THE FOODIE SCENE is so lively in northeast London that deciding what is newsworthy can be difficult, especially for a site that lacks a food reviewer. But a pop-up in Islington caught Loving Dalston’s eye.
Fodder returns to Brewery Below in Essex Road for a month. The Islington pop-up’s publicist says that a new menu uses “local, wild and seasonal ingredients”.
She gets excited about Ollie Downey, a chef working in the kitchen with Michael Thompson. Apparently, the guys cooked together at Fera at Claridge’s, under Simon Rogan, a name the publicist vocally brackets with the kind of hushed awe usually reserved for rock stars.
The pop-up runs alongside Urban Food Fortnight, an annual celebration of food and produce, which is helping to connect the cooks with local and independent suppliers, among them natural-honey collector Hive & Keeper, Article Number 25, which grows mushrooms using the grounds from London coffee shops that would otherwise go to waste, and vegetable-supplier Good Earth Growers in, uhm, Cornwall (local?).
Still, Thompson says: “September brings a new season… the hedgerows are brimming with goodies that we’ve been picking and preserving [for the pop-up].”
David Altheer 070917
* Seven courses will cost you £45. Fodder runs from today to 30 September 2017— Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 7pm — at Brewery Below, Borough Wines and Beers’ nano-brewery and event space at 344 Essex Road, London N1 3PD. Wheelchair access difficult. Booking
* Fodder supplied no hospitality to Loving Dalston; only the pictures.
* Backstory: Shops behind Dalston market stalls; Bubble and squeak Shooey style, Bakewell pudding; Time Out left with bad taste after restaurant cluster plan burns; Best East End eateries, 200 years ago
* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink, a reader service rare among websites. If a link does not work, it is probably because the site to which the URL refers has not been maintained. Most photographs can be visually enlarged by pressing on them.