Street Kitchen’s Mark Jankel was always frustrated with a lack of information about where produce came from. He tells Ruth Williams how that changed when he started his own business
Completing an environmental science degree before embarking on a career as a chef gave Mark Jankel a vested interest in the ingredients he was cooking with and a frustration with the suppliers who could not tell him the origin of what he was cooking with.
“The whole vibe of our ethos is having a connection with the guys making our food. That’s what I was frustrated about working in kitchens and what motivated me to start Street Kitchen.”
Jankel built a career in restaurants including executive chef at First Restaurant Group where he oversaw the kitchens of five restaurants before starting his own company.
“I was always frustrated when in kitchens that our wholesalers were never really able to tell me where stuff was from. They’d tell me ‘that beef’s from here, or those vegetables were grown there’, but it felt like bulls**t,” Jankel said. “I started to connect with the supply chain and gained a deeper understanding of how food is produced in the UK and realised I want to buy from guys who produce in a natural way where there’s great animal welfare. It’s not about being a tree hugger but I’ve been to a lot of farms that I wouldn’t feel comfortable about buying things produced there.”
With business partner, Michelin-trained chef Jun Tanaka, Jankel developed a company based on these principles to open the first Street Kitchen serving takeaway food to Londoners and has since grown to two Airstream trailers, ‘The Hatch’ in Battersea, and the first bricks and mortar site that opened in June, in Broadgate Circle.
Street Kitchen serves simple food prepared with the same attention to detail as the gourmet dishes the two chefs are used to. The different sites serve a choice of Bistro Boxes for lunch to go, sandwiches by the inch, burgers, hot dogs and salads.
Wherever possible, the food served at Street Kitchen is made with ingredients bought directly from farmers which Jankel said is good value and better quality.
“We are buying straight from farms and the consumer is buying directly from us so, if they’re interested, we can give them information about the food and be confident it’s accurate because it’s come straight from the farm,” Jankel said. “We actually get everything at a really good price because we aren’t buying from a butcher, buying from a market, buying from a farmer – all of whom have to make their margin. By buying directly from the farm gate, there’s only one person making a margin.”
All the meat and fish is bought directly from farms that Jankel has visited and where he has built relationships with the producers, who in turn are happy to go the extra mile to help Street Kitchen.
“Our guiding principles are to know the guys who are producing the ingredients in a natural way. It means sustainable food is produced.”
“Sustainability has become a message that sounds good, but if you ask people to define sustainability they probably can’t.”
Within those parameters, Jankel looked at what was missing in London and noticed quick-service, lunchtime food never got the same reaction from people as if they were eating at a gastropub or restaurant. He came up with Street Kitchen to put the same level of care and attention in the menu that goes into Michelin-starred food.
He said: ”I knew it had to be simple and delicious, but not posh.The food isn’t fancy but it is refined.”
For example, the Broadgate Circle site simply sells salads and sandwiches by the inch. But the level of detail in the sandwich menu – such as giving each sandwich a crunchy ingredient to add bite, adding just the right amount of sauce and being strict whether that sauce goes on the top or bottom of the bun – makes a difference.
The duo has its sights set on expansion and is exploring fundraising options to allow this to happen. It has a prep kitchen in Battersea, where the first site was, but is looking to move to a central location.
Although the concept was designed for scalability from the outset, its foundations of being quality food made by real chefs to make gourmet food accessible even for a ‘quick’ lunch will remain as part of the Street Kitchen DNA. The relationships established early with producers mean that as Street Kitchen grows to its projected 15 locations in five years, it will benefit from better prices and maintain provenance.
“Sustainability has become a message that sounds good, but if you ask people to define sustainability they probably can’t.”
The Street Kitchen approach is to talk about it in the media, to let people who are interested read about it without plastering the message across the stores.
“I came up with slogans including ‘slow food fast’ and ‘real chefs’, which encapsulate what we do with the slow food movement of naturally produced ingredients. These mean more to us than just saying we’re ‘fresh and sustainable’ . ”
He admits most people just care about getting a tasty lunch that’s good value, but for the growing number of people who do care, the company is delivering something robust, not just writing slogans about being sustainable that can’t be backed up.
Mark is at the Broadgate Circle site each day, setting an example to the rest of the team, telling customers about the provenance of food and injecting his enthusiasm into the staff to make it much more than green-washing. Having spent time with the producers and visited the farms he buys from, Jankel is keen for his staff to do the same so they can talk to customers with the same knowledge and enthusiasm.
“I think long term, as a business, having a team that can talk about provenance is the best way of communicating our message, it’s a lot better than some slogan on the wall.”
