Food trucks have been the definitive culinary trend of the recession – and as their popularity grows, more and more are moving into bricks and mortar, reports Scott Carey.
A year ago, London’s lunch brigade were queuing up at Tom Adams’ Wilkinson catering trailer for their fill of freshly heaped pulled pork and hulking beef ribs. Now, they’re waiting patiently outside his new restaurant, Pitt Cue Co, to get their fill of American BBQ. Adams tells the story of how he came in from the cold.
“I honestly thought the truck was going to fail – I didn’t have a clue what I was doing,” he recalls. It all changed in the summer of 2011, when regular Richard Turner – executive chef at the capital’s Hawksmoor restaurant chain – put up the money to give Pitt Cue a permanent home on Soho’s Newburgh Street.
Adams’ success can be attributed to a passion for his produce, which dates back to his youth in Winchester, when he would smoke his own bacon and fish. He shows me pictures of his new batch of Mangalitsa pigs, a rare Hungarian breed that produces arguably the best pork around, and which Adams intends to serve in the restaurant as soon as possible.
It’s this sort of passion that sets the new wave of gourmet food trucks apart from their greasy predecessors. Ben Denner, founder of London burger specialists Lucky Chip, went through almost 70 bakers before settling on the right demi-brioche bun. “We are always on the look out for better suppliers. It’s one of the most fun parts of the job, trying new things,” he says.
Lucky Chip started life as a truck in a church car park in North London’s Kensal Rise, but when the opportunity came up to take a kitchen in East End pub the Sebright Arms, and later the Slider bar in Soho’s the Player, Denner found himself with a growing empire. The key to Lucky Chip’s success is its top-quality burgers, which have quirky names such as the Kevin Bacon and the Sheen (complete with beer-soaked onions).
Jonathan Gold – who in 2007 became the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize – has charted the rise of the food truck in his home city of Los Angeles for years. “They represent creative, entry-level capitalism at its finest,” he wrote in the LA Times in September 2010. For Gold, it symbolises the American dream, allowing people such as Korea’s Roy Choi, of LA Kogi truck fame, to serve their native street food without the limitations of backers and bank loans. Eventually, it enabled Choi to launch his restaurant, Chego, in 2010.
The City of Angels may be a Mecca for the food truck but they can also now be found across US cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco. If you’re in the Big Apple, check out Coolhaus’s ice-cream sandwiches, which are named after architectural movements – try the Frank Behry (sugar cookie with strawberry ice cream). Coolhaus also has two trucks in Dallas, two in Miami, four in LA and a store front in Culver City, California, with plans to take the concept global.
Trucks are even finding favour in Paris, the world’s culinary capital. Kristin Frederick, Californian founder of popular Parisian burger truck Le Camion Qui Fume, told the New York Times in June: “People said, ‘The French will never eat on the street. They will never eat with their hands. They will never pay good money for food from a truck.’” Munich airport, meanwhile, is home to a truly unique truck – Smokey Joe’s, a converted WWII Pratt and Whitney aircraft serving German sausages.
Although the attraction of a good burger has proved a particular crowd pleaser, many have carved out a profitable niche by serving more exotic cuisine. Some London vehicles are fêted for their gyoza dumplings (Rainbo), steamed pork buns (Yum Bun) and Indian dosas (Horn OK Please). All three are members of King’s Cross food truck collective Kerb (kerbfood.com) and can be found at markets and festivals across the UK, as well as Hackney’s Street Feast. As with many trucks, the best way to track them down is via social media, with Twitter a popular resource.
Still, while trucks can certainly be good earners, the margins are slim, with variables such as weather causing havoc for cash flow. This is where the attraction of bricks and mortar comes in. Increased overheads notwithstanding, a restaurant provides a permanence and regular clientele that takes some risk out of the equation.
David Rowe co-founded Homeslice, a London mobile pizza pop-up, and even built the wood-fired ovens. He is scouting central locations after some backers showed an interest. “[Business] can be tough to predict so it will be nice to have the stability of a shop,” he says.
Yianni Papoutsis would doubtless agree. He owns two popular London eateries – Meat Liquor, just off Oxford Street, and Meat Market in Covent Garden. But first came the Meatwagon, a truck of legend for its purist take on the burger – a third-of-a-pound of 28-day aged unseasoned chuck steak griddled to a caramelised crust on one side and topped with oozing cheese, onions and “dead hippie” sauce. All washed down, should you dare, with a “hard” milkshake of Woodford Reserve bourbon, vanilla ice cream and maple syrup.
With such temptation on offer, it’s easy to see why people continue to queue in the cold, whether in a car park in Kensal Rise or outside one of the city’s hot new restaurants. Just try not to get ketchup on your shirt if you’re heading straight to a meeting afterwards.TEN TOP FOOD TRUCKS
- Coolhaus, across US: @coolhaus
- Green Truck SD (organic food), San Diego and Los Angeles: @GreenTruck_SD
- Kogi BBQ, Los Angeles: @kogibbq
- Lardo (gourmet sandwiches), Portland: @lardopdx
- Le Camion Qui Fume, Paris: @LeCamionQuiFume
- Lucky Chip, London: @Lucky_Chip
- PizzaMoto, New York: @pizzamotobklyn
- Sam’s ChowderMobile, San Francisco:@chowdermobile
- You Doughnut, London: @you_doughnut
- Yum Bun (steamed buns), London: @yum_bun
