Restaurant Day hits London

Restaurant Day is a one-day celebration of restaurant and food culture. On Restaurant Day anyone can set up a restaurant, café or a bar for a day – at home, at the office, street corner or park.

Sunday 17 February registered London restaurants offer a selection of specials; for example a 5-course vegan feast, new Nordic cuisine from Copenhagen and pizza baked in ‘Uuni’, a portable wood-fired pizzaoven developed by a Finnish entrepreneur Kristian Tapaninaho. This is the second Restaurant Day organised in London following on from November 2012.

Restaurant Day was born in Helsinki in May 2011 and is now organised four times a year. The idea came from three young Helsinkians: creative and strategic thinker at marketing agency N2 and our HEL/LO – Let’s Talk speaker, Olli Siren, photographer Antti Tuomola, and founder and executive producer of We Love Helsinki community, Timo Santala. They were frustrated with the bureaucracy and effort required to set up a restaurant, and wanted to channel this frustration into something positive and community-minded. In only a few years, and mostly through the grapevine, the event has become extremely popular in Finland - and spread into further 36 countries. All together over 3000 one-day restaurants have catered for customers in the past Restaurant Days.

“The fact that Restaurant Day has spread around the world this fast is certainly overwhelming but also tells us that the concept works: this is a way for people to influence the environment they live in – via food, ” says Kirsti Tuominen, member of the small core group behind the global phenomenon.

More information:
restaurantday.org