First published in The Evening Standard, 24 March 2011
The text arrives an hour before dinner. "Ginger enthusiasts! We look forward to seeing you at 7pm in New Cross. Turn left out of the station, walk 2min and cross the road."
We scrabble for our coats. We've still no idea exactly where - or what - we will be eating. But Gingerline, London's only nomadic pop-up restaurant and arts space, is more than just a restaurant.
Set up by five female friends, incorporating a mix of performers, designers and food enthusiasts, it's one of the coolest supper clubs around. For each event, they take over an unused location and create an immersive theatrical experience. You're going to get a fabulous meal - anything from wild boar dumplings to roasted sumac-spiced chicken. But huge thought goes into the costume and set design - and the printed menu is a limited-edition piece of art.
When Gingerline announces the dates by Facebook and Twitter you sign up blind. All you know is that it will take place a short walk from the stations on the East London line (the name comes from the line's orange logo), which runs from Highbury to West Croydon and Crystal Palace. And that there will be "gastronomic adventure and artistic tomfoolery".
The collective only reveals the location by text an hour before the doors open - maximum train journey 40 minutes. Guests don't know the contributing artists or culinary theme until they arrive.
For our New Cross supper, the group created a Siberian Circus styled pop-up restaurant - drawing inspiration from Angela Carter's novel Nights at the Circus - where an empty shop next to Prangsta Costumiers was transformed into a trapeze artist's boudoir.
From the minute we arrived - greeted by a glass of vodka - it was a night of madness and intoxication. A beautiful corseted woman swung on a trapeze over our heads. There were showgirls, jugglers, dancers and magicians. Working with Mel Wilson of Prangsta (which has costumed everyone from Daisy Lowe to festival-goers at Secret Garden Party and Camp Bestival), they created a "backstage at the circus" aesthetic.
Steve Tymuk - an accordion player for The Ukrainians - played rousing Soviet-style music.
Even the newspaper covering the tables was a specially designed artwork, translated into Russian and incorporating Angela Carter quotes.
Around 35 of us feasted on a Siberian-themed menu, including venison goulash with chorizo and chocolate (mushroom stroganoff for the veggies) and spiced toffee apple with candied walnuts and ice-cream.
Gingerline is the brainchild of food enthusiast and cook Susannah Mountfort. With five friends who all live on the East London line, she decided to set up an informal, not-for-profit collective - using the train line as the playground for their foodie and creative pursuits.
Mountfort has a day job at Will Hutton's Work Foundation. So what motivates her to spend her evenings cooking in a tiny, impromptu kitchen? "Bloody good question, I sometimes ask myself the same thing!" she laughs. "Starting a supper club was originally suggested to me by food writer and art collector Anissa Helou, whom I was asking for advice about a career in food. She thought that, for someone like me, starting a pop-up is a pretty good way of testing out if you're made of the right stuff."
After reading an article I wrote in the Evening Standard about the The Culture Line (the network created by the 10 museums along the East London line), Mountfort decided to set up a secret nomadic restaurant. "The arts-space and 'menu art' elements were really so I could involve my friends, who are brilliantly talented and supportive. Gingerline, above all else, is underpinned by some really powerful female friendships."
For the first event last November she staged a meal at Rotherhithe's Brunel Museum, inspired by the famous Thames Tunnel's subterranean banquet held in Limehouse in 1827. Diners were greeted from the train by a crew in top hats and crinolines, then led down into the tunnel by ladder. Here they watched spooky projections of Victorian-clad women and singer Kerry Adamson performing Ewan MacColl's Sweet Thames Flow Softly.
A Victorian-style banquet was then served in the museum, including horseradish cream-coddled eggs and braised hogget (lamb) followed by a trio of alcoholic jellies. "Pop-up restaurants, frequently touted as a modern dining phenomenon, can in fact be traced back to the underground rat-riddled dinner hosted by Marc and Isambard Brunel 180 years ago," Mountfort tells me.
The team collaborates with different artists and chefs each time, including Emli Bendixen (photographer), Alisia Casper (illustrator and painter) and Jodie Wilson, head chef at The Garden Café at the Garden Museum, Lambeth.
The events are run as private parties and ask for a £35-£50 donation from each diner to cover costs. The price is low thanks to the generosity of suppliers such as The Fabulous Vodka Company and Crystal Palace's Alan's Antiques.
"We are always hunting for exciting spaces in which to host Gingerline," says Mountfort. "The mystery location intrigues guests who enjoy the last-minute revelation and the exciting journey to unexplored places." She is hunting new venues along the train line, so do drop her a line if you have a great tip.
By the end of a Gingerline evening, you have a table of new friends. Best of all it unlocks many of London's hidden secrets.
But remember, it suits spontaneous and adventurous diners. "If you like to know what wine to bring, what clothes to wear and who you'll be sitting next to, then perhaps this isn't for you," says Mountfort. "Each event, like the location, is completely different, so guests can come to more than one and still not know what to expect."
The next Gingerline event is scheduled for May. For more information go to: gingerline.org
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Susannah Mountfort is the founder of Gingerline and available for comment, email: gingerlinelondon@gmail.com
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