Kitchen Ventures will operate from ‘cloud kitchens’ and has signed up Gizzi Erskine and Professor Green’s Giz ‘N’ Greens Pizza Pies; Nud Dudhia and Chris Whitney’s Tacos El Rey; and Lucy Pearce's Farmbird and Local Greens.
Customers can order via Deliveroo, Uber Eats or via a ‘virtual food hall’ on the Kitchen Ventures website. Current kitchens are located in Kensington Olympia in West London and Bethnal Green in East London.
Giz ’N’ Green Pizza Pies offers ‘high-quality, ingredient-led’ slow-risen rye sourdough stuffed crust pizza pies with options including Meatball Marinara; Double Cheese Pepperoni; and the a vegetarian number involving marinara sauce, double cheese, red onion, green peppers, sweetcorn and black olives.
Tacos El Rey sees Dudhia and Whitney - the founders of Breddos tacos - offer Mexican street food favourites including tacos and burritos and feasting-style specials.
Taco and burrito fillings will include cochinita pibil (slow-roasted pork, pink pickled onions, lime and coriander); and chicken tinga (poached chicken breasts, braised in house chipotle-tomato salsa). Customers will also be able to build their own taco box with taco fillings, corn tortillas, corn chips, guacamole, rice & beans, salsas and sides.
Pearce - a chef with experience at Petersham Nurseries and Rawduck - has designed a brace of concepts. Farmbird majors in high welfare roast chicken while Local Greens is billed as a farm-to-bowl salad bar that sources ingredients from a transparent and sustainable supply chain.
“It feels like we now live in a world where a delivery-only, virtual restaurant brand can exist with as much, if not more relevance than a traditional restaurant,” says Boud.
“The delivery market has been growing steadily for years but when the world went into lockdown the trend accelerated considerably.”
Boud plans to create his own concepts, license existing brands and build a network of franchise partners with under-utilised kitchen space to help scale the offering.