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The owner of Soho’s finest Hyderabadi restaurant — Dum Biryani House — has told Eater that the brand will open a market stall in Old Spitalfields in the second week of August this year. Dhruv Mittal confirmed that the pitch will replace the salad stall Market Green, opposite Berber & Q’s Kitchens premises.
A three-dish edit of the restaurant’s menu will be available five days a week, Wednesday to Sunday, from Wednesday 8 August: It will include the dry mutton fry, paneer pav, and the traditional, pastry-capped chicken biryani.
The market stall is being used as a trial run for a permanent pitch on the Kitchens platform, the street food-cum-restaurant counters initiative which launched late last autumn under the stewardship of Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes in partnership with Stephen Macintosh of ‘hospitality operations consultancy’ Ten Ten.
The Kitchens pitch is expected to open in November this year — itself a seven-day-a-week operation that will supersede the “more casual” market stall. Although the format has worked for popular brands such as Dumpling Shack and Breddos Tacos, others have struggled; since last autumn, notable departures have included Happy Endings ice cream sandwiches; Rok — the modern Nordic operator; and Sood’s fresh pasta. The location has, however, replaced those brands with reputable operators, such as Lahpet, Monty’s Deli, and Nuno Mendes’ own Taberna do Mercado, which moved from a restaurant space in the market to one of the Kitchens’ units.
Dum, an essential London restaurant, launched in late 2016; Mittal — a chef, who as well as running front-of-house at Dum, leads the menu’s creative development — worked previously at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, Sat Bains, Hibiscus (now-closed), and for the Oberoi hotel group in India; while general manager Gopi Ketineni moved from that position at JKS Restaurants’ Michelin-starred Marylebone restaurant, Trishna.