Gone are the days of fashion parties with slivers of canapes, leaving phones fed and guests craving something more substantial. Fashion has fallen headlong for food and drink – and in London, one extremely cool sibling duo has played a key role.
In little more than a year of operation, Malik Acid, a creative hospitality studio by siblings Missy and Cameron Malik-Flynn, has become one of London's most in-demand collaborators. Just in recent months, the pair has been pouring and swilling their way through events for the likes of Burberry, Freize, JW Anderson and Miu Miu.
An open and optimistic air is palpable at Malik Acid’s events. Bespoke dishes and cocktails – served to fashionable crowds – are created in response to the nature of the event, whether that’s a Frieze party with the Gagosian where they served bespoke chocolate bon bons and Old Fashioneds reimagined via the art; or one of their very own Mango Listening Bar events where guests tasted tart distillates of mango skin and lashings of creamy mango sorbet. Music flows; the party takes on its own character.
“People are looking for pure and direct experiences of pleasure,” Cameron Malik-Flynn tells Broadsheet, who cut his teeth in drinks at Bao and The Standard. His sister Missy Malik-Flynn, meanwhile, co-owns Soho institution Rita's.
Their Mango Listening Bar events (they’ve hosted one each year, so far) are the apex of Malik Acid’s principles and aesthetics – woven through with culture, community and music – with the main objective being to have a good time. “We had an idea of what we wanted it to be; but what was so special is that it became about what everyone else wanted,” Cameron says.
“I really enjoyed overhearing people talking about mangoes,” Missy adds. “They were actually talking about something much deeper than that, culture or sense of self or identity or home or their upbringing.”
As children, they grew up immersed in London’s hospitality scene, their father’s job as a pub manager meaning they lived above numerous pubs, employees filtering in and out of their living space. “In hospitality, there's an element of being in service to people that I think sometimes can be forgotten,” Missy says. “The thing that we will never hold back on is that [an event] needs to feel hosted. Your drink will be filled when you head to the bathroom, like in a restaurant. You will leave so fed and watered.”
In July, they debuted an afternoon tea menu crafted for Selfridges, inspired by the artist Katie Stout’s hyperreal use of colour and playful distortions of the female form. In the pop-up Imagination Cafe, in the centre of the department store, guests can book in to try zingy lychee gummy bears; chocolate bon bons spiked with earl grey; matcha chrome foam cocktails. It’s inspired, thoughtful, and a little bit mad.
Because this is ultimately what Malik Acid is doing: not just serving up excellent food and drink, but using it to lasso people into conversations about flavour and community, culture and the nature and diversity of ingredients. “We talk about literal taste when we work with food and drink,” Cameron says, “but it’s also this idea of what kind of person you are as an extension of the things that you consume.”
The Imagination Cafe runs at Selfridges until October 1, 2026.
