Diaspora Diaries: Meet London's Queen of Uyghur Food

Diaspora Diaries is a new series from Trippin, which explores how diasporic food connects places and cultures while shaping our understanding. In the first episode, we meet Zerife at her Dalston restaurant, Larzijan Uyghur Vegan Cuisine.

"I won't call it a restaurant, or if I had to, it's the smallest restaurant in the world!" laughs Zerife, sitting at the counter of her small east London restaurant. Tucked in an unassuming corner of Gillet Square, you could pass by this spot every day, without noticing that this small gem of an eatery exists.

Zerife is the one-woman force behind Larzijan, she cooks dishes including Goosh Nan, a type of pie, stir fried noodles, salads, dumplings, and Larzijan, a tangy sauce made with garlic and sesame oil that's key to Uyghur cooking. "We love to eat very colourful food and very original food," she smiles.

Cooking was not something Zerife had imagined herself dedicating a career to—she came to it later on in life. When she was younger, she had lived in Turkey, studying a doctorate and securing a high-level job at a jewellery company—but when her mother fell sick and passed away, Zerife returned back home to care for her father.

Aiming to ease her father's grief, she learned to cook her mother's Uyghur food. "It was helping my father, let him feel like my mum was there, because she was the one of the best cook I have ever known," says Zerife proudly. "I remember I would come home from school, and the whole street would smell of her larzijan sauce!"

As if by fate, Zerife stumbled upon a recipe book in a small bookshop, and began avidly studying the techniques of her heritage. She returned to Turkey, and set up her first restaurant there, Zinet, named after her mother.

However, after ten years running the restaurant, sensing a shifting political climate, Zerife was forced to leave Turkey. "Erdoğan's government and Chinese government were getting on so well, so most of the Uyghur people were not safe," she explains.

Uyghur are one of China's largest minority group, who live in north west China. The Uyghur language classified in a Turkish language group, and they are mostly of Sunni Muslim faith.

Yet since president Xi Jingping assumed office in 2013, their existence has gradually been threatened—at first with the deliberate relocation of China's ethnic majority populations into Uyghur territory, and most recently with shocking surveillance and punishment placed on Uyghur people in an attempt to assimilate them into a standardised Chinese culture. Those who do not comply risk being sent to concentration camps. International organisations have accused China of committing crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

Zerife arrived to the UK in 2019 as a refugee, where she has had to rebuild while raising her family. "I needed to bring my two kids to somewhere safe," she said. While waiting for her permission to stay, she volunteered with the Salvation Army, and became influenced by friends who are vegan.

She opened Larzijan with a new concept of Uyghur Vegan cuisine, daring to stray from the traditional elements to embrace a new style of cooking. "For some Uyghur people, the food at Larzijan might not be traditional. I put some nuances, little beautiful things to my Uyghur food," she says. "I changed it a lot, but I made up something kind of wonderful."

Now, in her little kitchen, she hopes people can enjoy Larzijan's robust flavours and learn more about Uyghur culture as they do so.

"So many Uyghur families are harmed by the political situation," she says. "Knowing more Uyghur people and culture would help more Uyghur people living in China."

Larzijan can be found 79b Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB. For more information, click here.