Foodie Pop - The Pop up restaurant & Jozi

I received an email from Eat this morning to let us all know that they’re back in action after much time dedicated to MasterchefSA, as the show’s culinary producer. This got me thinking about the pop up restaurant trend and where Jozi is in the trend evolution.

What are Pop up restaurants you ask? Well quickly, Pop up restaurants often occupy unconventional spots, appear and disappear about as quickly as you can say POP. The pop up phenomenon tends to either be a platform for up & coming chefs to make their name or an opportunity for celebrated chefs to show off something new outside of their established culinary style. They literally pop up anywhere in a borrowed restaurant for the night or even in a field.

Courtesy: http://blog.sfgate.com/inmarin/2010/04/05/the-pop-up-restaurant-experience-in-marin

The trend has been prevalent in Europe and the US for a number of years. It’s been trending for so long that the Economist blog is even reporting that London has fallen out of love with pop up restaurants. It predicts, per google search stats, that the rest of the world will follow suit.  

This (the economics) however hasn’t deterred Rene Redzepi, head chef at Copenhagen's Noma restaurant, number one on the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants list for 2010 & 2011. He is planning to launch a Noma pop-up restaurant in London this summer. A taste of Noma at Claridges, serving a five course menu for ten days. I totally need a foodie sponsor to send me to London, I mean this is the foodie Olympic event of the year. 

Courtesy: adchampagnes.wordpress.com

The trend does however seem to still be in its infancy in emerging markets and has recently reached Seoul, South Korea. Dubbed by the Wall Street Journal blog as the Pop up surprise: the Korean food re-imagined pop up in Seoul. 

Courtesy: blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime

In Jozi the most publicised culinary pop up concept is Eat, spearheaded by Arnold Tanzer. The newsletter has the cutest tagline; Another bright spark idea by Tanzer foods. With the Eat twitter profile as; culinary pop ups all over jozi limited edition restaurant by chef arnold tanzer. This series of pop-up events of seasonally-inspired dinners first started about a year ago and they are about to host a dinner at their 7^th location in the second week of May. I haven’t as yet made it to one of the dinners but plan to get into one in either May or June.

Unless I've totally missed the pop up boat (feel free to let me know) it remains to be seen where Jozi will end up, will it follow the international trend albeit at a slower rate? 

Will get back to you on my Jozi foodie pop up experience. Happy pop up eating!