When Nigerian-American Chef Ope Amosu created ChòpnBlọk, his main mission was to make his culture more accessible while building community along the way. In just five years since its 2021 public debut, Amosu has done exactly that — becoming a 2026 James Beard Award Finalist for Best Chef: Texas, landing a spot on the 2026 EBONY Eats list, and earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand for his West African fast-casual restaurant. “ChòpnBlọk is way bigger than me; it’s way bigger than one person,” Amosu told EBONY. “We’re so grateful that these institutions have taken notice, because they have enabled us to further reach more people and further live out our intention.”
Before it became a restaurant, ChòpnBlọk started as a pop-up dinner party in his cousin’s apartment clubhouse. After years of plotting and planning the concept, while working and traveling the world as a commercial executive, and even doing a four-month stint as a prep cook at Chipotle, Amosu returned to his beloved city, Houston, Texas, in 2017 to get the ball rolling.
In March of 2018, he brought together 10 people from different corners of his past, offering each guest and their required plus-one a unique culinary experience for a $40 RSVP deposit. “They would show up to my cousin’s apartment complex, and would receive an envelope,” he said. “It had their $40 back in 20s, 10s, fives, and ones, and at the end of the night they got to decide how much they actually wanted to truly pay for the experience.” The dinner party was tailored to give Amosu real-time feedback while building a strong following — walking guests through the restaurant’s concept before it was conceived. “A lot of people treated it as a date night, but it was also a focus group that was masked in this entire experience,” he told EBONY.
From there, he was able to scale the dinners, partnering with different restaurants to create a dining series-turned-food festival called Chopd & Stewd — which playfully paid homage to the Houston hip-hop music style “chopped and screwed.” Through this series, Amosu gained traction and garnered support from his peers, as well as from prominent Nigerian-American figures such as comedian and actress Yvonne Orji plus musicians Jidenna and Wale. Then in 2020, his alma mater Rice University tapped him to put together flavorful care packages during the pandemic for the top donors of the business school program. As fate would have it, Amosu’s savory popcorn bags landed in the hands of one of the biggest real estate developers in Houston, Frank Liu — who at the time was working on the POST, a cultural hub and workspace in Houston’s downtown area.
After three years of serving hearty favorites from the POST food hall, Amosu decided it was time to expand. The first brick-and-mortar opened in 2024 on Nigerian Independence Day (Oct.1) in Montrose, a vibrant neighborhood in west-central Houston. Just like their thoughtfully curated menu, the warmly lit Montrose-located space is a celebration of cultures. “Our back bar is inspired by traditional Yoruba Aso Oke, which is a garment…our mud walls [mimic] the colors of clay and the mud back [in Nigeria], with different icons on the wall that speak to the crossroads of culture,” Amosu said.
Painted on the walls are scattered designs of an hourglass-shaped talking drum, a boom box, the Alief Independent School District logo, and various adinkra symbols. There are also vinyl displays of musical artists like Fela Kuti, Sade, SZA, Solange, Burna Boy, and Asake, plus an art gallery highlighting different visual artists from the diaspora called Àwa nìyí, which translates to “this is us.”
The menu consists of decadent dishes — channeling nostalgic flavors adored by the culture and reflective of countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia, and more. Fan favorites include the flavorful “Golden” bowl, which combines a smoky jollof jambalaya paired with their juicy blọk chicken, yaji vegetables, and stewed plantains. Another is their “Black Star” bowl that perfectly layers waakye fried rice, Ikoyi shrimp, a creamy yassa curry sauce, and sweet plantains. Amosu also made sure to include a Nigerian staple, beef suya, on the menu — which he joyfully travelled back to Lagos, Nigeria, to learn and perfect his recipe from the best at Lagos Polo Club.
For some, this may seem like a lot. But for Amosu, this is the heart of ChòpnBlọk — bridging the gap while creating a foundation rooted in community. To this day, Amosu still finds ways to do this, through dining series like Friends of the Blọk and Parlay on the Blọk.
“I’ve been blessed with opportunities to cook on some of the biggest stages and food festivals in the country and outside the country…I’ve gone to these spaces, and I don’t really see the representation there,” he said. “It’s amazing to see how this other world exists, and I wanted to be able to bring this back to experiences I thought my community wasn’t privy to, both from a talent side and an audience side.”
Most recently, Amosu has collaborated with local Houston businesses such as The Breakfast Klub for a West African take on brunch classics. Additionally, he’s worked with Viola & Agnes’, Gatlin’s Fins & Feathers, and Premium Goods Boutique for a Juneteenth fish fry. He also had a full circle moment when he partnered with his former Rice University professor, rapper Bun B — who he refers to as Professor Freeman — on a special Trill Burgers collaboration.
While Amosu is pleased he took the risk of leaving a comfortable and secure job in oil and gas to build what is now a Michelin-rated restaurant, he understands how tough this decision can be for others with similar hopes and dreams — offering advice to Black entrepreneurs thinking of making their next big, bold move:
“If you have an idea in your heart, if you have a purpose or calling that you feel you can’t shake, try to find a small way to move that needle, a small way that’s manageable to be able to push that idea forward,” Amosu said.