A Generous Bowl of Guacamole With Love From a Turkish Chef

Surely, Yavuz Ozborme’s fine-tuning of the avocado dip in a quest for continuous improvement is a metaphor for adjusting to life since he and his brother came to London and opened Buffalo Grill in Greenwich.

Food

3 min

June 05, 2026

Written by Sunniya Ahmad Pirzada and Photographed by Talie Rose Eigeland

“No tomato. The acid makes it go off.”

Yavuz Ozborme barely looks up as he speaks. Knife in hand, wooden block in front of him, he continues working through the avocados. More than three decades in professional kitchens have taught him that some things last longer when you’re willing to make adjustments.

The Türkiye-born chef arrived in the United Kingdom in 1992 after following his younger brother, Cuneyt. The plan was simple: Work hard, save money and eventually return home. Instead, life took a different direction.

In 2001 he and his brother opened Buffalo Grill in Greenwich, southeast London. Twenty-five years later, the restaurant remains part of the neighborhood’s fabric. Regular customers still walk through the door. Families have grown. Plans have changed. What was meant to be temporary became permanent.

Just as Ozborme adjusted his plans for life, he adjusted the guacamole he first learned to make in a Mexican restaurant only a few meters from where Buffalo Grill stands today. “The texture was too smooth,” he recalls. “Too close to the ready-made kind.”

So, he changed it.

Less cumin. Better salt. Olive oil. No tomato. He adjusted in increments. Together they created something better. “You always improve and learn. There’s no end,” he explains.

As he folds coriander through the avocado, the statement feels less like cooking advice than a philosophy for living.

When Yavuz arrived in London, he expected to leave. Instead, he built a family, a business and a life. The guacamole evolved alongside him through years of paying attention to what worked and what didn’t. “My first guacamole wasn’t as good as what I just made,” he says, adding, “At the moment, we are doing the best one.”

Then he pauses before sliding the bowl across the table.

“If we find we can make it better, we will.”

Brothers Cuneyt, left, and Yavuz Ozborme came to the United Kingdom from Türkiye and opened Buffalo Grill, which serves Mexican fare.

Recipe

Yavuz's Guacamole

Serves 2–3 (possibly 1, if you are not prepared to share)

2 ripe avocados
2–3 spring onions
Green jalapeño, to taste
½ red onion
2 garlic cloves
Small handful fresh coriander

1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon (or ½ lemon, ½ lime)
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon cumin powder

Chopping and grating

Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, score the flesh vertically and horizontally, then scoop out the cubes.

Slice the spring onions and jalapeño. Finely chop the red onion. Grate the garlic. Ozborme insists grating releases more flavor than chopping and is unwilling to negotiate on the point.

Finely chop the coriander, using both leaves and stalks.

Mixing and combining

Combine the avocado with the onions, jalapeño and garlic. Add olive oil, lemon juice, salt, white pepper and cumin powder. Fold through the coriander. Olive oil is one of Ozborme’s additions. He says it makes the guacamole beautiful.

Taste and serve

Taste and adjust if necessary. The balance comes from restraint: enough lemon to brighten the avocado, enough cumin to support it but never enough to dominate.

Serve with tortilla chips, carrot sticks, celery and cucumber. If making ahead, press cling film directly onto the surface before refrigerating. It will keep overnight, and even a little longer, as long as there is no tomato added.

As for me, I drag my tortilla chip through the bowl. The texture is exactly as Ozborme intended. Not too smooth nor too rough. The lemon arrives first, followed by the richness of the avocado and olive oil. The tomato is gone. The cumin is restrained. The olive oil remains. Like the life Ozborme built in London, guacamole did not arrive this way. It became this way.