There's been a gradual improvement over the past few years, but recently the regeneration of King's Cross has been increasing in pace. We've had the opening of King's Cross Central, the arrival of Shrimpy's by Bistrotheque and coming up next is the revamped Granary Square, with its Grade II-listed Granary Building.
Taking pride of place there is Caravan King's Cross, the second outpost of the restaurant and coffee roastery, which has proved a hit at its original Exmouth Market location. It'll be making the most of the restored building, with the designers aiming for a factory vibe in the restaurant. It'll have a coffee roastery and large open kitchen and the bar itself will be divided in two by wire mesh, with half of the bar dedicated to all-day dining and half to the coffee bar, with plenty of outside seating in the square too.
We talked to Chris Ammerman, co-owner of Caravan, to find out more. "Our basement roastery at Exmouth Market is bursting at the seams and we needed a larger space to work in. When we first saw the King’s Cross site we fell in love with the building. We thought why not create something really unique to London in an amazing space in a vibrant emerging part of London."
"We continue the nomadic style with food and drink well travelled, combined with an on-site working coffee roastery. We will be baking a lot more takeaway goods on site and have added a pizza oven, which will enable us to offer a great selection of simple breads and pizzas, making our offer even more accessible."
Miles Kirby (also co-owner of Caravan) will be overseeing the Exmouth Market and King's Cross kitchens while former head chef of Caravan Exmouth Market Matt Greenwood will now be head chef at Caravan King’s Cross (while, at Exmouth Market, the Sous Chef of 2 years Nickolas Anderson will take on the role of head chef).
The all-day restaurant's menu will feature some favourites from Exmouth Market like grilled coconut bread, strawberries and lemon curd cream cheese or baked eggs, tomato and pepper ragout. New to the menu are Parmesan grits, wild mushroom and wild boar sausage, the Hangtown Fry – a bacon and oyster omelette or pulled pork, sweetcorn and chilli. The King's Cross branch will also be making its own mozzarella in the building which will feature on its pizzas.
Coffee's obviously important to Caravan King's Cross, supplied by the Roastery in the restaurant (with coffee making workshops planned) but there will also be plenty of cocktails available too and Prosecco on tap - hooray!
Caravan King's Cross opens in the Granary Building at King's Cross on August 13.
