Young chef dishes on pop-up dining trend
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POP-UP restaurants are trending again. Fuelled by the reputations of world-class chefs, such restaurants aim to share extraordinary dining experiences with a wider, global audience.
In recent years, the dining industry has seen this trend go beyond the boundaries of single countries, kitchens and traditional dining spaces. Its popularity is on the rise in many metropolises — such as London, Los Angeles and New York — with dedicated websites now offering booking services and information about pop-ups in various towns.
Now, these temporary eateries have started to pop up in Asia. Last September, a pop-up in Beijing, created by One Star House Party, caught the attention of local diners and media.
One Star House Party is a perfect example of the pop-up trend. Led by James Sharman, former chef with two-Michelin-starred restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, he and a team of international chefs have toured the world, setting up private kitchens in a downtown loft, an abandoned printing house, and many other unexpected places, serving locally inspired food for short stints before moving on again.
Now, the team is on a new adventure, and aims to build 20 pop-up restaurants in 20 countries in 20 months. In December, the team set up shop at the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal. The team is now in Muscat, Oman; its sixth stop. Next month, they will fly to Africa, then Europe, the Americas and Australia, before returning to Asia for final stops in Kyoto and Hong Kong in summer of 2018.
According to Joseph Lidgerwood, a former chef with One Star House Party, “I have always been fascinated with broadening my culinary skills. That’s why I traveled and built 10 pop-ups in 10 different countries last year. When I did the base camp pop-up (in Nepal), it was the sheer physicality of carrying everything and battling altitude sickness.”
Local inspiration
As Lidgerwood alluded to, setting up pop-up restaurants can be physically demanding, much like working in a busy kitchen. Every time he and his team arrive in a new city, they have to arrange everything from accessing electricity and receiving payments to securing travel documents and necessary ingredients.
“When doing a pop-up, you don’t have access to regular deliveries, like normal restaurants. So you rely heavily on local markets,” explained the 28-year-old chef. That’s why diners normally have no idea what’s on the menu until their arrival. But this also makes pop-up restaurants a one-of-a-kind experience for diners, who can often expect creative dishes featuring top-notch foods from local markets.
When it comes to developing a menu with a proper understanding and respect for the local culture and cuisine, chefs normally go hunting for seasonal produce while learning from local chefs, vendors and residents.
Personal taste
Although demanding, many talented chefs have looked to the pop-up format as a new way to develop their own cooking ideas and styles. Others see it as a way to climb the industry ladder and explore new cuisines.
Lidgerwood worked with many famous Michelin-starred restaurants in both Europe and Asia before he set out on his own journey in South Korea last month. Being an ardent admirer of Korean food, the young Australian chef now calls it his new home.
“I am seeing my time here as a long term project, using pop-ups as a way of establishing myself in Korea,” he said. “As a chef in a prestigious restaurant, you don’t get a chance to express your own creativity.”
Furthermore, opening a pop-up restaurant allows chefs to be closer to their customers. “All the chefs serve the tables, explain all the dishes and clear the plates,” explained Lidgerwood, who just completed his first 4-day pop-up event in Seoul earlier last week at a local event space.
“With this, we can engage with the customers freely and see what worked and what didn’t. It bridges the gap and makes people feel relaxed when the chef is right there.”
Many diners also find the experience fascinating: “a hum of chefs busy preparing the first course, loudly shouting and plating” as Lidgerwood describes it.
Now, Lidgerwood is preparing for his second pop-up event in late February.
He isn’t the only chef planning such events. Keep your eyes peeled for pop-ups in Shanghai.
JOSEPHS by Chef Joseph Lidgerwood
Upcoming pop-up event: February 26
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Website: http://www.josephlidgerwood.com/
Interview with rising star Joseph Lidgerwood
With experience working in a host of Michelin-starred restaurants around the world — such as The Ledbury, Tom Aikens Restaurants and Kitchen W8 in London; Alain Duccase in Paris and Noma in Copenhagen — Lidgerwood shared some stories from his career in the kitchen with Shanghai Daily.
Q: When did you start cooking?
A: It was at the age of 15 when it occurred to me that I had way too much energy to ever pursue a desk job. I took my first job at a local bakery in my hometown in Australia.
Q: How did you make up your mind to be a chef as a career?
A: You normally don’t plan for it. You’re just kind of fall into it. It starts off as a job but then it quickly turns into a passion. It’s the heat and pace of the kitchen I fell in love with. It’s fast, demanding and leaves very little room for mistakes. That kind of pressure soon makes you question if this is really what you want to do for the rest of your life (and it was for me).
Q: How do you like your working with local Korean chefs?
A: Working with local chefs has been crucial for me to break through to see real Korean food. Korean fermentations are second to none.
Q: What are the best three words to describe a dining experience in a pop-up restaurant?
A: Unexpected. Engaging. Intimate.
Q: What’s your future plan?
A: I plan to open my own restaurant in South Korea to showcase Korean food in a modern way, showing people there is more to Korean food than kimchi and bibimbap. So I will be doing pop-ups as a way of funding my obsession and as the best way to try my ideas.
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