Smoke & Salt founders to launch a crowdfunding bid for bricks and mortar restaurant

Smoke & Salt is set to launch a crowdfunding drive to finance its first bricks and mortar restaurant in London's Tooting.

Remi Williams and Aaron Webster opened the small plates concept in a Pop Brixton shipping container in June 2017 and a year later won the Newcomer Award at the 2018 Cateys.

The pair had met while cooking at the Shed in Notting Hill, launching their new enterprise with a government start-up loan and the support of friends and family.

This time round Williams and Webster are hoping to crowdfund £140,000 for an equity stake in the business. The campaign is set to go live today (Monday 14 October) via the Seedrs platform and will continue for 40 days.

The funds raised will be used to open a site in Tooting, London, and will cover the premium to take the lease from the current operator, design and fit out fees, a rent deposit and working capital to begin trading. Webster said that the pair would couple the cash with a cashflow loan and equipment lease loan.

At Smoke & Salt Williams and Webster takes modern British ingredients and employ ancient preservation techniques to deliver dishes such as crispy new potatoes, chimichurri, grilled beef heart and gorgonzola dressing, and brined and grilled salt pork steak with spring greens, brown butter, pickled rhubarb and rhubarb gel.

Webster said: "We’ve had amazing support from friends and family in initially opening our site in Pop Brixton, and feedback we have had from guests and critics has been so overwhelmingly positive that we’ve been on the hunt for a permanent space to call home.

"We want to be able to continue what we do, but ultimately we want to provide guests an even better experience and we think we’ve found a site that would be perfect for our first brick and mortar restaurant. We need a little help to get to take the next step in our journey and we’re hoping people would like to get onboard and take that step with us."