From La Paz
to Old Kent Road
We came to London from La Paz in 2002. Back home, our mother, Edela, had run a restaurant of her own.
Jenecherú was first opened by friends of ours. When they were ready to step back in 2017, the two of us, Diego and Gabriel, took it on, with our mother in charge of the kitchen.
The plan was to give it a year or two and see how it went. It has since become our family business, and a part of the neighbourhood we love.
Our mother cooks at the back of the restaurant, a couple of steps down from the dining room, and she's happy to let the food do the talking. She's best known for two things: her salteñas, filled with a sweet chicken stew with egg and olive, and her sopa de maní, made with white peanuts and chicken.
The soup tastes exactly the way it did when we were growing up, and the recipe stays a family secret.
We translate Jenecherú as el fuego que nunca se acaba, the fire that never ends. It's written under our logo, and it sums up our kitchen: the same flavours, kept burning from one generation to the next.
Today Jenecherú is a gathering place for London's Bolivian community. Some of our guests travel from Manchester, Birmingham and Brighton for a plate of home cooking. Plenty more are Latin American friends and neighbours from all over Old Kent Road, one of the most varied streets in London, and we're proud to be part of it.