The Food Busker - review

Next to a stall at the Southbank’s Real Food Market is a blackboard. “Food Busking. Come in, I cook for you. You like? You give me what you think it’s worth. No? Tell me to take a hike,” it reads.

Having come down specifically to sniff this out, we poked our noses under the white awning. “Aha, people. Come in, come in,” chirped a bearded chap. He was Londoner John Quilter, an ex-chef and self-labelled “food busker” — the only one in London, I believe — who each weekend brings with him a pile of fresh ingredients, cooks whatever he feels like on the day and asks you to cough up if you like what you eat.

Quilter spent last summer doing this at festivals such as the Big Chill, where he would call over the bands, offer to feed them and get all the backstage gossip over cups of tea. He has now brought this idea to the South Bank every Friday to Sunday.

“It’s the way forward,” he insists. “Food should be accessible and easy to make. Seriously, anyone can do this. Today I thought I’d make you some great meatballs and some lovely Puerh tea. And you’ve got to try some of the best chocolate in London. Sound good?”

In principle, it sounded great. I had hoped he might cook everything on the spot but, expecting a crowd, he had already prepared a plate of raw meatballs.

In front of us, our man dipped the patties in flour and breadcrumbs (stored in bottles and packets on a table behind him), let them sizzle in a pan of oil and set about cutting up the “lovely fresh fish” in front of us. Over stories of cooking, chefs and celebrities, this was then mashed up and rolled into a ball with some Japanese sea salt — “see, easy peasy, eh?”

A pork, prune and chestnut ball was deliciously plump and crunchy, with a delayed sweet fruit and nut hit, while the second, a blend of lamb and cherry, came out firm but yielding and was again lifted by the sharp but sugary fruit inside. Our haddock fish ball was lightly cooked and a touch salty. Yet we were still hungry.

The next 10 minutes were spent discussing how best to brew the Puerh tea and how much of the “beautiful” chocolate it was okay to eat. In the end we drank it black, warm and without sugar from small cups, and ate the chocolate (Lithuanian, made by a company called Naïve) as slowly as humanly possible. It was dark chocolate specked with cacao nibs and by gum it was good: soft and bitter with unexpected stray cocoa nibs to crunch on.

Looking back at it, we hadn’t eaten much as most of the hour had been taken up by talking. We settled on £10 each on the basis that food busking is good and fun but not filling so you will probably end up feeling as if you should pay more than it’s worth out of guilt.

That said, I wouldn’t tell him to take a hike next time. I’d just request a second helping instead.