Made in London: Dalston Chillies

Victoria Stewart meets Ben Kulchstein, the DJ who swapped graphic design for making hot sauces
By Victoria Stewart24 February 2016

Is it possible to switch from a frantic job in graphic design to one making fiendishly good hot sauce under your own name? According to Dalston Chillies founder and DJ, Ben Kulchstein - who quit his job in December 2014 and has since matched his previous wage - it is. “I’ve gone from working in a high stress job to a job where the worst thing that can happen is that the chillies aren’t good or you could crack a bottles. So I’m much more relaxed and happy than when I had a day job. You just do it,” he laughs. Last week I met Kulchstein at The Old Ship Pub off Mare Street, E8, after he had spent a busy morning making his hot sauce in the kitchens of the pub’s basement. He is tired, but happy, and has recently spent three weeks auditioning new bottles, saying new ones will be available soon. As part of our Made In London series he tells me what it’s like running a small London condiments business.

How many products do you make?

So there are three flavours – Original Hot, made with Scotch bonnet chillies, The Chipotle Ketchup and I’ve just launched the Bajun Hot Sauce, which went down well, in September 2015.

Why did you start the business?

I used to make the original hot sauce for myself at home, and in 2011 I entered the amateur hot sauce competition at the Fiery Foods Festival – where big chilli fanatics and writers go – and came second out of 40-50 others. So I figured I might give it a push. And then I bumped into Jonathan Downey who took some sauce, and then he basically tweeted daily for about a month, giving it a lot of show. And then restaurants and street food traders started taking it.

Ben with his bottled chillies
Victoria Stewart

How many products have you sold since you started?

I’ve sold thousands since I started. I used 16 kilograms of Scotch bonnets today, and I’ll use another 16 kilograms tomorrow.

What has the reaction been like?

Great. After I started, I spoke a lot about it on Facebook so my friends began to hear about it, and because I DJ too (early Nineties, Jungle, and stuff like that) everyone would start asking me bring it along to my gigs. So I’d be there handing about 30 or 40 bottles of sauce over the decks! Then their friends told their friends and so on.

Did you always want to work in the food and drink industry?

I didn’t think about starting a food business but my mum was a chef and she often had us in the kitchen, grinding up nuts to make sauce. I’m a vegetarian and I’ve always thought of food as quite important – I’m an obsessive cook. I do it to wind down. So it all came from a love of cooking, really. But before this I was working in graphic design for a clothing company.

Where do the ingredients come from? Is anything produced in London?

I get my chillies from New Spitalfields Market in Leyton, the chipotle comes from Mexico, the turmeric from India. So they come from all over, which is a nightmare at the start of the year when there’s always a drought – because it’s not like you can use green chillies in a red chilli sauce. Luckily, though, at this time of year, people have over ordered and stocked up before Christmas so it’s OK actually. That said there are always problems at the port, so I tend to stockpile when the going’s good.

How important to you was it to produce something in London?

Dalston is where I lived when I entered the competition and at that point I called it ‘Ben Kei’s F****** Hot Sauce’. And it is f****** hot! But I realised I couldn’t call it that, and a year earlier I had started a blog called Dalston Chillies, detailing my successes of growing various chillies – Thai, Arabian, etc – on my roof, so I used that. I think the blog still exists but I no longer grow chillies because we have a cat in the house!

What’s it like running a business in London?

I buy in the produce and buying exotic ingredients is easier in London than anywhere else – at New Spitalfields Market you can pretty much buy from any continent on earth. Certain things in London can be tricky such as couriering things around to the smaller shops, which might only want about six bottles of each sauce. I say I’ll deliver anywhere within 20 minutes on foot. Further out than that, and I charge a delivery cost.

Victoria Stewart

Where are your products sold?

We have the chipotle ketchup at Whole Foods Markets, as well as loads of smaller places like De Beauvoir Deli, Harringay Local Store, Ben’s House and Sourced Market – plus it comes with the rotisserie chicken at The Old Ship pub where I use the kitchens. Last year we had all sorts of people doing Christmas hampers, too, like Hackney Hamper, World of Zing and Craved. Rotary Bar, when it existed near Old Street, was the first place to take it, and the chef Carl Clarke used it in all his stuff.

Do you still eat your sauces on a regular basis?

All the time. My Bajun sauce is new so it goes with everything – on crackers, with Stilton cheese, on a sandwich, into a stew. I also love sourdough (probably from Sourced Market as it’s where my girlfriend works) with avocado and my hot sauce, sometimes with peanut butter in there too. Chilli is addictive, you get an endorphins boost from it and it’s great for digestion. Also the Bajun sauce has turmeric in it and mustard, Scotch bonnets, garlic, onions and other things. So you get that earthiness from turmeric, the warmth from the mustard and the heat from the Scotch bonnets.

Tell us about a day in the life of a London hot sauce maker?

I’m up at 5am to get the 5.50am bus to New Spitalfields Market, where I get as many chillies as I can carry. I’ll be back in the kitchen under the Old Ship pub for 7am and, having done all the cooking and bottling here, I’ll be done by about 1pm. Then I’ll lug as much home as I can, label it all, then I’ll be sending stock off with couriers in the afternoon. Finally I’ll cook to de-stress – and I listen to a lot of Sixties Jamaican Ska because it’s what I grew up with – it’s such a jolly happy bouncy music. If I’m not in the kitchen then I’ll be running around and delivering to the smaller businesses myself, or doing the books.

Do you still have time to eat and drink for pleasure?

My girlfriend is a foodie, so we eat out quite a lot but being a veggie is not easy, especially as I’m also egg white intolerant too. My favourite places are Rasa in Stoke Newington, and I could eat all the starters at Chick ‘n’ Sours in Haggerston.

Which other London producers you admire?

There are a few people I speak to regularly, for example the Urban Cordial Company, and we’re all meeting soon to discuss getting larger premises together. I also adore Wildes Cheese – he’s a brilliant guy and his cheese is phenomenal. It’s nice to watch him go from making it in a tiny kitchen to this. I also know Joel who runs The Hop Locker, having worked for him on Fridays for six months last year. He runs the bar at the Southbank Centre Market serving a great range of British craft beer.

Follow Dalston Chillies on Twitter @dalstonchillies for updates and details of where it’s stocked

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