Meet the young tastemakers spicing up London's food scene

Frankie McCoy meets the new guard bringing London Food Month to life with their game-changing creations

Elizabeth wears ZARA shirt, £29.99 (zara.com). BDG jeans, £50, at urbanoutfitters.com. Seb wears FRENCH CONNECTION T-shirt, £25 (frenchconnection.com). Imogen wears H&M top, £12.99 (h&m.com ) Food courtesy of LIDL

Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Frankie McCoy

1 June 2017

Elizabeth Allen

Elizabeth Allen has competed in MasterChef, earned Hackney’s Pidgin a Michelin star and is poised to open her own hyped fusion eatery — all by the age of 28. The chef, who was born in Maidenhead, raised in Singapore and now lives in Angel, got into cooking as a child and while studying architecture at university realised that ‘I much preferred being in the kitchen’. She entered MasterChef on a dare — ‘I made it to the last 12!’ — and then did stints at L’Enclume and Bubbledogs before taking on the role of head chef at Pidgin. Now she’s opening her first restaurant, Shibui, fusing European and Asian cuisines and serving an Italian-Japanese (‘Itameshi’) four-course dinner at Palatino on 2 June for London Food Month.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef? ‘Become an artist or, more obscurely, become a volcanologist. I’m strangely obsessed with studying them!’

Adrian Luckie

Canary Wharf-based Adrian Luckie’s street-food stand, Mama’s Jerk, isn’t just a jerk chicken stop — it’s a ‘legacy’. His great-grandmother Mama Charlotte’s secret jerk sauce recipe was so good, the 46-year-old felt he had to dedicate his business to it. After catering college in Lewisham, Luckie, born in Hackney, cooked French cuisine at various fine-dining restaurants but had a yearning to get back to Caribbean cooking. When London’s street-food scene took off around 2010, he took the leap to set up Mama’s Jerk, initially trading at Vibe Bar in Brick Lane and now catering at London’s best markets, including LFM’s Night Market (7-18 June), and various festivals.

The real reason you’re interested in cooking? ‘I had a slight crush on my home economics teacher at school!’

David Carter and Adrian Luckie (Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer)

Mandy Yin

Growing up in Kuala Lumpur was all the inspiration Mandy Lin, 35, needed to become a chef; her childhood memories revolve around food. Now based in Enfield, she started her street-food stand, Sambal Shiok, in 2013, serving the Malaysian food of her youth with a twist, such as chicken satay burgers. Her pop-up laksa bar has taken over pubs and bars, from Fitzrovia’s Newman Arms to Blend Café in Haringey, and her chilli and peanut sauces are so good she sells them for £6.50 a pop. She’s currently seeking a site for the first Sambal Shiok restaurant and is hosting a six-course ‘Memories of Malaysia Supper Club’ on 15-17 and 22-24 June.

How spicy is too spicy? ‘When I did the first trial of my signature laksa at home it was nearly inedible as I was too generous with the chillies. It made me cough and cry!’

Freddie Janssen & Seb Myers

Australian-born Seb Myers, 31, and Dutch-born Freddie Janssen, 34, have some seriously cool cooking credentials. Just name a zeitgeisty restaurant and they’ve probably worked there — from Sweden’s Fäviken, where Myers did a month’s stint, to Lyle’s in Shoreditch, where Janssen is marketing manager. The pair met at Sager + Wilde while London Fields-based Myers was head chef and they collaborated on a taco pop-up — at the time Claptonite Janssen was impressing Londoners with kimchi through her pickle and sauce brand, F A T. They’re now working on a new pop-up project, Snackbar, which will serve ‘international party food’ (kicking off at The Laughing Heart on 6 June) before they open their first restaurant in Hackney Central early next year.

What is your worst food disaster? Freddie: ‘I tried to make coconut-stuffed candied limes for the first time at a pop-up, but after hours of shelling, colouring and boiling I was left with hot lime shells that were bizarrely blue!’

Elizabeth Allen, Andrew Clarke and Johnny Smith (Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer)

Jamie Strachan

Jamie Strachan, 33, might have become a barista when he moved from Inverness because he ‘didn’t know what else to do’ — but now it’s his career. After grinding beans at London’s cooler coffee shops such as Commune at Goodhood and Kaffeine, he joined Dark Arts, the hyper-cool Hackney coffee shop and roastery where bikers and the heavily tattooed sip filter coffee with names like Cult of Doom. Now he’s head of coffee, which also means working out ways to further disrupt ‘the homogenous coffee scene in London’.

Why should someone become a barista? ‘There’s loads to learn, it’s social and there’s no stress.’

Zoe Adjonyoh

Pestering her Ghanaian father Charles about all the kenkey, shito and other exotic ingredients he used to bring home was how Hackney Wick-based Zoe, 39, started her love affair with African food. Without extended Ghanaian family in London, she used cookery to establish a connection with her heritage. Her version of her dad’s delicious groundnut soup — peanut-butter stew — is a signature dish at Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, the critically adored West African restaurant she set up in Pop Brixton in 2010. She’s also got a pop-up at The Sun and 13 Cantons pub, where she’ll host a five-course ‘Goodness Ghana Me’ five-course tasting menu on 5 June, while budding stew stirrers can buy her new, beautifully shot cookbook named after the restaurant.

Best part of being a chef? ‘Providing a gateway for people to explore a new culture through its food — taking people on a journey through food is the most exciting thing!’

https://www.designmynight.com/london/pubs/soho/sun-thirteen-cantons/goodness-ghana-me

Imogen Davis, Jamie Strachan, Mandy Yin and Zoe Adjonyoh (Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer)

Edson Diaz-Fuentes

If Bermondsey-based Edson Diaz-Fuentes puts a bowl of grasshoppers and guacamole in front of you, don’t run — it was the signature dish at the 35-year-old’s critically adored Mexican restaurant, Santo Remedio, in Shoreditch. Born in Mexico City where ‘tacos are a way of life’ and as former head of menu innovation at Wahaca, he knows a thing or three about mini tortillas. At Santo Remedio he won legions of fans, including that Grace Dent, with fillings such as pigs ear with salsa verde. Although the restaurant was forced to close last summer due to electrical issues, he’s in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to get it back open and is hosting a taco fiesta with El Pastor and Breddos on 17 June.

Why are tacos better than burgers? ‘We eat tacos any time of day: breakfast tacos, as a quick snack or late at night after going out. For us Mexicans, nothing can compete!’

David Carter

David Carter makes the best smoked brisket in London. Fact. Growing up in Barbados he moved to London in 2008 to become Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant manager, working with him at Claridge’s and the Savoy Grill before moving to sushi at Roka. In 2013 he jacked it all in, ordered a 4.5 tonne smoker from Houston and flew to the US to eat and cook barbecue. On his return he started Smokestak at Street Feast, serving pork and beef ribs and sticky, fall-apart brisket. Now the 31-year-old, who lives in Dalston, has his ‘grown-up barbecue’ Smokestak restaurant in Shoreditch and will be serving that amazing meat at LFM’s Night Market from 7-18 June.

Can you ever eat too much brisket? ‘In the first week of opening Smokestak we actually ran out of brisket by Saturday evening — that’s 200kg in just four days.’

Andrew Clarke

One look at the 39-year-old, heavily inked, Viking-haired Andrew Clarke confirms that chefs are definitely the new rock stars. Although he started cooking to fund his rock guitarist dreams, Clarke became obsessed when working at Kent’s The Swan in 2002. He was head chef there before moving back to London to work with Marco Pierre White and at Salt Yard in 2010, then setting up legendary Hackney restaurant Rita’s in 2013 cooking funked-up Japanese food such as octopus dumplings. Still in Hackney, he’s now creating beautiful British food at Vauxhall’s Brunswick House — follow him on Instagram for stunning pictures of the day’s specials — while cooking fun street food like Sichuan chicken naan with the roving pop-up Dangerous Dinner Gang.

What music plays in your kitchen? ‘Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Metallica, plus lots of doom, stoner and sludge metal. Loud.’

Imogen Davis and Edson Diaz-Fuentes (Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer)

Johnny Smith

Manchester-born Johnny Smith, 36, came down to London to DJ in 2008. Now he co-owns the 26th-best restaurant in the world, The Clove Club in Shoreditch. Pretty snazzy. While Smith was working FOH in St John, he and friend Daniel Willis started hosting supper clubs, where they met chefs Isaac McHale and James Lowe. They all quit their day jobs in 2012 to form the sold-out dining pop-up ‘The Young Turks at the Ten Bells’, then Smith, Willis and McHale raised £250,000 to open The Clove Club, the UK’s first crowdfunded restaurant. A Michelin star and world ranking later, Dalston-based Smith is now the impeccably charming FOH at the trio’s Britalian second restaurant, Luca.

How did you toast the World’s 50 Best? ‘We drank champagne, danced on tables, made new friends, then drank more champagne. Mint.’

Imogen Davis

Good luck guessing what Imogen Davis’s other job is. The 29-year-old, who grew up foraging and eating only seasonal produce in Northamptonshire, was shocked at university to discover most people didn’t do the same. Now based in Forest Hill, Davis is co-owner of Native, the ‘wild British’ restaurant in Covent Garden, but she also is ‘PA’ to Rufus, the hawk which keeps the All England Lawn Tennis Club pigeon-free during Wimbledon. Believing ‘the land should dictate what we eat’, she opened Native last year with Ivan Tisdall-Downes, who trained at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage. For London Food Month, two Native signature dishes will become fixtures: ras-el-hanout pigeon kebab with beetroot hummus and meadowsweet, and Kentish wood-ant fudge.