Here are some of the best restaurant meal kits on the market…
By Abbie Schofield
London’s world-class restaurant scene may be temporarily closed, but dozens of the city’s finest eateries have launched DIY meal kits, offering door-to-door deliveries of their produce and recipes so you can recreate their famous dishes in your own home. From southern fried chicken to Michelin-starred menus, these are our top picks so you can continue to support the restaurant industry.
Best DIY Restaurant Meal Kits To Get Delivered
Bocca di Lupo
Soho favourite Bocca di Lupo has designed an excellent meal in a box that comes with clear instructions and a family recipe backstory. The fish option (£52) comprises of a mozzarella and anchovy toast starter, excellent spaghetti alle vongole, a salad with ‘the world’s finest’ lemon dressing and slices of ricotta and cherry pie, plus a high class bottle of wine. What a treat.
Dirty Bones – Mac Daddy Kit
The Mac Daddy kit gives you the components to cook and assemble double cheese burgers with brisket topped with mac and cheese — and they’re really good. Some tomato or lettuce wouldn’t go amiss, but nutrition is not top priority here. As if that wasn’t enough meat, on the side are fries topped with lamb belly in a miso glaze, jalapeno dressing and fresh spring onions. You can also order classic cocktails to go with your feast.
Bar Douro – Bar Douro Feast
Portuguese restaurant Bar Douro has launched a DIY kit inspired by the eateries and bars of Lisbon and Porto. The kit includes bread & olive oil to start, followed by dishes like smoked Portuguese sausage, Arroz de polvo (traditional Octopus rice), braised beef cheeks with esparregado & root vegetable crisps and traditional Portuguese dessert Toucinho do Ceu.
Pizza Pilgrims – Frying Pan Pizza Kit
Pizza Pilgrims’ Frying Pan Pizza kit contains proved dough, marinara sauce, fior di latte, parmesan and toppings (like Truffle & Mushroom). An online video will teach you how to stretch your dough like a pro before cooking. The result is a fresh and tasty Neapolitan-style pizza — much more fun than Dominoes.
Patty&Bun – D.I.Y. Lockdown Kit
Burger experts Patty&Bun have collaborated with crazy golf club Swingers to create a Date Night Kit Box full of everything you need for a romantic night in. The box includes ingredients for four summer citrus daiquiris and two epic burgers (either the Ari Gold or Smokey Robinson) and costs £30.
The Proof – Proofiteroles Kit
This new east London delivery-only bakery and pudding house will send you an incredible profiteroles kit with a rich dark chocolate sauce to warm and pour on yourself, plus mix and match toppings like strawberries and honeycomb. Order boxes of 10, 20 or 30, or even one of their show-stopping profiterole cakes topped with a choux tower. The Proof also create wonderful dessert boxes filled with four of their most popular puds, from lemon meringue pie to chocolate soufflé cake. It arrives in a beautiful box, perfect for birthdays or weekend treats.
Sasha Pasta – Pasta Kit
Handmade in Islington by Sasha herself, Sasha Pasta delivers fresh pasta, delicious sauces and tantalising toppings to your door. The menu changes each week, and choices include beef and pork ragu orecchiette, vegan pistachio and basil trofie and nduja and mozzarella ravioli. All you have to do is reheat the sauce and cook the pasta in boiling salted water. Nationwide delivery is available too, and you can subscribe if you want pasta to be delivered each week or month.
Juici Jerk DIY Kit
Family business Juici Jerk was founded in 2017 with an aim to serve delicious West Indian cuisine with a contemporary twist, and a delivery from their Carribean kitchen is just the thing to brighten up a wintry evening. Feast on jerk chicken thighs, rice and peas, fresh coleslaw, mac and cheese, plantain, festivals and Juici Jerk’s signature sauces, all fantastically flavoured with just the right amount of heat. Everything comes prepped so all you need to do is fry a few things and pop the chicken in the oven. Available on UberEats, Deliveroo, JustEat and Flipdish.
Ceru – Cook at Home Kit
Eastern Mediterranean restaurant Ceru has launched a Cook at Home range. Choose from delicious Levantine dishes such as slow roasted lamb shoulder with pomegranate, mint and pistachio sauce. There’s also a vegan kit with spiced cauliflower, Arabic rice, pita bread, hummus and more.
Flour & Grape – Pasta Kit
Bermondsey’s Flour & Grape is known for authentic and affordable Italian food and wine, and now you can get perfectly prepared pasta to your door. The tortelloni with pork shoulder are little pockets of meaty heaven. Pop into water with 26g of salt — instructions are very precise — to cook for just a few minutes while heating the silky sage butter sauce. It’s utterly divine, and takes less than five minutes.
Cinnamon Bazaar – Indian Feast
Discover a taste of Covent Garden’s Cinnamon Bazaar from the comfort of your own home with their Feast at Home meal kits. Available nationwide, you can choose from four different kits including feasts for two, feasts for five and a vegan meal kit.
Yeni Home
Soho restaurant Yeni has a new delivery service, Yeni Home. Order from them and expect masterful Mediterranean cuisine full of traditional Turkish flavours. There’s manti (filled dumplings in yoghurt sauce), kofte fritters with a piyaz salad and the main event, chunky lamb shanks which fall off the bone, topped with aubergine dressing. Simply follow instructions to finish cooking.
Mother Clucker – D.I.Fry Kit
Fried chicken joint Mother Clucker has launched it’s own D.I.Fry kit for Londoners to create their own crispy fried chicken strips at home. Complete with buttermilk, chicken breasts, hot sauce, coleslaw, Mother Clucker’s secret flour mix and more, the kits cost £18 for two servings or £27.50 for four.
Bubala – Mixed Mezze
Bubala has teamed up with Dishpatch to create a Mixed Mezze. A feast of Middle Eastern small plates, the box is priced at £50 and includes two servings of Bubala’s most loved dishes. From hummus to halloumi as well as their famous potato latkes, everything comes prepped and ready to be plated at home.
Casacosta – Pasta Kit
Founded by restaurateur Roberto Costa, CasaCosta provides bespoke deliveries of the finest Italian produce to homes within 10 miles of their Union Street site. You can order everything from salami to wine as well as meal kits to create your own Italian pasta dishes such as tagliatelle al ragu, gnocchi al pesto and ravioli al tocco.
Wanda – Dinner Experience Box
Wanda is a series of curated dinner experiences sent to your home, including tableware, objects and accessories alongside a menu, grocery list and recipes from a top chef plus a playlist to listen to for some ambience. Created by Natalie Jones, founder of Somerset lifestyle store Caro, Wanda boxes are themed by country and will transport you to the likes of Mexico, Greece or Vietnam for an unforgettable evening in. £40 for two people.
Dishoom – Bacon and Egg Naan Roll Kit
Bombay-inspired restaurant group Dishoom has an epic breakfast menu, and now Londoners can recreate their own iconic bacon and egg naan roll at home. The kit costs £16 for 2 portions and comes with everything you need, including streaky bacon, dough for the naan, tomato-chilli jam and loose leaf tea and spices for making chai.
Mambow – Malaysian Meal Kit
Fans can now experience chef Abby Lee’s Malaysian cuisine at home thanks to the Mambow meal kit, special menus designed for home delivery. The first is the Nyonya Summer Series which merges Malaysian, Chinese, Indonesian and Thai cuisines by way of dishes such as smoky aubergines, char sui and deep-fried tofu. Customers can build their own box of a main, two sides and a dessert per person to be cooked in the Mambow kitchen but finished off and served at home. It’s available Monday-Wednesday, with delivery on Thursday or Friday and costs £30 per person.
Orders currently paused but follow @Mambow_ldn for updates; wearemambow.com
Smokestak – Smoked Meats
Chef and founder of Smokestak David Carter is offering DIY bun boxes and smoked meats by the pound for delivery across London, and nationwide from 31 July. Meat will be cooked in the Shoreditch restaurant before being delivered via overnight courier for customers to reheat and assemble at home. The menu includes 15 hour beef brisket, brined pulled pork shoulder, dry-rubbed pork belly and chilli and fennel sausage plus desserts and cocktails, perfect for effortless summer BBQs.
Tom Hunt x Danny Jack
Eco chef’ Tom Hunt has collaborated with chef Danny Jack to create a special recipe box based around his recent cookbook, Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet. The Regenerative Menu Box is a five-course feast for two with a themes — previous boxes celebrated Valentine’s Day and Fairtrade Fortnight.
Hakkasan Occasions
Hakkasan’s Occasions box is definitely one for an occasion. Six of the most classic Hakkasan dishes come ready to prepare, starting with colourful dim sum in a bamboo steamer, and finishing with an impressive souffle. We loved grilled chilean seabass in honey and smoked beef ribs with jasmine tea. What a treat.
Paradise
Hōtal Paradise is the new at-home experience from the team who brought us the contemporary Sri Lankan restaurant, Paradise. Their Spring Supper meal kit contains ready-to-heat dishes such as pulled pork shoulder, kithul & elderflower caramel, and Northern turmeric dahl, onion & black mustard seeds.
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