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What’s Fueling the Explosion of Chef-Made Hot Sauce?

From Michelin kitchens to pandemic-born side projects, chefs are bottling their signatures, turning hot sauce into a new kind of calling card.

For Jeremy Chan, the chef behind London’s two-Michelin-star restaurant Ikoyi, hot sauce is the ultimate condiment. It’s spicy, salty and umami, adding a depth of flavor to any dish. He likes it so much, he’s launched his own under the name Magma Concepts.

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“Whenever I cook at home, I always use some form of chili condiment with my food,” he tells Observer, ahead of the brand’s April launch. “People want stimulation, flavor and speed of seasoning, and that’s what hot sauce is about. It’s such a simple thing, but if you can elevate people’s experience with it, that’s really exciting.”

Magma Concepts, presented in a stylish aluminum bottle, is billed as a “hot sauce from Ikoyi,” although Chan is quick to note that it isn’t actually made in Ikoyi. It was, however, developed there over the past eight years. Chan decided to produce it for consumers two years ago, and it’s gone through a long process of trial and error since then.   

“It’s very different to other hot sauces on the market,” he says. “It’s rounder. It’s not just spicy—it also has a savory character. It has sweetness. It has citrusy notes. We blend two varieties of peppercorn into it, so it has other elements of heat, not just chili spice, and that makes it more versatile than a regular hot sauce.” 

Despite the complexity, Chan says it’s not meant to be overly “chef-y.” He wants it to feel elevated and precise, yet approachable for everyday use, whether it’s splashed on fried chicken, sprinkled on popcorn or used as a marinade for roasted vegetables. In Ikoyi, it’s used within the £380 tasting menu, which celebrates British seasonality and West African flavors. But at home, the sauce, which retails for £10, can be added to anything. 

“People might be expecting something quite expensive, technical and intricate,” Chan notes. “But it’s not. We’re trying to make an everyday condiment.” 

Hot sauce has long been a popular item in home pantries, but in recent years, higher-end, chef-led versions have been emerging on the market. For some, it’s a happy result of the pandemic. For others, it’s a way to meet customer demand. It’s a retail opportunity, of course, but also a way to showcase a particular culinary sensibility outside a restaurant kitchen. In 2020, David Chang’s Momofuku debuted its viral Chili Crunch, and in 2023, Noma’s Noma Projects introduced Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce, created in the Copenhagen restaurant’s test kitchen. At Denver’s modern Taiwanese eatery Pig and........

© Observer