Street Kitchen At The London Restaurant Festival

The London Restaurant Festival is in its second year and is running for 2 weeks from the 4th October. Restaurants in London are celebrating the festival by holding special events like dinner on the London Eye to having special menus.

Two chefs who are doing something different are Jun Tanaka (of Pearl Restaurant) and Mark Jankel by bringing food to the people on the street with a Food Truck. Food Trucks are a growing trend in the US and increasingly in the UK, each serving delicious food at reasonable prices and gaining a large fan base through social media, especially Twitter. The best known of the Food Truck is @KogiBBQ in LA, which has the twitter and mass media darling, proving the case that you can build a very succesful food business using Twitter alone.

Back in London, Street Kitchen has been set up in corner of the Covent Garden Piazza in an imported Airtream Caravan. My friend had this to say about this, “it looks like the catering van on film sets” and expected a cheap menu of the type of food served with chips.

The menu here is simple, made of locally sourced food and not a chip in sight. As I didn’t have much time, I opted for one of the mains, Salmon with beetroot and horseradish £6.50. It’s not that cheap but simple and delicious. There are 2 other main courses, a soup with brioche and one pudding on the menu.

According to the chefs, they have been really busy, especially at lunch time. If I had a bit more time, I would have had the Autumn berries Cheesecake but they are around for a few more days so I shall return to check that out. Who knows, the Street Kitchen could be travelling around and you might see it near you soon.