Nigerian food Melbourne: Mary’s cafe and restaurant in Collingwood serves jollof rice, beef peppersoup, puff puff pancakes and suya skewers

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Alligator pepper is a phrase to stop you in your tracks. Is it lethally hot?

Spiky? Reading menus for a living, you see plenty of unfamiliar terms that lodge in your brain. (Sometimes they even help you win the Saturday morning quiz.) Carta de musica: crunchy Italian crackers.

Grenobloise: buttery French sauce with capers and parsley. But alligator pepper?

In Melbourne? That’s an itch your brain wants to scratch – and you can, at Mary’s in Collingwood, the Nigerian-ish venue of Mary Akindele. “Nigerian-ish” because Akindele has tapped every part of her story in building

Mary’s: her upbringing in Manchester, where her parents emigrated after leaving Ekiti in Nigeria’s south-west. Her trips to Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.

Coming to Australia 10 years ago as a backpacker, working in cafes, studying commercial cookery and running Nigerian supper clubs. She now owns two businesses, the other being Sam’s Cafe in St Kilda. But it’s her name that’s painted in big black letters out the front of Mary’s, where she blasts afrobeats and serves Lagos chicken sandwiches, suya-spiced anchovy toast and jollof rice.

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“I’m not trying to force this super-authentic Nigerian thing,” she says. “It sits where I am in my upbringing, and what I’ve learnt working in so many different venues and eating lots of very good food.”

Mary’s was formerly home to longstanding Singaporean joint The Old Raffles Place.

Akindele has kept that same homey feel but updated it for her cafe-restaurant, choosing warm browns, terracottas and greens that remind her of the country her family live on in Nigeria. During the day, chilli scramble (one of Akindele’s favourite brunch discoveries in Australia) gets extra oomph from ata din din, a soft tumble of tomato, capsicum and onion that’s like the salt and pepper of Nigerian cuisine: it’s in everything (well, nearly).

Pancakes are especially airy and go by the ridiculously fun name of “puff puff pancake”.

They’re a mix of puff puff, a Nigerian fried dough snack, and regular pancake batter. Nigerian ingredients are explained in a short glossary on the menu, and young

waitstaff also happily describe dishes or drinks. They innately understand some diners might need a little hand-holding as they try their first fried plantain or tomato-flecked and smoky jollof rice.

Some are wearing hand-knitted hats, others are in Adidas zip-ups. Dinner is a more forthright celebration of Nigerian dishes – less Australian footholds, more suya. That beloved spice mix of warming ginger, toasty peanuts and chilli powder coats grilled eye fillet, the blush-pink steak arranged over a bright rocket salad.

Nighttime is also your shot at trying alligator pepper. The tiny seeds (held in a pod that looks like alligator skin) are the headliner of beef peppersoup, rendered here as a chunky stew with a boisterously oily gravy.

An army of different West African spices marches across your tongue, peppery heat building alongside more fragrant clove-y, menthol-y notes. Jollof rice on the side is non-negotiable. It’s the pride of West Africa, even if the “correct” recipe is a never-ending debate.

Mary’s jollof has texture and crunch. Grains of charred, oven-baked basmati bring extra smokiness to the capsicum, tomato and chillies.

You’ll find yourself chasing those extra-nubbly bits, a bit like tahdig, the crunchy bottom layer of Iranian rice, or the soccarat of Spanish paella. Hip-hop and highlife plays over conversations at mismatched timber tables. Along with the 1960s brown of the plates, they add to the ‘come to my place for dinner’ vibe.

Mary’s, which turns one in a few weeks, sits on a memory-making corner for many Melburnians. The Tote Hotel, a live music institution twice saved from death, is on one side and, before Mary’s, The Old Raffles Place sat opposite for 25 years.

When Alan and Carol Han started serving Singaporean dishes such as char kwai teow in 2000, they were a gateway to South-East Asian culture for Melbourne. Now, Akindele has thrown open the doors to West Africa via the UK and a trip to Australia.

The low-down

Atmosphere: Come as you are Go-to dishes: Jollof rice (from $19); Nigerian chilli scramble ($27); puff puff pancakes ($26); beef peppersoup ($16); beef suya ($31)

Drinks: Short list of lo-fi wines, local craft beer and Nigerian-inspired cocktails; Nigerian soft drinks; coffee and tea Cost: About $125 for two for dinner, excluding drinks (breakfast or lunch, about $60 for two)

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.