Ikea opens pop-up DIY restaurant in London

Описание: (9 Sep 2016) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4054443

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Swedish retailer Ikea is launching a pop-up restaurant in London and just like its flat-packed furniture, the food is DIY too.
'The Dining Club' sees guests preparing simple Scandinavian recipes under the tutelage of top chefs, but the secret behind its popular meatball dish remains a mystery.

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It's do-it-yourself food at Ikea's new pop-up restaurant - called 'The Dining Club' - in London's trendy Shoreditch district.
Guests are working alongside chefs to prepare simple Scandinavian-themed dishes like this Salmon Tartar starter with beetroot, capers, cucumber, chives and crème fraiche.
It's little surprise given the DIY nature of the Swedish retailer's ready-to-assemble furniture.
"It's our exciting new venture that we're doing with Ikea where we are holding a dining club where the diners become the restaurant owners for the evening," says Ikea's food manager, Ellie Pniok.
"So, they come in, they get to have an evening with their friends and their family and go back to cooking and eating together."
There are - of course - kitchen showrooms and a shop of homewares too, but the focus is on the food and particularly fresh, simple Scandinavian-themed dishes.
'The Dining Club' menu features gravlax-style starters, poached salmon, pan-fried pollock and confit pork belly for main course, and Swedish Roly Poly for dessert, to name a few.
"It's filled then with a menu around sort of modern tasting dishes that also have a Scandinavian twist - because we are Ikea after all - and then they create them," explains Pniok.
"So, they have their own head chef that will be onsite with them that then just works with them teaching them how to cook some of these dishes and then encouraging everyone to cook together."
Visitors are allowed to bring up to 20 guests along to help prepare and taste the food.
Guests may cook under the watchful eye of Swedish head chef, Fred Bolin, known for several pop-up eateries in the British capital.
Bolin says Swedish food is all about fish and fresh ingredients.
"Lots of vegetables, lots of fish, fresh ingredients, that's what we're aiming for," he says.
"We'll be serving a lot of food, it's fish, sea food, serving food. There's pickling, smoking as we're seeing here today. Quite a lot of raw food, tartars, chopping fish."
Bolin is busy preparing this warm, hickory chip-smoked salmon starter. It's served with crème fraiche, spinach and a pickled cucumber and dill finish.
"We cure the salmon for 24 hours in salt and sugar, so that's the first bit of the serving really," he says.
"The classic way is to keep it that way and eat it raw, we then took it further by smoking it. So, we're warm smoking it with hickory chips in the bottom of a pan. Really, really simple, something that people can do at home."
The eagle-eyed will notice The Dining Club's menu does not feature Ikea's popular meatball dish served in their cafes.
Pniok says it's intentional. Ikea is hoping to show it's more than just Swedish meatballs, although they can still be ordered in the pop-up cafe that's been set up next door.
"Our meatballs are iconic, so people say; 'Ikea food,' people think meatballs and I think we will always have that, but what we're trying to do at the moment is take a different direction in our food," she says.
"So we want to show customers we're more than just meatballs, we are sustainable fish, we are veggie balls, we want to offer something for everybody.
"Within The Dining Club, that features everything, so meatballs don't feature within The Dining Club, but they are in the cafe so the customers can enjoy them here."
Recently, the easyGroup, best known for easyJet airline, launched a low-cost coffee chain called 'easyCoffee'.


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