Party In Your Kitchen
Farringdon’s Kitchen Party could be described as a good idea that’s packed a bunch of other good ideas into a compact space. Or an everchanging door of food, and food related experiences to be enjoyed. I hesitate to use the word ‘pop up’ dining – since as I’m sure you’ll all agree, it’s been dangerously ‘PRified’. But the concept is I suppose, pretty similar…
It’s basically the space for a series of installations that offer inventive and very different ways to eat your dinner. Or a number of very different little parallel food centric parties going on in one building. It’s for this reason that I can’t speak for everything that they offer (I didn’t get to try them all), but what I can tell you is the stuff that we got to see was pretty damn good. The installations change every four to six weeks, ensuring that things stay exiting and probably unpredictable…
As always, you start at Fourth Wall, which was staffed with interesting and chatty bar staff and playing (what I remember to be) a Motown playlist. Cos everybody loves Motown. It feels a little like a foyer, and I guess it serves this purpose, guests come here, relax and have a drink before going onto their separate kitchen parties.
After wandering around a bit and annoying the bar staff, me and the +1 headed to Rack and Ruin – an installation with a poetic name, and that promised the purest ‘meat centric’ dining experience I’ve ever enjoyed. And it delivered.
Rack And Ruin(ed)
So, Rack and Ruin… This place is the carnivore’s dream and the vegetarian’s hellfire and brimstone nightmare. The edge it has over say, a steakhouse, or similar places is the variety of meat you get. It’s not just a large rump steak, some potatoes and then done, it’s a carnivorous cornucopia of meat grilled to perfection by a hardbitten looking South African who’s seriously got something to prove with his cooking skills.
(and later you find he does walk his talk very well indeed…)
Said South African’s ‘co-chef’ (if that’s a word?) is a burly cockney with a smilier enthusiasm for the grill. The guys have a kind of rapport that would have made good TV viewing (think The Hairy Bikers but like…I dunno, more manly or something?)
I’m a simple creature so this was basically the best kind of restaurant experience for me. Meat in overly generous, competitive eating style portions and pronounceable dishes. And the odd vegetable that’s been grilled. This place apparently sported a Medieval theme, but I couldn’t really tell, being too busy getting my beef on. When I went up for seconds, the guy even recommended what was the best bit and then served me it. Somewhere between that and the fact that they actually had mutton was the moment they won my allegiance forever.
It took a while, but both me and the cowriter were totally defeated by the food. If you start to look full, you may find the host telling you that it’s a ‘two portion minimum’ and that his partner gets depressed if you don’t clean your plate in both instances (he jests, of course). I did manage to digest two full sized heapings, and I think I could have gone for a third if I’d really put my mind to it. But it was probably best I didn’t.
We had (from what I remember…): Grilled squash, grilled aubergine, pork ribs, chicken leg, mutton (amazing) and beef (very amazing)
After surviving (in the most gleeful sense of the word) Rack and Ruin, me and the +1 quickly hurried to the next event, drawn by the promise of an unnecesary amount of chemistry and explosives combined with food…
Food Technology
The Robin Collective’s Extreme Garnishing is an exciting, slightly worrying and slightly ridiculous idea, in a kinda cool, over the top bombastic way (which as ‘food futurologists’ I assume is what they were aiming for). We arrived about half way though and so missed the initial phases of the garnishing. We did however, arrive at the point where the garnishing had started to get more intense, so no complaints.
( Anywhere you given a pair of goggles to go with your cutlery piques my interest… )
I was a bit underwhelmed by the failure in execution on the ‘stuffing a chicken with an ethanol rocket (cool concept, though unfortunately lacking in implementation – the ethanol didn’t ignite a few times), but setting a pineapple on fire (with ‘edible fireworks?’) was a nice touch and left a really great smell that was a mix between cake mix and the aftermath of a frag grenade.
I’d love to know what the health and safety people made of the whole thing. 🙂
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Russian Revels, 1920s themed Russian dining, which appears half way between performance art and old time Eastern European dining. As I understand it, diners are treated to food being served by waiters/actors who serve diners in character, all creating the atmosphere of a 1920s Russian ‘Restoran’. Funnily enough I actually auditioned to be a performing musician at this a few months before the launch, but life got in the way of the whole thing working out…
Closing Thoughts
I’d truly recommend Kitchen Party for the adventurous and open minded eater, seeking an experience as much as a drink and a meal. The fact that it changes so frequently suggests that it could never get boring! And I’d also recommend Rack And Ruin, for a ‘hearty’ and straight up carnivore-tastic taste explosion.
So good…
Details
W: www.kitchenpartypopup.com
T: 020 7724 1617
E: reservations@kitchenpartypopup.com
Thursday – 6pm – 12.30am – Friday and Saturday, 6pm – 2pm