As things start heating up in Cambridge’s culinary scene for summer, Miriam Balanescu gets to know its pioneering street food vendors and vans – a veritable feast awaits
From slick servings at Restaurant Twenty-Two to irresistible bites at Aromi, Cambridge has a culinary landscape that’s hard to beat. But with smaller spots than restaurant rivals and a presence that’s often fleeting, trucks and vendors are really the unsung heroes of the city’s food scene.
Cambridge foodPark was founded in 2014 by Heidi White, while its soon-to-be owner Becca was getting quite literally to grips with street food from a pedal-powered coffee bike. “I used to get up at four in the morning to travel over to Cambridge North station, set it all up and get ready for the morning train commuters.
“I was doing all these fantastic events, meeting all the food trucks in Cambridge and thought to myself, there’s nothing really going on in Saffron Walden. It’s a nice town with lots of people, a great cafe culture during the day – but not a massive amount happening in the evening. I called the council one day and asked, ‘Could I put on a street food event?’” And so, Off the Beaten Truck was born.
Before Becca took on foodPark in 2019, her team were cooking up tantalising lunches from Eddington, the Biomedical Campus and the Science Park. After five glorious months, Covid-19 hit. Thankfully for the city’s street food, it was business (nearly) as usual, and its companies emerged after the pandemic unscathed. Now, foodPark is gearing up to open at a new site in Hemingford Grey.
“It was the one part of hospitality that really grew,” enthuses Becca. “We only work with people at a high level. We curate the team – that’s how we work best. We’re keen to work with chefs from inception, all the way to getting their hatch open.”
Libby at Nomadough, one of foodPark’s newest members, is a prime example. She came to street food after cooking on private yachts. “I fell in love with sourdough and making it every day for crew,” she recalls. “I always had lots of discards from my sourdough starter. I hated throwing it away because you work hard to keep it alive, so I came up with the sourdough flat wrap. I’ve always wanted to start a business; I had the idea of creating flat wraps from foods around the world, learnt on my travels working. We were nomads that came home to make dough.”
“We’re a bridge between takeaway and restaurant,” Becca explains, claiming that the city’s scene started with Steak & Honour, the ‘pioneers of Cambridge street food’. The appeal of working from a truck rather than a restaurant for Becca was her upbringing. “I’m half Malaysian Chinese and grew up in Hong Kong, which has a huge food and eating out culture. That was always with me. I spent a long time exploring street food scenes in Asia, London and various locations. We’re lucky in Cambridge that it’s trickled down.”
Becca explains that street food culture in the UK has grown out of its US equivalent. It’s a product, she says, of the 2008 financial crash. Libby adds: “It’s a great way for chefs to start a business or young people to be entrepreneurs because sadly the rates in Cambridge are so high for a unit to start a cafe – it gives people who love their food that opportunity.”
“It pushes chefs to go, ‘What do I want to cook, why do I want to cook it and what’s my story?’” Becca explains. “‘What do I want to put across?’ You’ve got a very short amount of time to get people’s attention from how it looks and smells. The theatre around it is important.”
While there is tough competition to stand out from the crowd, the foodPark team is stronger in numbers, Becca says: “As a collective, it means we’ve got more trucks on-site, but also it means our team work together really well.” There is always someone around to help out during inevitable mishaps, including Becca herself, who often steps up to the task of cooking behind the scenes.
There’s no doubt that it’s a part of the booming gastronomic scene, partly due to the variety an alternating line-up of vans offers, but mostly down to the unwavering passion of the vendors. “There are people who love what they do behind each van and everyone in Cambridge can see it – that’s why they love it so much,” enthuses Libby. “It’s a great way for businesses to come together and support each other.”
