A ground-breaking women centered food business in East London.

We serve authentic Bangla food.

Our Story

OITIJ-JO Kitchen is a woman-led project of the OITIJ-JO Collective, an arts and training charity dedicated to promoting awareness of Bengali culture.  

OITIJ-JO Kitchen aims to bring traditional, handmade Bangladeshi cuisine to the public and to disrupt the gender norms of hospitality and catering sector by providing training and employment opportunities to people who are generally underrepresented in kitchen and front of house roles.  

OITIJ-JO Kitchen’s speciality is slow cooked, home style food that gives time to health and wellbeing.  We love to serve a wide range of customers of all ages and from all walks of life, especially people who might not have tried home cooked Bangladeshi food before.  We started out of grassroots action in Tower Hamlets and have a strong belief supporting home grown talent and celebrating our borough and the diverse community of London.

We provide a catering service and ensure that our client have a hassle-free time at their event. 

We work according to the event requirement and can provide a number of service options including, Buffet, Takeaway / Boxed, BBQ or that special event e.g. Book Launch, Gala or even a festival.

If you would like to engage Oitij-jo Kitchen to cater for your event please contact us on admin@oitij-jo.org

*TATI Canteen has now changed name to Oitij-jo Kitchen (since 2023).

Our 5 Golden Rules

Welcoming And Inclusive:

Our Café is for everyone, whether they’re coming in for a quick lunch to take back to the office, looking for a quiet space to work or read, or coming along with a group of people to have a meeting or celebrate a birthday. OITIJ-JO Collective and OITIJ-JO Kitchen works closely with and are committed to welcoming all community members. We work in partnership with Odbhut – queer Bangla group as well as disability group Apasen and others. Our Members are multi-lingual and used to accommodating a variety of people.  

Fair Pricing:

We aim to make our food accessible and affordable to local people and always include a range of relatively low priced healthy food on our standard daily menus.

Environmental Impact, Ethical And Local Sourcing:

We are working with Silas Yard, St Hilda’s Co-op along with local grocers to source our food. We aim to work with food producers within the M25 area where it is viable and reduce food mileage. We are also working to recycle food waste and used oil to reduce carbon emission. We mainly use biodegradable plates, cutlery and takeaway boxes.  We are committed to minimising our footprint. 

Training, Support, And Fair Pay:

The majority of our team are OITIJ-JO Kitchen Members having completed their 15-20 weeks training. The women are, primarily Bangladeshi women from Tower Hamlets who come to our project for training, work experience and confidence building.  We work in partnership with local service providers such as Eastend Homes for the training programme. We cover the costs of all staff training and qualifications and pay all staff at least the London Living Wage when they finish their training and if they stay with us.  Those who have a lead role, are paid a higher rate. The training is provided by Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency (GCDA) – introduction to commercial kitchen,  and Westminster & Kingsway College’s Level 2 Routes to Hospitality and Catering sector. All our Members are trained in and have the Level 2 Food Hygiene and Food Allergy certificate. We have three Members of staff trained in Level 3 Food Management.  We work to and use the Safer Food Better Business principles and use the HAACP and Kitchen Temperature daily diary. 

Open And Flexible:

Our menus are always changing, and we welcome feedback and suggestions from customers. We work with the seasons as well as festivities creating and developing tasty dishes for all to try. We try and develop dishes which are nutritionally balanced as well as providing options which are vegan and gluten free. We are developing a programme of residencies with guest cooks.