Tiyan Alile

Tiyan Alile is a Nigerian chef. She established the first culinary school in Nigeria. A few of her former restaurants include a grill at the Ibadan Golf Club and a modernized Nigerian restaurant.

Alile was born to a physician father while her mother was a lawyer. After earning a bachelor's degree in law and working in business law for ten years, she branched into the food industry in 1993 building on her kitchen experiences with her mother, making cakes and barbecue grills. She went back to school in 2012 to train in the culinary arts at the L’Academie de Cuisine.

In high school, Alile had a cupcake store called Tea Time Cupcakes. She officially began working in the culinary arts in 1999 when she started a grill house at Ibadan Golf Club named Tees Hot Bites. Four years later, in 2003, she opened up a Nigerian restaurant called Matchsticks Concepts while she was a food columnist for Genevieve Magazine. In 2015, Alile launched her restaurant called Tarragon, which originally started out as a dinner club.

Teaching

In 2007, Alile began to teach cooking and established Nigeria's first culinary school Culinary Academy in 2012 based in Lagos, Nigeria. The culinary arts education meets international standards while focusing on Nigeria's diverse cuisine. She is also the president of Culinary Arts Practitioners Association of Nigeria.

Alile has taught master-classes at the Central Johannesburg College and has also trained one of the students at her academy who was invited to participate in the 2016 Young Chef Olympiad in India