London is overflowing with foodies – packing out its restaurants and cocktail bars till closing time – but what then?
Where do discerning diners do in the middle of the night – the choice is usually between dodgy chips (which have their moment obviously) or going to bed hungry…
In order to deal with this problem and broaden the range a little, Simon Pusey with “an old Dutch bike with a basket” set up Feast, a new delivery company from two Shoreditch restaurants. Since last year, the service has been expanding and now includes a few of the best and most well-known 24 hour eateries like Balans, VQ and Polo Bar. They also enlist many student cyclists so there’s no need to worry about the carbon footprint. Now you eat without guilt or disappointment!
To test it out, I put in a lunchtime order to my studio (couldn’t do the middle of the night as we’re just beyond the current delivery radius). Our vast array of choice usually comprises Sainsbury’s …or Sainsbury’s so a chance to branch out was most welcome, and we went for a delivery from The Monsoon (Bangladeshi and Southern Indian). This arrived steaming and bang on the time (impressive as most people get lost trying to find us). The flavour and quality was great and even my colleague who’s not a big fan of Indian cuisine wanted to try more. Given that someone had to cycle it to us the prices were also very reasonable.
At the moment the restaurant list is quite small but all that is set to expand, especially to the South and West – as few places there stay open later than 11pm.
Simon said they’re also currently meeting with several top hotels – I learned that, because these places keep great chefs on 24hours a day for room service, they spend a lot of their time idle when they could be cooking for hungry Londoners. This would then mean you can get hotel quality food any time of the day or night.
The service seems great so it’s worth putting in your postcode on FeastHQ.com and seeing what is available to you or your workplace. And also checking back in the future as the company expands and more restaurants and delivery locations become available.