Minute on the clock: Helen Graham, executive chef, Bubala

The executive chef of Spitalfields Middle Eastern restaurant Bubala talks to Maria Mellor about the space and discovering new suppliers during the opening of the brand’s second restaurant in Soho

Tell me what Bubala is all about

Bubala is a Middle Eastern restaurant first and foremost, and it's vegetarian almost incidentally. We are about whole vegetables, so we don’t use anything that’s processed and we don’t use any fake meat. We have really bold, punchy flavours inspired by my travels around the Middle East and also my experience growing up in London, where there are some incredible restaurants. I live just off Edgware Road so I’ve got Iraqi, Lebanese, Kurdish and Egyptian restaurants, all on my doorstep.

We opened the first restaurant on Commercial Street [in Spitalfields, London] in September, 2019, six months before the pandemic.

How did you keep going during the pandemic?

We did [meal box delivery scheme] Dishpatch and we had so many orders that we used Som Saa just down the road to prep in. We were wheeling cabbages up and down Commercial Street. We also sold our spice mixes to Farm Drop, which is now defunct, and we sold our dips to Super- market of Dreams, which we still do to this day.

We’ve been pretty fortunate in that we’ve had a lot of support, but we never really dreamt that we’d be opening in Soho. The pandemic changed that and made properties in Soho so much more appealing. And so we thought, why not? It changed our trajectory, but for the better.

What has it been like in your move from head to executive chef?

It’s being quite life-changing, really. It’s the difference between being in the kitchen every day and having a rota that could be nights or mornings to working a regular nine to five.

It’s meant that I can focus on being creative, so I have a lot more mental energy for that as well as nurturing our head chefs and working on company culture a lot more. I’m taking a step back and looking at the business in a more holistic way.

What changes are you looking to make in the new Soho branch?

The menu is pretty much all new and a slightly more expanded version of what we’re offering at Spitalfields. It’s a bigger kitchen, so it allows for things that we’ve not been able to do before because of space, which is really exciting.

We’re going to start working with a supplier called Shrub which works with a lot of organic and biodynamic farms in the UK. We’ve also got some incredible bread suppliers on-board, and we’ve managed to source a supplier that does Israel-style pitta – it’s pitta like you’ve never had before in the UK. It’s pillowy soft and aerated, stone-baked with organic flour. I haven’t seen it outside of Tel Aviv.

We also have a challah bread – a Jewish enriched bread – which usually contains eggs, but we’ve found a vegan challah supplier. I’m really pumped about it.

Tell me about the new space

The Spitalfields branch has 35 covers plus the 25-person private dining room, and in Soho we have 50 covers with a 25-person private dining room. It’s slightly bigger and also we will have an earlier opening time as we’ll be in Theatreland. There’s an open kitchen and a chef’s table at the front where people can book a table right by the kitchen and really be in on the action.

The tables and chairs are made using a wood from London plane trees, from trees felled in the Euston area. The tables have the most incredible grain and pattern to them and many still contain shrapnel from WW2.

The floor we kept from the restaurant beforehand – an Italian restaurant called Vasco and Piero. Marc Summers, the owner, used to go to the restaurant with his parents at the weekends when he was a kid, so it was nice to be able to keep their original flooring. It’s a nice knowledge to have about the history of the building as well.