagos State

Nice, cute and modern African restaurant- home cooked meals with a modern flair. Although owned by a Nigerian in Lagos- 12A Akin Olugbade street, Victoria Island, Lagos. When I say home cooked meal- yes it is- it’s just like mama would cook it- no extra dripping oil, or extra salt or MSG, but definitely spicy enough for proper circulation. They definitely have non-spicy meals. I opted for the Oxtail with Jasmine rice, sautéed Ugu(non oily), and fried plantain with Ayilara ketchup. Their plantain is on the sweet side- but not oily- tasted oil basted and baked. Although the oxtail was tough, assigned waiter, Oseni and Supervisor on duty, Biodun offered to fix it and I opted for the fresh water fish- Anika fish. Fish was very fresh. Definitely made up for the tough Oxtail.

Overall, ambience is great, service is friendly. And I definitely will be back.

Update- September 7, 2025. Had to change the rating of this business from a 5 to a 4. And I hate that I have to do this…but it’s fair…

This business and location operations. Nice boutique with sort after and authentic items from perfume, to shows, clothes, diffusers, antique/natural rugs and chairs, etc. But staff are not as polite as expected. Been in here twice in like a year and I’ve had the same experience. I observed their customer service is very selective- during my recent visit, a car drove into the compound and as I watched, the 4-5 staff all started scrambling and distracted despite attending to another customer- and they all started whispering- “Mrs. Adigwu” or a name that sounded like that. In walked a lady and the attention of all the staff shifted to her and all started talking about her orders, etc and not even looking or fully attending to the customer that was been initially attended to- so followed her inside to a room at the back… I requested an item- a diffuser and was told I’d be contacted in 2 days- left my information and I’ve tried to call their 2 numbers and no one picks up. It’s now more than a week…

Fast forward to today a Sunday and I was craving the amala- ordered for delivery but their delivery wasn’t available after I had paid. Sent couple of messages to know when to pick up, etc- but responses were scanty despite being read.

For all those who have been craving the popular Nok Amala- I’ll say this here- it’s worth it- 22,000naira for a roll of amala, gbegiri, ewedu and stew with a handful of meats- all soft and cut in bite but reasonable sizes. It feels good- no guilt as u eat. Packaging is neat and of quality materials. The salt and oil were to a “T” and everything tastes good and smooth…spiciness was also right…

So far for me, it’s the location for a Michelin Star Amala, gbegiri and Ewedu.

So the issue at this business is all about getting their staff to treat customers equally and right and to be more responsive to customers…

I’ll definitely be back...

I will be honest and categorise my review in terms of aesthetics, food (presentation and portion), pricing and service. Please read:

Aesthetics: Very lovely ambience, very clean, very beautiful. Air conditioned, well decorated and well designed.

Score - 8/10

Food (Presentations and Portion): The food was well presented, it was in a nice traditional plate/semi-calabash/gourd, nicely put on the place but the portion size was small. My Amala was small, but even worse was my little sisters mac and cheese that cost more but was significantly smaller.

Score - 5/10

Pricing: The pricing is just ridiculous. It’s completely unnecessary. Now Initially, I wasn’t too bothered about my N9,500 Amala (Abule on the menu) because I get it, I’m in a place that cares more about aesthetics and ambience than these other very important factors, so I was willing to let it go for the experience. I only got mad when my Amstel malta was billed at N1,800. I felt obligated to report this to EFCC as this has to be a financial crime.

Score - (-1)/10, which means, you owe me 1 point, if I ever come back again.

Service: The service was very good, of course, when you’re charging N1,800 for N250 Amstel malt, why wouldn’t the service be good? They were responsive, polite, opened the doors, the food came out relatively quickly and I had no reason to be upset with the staff.

Score - 8/10

In summary:

For Nok: please update your menu pricing on google, its misleading, a lot of us rely on it to make up our minds if we want to come to your restaurant at all.

Also, please ask your staff to wear shirts that are reflective of the actual drink prices, the Amstel malta on the waiters shirt was N800 meanwhile the bill said it was N1,800. Not cool y’all.

For consumers: if you are trying to go for vibes and aesthetics, this is the place. However, if you are hungry and are looking to go for a nice meal, that is big enough and a good bang for your buck, please stay away from here with EXTREME CAUTION.

Overall score: 8 + 5 -1 +...

I had a nice Sunday Brunch here with family. The security team is quite coordinated in ensuring parking is seemless. There's parking within and outside the compound.

There are two entrances to the indoor restaurant, one through the side of the building, and the other through the back of the building that takes you through the super colorful outdoor dinning area. The seating area is made up of vibrant colours of different seating areas, sun umbrellas and greenery. If choosing here, be sure to be comfortable with nature as we spotted some friendly lizards around. It was too hot to sit outside so we dined indoors.

Compared to the splash of colours outside, the indoor dining area was a cool and calm decor of black and brown. Customer service was great. We felt the menu given to us was quite a narrow range of choices but we were told that was the brunch menu so appears they may have other menus for different times of the day.

From the menu, you see this is like a Nigerian fusion cuisine, and each dish was well plated, and tasted really good. If there for brunch, I strongly recommend the Agege toast with honey and fresh fruits and the coconut pancakes. For mains, we had the suya chicken steak with eggs, veggies and agege bread. The steak was the hallmark of the day! Also had the peanut crusted chicken that came with sweet potato pancakes, loved loved loved the pancakes. Last order was the a peanut crusted chicken sandwich that came out like a burger with some cabbage, sauce and fried yam, seemed to be a popular order but came third for us when grading the three mains we got.

We had the Passion Sunrise and NOK chapman mocktails. A member of our party said the palmwine in his Palmey Temple was not so fresh but the pink colour did look appetizing.

It was overall a great experience and look forward...