Brigade Bar + Kitchen
“The first thing that cooking does, and professional cooking, is that it gives you structure. And that’s exactly what people need when they have a highly complex situation where they have lost everything. Probably structure is the one thing that they are desperate for.”
What is it: On London’s South Bank, heaving with history in a converted brick fire station similarly heaving with history (built after the Great Fire, it’s one of the capital’s oldest), Brigade Bar + Kitchen is not just a lovely place to escape for a meal, but a vital place for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to escape their situation.
What you need to know: Founded by Simon Boyle, Beyond Food of which this restaurant is the public-facing part, offers cooking apprenticeships, opportunities, and support for people who have been displaced. The figures of those helped are a testament that it is having an impact: 3,500 people have been through Breakthrough Kitchen, 1,200 through Freshlife, and 825 have graduated from Get Stuck In, with 133 people now employed full time
Why you’ll love it: Beyond Brigade is built on generosity. And we’re not saying that lightly. Even during the bleakest days of the pandemic, Boyle didn’t stop making good things happen through food. During the lockdown, and as his own restaurant closed, Boyle and his team kept working with other restaurants to bring meals to those in need and to redistribute food to hospitals, food banks, and direly impacted communities. Boyle set up the Beyond Food support line, offering mental health resources for people in the hospitality sector — from chefs to pot washers to servers — experiencing financial hardship, loneliness, and lost motivation. As the hospitality industry still struggles from the impacts of COVID 19, Hospitality Made Again is helping it survive.
How to bring this into your life: If you are someone in the hospitality sector who has been furloughed or are out of work check out Made Again, which offers a 100% free program for positively approaching this situation.
Also Invisible Chips. Yep, these exist: 0% fat, 100% charity (read a three pounds fifty donation to help Hospitality Action). Or you can directly support the work of the Beyond Food Foundation by buying new cookbook Feast with Purpose that includes recipes from 140 chefs.
Why we think it matters: Work is so integral to our sense of self. It gives us something to focus on, it allows us to be part of something bigger, it offers financial and life stability. For the homeless community that Boyle works with it also offers a different life and a different future. Through programs that support over 100 people each year, Beyond Food takes on some of the social issues that keep people homeless including health problems, substance abuse, housing shortages and benefit dependency, and some of the personal ones such as low self-esteem, a sense of hopelessness, and lack of purpose, to create the infrastructure for different lives.
In their own words: “Our solution is based around simple, good food. Cooking it and serving it. At Beyond Food, we aim to inspire people to begin the process of developing skills and attitudes that can become the foundation for their work and life for the future. We bring freshly cooked food into the lives of vulnerable people, as it plays a crucial role in helping them stand on their own two feet. It helps them live healthier lives. Learning the basics of cooking, equips them with building blocks to create lives full of purpose. Good food, kitchen skills and harnessing a sense of vitality, lays the groundwork towards helping them contribute and belong in society.”
To find out more: Website / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
If you’ve visited Brigade Bar + Kitchen or you know other restaurants with purpose let us know about it. Things change all the time and we want to make sure we’re bringing you the most up to date information and the latest places to go to help.
