Gizzi Erskine's F!lth pops up in Shoreditch

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Gizzi Erskine and Rosemary Ferguson have launched a three-month residency of their vegetarian burger concept F!lth, in London’s Shoreditch.

Opening today (4 January) within the Dirty Burger site on Bethnal Green Road, in the Tea Building, the ‘guilt-free fast food’ restaurant will serve the restaurant’s signature plant-based F!lth burger, which is said to “taste as filthy as an old-fashioned cheeseburger,” according to the chef.

The pop-up follows successful residencies, including at street food venue hawker House and at Tate Modern in London at the end of 2017.

Writing on Instagram, Erskine said: “After years of secret development we’ve achieved a pure miracle, fast food without the junk”.

Back in November 2017, Erskine had said that she intended to open a permanent site of Pure Filth (which is now called F!lth) with more to follow, but this marks the first development for the fledgling brand in over a year, something which the chef has acknowledged. Pure Filth will give away 50 burgers for the first three days of opening as a “thank you for your patience” she wrote.

The plant-based burger category continues to grow in the UK, driven by both vegetarian and vegan restaurants and more traditional burger groups. TGI Fridays has just launched its meat-free ‘bleeding’ vegan burger in time for Veganuary and Honest Burgers now also serves a chipotle guac vegan burger made with a patty from Beyond Meat, the Los Angeles-based producer of plant-based meat substitutes.

In 2017, The Vurger Co, which now has two restaurants having started out as a street food stall, hit its £180,000 crowdfunding target within 30 hours of its launch, becoming the fastest restaurant to be fund on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.