Osu-Re Grill: A Piece of Accra's Osu Strip in the Bronx

If you've never been to Osu, let me explain. Osu is the strip in Accra where everybody ends up. It's the music spilling out of every other doorway, the smoke off the grills, the banku and tilapia eaten with your hands, the friends you ran into who you weren't planning to run into. It's loud in the best way. It's where the night happens.

A few years ago, a chef named Moses Owusu — Big Mo to anyone who knew him — decided the Bronx deserved a piece of that. He opened Osu-Re Grill at 1344 East Gun Hill Road, put Adinkra symbols on the walls, hiplife on the speakers, an iron grill outside, and Sobolo and Ghana ginger in the cooler. He cooked the food the way it's cooked at home. He greeted his own guests at the door. He built the closest thing to a chop bar the Bronx had ever seen, and people came from Queens, from Newark, from across the city, because once you tasted the jollof and the tsoofi turkey tail and the grilled tilapia with banku, you understood what he was doing.

Big Mo passed away in the summer of 2025. The restaurant closed for renovation. And today, it reopens — under a name a lot of regulars already know.

Francis is the new owner. He was in that kitchen with Big Mo from early on, learning the recipes the way Big Mo learned them at home — by hand, by smell, by feel. He knew how Big Mo wanted the jollof to smoke. He knew how the tilapia should come off the iron grill. When the question came of who could carry Osu-Re Grill forward without losing what made it Osu-Re Grill, the answer was already in the kitchen. Francis didn't inherit a restaurant. He inherited a standard, and he's spent the months since the renovation making sure every plate that goes out still meets it.

★★★★★

"Was a bit skeptical when I arrived comparing what I've seen on social media, but the food & service were really spot on! From price point to flavor to timeliness 🥘🥘🥘. Will definitely come back to try other options on their menu!"

— Mira Moves

That's the kind of review Big Mo earned over and over. Skeptics walked in, sat down, ate, and became regulars. Francis and the team know it. The waakye still has the right depth. The jollof still has the smoke. The grilled tilapia still comes off that iron grill the way it should — charred, smoky, with banku or okra soup on the side. The plate I keep ordering — half jollof, half fried rice, plantains, a piece of grilled chicken — is exactly what it was. Done right.

Reopening a restaurant after losing the person who built it is not a small thing. It's an act of love and an act of work. It's Francis and the team saying: this place mattered, the food mattered, the community Big Mo built around this corner of Gun Hill Road mattered, and we are not letting it go. Every plate that goes out from now on is a plate he taught somebody to make. Every guest greeted at the door is one more person carrying the spirit of Osu, in the Bronx, the way he intended.

That's why we're proud to have Osu-Re Grill back on African Dishout starting today. Our whole reason for existing is making sure restaurants like this — the ones that mean something to the diaspora, the ones built by people like Big Mo and carried forward by people like Francis — can keep feeding the community that loves them. When you order Osu-Re Grill through us, the dollars stay close to home. The kitchen stays busy. The legacy keeps cooking.

So tonight, do me a favor. Pull up the app. Order the jollof and the grilled tilapia with banku. Get the okra soup. Get a Sobolo while you're at it. Eat it slow. Think about Big Mo, who built this, and Francis, who showed up to keep it going.

A taste of home, wherever you are. That's what he was doing all along. And that's what Francis is doing now.

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Osu-Re Grill

‍1344 East Gun Hill Road, Bronx, NY 10469

(929) 305-1992 · (929) 446-8469

Closed Monday

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