Food and drink: Time Square needs a unit for pop-up restaurants, says Jen Perry

So much so that some London restaurants have disbanded their concrete locations altogether to create more immersive dining experiences, brimming with experimental menus and bowing to diners’ quests for ‘Instagrammable’ moments.

Riding high on the pop-up boom are a number of creative chefs who want to experiment, seek new audiences and deliver innovative menus without the stifling ongoing overheads of a restaurant that needs to fill 100 covers a day. They are also a way of creating a brand, finding a market and testing out the water. Gary Usher, who founded Sticky Walnut in Chester, and now has a string of restaurants – all crowdfunded – has deployed this to great effect locally.

Check out Pinion in Prescot which he opened last year if you haven’t yet been. Preparation is absolutely key to success for any pop-up restaurant, and the team you work with have to work harder, as there is no ‘usual’ in a venue you’ve never seen before.

Everyone needs to sparkle and confidently deliver on all the areas a restaurant is judged on – atmosphere, service and of course the quality of the dining experience in addition to the food. I recently had the pleasure of experiencing a pop-up restaurant by Liverpool chef Eddie Kilty, who had taken over the Bagelry within China Town.

We were blown away, not only by the seven course taster menu Eddie had created, but by the atmosphere he had managed to create for a one-night only event, and the team he’d surrounded himself with to serve.

I know only too well just how hard a pop-up can be, working in a different home or venue every day creating a fine afternoon tea experience, unsure of the preparation area and unable to have the luxury of forgetting a component for any dish. So I was more than impressed by the smooth service that accompanied the very carefully thought out courses.

The arrival of the Botanist restaurant will surely be a pull into Time Square, and I welcome it, but wouldn’t it be great to see a permanent site for a pop-up restaurant alongside it?

It wouldn’t offer the council a secure long lease, but it would offer something that was always unique away from the chain brands, encourage creativity and entrepreneurship.

There’s an appetite for it (excuse the pun), when Kevin Lynn, of the Machine House, announced a pop up at the Pyramid in 2017 it sold out in 24 hours. I’d certainly love to take Room Forty there!