A taste of home

“I FELT THAT PEOPLE IN LONDON WERE MISSING OUT ON THE STREET FOOD I GREW UP WITH BACK HOME”

Words: Shahnaz Ahsan

It was a desire to cook the familiar food of home that motivated Gaurav Gautam, chef and co-founder of Indian street food stand Horn OK Please, to start his business. Gaurav moved to the UK from India in 2001 to pursue a degree in advertising. But his gastronomic experience was a far cry from what he was used to in his home state of Gujarat, where street food is almost as integral a part of student life as studying.

Gaurav’s formative years had been spent feasting on popular street snacks of bhel puri, pani puri and samosa chaat. In contrast, the university town he moved to in Cornwall was home to one single ‘Indian’ restaurant, run by a Nepalese family. Even after relocating to London the following year, Gaurav was disappointed by the Indian cuisine on offer. “There were curry houses in northwest London,” he says, “but I felt that people were missing out on the street food I grew up with back home.” Driven by necessity, Gaurav started teaching himself to cook through trial and error, experimenting with the fermentation of different dosa batters. Eventually, his hobby ended up becoming his career.

Elizabeth Haigh, chef-owner of Mei Mei, Borough’s Singaporean street food stand, was similarly inspired by a desire to recreate the food of her childhood. Raised by a Singaporean mother and British father, Elizabeth spent her early years – and almost every summer thereafter – in Singapore. “It was a privilege to experience both cultures,” she reflects. Like Gaurav, she had been encouraged by her parents to pursue an academic path. She was four years into her architecture degree before a friend “drunkenly dared” her to enter MasterChef in 2011. Despite not going on to win, her successes on the programme gave her the encouragement she needed to switch paths.

“I pulled out of university and started at the very bottom of training to be a chef,” Elizabeth explains. She trained in classical French cooking for three years before going on to work at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Bray. In 2017, she won a Michelin star of her own at Pidgin in Hackney. But despite these early successes, she walked away from the high-end restaurant world to set up Mei Mei – a ‘kopitiam’, or coffee shop, serving street food dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice, char siu pork and nasi lemak. “People thought I was crazy to go from Michelin to street food,” Elizabeth laughs. “But there’s no difference to me – the same care goes into all the food I cook. I dreamed of cooking the food that I love.”

The food she loves most is the Singaporean food that was served at the family table six days a week, with Sunday reserved for a British roast dinner. “My mum taught me my palate,” explains Elizabeth. “She doesn’t cook anything by measurements, it’s all by eye.” There is a term to describe this intuitive approach to cooking: ‘agak agak’. As an aunt explained to Elizabeth, “it’s like your ancestors telling you how much of each ingredient to use.”

Gaurav similarly credits his parents, both of whom were talented cooks, although they were initially perplexed by his change in career. “My mum was a teacher and my dad a space scientist. Being from an Indian background, working in food was the last thing they wanted me to do!” But they soon got on board when they saw how satisfied and successful Gaurav was in his new field. “They’re proud. They know I’ve found my happy place.”

For Joel Ferrer, owner of Venezuelan eatery La Pepiá, family support is also of fundamental importance – so much so, that his company logo is a portrait of his grandmother’s smiling face. “I was raised by women, they taught me to cook,” Joel explains. His early years were spent in Caracas, Venezuela. When he moved to London almost a decade ago, he came with the idea of producing and selling his grandmother’s salsa. And, to go with it, arepas. These corn savoury doughnuts – a quintessential Venezuelan snack – have proved remarkably popular with visitors to Borough Market.

As well as bringing traditional arepas to a new audience, Joel has also embraced the opportunity to innovate. Sourcing many of his ingredients from the Market, Joel has come up with twists on the usual arepa fillings: from basil and tomato to olive oil and rosemary, even experimenting with sweet fillings such as guava jam. And of course, his signature dish: the pretty rainbow arepa – coloured with beetroot and spinach – which has become a bestseller. With a focus on dairy and gluten-free offerings, it is important to Joel that La Pepiá is inclusive and sustainable in every possible way. And like Gaurav and Elizabeth, it’s important to him that food creates the opportunity for connection.

“There are not many Venezuelans in London,” Joel says, “but they find us. And we have Colombians who have their own arepas but still come to us.” Even they have embraced his new European-inflected inventions. “It’s not what people are used to but once they get the concept they love it.” In fact, diaspora Venezuelans across Europe have been getting in touch with Joel, inspired to set up their own arepas eateries.

Gaurav shares Joel’s pride at the response of his compatriots. “I wanted to cook for other people, not just for me,” he says. “When Indians stop by the stall, even if they don’t buy anything, the look in their eyes as they recognise these familiar foods – it makes me really happy. It takes them back to their memories. It’s a reminder of home.”

The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen by Shahnaz Ahsan (HarperNorth) is available now