RIDLEY’S TEMPORARY RESTAURANT Ridley Road Market, Dalston, London
Ridley’s was a collaborative art installation of a group of 6 designers-artists-architects. We transformed an exposed yet derelict void in Ridley Road market, into a podium for outdoor exhibitionist eating. We handled everything from applying for funding, city approvals, physical construction, water/electrical service, publicity to the actually running the restaurant.
The intent of the project was to demonstrate the kind of activities that could be created to make the life of this market sustainable and re-imagine the possibilities for the regeneration of the area. To receive lunch, visitors shopped the local market stalls and exchanged a meal for the items to cook dinner that nightA lineup of guest chefs created daily menus from market produce only, whilst diners shared a communal table high above the market. During dinner there was a formal theatrical seated service. Meals prepared in the ground floor kitchen, the hub of exchange and production, rose by a mechanical table up to the guests on the first floor. This scenographic journey emphasizes the vertical transformation of the raw food at market level to the cooked meals at the elevated podium above.