Pidgin team launches crowdfund to help restaurant survive

The team behind London restaurant Pidgin in Hackney has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help keep the business trading.

Founders James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy are looking to raise £60,000 on GoFundMe after they were unable to access some of the government loans.

The pair opened Pidgin in 2015 with a weekly-changing set menu, with the goal of never repeating a dish. The restaurant will have to close from Wednesday when London enters Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions.

In a video on the GoFundMe page, Ramsden said: “We’re now coming up to our 1,000th dish and amidst this coronavirus hell we’ve struggled to access some of the loans available through the government so have decided the way to get through this winter is to ask you to give us a bit of a leg up.”

People can put a down payment on a meal for next year, and rewards for larger donations include a private wine tasting or a personal dinner cooked by Ramsden and Herlihy.

Anyone that contributes will have their name engraved on the Pidgin wine shelves.

Herlihy said: “We’d like to get to 2,000 or 3,000 dishes and be here another five or 10 years. We’re super confident we can get there, we’ve got a great team and relationship with the community here and we’d love to keep going. Anything you can do to help we’d super appreciate it.”

The pair also run sandwich shop Sons and Daughters at London’s Coal Drops Yard and ran Mayfair restaurant Magpie from 2017-19.

To view the crowdfunding page click here.