My grandmother would always say, if you don’t cook with love, do not cook at all. I put a lot of love into what I cook, and that has gotten me to where I am today.
It’s a simple ethos, and one that has paid dividends for chef, entertainer, and entrepreneur Chef Tolu “Eros” Erogbogbo.
Also known as “Chef Eros” or “The Billionaire Chef,” Eros has carved out a taste-tingling, high-flying niche with his love of Nigerian cuisine and culture. His cooking has taken him from home near Lagos, Nigeria, to Wolverhampton, UK, then to Los Angeles, USA, where he now works as the executive chef at Ilé Dining Room. Having led high-profile cooking events and served celebrity patrons, Chef Eros looks back on his journey.
Eros said: “I was born in Benin City, which is in the South of Nigeria, where I was for most of my life until I came to Wolverhampton. I had a pretty big family and spent a lot of time at the dining table, and I guess that’s what shaped me into becoming a chef.
"I remember growing up and loving yam and egg stew on a Sunday, while pounded yam and egusi was one of my favourites as a kid. Jollof rice was definitely top of the list though, as at the time it was a dish you would only have at celebrations, birthdays, and so on. What’s funny is that when I was much younger, I didn’t like beans, but then when I went to university it was one of the first things I wanted to learn how to make."
At first, Eros wanted to study architecture, but his father recommended that he take a business course instead. Eros accepted the advice and chose the University of Wolverhampton to study International Business Management, due to the reputation of its Business School.
Eros lived near Wolverhampton’s City Campus and appreciated the educational environment and opportunities the university provided – but he missed the taste of home.
He continued: “Being in Wolverhampton and so far away from home meant I had no access to Nigerian food and no access to my family. I was used to sitting around the dining table and you know, having dinner or lunch with my family – so I wanted to recreate that.”
With this love of home, culture, and his country’s cuisine to drive him, Eros learned how to cook Nigerian dishes while he was in England, getting advice from his mother and grandmother over the phone. His passion for Nigerian cooking took flight, and through the success of his own kitchen abilities and no doubt some entrepreneurial spirit inspired by the course, he began bagging up his deliciously seasoned chicken to sell to other students.
Eros explained: “Being in the midst of so many international students allowed me to experience different cultures and different cuisines. Then also being at such a good business school, I was able to learn a lot about economics, marketing, and logistics, just to mention a few.
"My love for food and cooking came during that time, then when I was coming to an end of my education, my mother wanted to open a restaurant. I wrote up a business plan for her while I was still in school and ended up going home to Nigeria to help her open the restaurant and became a part-owner too.”
Eros went on to start a real estate company with his brother-in-law, then formed the Cookie Jar Bakery, which he operated out of the real estate company office. He followed this with a boutique catering company named Eros & Gourmet, then as his empire grew, opened several restaurants across continents.
Stating that the catering company was responsible for his nickname, The Billionaire Chef, Eros said: “As I was starting the company, a lot of my clients were billionaires, and my friends teased me for it. They would always ask me to cook for them, but I generally didn’t have a lot of time to do that, so they would tease me and say, ‘If you are not a billionaire, he isn’t going to cook for you.’ I guess it became a running joke.”
When Eros made “The Billionaire Chef” his temporary Instagram handle, the social media platform unexpectedly verified the name, and for Eros there was no going back. Over time, he has come to reinterpret the meaning of “billionaire chef” to better reflect his worldview and the brand he has cultivated.
Eros explained:
For me, a billionaire chef is somebody who trades in the currency of culture. I see myself as someone who is rich in culture, so that’s my currency, and I’m trading in it and exporting it across the world.
This outlook and the exhilarating flavours he conjures wherever he cooks have reaped dividends for the chef.
Today, Eros is perhaps best known for his restaurant Ilé, which became a permanent fixture in Los Angeles in 2022, after Chef Eros took a three-month trip to the US to host a series of pop-up diners across the country. As part of his life-long dedication to introducing West African food to the rest of the globe, Ilé offers experiences that are part restaurant, part dinner theatre.
Eros explained: “When you come to dine with me, you can expect entertainment, especially storytelling. I write the menu, I curate the music, and I tell stories throughout the dinner experience. In the past I’ve come out with every course ringing a bell, then told stories which usually describe a journey or an experience, as well as explaining what to expect from the dish in terms of flavour.
"My meals often come with drama. When I have hosted in Nigeria, I have had dancers, drummers, and sometimes actors join in.”
The foods Eros provides are varied, and the only certainty with each dining experience is that the chef’s special “Unity Jollof Rice” will be served. This sumptuous, warming dish, which Eros created as an answer to the question, “Which country makes the best Jollof Rice?”, combines recipes from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.
Word of Chef Eros’s unique approach to Nigerian cuisine has spread and created opportunities for him that may once have seemed the stuff of exotic dreams. Among his high-profile achievements, the chef has hosted dinners in the VIP area of Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival, as well as cooked for patrons as distinguished as French President Emmanuel Macron, Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Michael B. Jordan, Wolfgang Puck and partnered with the charity (RED) to raise HIV awareness.
Eros’s most memorable culinary experience to date was when he cooked in the VIP Rose Garden at Coachella festival for the VIP patrons.
He said: “Cooking in an environment like that, surrounded by so much music and serving people who are there to experience music being played on such a big stage, was very memorable. The menu at the dinner was called Chasing Drums, and if you were there you would have seen me running and cutting across the dining table, expressing the different drums of West Africa that inspired the meal.
I’m always so zoned into my work. I want to deliver the best experience, so my focus is always on maintaining my attention to detail and just ensuring that the event is memorable.
If Coachella was his most unforgettable, Chef Eros’s proudest career moment so far came in 2024, when he was recruited by the credit card company Chase Sapphire to take part in a filmed commercial. During the shoot, he cooked his staple Unity Jollof Rice for a table of people that included actor and film producer Michael B Jordan.
Eros continued: “That short film aired across America and other parts of the world, and I think it helped me achieve one of my main goals: to put West African cuisine and its culture on the global food map.
“I think that a lot of people who had never experienced Jollof Rice saw and heard about it from that commercial. Even though the Coachella event was very memorable, I was only able to reach, let’s say 300 people, but the commercial has gone to a much wider audience.”
2025 is likely to involve a lot of travel for Chef Eros. He’s looking forward to visiting Nigerian villages he has never seen before, discovering the local heritage and cuisine, and sharing his travel and cooking experiences with the world. While it may not happen this year, Chef Eros seems to be taking confident steps towards his ultimate dreams: cooking for Obama and Oprah, and having a residency in Las Vegas, on a big stage, which he says would be “like Cirque du Soleil, but West African,” and use food as a medium of communication.
Chef Eros offered some final advice for budding chefs who want to stand out in the cooking world: “Be yourself, be original, be authentic. Cook what you love to cook. Cook what you love to eat.”
And considering his name and his grandmother’s motto: cook with love.
Watch Chef Eros cooking up a storm for Hollywood stars Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.
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