Ikoyi’s Jeremy Chan; Ravinder Bhogal of Jikoni; Bibi’s Chet Sharma; Selin Kiazim of Oklava; and Santiago Lastra from Kol. It’s an estimable roll call of names, all of whom have one thing in common — Carousel. They’re not the only ones.
Carousel is the hot ticket on Fitzrovia’s Charlotte Street, a multi-floored space that’s part permanent wine bar but, more interestingly, where some of the world’s most talented chefs — many future stars, others established names — take up residence for a week or two and incubate. It’s where ideas are stress tested and concepts have their temperature taken. It is, in other words, the place that’s finding your next favourite restaurant for you. And at the end of the month, it hits a milestone as founders (and brothers) Ed and Ollie Templeton welcome their 300th residency. Ed’s the front-of-house fixer, Ollie cooks.
And the residency? Make a note of the name: for a week from June 27, Mmabatho Molefe, founder of all-black, all female-run Cape Town restaurant Emazulwini, is coming to town. “We’re really looking forward to it,” Ollie says. “She’s a fantastic chef.”
Molefe and her modern Zulu fine dining are a fitting marker — in the nine years Ed and Ollie have run Carousel (which originally opened more modestly in Marylebone), they’ve scoured the globe for cuisines and concepts, working with more than 300 chefs from 50 cities in 30 countries.
“There have been stars, and stars of the future. So many great chefs have come through the doors,” says Ed. “They’ve always done brilliant stuff already. We just look for considered chefs, charismatic chefs. We want to see a good story, and we understand who our audience is — they’re after the same thing.”
One thing about the audience is that it’s loyal — one adventurous sort has visited 89 times. Many others have been back on more than 20 occasions, the brothers say, some travelling from outside London. But early on, it was hard enough getting chefs, let alone customers. “It was difficult persuading people to come in the beginning,” Ed says. “We had people pull out and a lot of people didn’t really see what we were trying to do. These days, chefs ask us.” What changed? “It’s a popular thing now because people come over and have a good time.”
Still, the logistics are mind-boggling: it’s endless travel, countless emails, calendar requests by the dozen. “We do it all through word of mouth, through travelling ourselves. We’ve built up a base and a great network of people, and it’s a community,” says Ed. “But it’s down to the team. We take care of the produce, the suppliers, and have a brilliant foundation in the kitchen. The menu, obviously, changes radically with each residency; it’s sort of like setting up for a daily changing menu each week, but with a new head chef.”
The likes of Lastra and Chan didn’t have their own restaurant when they first rocked up at Carousel. Today, they boast three Michelin stars between them, and their restaurants are frequently booked out. “We organise chefs from all over the world,” Ollie says. “Some bring a team, others don’t. We work with them on the menu, we develop it, and we source ingredients locally where possible and from outside the UK if needed. Anyone who finds travelling appealing and is up for a challenge is fine by us.”
Up for the challenge have been everyone from Stockholm omakase counters to high-end Brooklyn taquerías, from Cantonese dumplings to cosy Dorset tasting menus. Ed and Ollie have brought chefs over from Mexico City, Helsinki, Patagonia, Nashville, Bethlehem, Kyiv, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Tokyo and more.
Recent favourites include Scandi iconoclasts Punk Royale, who fill their restaurants with dry ice and graffiti and feed everybody bumps of caviar. “They love using luxury ingredients — lobster, wagyu, loads of truffle. It’s sort of Eurotrash irony food, but it’s amazing. We put in lasers, smoke effects, and vinyl graffiti. They were walking around with a jerry can full of vodka and pouring it into people’s mouths. One customer complained she didn’t get enough truffle and one of the chefs shaved a bunch over her head,” remembers Ollie. Any other big vibes? One anonymous Welsh chef’s appendix exploded midway through the week: “He had one night off but he was old school, so then he came back in, remarkably. He was a nutter. At the pass covered in bandages. Obviously we didn’t force him — it wasn’t obligatory, but he insisted. Such a talented guy.”
The pair can go on — the screaming Italian couple, who argued at the pass and threw pans about before serving “unimaginably good pasta”. Or a duo of Americans who necked about a bottle of bourbon before service every night, had a scrap during prep and then made out in the walk-in fridge. “Great food, to be fair to them,” says Ed.
One customer complained she didn’t get enough truffle and one of the chefs shaved a bunch over her head,
“Every chef who cooks at Carousel makes an impression. They all bring so much passion. That’s what it’s about,” says Ed. “We’ve had plenty of memorable nights,” says Ollie. “I suppose 2014-18 was one long Negroni-fuelled lock-in. Every Saturday, after a hectic week, we’d go for it, and it was always interesting because we’d be with a whole new group.” If the Negronis have abated a bit, their appetite for the weird has only gone up. “At the start, I think we limited ourselves and were a little cautious. Now we mess about.”
As they approach the 300th residency, is it getting any easier? Historically, they’ve had flight cancellations, visa issues, plenty of “hairy moments”. One chef flew in from Peru only to be turned away at the border. Another, Karlos Pente, was sent home due to the political situation in Venezuela. “We had 50 lobsters ready and no chef to cook them. We didn’t have bags of cash, and we didn’t want to waste the food, so we just did a menu ourselves and apologised to the people who’d booked. We made lobster ravioli. There have been lots of occasions where we’ve had to fill gaps at late notice — days, sometimes. Disasters happen. We just adapt.”
So, as they look onwards, who’s next? How do you follow the likes of Bill and Amy Poon, Dorset’s Harriet Mansell, or cult Mexican favourite Hugo Durán? Do they have a bucket list? “Josh Niland, the Australian fish butcher, he’d be awesome,” says Ollie. “And Inaki Aizpitarte, the guy in Paris. What a legend. But we have no barriers.”
Ollie and Ed, who are working on a book, have seen culinary fashions come and go. Their restaurant is a German beer hall one week, a Turkish kebab shop the next. Can they sustain it?
“We’re not stopping any time soon.” says Ollie. “We’re having too much fun. We don’t want to be overly earnest or po-faced. We don’t really have a message other than: food is exciting. We don’t really know what’s next, but that’s completely fine by us.”
