Discovering fast-casual dining

The scene has boomed in recent years, with restaurants drawing on the soul of street food and fast food chain convenience to foster creative dining experiences that are wok-quick, Michelin Star-stylish and devilishly delicious. In the UK, from Wahaca (est. 2007) to Leon (est. 2004) and back again, restaurants with relaxed environments but something interesting to say with their ingredients have been doing well for over a decade, joined more recently by quirky food vans, pop-ups and food halls bringing approachable, health-conscious, tasty and interesting snacks to the masses.

“It’s the democratisation of fine dining. You get to experience excellent and affordable food from top chefs, in a casual-communal space that is beautifully designed,” says Didier Souillat, CEO of Time Out Market, one of the core destinations of this second wave of fast casual, with must-visit hotspots in cities all over the world, from Lisbon, New York and Miami to London (coming soon). These are the dining destinations where memories are made, and shared, and tagged, and listed as ‘must-visit’ in the annals of Eater, Thrillist.com, and the now defunct Lucky Peach zine. This is fast casual. It’s everywhere and everything.

Neil Haydock, Executive Watergate Bay Chef

Neil has long been a fan of the concept of fast casual – the atmosphere it creates and the food experiments and flavours it enables him and his team to play with. Ask him about his favourite hotspots and he’ll wax lyrical on the dishes he’s eaten as enthusiastically as a surfer recounting different breaks on their travels. “I’m classically trained and that’s a great grounding, but the French way is stuck in its ways, formulaic and traditional. Food has changed,” he says.

Now younger, self-educated chefs who don’t have these traditional ties are taking over – those more likely to go gaga for a flat plancha than a sous vide, with experiences and cooking scars from kitchens far and wide. People like David Chang, chef and founder of Momofuku, the father of the fast casual scene in the US; and Roy Choi, Korean-American creator of the Korean-Mexican taco truck Kogi and star of the Netflix series The Chef Show – two of Haydock’s cooking heroes. “These guys morphed Asian and South American street food with Western tastes. A decade on it’s become something even more tangible.”

Pip Lacey is one of the chefs who has benefited from a change in demand. She sensed the air in the kitchen was shifting, gave up her role of head chef at Michelin-starred Murano in Mayfair and opened up Hicce in London’s new uber-trendy chow-capital, King’s Cross Coal Drops Yard. Pronounced ‘ee-che,’ the wide, airy, industrial space with exposed retractor fans and orb pendant light fittings – Guardian food critic Grace Dent compared the restaurant to “a capacious, repurposed Manhattan loft” – serves wood-fired dishes, speckled with curing and pickling, and ingredients that include hispi cabbage, shimeji mushrooms and shiso leaves. Not that the customers are fazed; they’ve seen it all before.

Some of us may have romantic memories of a brilliant dive bar in New York, and eating the best burger ever – but that’s probably down to jetlag and a hangover.

— Scott Collins

Neil’s American road trip

Pig and Khao, New York

On the Lower East Side, a fusion of US, Thailand and the Philippines, hailed as casually hip” by the New Yorker. Turns heads with a menu including entire pig’s head, braised, chopped, and served on an iron platter, with raw egg.

Saltie Girl, Boston

A narrow barred, tinned seafood haven in New England, serving fried lobster and waffles, snow crab rolls and warm sticky rice, and salmon brushed with teriyaki and blasted with a blowtorch.

Fuku, Los Angeles

David Chang’s casual fried chicken restaurant in SocialEats food hall in Santa Monica is Asian-American comfort food personified, and this year’s dining darling for the Hollywood elite.