buka nigerian restaurant946 fulton st.new york city

Pounded-yam fufu looks comfortingly like mashed potatoes but has little taste on its own, which works well with the hearty goat stew ($9). On his Twitter feed, he mixes announcements of which bands will be playing at Buka that weekend with news updates from Nigeria. Mashood, who doubles as the chef, grew up in Lagos, where he learned to cook from his aunts. You may be eating fufu - the thick paste made of yam or cassava that is a West African staple - but you’re doing so on formal high-backed chairs with cushioned armrests. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf is stocked with glossy art tomes and diasporan newspapers with ads for delicacies like burnt goat’s head. In the back, the feel is of a vast drawing room, with tables flung far apart.

Fresh liquefied ginger ($4) - “juice” hardly does it justice - is a sock in the jaw. There is palm wine ($4) too, sweet with a yeasty finish, and Malta Guinness ($5), a nonalcoholic malt beverage brewed in Nigeria that smells like pumpernickel still baking in the oven. Upfront is a long wooden bar where you can get a Chapman ($5), a fizzy Nigerian cocktail that includes Sprite, orange Fanta, Angostura bitters, and dashes of lemon, lime, grapefruit and (surely a Brooklyn innovation?) verbena.

Victorian details - a floral couch, an oil painting in a gilded frame, a chandelier - are juxtaposed with gritty exposed brick. The owners, Lookman Mashood and Nat Goldberg, have transformed a former law office on a dingy stretch of Fulton Street into an airy, inviting space.

Buka nigerian restaurant946 fulton st.new york city