Acclaimed London chef Ms Ravinder Bhogal approached us with an interesting idea. What if she spoke to her friends about the food that means the most to them, and then recreated the dish? Below, she talks to cellist Mr Sheku Kanneh-Mason about his grandparents’ Caribbean home cooking, and serves up a red snapper recipe packed full of sweet, spicy flavours in the kitchen of her “mixed-heritage” London restaurant, Jikoni.

Despite his relative youth, 20-year-old cellist Mr Sheku Kanneh-Mason is already a high achiever. He first started playing the cello aged six, graduating to Grade 8 when he was just nine years old. In 2016, he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award (he is the first black musician to win the award in its 38-year history). By early 2018, he had already topped the classical music charts with his debut album Inspiration and played at grand concert halls across the world.

It was in May 2018, however, that he became a bonafide household name when he performed a moving solo at Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle’s wedding ­– a ceremony that was broadcast to more than 27 million viewers in the UK alone. He released his second album, Elgar, in January this year and is now a regular face in the weekend supplements. His arrival on the cultural scene is particularly symbolic in our times of wealth inequality and global and racial tensions, when culture is often the first thing to be cut and underfunded.

Though self-possessed, the young cellist is still a shy man who is freshly out of his teens. He arrives to meet me for lunch at Jikoni preppily dressed, cello in tow, post rehearsals at the Royal Academy of Music in Marylebone, where he is still a student. He is polite, sincere and eloquent, and while he has had an atypical adolescence and his anonymity has faded, he displays none of the precocious behaviour usually attached to young, fast-burning personalities swept up by a blaze of popularity.

What are the ingredients that make a happy, well-adjusted and talented star? In Mr Kanneh-Mason’s case it seems that a strong family narrative plays the biggest part. When he talks about his musical success, he is quick to credit his parents who “sacrificed so much and worked so hard” to bring him to London from his Nottingham home every weekend for music lessons. He is not the only gifted one in his family, either. He is one of seven siblings, and the others all play instruments at an elite level, too, often performing together.

For the large extended family, the ritual of meals taken together is a central part of life that reinforces the unit’s ties. Mr Kanneh-Mason has fond memories of several dinners crammed around a dining table creaking with the weight of feasts inspired by his Caribbean and West African heritage. His happiest memories, though, are of boisterous family Sunday lunches eaten at his grandparents’ house in Antigua, where he spent most of his school holidays.

The musician tells me that he cannot imagine a life as part of a smaller family. His parents, who hail from Antigua and Sierra Leone, also have several siblings, meaning there were always aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins around. “Growing up, friends were like family, too – it wasn’t until quite recently that I realised my father’s sister was actually his real sister, because we were brought up to call just about anyone older than us aunty or uncle – blood relative or not.”

Away from the sybaritic resorts on pristine, palm-fringed beaches that Antigua is so well known for is Hodges Bay, the idyllic location of Mr Kanneh-Mason’s grandparents home. He describes their bright yellow, four-bedroom bungalow with its flowering tropical garden as “the most beautiful place on Earth”. He tells me about the lush backyard blooming with palm fronds, bougainvillea and banana trees and the evening orchestra of crickets, bullfrogs and birds making music late into the night. He shares memories of a happy childhood spent with his siblings in a house that was just a few yards away from the steady roll of the Atlantic Ocean. “The thing I love about Antigua and its people the most is the unhurried pace. You miss the beauty of the place if you try to go too fast,” he says sagely.

His paternal grandparents, who are now in their eighties, came to Britain in the 1950s. “They worked really hard like most immigrants, taking whatever jobs came their way,” he says. “My grandfather was a bus driver. They always did the best for their family.” Their dream of returning home to the Caribbean endured and eventually they did so, giving the family a place for languorous vacations in the sun. Mr Kanneh-Mason describes them as generous and hospitable – a very Antiguan trait.

“The doors to people’s houses are always open and there are always people dropping in, having a drink or a snack,” he says. “At my grandma’s house, there is a porch terrace with a swinging chair on it where we always sit, chatting and watching the world go by. It’s a small, friendly community so everyone stops to say hello. The food culture in Antigua isn’t so much about fancy restaurants – it’s more about street-food shacks, or long relaxed meals at home, around the kitchen table or in the garden with a barbecue – it’s where you get the best food.”

I ask him about the food his grandmother cooks and he smiles. “It makes no pretence of being anything other than simply delicious,” he says. He reels off a list of his favourite suppers – goat water (a meat soup known to be unapologetically hot), jerk chicken cooked in seductive plumes of barbecue smoke, spicy rice with beans or peas, punchy Antiguan curries, salt cod and conch fritters. Then of course there is the bounty of seafood that comes with living so close to the ocean – lobsters, snapper, gigantic prawns and mahi-mahi. “I especially love plantain – nothing could be more Antiguan,” he tells me, relaying the secret to how his beloved grandmother cooks it so perfectly in hushed tones. As a cook, this is music to my ears.

Serves 2

1 whole red snapper (about 1kg), scaled and gutted

For the marinade:

3 small red chillies, finely chopped

3 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 spring onions, finely chopped

Juice of 2 limes

1 heaped tbsp light brown sugar

1 tbsp allspice

2 tsp finely grated ginger

2 tsp finely chopped thyme

Drizzle of rapeseed oil, plus extra for the fish

Sea salt

For the pineapple and pepper salsa:

1 small pineapple, peeled, cored and finely chopped

½ small red pepper, finely chopped

½ small green pepper, finely chopped

1 small red onion, finely chopped

½ cucumber, peeled, deseeded and finely chopped

Juice of 2 limes

Bunch of mint, picked and finely sliced

Sea salt and black pepper

To make the marinade, pound together the chilli and garlic in a pestle and mortar and then stir in the remaining ingredients. Season with sea salt.

Slash the fish a few times with a knife and rub with the marinade, pushing it into the crevices. Transfer to the refrigerator to marinade for at least an hour.

In the meantime, prepare the salsa by mixing together all the ingredients. Set aside until you are ready to serve. Also preheat the oven to 220°C.

When you are ready to cook the fish, drizzle it with a little oil on both sides and place a large ovenproof pan or roasting tray over a high heat. Place the snapper on the hot tray and let it char on both sides for about two minutes, then transfer to the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, or until cooked through.

While the fish is cooking, prepare the plantain chips. Heat the oil to 175°C – it should be barely bubbling. Plunge the plantain chips into the hot oil and cook for 6-8 minutes, until tender. Remove the chips, drain on paper towels, and then smash each round with the back of a pan or a bowl. Increase the oil temperature to 190°C and then fry again for 3-4 minutes until the plantain is crisp and golden brown. Season with sea salt. Serve at once with the fish and the salsa.