11 Sep 2023
James Cameron discovers a new initiative to support the city’s restaurant trade…
When Heidi Roberts popped into her local Indian restaurant Bengal Spice for a takeaway she noticed something different. Usually Hassan, the proprietor, would be cheerful and chatty with his regulars but today he just seemed a bit glum. When she asked why he told her that having made it through the troubled times of COVID he had run slap bang into the cost of living crisis.
Like all of us his bills were continually increasing but he was also noticing that customers were visiting less. Regulars who used to come in weekly were now only dining out monthly, and he had fewer people heading over from the local pub.
Now Heidi wasn’t going to take this lying down. She’d been coming to the Bengal Spice for 14 years, and it was her grandson’s favourite restaurant. He’s never let her live it down if she didn’t do something.
Luckily Heidi is a food blogger, so she was able to do more than just order a mountain of curry. She enlisted her friend and fellow blogger Nikki Wills and set to plotting. What they came up with was the idea of having a private supper club at the restaurant one night.
If you have never been to a Supper Club, the idea is that everyone eats together and has the same dishes rather than choosing from a menu. Heidi and Nikki would post about it on social media and try to raise awareness for both the evening and the restaurant generally. You might not be aware of Bengal Spice, you wouldn’t walk past it unless you got lost on the way to the Jersey Farm Tesco and it’s a long way from the centre. Previously it was enough for them to do great food for the citizens of Jersey Farm, but with the new paradigm they needed to cast their net wider.
And this was how I found myself in Jersey Farm on a Wednesday evening. There was some slight trepidation as I entered, I had never been to such a thing before and didn’t know anyone I was sitting with, but for you dear reader I vowed to undergo the ordeal. As it turned out it was a thoroughly delightful evening.
It was also exceptionally good value. For £35 we received a welcome drink, poppadoms and chutneys, starters, main courses, rice, naan and dessert with tea or coffee. Beyond this, though, there was something incredibly pleasing about knowing you are all eating the same food at the same time, and although we were sat at different tables it did feel genuinely communal. This was helped by Hassan, Heidi and Nikki doing the rounds, chatting with everyone and making them feel at home.
The quality of the food was very high, and I can understand why Heidi and her family are such fans of the place. To start we had a trio of Onion Bhajee, Samosa and Chicken Tikka, all just large enough to give you a good hit of flavour without filling you up too much. Which is good, as you wanted to leave plenty of room for the main courses.
The communal nature meant you got to try a bit of everything, which can be a problem when you’re dining with more territorial friends. My particular favourite was the Sag Chicken, packed with enough spinach to almost make you feel healthy eating it.
The listed dessert was Gulab Jamun, though we also received a special bonus extra pudding which I think may have been Ras Malai.
My tablemates declared this to be too sweet for them, however that combination of words are not in my vocabulary and I wolfed the whole thing down.
It ended up being a very nice way to spend a Wednesday evening, eating fabulous food and chatting with pleasant people I had never met before.
I spoke to Heidi and Nikki about what prompted them to get involved with the Bengal Spice and try to help out.
For them, it comes back to the same sense of community that I felt on the evening. They pointed out that unlike large chain restaurants who have whole departments of people dealing with the administration and finance the local restaurateurs are having to do everything themselves.
They are people who are passionate about food, and about sharing it with their local customers, but they also have to spend long hours on paperwork and trying to keep everything afloat.
This was an area that Nikki and Heidi thought they could really add value. Through their work on social media they know about the wider skill sets that you need to thrive in the modern world, and could share these skills and help the restaurant owners push themselves outside their comfort zones.
Many of them are modest, but they need encouragement to promote themselves and the excellent work they’re doing.
The Bengal Spice is just the start for our intrepid bloggers, though. There are plenty of other amazing restaurants in our city that are producing fantastic food every day but are maybe overlooked or taken for granted. They see this becoming a regular occurrence, maybe some form of monthly supper club drawing attention to our culinary gems.
As Heidi says, if we don’t use these places then we will lose them, and our city will be considerably diminished for the loss.
If you’re interested in following the project then why not check out their Facebook page, ‘Use it or Lose it St Albans’.
Nikki is also on Instagram and Facebook (and pretty much everywhere else) as @Tikkido whilst Heidi is on Instagram as @itsmeheidiroberts or check out her blog at https://www.kitchentalkandtravels.com. Why not follow their example, get involved and keep St Albans Tasty!
