A new food truck is rolling into King’s Cross’s Coal Drops Yard this summer – and it’s bringing an impressive slate of guest chefs and residencies along for the ride. Turn Up Truck launches on June 5, with a line-up including Sepps – aka Giuseppe Federici – Toklas Bakery, Dudu Eats and Rachel Ama. Each weekend, a different guest chef will take over the 1950s Citreon and its kitchen, and on weekdays there are longer-term residencies. It’s a way to give chefs a chance to use an affordable professional kitchen to test new ideas and build out their concepts.
Kicking off the roster from June 5 to 7, plant-based chef and author Sepps will bring his Giuseppe’s Kitchen concept – and his Instagram-famous tiramisu, which has sold out across multiple pop-ups.
The first weekday residency is from Toklas Bakery, which will operate in the truck Monday to Thursday, from June 8 to August 27. It’ll dish up its new Roman sandwiches, made with a crisp, thin flatbread and filled with the likes of prosciutto cotto, scamorza and mustard mayo, as well as an array of seasonal pastries.
From June 12 to 14, Hong Kong street food will take over, care of Steam & Roll. It’ll be doing cheung fun, siu mai and curry fishballs. The following weekend, beloved mother-daughter pop-up Dudu Eats will bring its noodle bowl menu – including salt chicken peanut sesame and tofu numbers – as well as its small-batch Thai chilli oil, and herbal jelly for dessert.
Next up, Rachel Pam will bring her Shoreditch wellness spot Rawlala. On the menu? A plant-based soft serve, acai bowls and cold-pressed juices. It’ll be followed by Lil Wong Bakes, from July 3 to 5, with founder Sam Wong’s signature pandan-loaded treats. And on July 10 to 12 it’ll be Gim London, which makes gimbap – Korean seaweed rice rolls with fillings like spicy fishcakes, gochujang tuna mayo and soy garlic mushrooms.
Caribbean cooking will take centre stage from July 31 until August 2 when cookbook author and chef Rachel Ama takes over the kitchen with jerk roti wraps and bowls. Other chefs are invited to apply for future spots in the truck.
“We all know how challenging the hospitality industry is right now, so creating somewhere that people could use to test ideas, scale, and trade from just felt like a no-brainer,” said Lil Wong Bake’s Wong, who has also co-founded Turn Up Truck.
Turn Up Truck launches on June 5 at Coal Drops Yard.
