| HONESTLY’S VERDICT |
| In a word: Enterprising |
| Food: Proper local, home grown, home cooked, rustic and full of flavour |
| Service: Unobtrusive |
| Presentation: Urban rustic, with skips! |
| Ambience: A little garden oasis |
| Location: Just take a stroll around the back of the King’s Cross station |
| Value for money: Good, with profits going back into the initiative |
| Worth a visit?: Get down there to support an awesome initiative and chow down on truly local fare! |
The Skip Garden in Kings Cross regeneration area is a community gardening initiative that serves home grown, home made food from their onsite kitchen, the Hatch Café. The Skip Garden is an organic gardening initiative by Global Generation, a charity focused on skilling up youngsters by encouraging the values: I, We, The Planet; the development of the sense of self, of building community engagement, and taking a global perspective.
Come on in…
The Hatch Cafe
On closer inspection, you can see why it’s called a ‘ skip’ garden; upcycled skips are brimming full of veggies, leafy greens, herbs, and even fruit trees. There are even polytunnels for growing more delicate produce all year round.
The garden
The garden growing…
Veggies growing in the skips
One of the skips bursting with herbs
The most impressive aspect of the Skip Garden is that it moves, relocating to sites around the regeneration area as plots of land are redeveloped. Who knows where it will end as the area slowly fills up with permanent buildings.
Multifunction growing and seating poly tunnel
Fruit trees
The Skip Garden is not quite what you expect to stumble upon when exploring the regeneration area behind King’s Cross Station. I’m glad that when we rocked up for lunch at Granary Square, the conventional restaurants were fully booked, as it lead us to discover this little gem.
Food
The chalkboard menu
Everything on the menu at the Skip Garden is grown onsite, so look no further for a truly local and seasonal menu.
The pizza / focaccia oven…eyeing up the plate of goodies on the table!
There are wood fired pizza ovens on site, from where they produce pizza and focaccia breads to serve up from the café. They even encourage you to get involved with making your own pizza. There is a real skill sharing community feel to the place.
Having spotted a plate of salad with fritters and focaccia on the edge of a table, we opted for the same.
Delicious salad with focaccia and fritters, perfect lunch!
The salads were perfectly fresh and flavourful, the fritters tasty, and the focaccia; a really rustic, rough bread flavoured with rosemary and sea salt. A very pure and wholesome eating experience.
Service
There is a warm, friendly and relaxed vibe about the Skip Garden, even more so when the sun is shining.
It’s very much a café / canteen affair, order from one portacabin and your food arrives from the kitchens situated in the other, then when you’re finished take your empties to the pot washer. Easy peasy!
Presentation
I guess recycled charm could describe the working garden and café space that is the Skip Garden and Hatch Café.
The food didn’t need any tarting up; it looked colourful, natural and wholesome.
Whilst we were there, they had a couple playing guitar and singing some old classics, I think we just happened to hit jackpot that day as the clouds cleared and the sun came out.
Value for money
£7 for a pizza, £4 for soup and focaccia. No complaints there then!
Contact
Location: Global Generation Skip Garden, Off Handyside Street, at the junction of York Way & Copenhagen Street, Kings Cross, London N1C 4UZ
To get to the Skip Garden, walk up Kings Boulevard from King’s Cross or St Pancras International station, cross Granary Square, and follow the Skip Garden signs.
Website: http://www.globalgeneration.org.uk/kings-cross-skip-garden
Facebook: www.facebook.com/globalgeneration2004
Email: generate@globalgeneration.org.uk
Welcome to the Skip Garden
Opening hours
The Skip Garden is unfortunately only open a couple of days a week, currently Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 10am until 4pm, and it is also open the first Saturday of every month. Keep up to date by checking their Facebook page or pop Global Generation an email.
Global Generation occasionally hold evening events at the Skip Garden, so keep an eye on their Facebook page or sign up for their newsletter to hear about their plans. If their café offerings are anything to go by, their evening meals will be a sumptuous, green fingered affair.
Honestly Foodie 