day seven recap: Street Food Revolution with Jamie Berger & Victoria Stewart
Yesterday’s street food revolution workshop focused on the rise of young people accessing really, really great food on the streets of London. Jamie Berger, co-founder Pitt Cue and Victoria Stewart, food journalist and Evening Standard features commissioning editor, stressed the influence of social media in being the key ingredient in kick starting the street food revolution. Stewart mentioned how social media helped capture the “buzz’ for street food and therefore allowing food startups to expand and grow from a food truck in a Peckham car park to a restaurant in Soho. This was exactly how Jamie Berger co-founded BBQ specialist, Pitt Cue. Within days of Pitt Cue opening, Twitter had created a fantastic buzz about their BBQ truck and the tweets had caught the attention of food bloggers, local and national press. Berger mentioned it was the early followers that took them where they are now. Pitt Cue now has a restaurant in Soho and a pop-up on the Southbank and Berger now wants to focus on sourcing his own produce and even joked about creating a Twitter account for the farm.
Victoria Stewart again mentioned how the passion for this “guerilla dining” was down to how Twitter created an incredible hype which sold out events instantly. For example the Tweat (tweet and eat) Up presents Ribstock, a pop-up in Soho, which is a battle between the UK’s best rib chefs, sold out in no time. Twitter has also encouraged the top chefs in London to open up to a new and younger audience, changing London’s fast food scene by making really great food affordable. And recently ES magazine published their 20 best food trucks where most of them only reveal their locations on Twitter. These pop-up phenomenon’s such as the eat.st collective which promotes British street food and Red Market, East London’s original night market inspired Stewart to create her own blog called the London Street Foodie. Stewart blogs reports from markets to food trucks and everywhere in between.
Show us your photos of your favorite street foods, food trucks or home-made meals. We want to see and hear what makes your mouth water. Tweet, blog or post #citizenMreports or email us at citizenMreports@citizenm.com.
meet: Jamie Berger & Ellie Grace
Have you missed previous workshops and talks? Here is a recap:
Images from the Front Lines by Carol Allen Storey
Alternative London Street Sports by Dan Edwardes from Parkour Generations.
Next Tuesday, Jamie Berger, Pitt Cue’s co-founder and Ellie Grace, French & Grace’s co-founder will be leading the workshop “Street Food Revolution: London’s changing food scene, from markets to food trucks and everywhere in between”, scroll down to learn how to join. Below is a short introduction about them:
Jamie Berger
Jamie read Chinese at Cambridge and sold his house upon graduation to put money behind his college friend Karan (now Lord) Bilimoria to found Cobra Beer. Once Cobra had become an established brand, Jamie become a non-executive director and left to pursue pastures new. After a stint as an investment banker in the Far East, Jamie completed a PhD at Harvard where he taught for two years before taking up research posts at Tokyo University, for two years, and the Collège de France, in Paris, for three. Returning to England to head up the London office of an American business intelligence firm, Jamie was quickly reminded why he had left the corporate world in the first place and fell back on his joint loves: food and drink. Having been given his first cocktail shaker by his American mother at 12, Jamie finally realised his dream of setting up a food truck when he co-founded Pitt Cue Co. in 2011 with his chef-friend Tom Adams. After a successful summer serving Southern US barbecue, bourbon and beer on London’s Southbank, Pitt Cue Co. opened in bricks-and-mortar in Soho in January 2012.
Ellie Grace
Ellie Grace is co-founder of French & Grace, which started as Salad Club together with her friend Rosie French, an award-winning food blog and supper club. Due to popular demand from an ever-growing and loyal fan base, they expanded to become part of the mobile street food crew, Eat.st, and even opened their own restaurant in Brixton Village in October 2011. In May 2012, first cook book was published with Kyle Books - Kitchen & Co: Colourful Home Cooking Through the Seasons.
Next Tuesday, 7th August, Jamie and Ellie will be leading the workshop “Street Food Revolution: London’s changing food scene, from markets to food trucks and everywhere in between”, at citizenM London Bankside. This workshop is open to the public and free to attend, limited spaces available. To sign up, email us at citizenMreports@citizenM.com.
credit photos: Jamie Berger, Tim Pohle
