Real food made by local people: New online platform launches today!

Brand new Bristol start-up All About The Cooks is enabling local home cooks to sell their dishes to the people of Bristol, making “real food, made in kitchens not factories” available to order online now.

Launching officially today, All About The Cooks, founded by Claire Ladkin, who is also Chair of Bristol Food Connections CIC, aims to provide real home-cooked food for celebrations, family mealtimes, dinner parties or for those keen to try freshly cooked dishes while taking a break from cooking themselves.

Claire Ladkin says: “Discovering that someone only a few minutes from your home is cooking the most delicious Mauritian-inspired dishes, seriously tasty chicken wings or delicious Baklava is the joy of this concept and Bristol is the perfect place for it to launch. Uncovering the cooks and their stories has been a total privilege and I cannot wait for the people of Bristol to be able to do the same. We are lucky to already have a group of brilliantly diverse cooks on the platform, making a real range of dishes.

It may seem a strange – even risky – time to launch a brand new business, but I strongly believe that All About The Cooks has the ability to create greater connection within the communities we live in and I think there’s a real appetite for that right now.

Plus, for talented home cooks, keen to share their story and passion through food, All About The Cooks offers a way to make money (with some recent sign ups from those who have lost jobs in the hospitality industry) – whilst also providing important assurances to the customers who will place orders.”

Cook, Karrie Mannan, from Bedminster says: “Having moved from London to study illustration, I was desperately seeking somewhere that sold chicken wings just how I like them. When I couldn’t find the perfect chicken wings, I decided to make them myself. When my friends kept telling me that I needed to start a business selling them, I realised that other people might appreciate them and even pay for them too. All About the Cooks is an ideal way for me to make some money from cooking something I love!”

Cook, Trung Trinh, from Horfield says: “I was born after the Vietnamese war in a very small town by the sea in the North of Vietnam, called Bai Tu Long Bay. My roots in Vietnamese food run deep. Mealtimes were very important, and everything was cooked from fresh. My mother expected me to be involved with the cooking and taught me skills like how to use a knife, work an open fire, along with ways to identify and pick out the best ingredients and how to combine them to make well-balanced dishes. Vietnamese food is all about balance. It’s simple but so fresh, as we use a lot of different varieties of fresh herbs. I can’t wait to share my dishes with food-lovers in Bristol via All About the Cooks.”

Cooks signed up with the platform will be supported to achieve four stars or above on the council’s Food Hygiene Rating scheme and are vetted by the All About the Cooks’ team before joining.

To learn more or order real-food made by local people, visit: www.allaboutthecooks.co.uk. To sign up as a cook, visit: allaboutthecooks.co.uk/become-a-cook.

Those working in our city’s food sector face unprecedented challenges. Though the bid to make Bristol a Gold Sustainable Food City has had to refocus, the need for a resilient food community has never been greater. Visit Bristol Food Network for more information and resources on Bristol’s Good Food response to the pandemic. Read Bristol Going for Gold Coordinator Joy Carey’s blog proposing five core principles on which to start building a better and more resilient food system.