A moveable feast — the restaurant that will come to you

Boatmen: Stevie (left) and Joseph on Stevie’s barge in Hammersmith
10 April 2012

I am sitting on a barge overlooking Hammersmith Bridge, as two of London's hottest young chefs serve me a one-woman feast of delicate vegetable fritto misto, fluffy pilaf with English peas and yoghurt, and Florentine cherry focaccia.

Welcome to the Moveable Restaurant, an underground project set up by Stevie Parle and Joseph Trivelli, whose names are now in all the hippest address books.

Nigella asked them to cater for her supper party at Hammersmith's Auriol Kensington Rowing Club.

They've just done the wedding of Thomasina Miers (the chef and co-owner of London's Wahaca restaurant is an old friend).

And if you're lucky enough to book a place at one of their secret supper parties — which take place everywhere from Thameside boathouses to Shoreditch shops — you might find yourself sitting next to Ruthie Rogers and Rose Gray of The River Café, the two Sams from Moro plus assorted artists, publishers and musicians.

The antithesis of corporate venues, the Moveable Restaurant is proving a hit with London's fashionable set.

Bored with dinner at Nobu or The Wolseley yet again, they love the idea of an edgy, new dining experience.

Stevie and Joseph set up the Moveable Restaurant because they wanted to cook dinners in different places without being tied to a formal restaurant concept.

They both have proper day jobs (Joseph, blond, half-Italian, 35, is head chef at The River Café; Stevie, 24, dark, skinny, works there three days a week). But in their spare time they love to cook unusual recipes and experiment with new ingredients.

Joseph says their aim is to create a feast — where everyone enjoys the same meal.

"Breaking bread together, it's just so nice. It's really an extension of friendship."

The food is delicious, as you'd expect, but there is a guerrilla undercurrent — so expect occasional mismatched plates and wonky stools.

What you get is intimacy and personality — you'll be sitting cheek-by-jowl with interesting strangers.

It also breaks down the barrier between chef and diners — I watch Stevie and Joseph as they pound away at foccacia dough and dip the vegetables into tempura batter.

Their speciality is fresh, local ingredients cooked with imagination.

They have an allotment 10 minutes away but much of what we're eating today was grown on the barge — home to Stevie and his lawyer girlfriend, Nicky.

He proudly shows me the sage, curry leaves, fennel, calendula and purple-hued mallow he's using for the fritto misto.

Secret restaurants are a big trend in London. Home chefs Ms Marmitelover (Kilburn) and Horton Jupiter (Newington Green) are just two of the names to drop.

Jo Wood is even throwing open the doors of her Kingston home during Wimbledon.

The current craze started in New York, but underground dining is hardly new.

American professor Jim Haynes has been hosting a Sunday dinner salon in his Paris apartment for the past 30 years. But it's a global phenomenon.

In Cuba, sitting-room diners or "paladares", are the norm.

In Italy, they're called "cesarinas" (the feminine of "caesar" because the woman is king in the kitchen!).

In recent years in London we've seen the rise of the arty pop-up restaurant (Flash at the Royal Academy and Islington's The Double Club, with interiors by artist Carsten Höller, were both hits).

Ex-El Bulli chef Nuno Mendes has a supper club in Hoxton — effectively a test kitchen for his next restaurant, opening in 2010.

Part of the fun for gourmets is the detective trail. This is dining by stealth. To get in, you have to know someone who knows someone.

Or you track down the venue through blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

But the difference with Stevie and Joseph's venture is that it's a wandering restaurant.

The venue changes each time — and they spend weeks planning the dishes.

"A lot of it is about making the food applicable to the environment and what we fancy cooking," explains Stevie.

"So they're really well-considered meals — not menus."

Neither went to catering college; they're creative, instinctive cooks.

Sometimes a meal is inspired by a journey (to India or Morocco) or a book.

They've organised meals celebrating cookery writers Elizabeth David and Patience Grey — held in a 1950s-style shop off Shoreditch High Street.

And on Easter Monday, they held a Roman feast on the terrace of the rowing club (serving abbachio, young goat, with artichokes, broad beans and peas cooked in red wine).

They love the unexpected nature of their guest list. One man from Boston took along his boyfriend as a surprise (after a mutual friend in New York bought it for them as a birthday present on the internet).

Another night, Stevie's mother sat next to a publisher and set about convincing him he should publish Stevie's recipes as a book. "I think it slightly took the edge off his romantic night out with his girlfriend," says Nicky dryly.

Prices range from £25 to £55 a head. Between them they can cater for between 25 and 60 diners.

Though at Thomasina's wedding, it was a scary 220. "It was a very similar feel," laughs Stevie.

"Not a posh cheffy-tasting-menu thing, but a lot of different, delicious things that go together, like raw broad beans with pecorino and fish antipasti, courgette soup and slow-cooked rabbit."

"A friend teased us," adds Joseph. "She said: This is a wedding not a family dinner.'"

They only just about break even (thanks heavens for the day job). "Rosie and Ruth have been amazingly supportive," says Joseph. But they would love to take the restaurant all over London.

They need venues with a reasonable kitchen, but there are plans to hijack a Dickensian House on Princelet Street and even the empty Victorian swimming pool in Hackney.

"I'm also thinking Paris," says Stevie with a gleam in his eye. But the food is always king: "It really feels like a celebration not just of eating but of the things we're eating," says Stevie.

So where do you find them? I'll leave that to you.

After all, tracking them down is part of the fun.

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