King Cook’s Insider’s Guide to East London

I grew up in the nineties, born and raised in East Lon­don. It was a lot dif­fer­ent back then in terms of style, cul­ture and atti­tude – it’s what shaped me to become the per­son I am today. At sec­ondary school in East Ham, I was the only kid from Laos in a sec­ondary school that had a thou­sand pupils. So, I was a minor­i­ty in an area that was pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black, White and South Asian. Already know­ing that I was dif­fer­ent, that set me up – I had to be strong.

I had friends from all walks of life, White, Black, Asian. So I just took on their cul­tures as well – and the East Lon­don cul­ture. For lunch I would eat Pie Mash and I fell in love with it. At home, my mum would cook me tra­di­tion­al Lao food. My dad would come back from work­ing as a chef in a Lon­don hotel, with dif­fer­ent cuts of meat: pork chops, lamb chops, you name it. And then obvi­ous­ly grow­ing up in East Ham, I was always around South Asian food: Indi­an food, Bangladeshi food, Tamil food. So that’s where the food cul­ture came from: I was exposed to dif­fer­ent types of cuisines from around the world at an ear­ly age.

I’ve always loved the pace of East Lon­don, it’s vibrant and it’s alive. There are so many dif­fer­ent things you can expe­ri­ence – every­thing from tra­di­tion­al caffs to fine din­ing. With­in walk­ing dis­tance of my spot King Cook­dai­ly (more on that lat­er) there are five oth­er great veg­an spots – I call it The Veg­an Mile. But then you go around the cor­ner, you have Bangla Town, where you can expe­ri­ence the food cul­ture of the huge Bangladeshi com­mu­ni­ty. Then in the oth­er direc­tion, you have the design and cre­ative scene.

Some­times I’ll be walk­ing on the street, there’ll be a wed­ding or a fes­ti­val, you’ll see all the Asian sarees, and it’s just so colour­ful. Or you’ll see shops with the tra­di­tion­al cos­tumes from Nige­ria or East Africa, with sim­i­lar bright colours and tex­tures to the tra­di­tion­al Lao cos­tumes. Fash­ion isn’t just urban fash­ion here, it’s tra­di­tion­al – and it’s glob­al, too. The whole world comes to your doorstep, you find every­thing here in one hub. It’s a big boil­ing pot of all cul­tures and that’s what I love. I can appre­ci­ate oth­er places but I always feel at home in East Lon­don. So, let me show you some spots that are spe­cial to me in my very own East London.

Box­ing has always been a big tra­di­tion in East Lon­don. Dur­ing lock­down, I thought, ​“What am I going to do with this time?” I decid­ed I was going to ful­ly com­mit to my kids’ ear­ly years through sport. Box­ing became anoth­er love of my life. I start­ed train­ing my kids with the oth­er coach­es at the gym and now I’m a qual­i­fied Eng­land Box­ing coach.

My daugh­ter is ten and she’s elite for her age. Both of my eldest kids want to be pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, box­ers. We train togeth­er as a fam­i­ly unit. We chose Dagen­ham ABC because head coach Lewis Pass­field is one of the best ama­teur box­ing coach­es in the coun­try. My kids feel safe every time they walk into the gym.

We’re there three-to-four times a week and every time I’m buzzing: you smell the sweat, you hear the skip­ping ropes, you hear the noise of the dif­fer­ent ways the kids express them­selves, the ways they chan­nel their aggres­sion. It’s a fam­i­ly, it’s a com­mu­ni­ty. We’re all vol­un­teers, we all have jobs but we coach them because you see them progress so much. It’s men­tal train­ing, not just phys­i­cal. I wish I had this when I was grow­ing up.

Dagen­ham Ama­teur Box­ing Club — 222 Heath­way, Dagen­ham RM10 8QS

My next spot, Chrome & Black is an art shop. But real­ly and tru­ly it’s a place to get your graf­fi­ti sup­plies, to get your spray cans. It’s owned by a good friend of mine, who’s a Lon­don leg­end! This is in-house, small, organ­ic growth. A lot of writ­ers and artists from across Lon­don go there. It’s a mec­ca: if you know, you know.

I’ve had a rela­tion­ship with Chrome & Black since way back, I wouldn’t go any­where else to get my sup­plies. I just love the vibe, you feel that Lon­don ener­gy there. I used to write a lot of graf­fi­ti grow­ing up. It’s still with me, I incor­po­rate lit­tle bits of it here and there with Cookdaily.

Chrome & Black – Unit 4, 12 Andre Street, Clap­ton, E8 2AA

This is a place where we can write graf­fi­ti legal­ly, so that’s why I go there to have a lit­tle paint. It’s always nice to just get the spray cans out, with­out stress. This is a cool spot where you won’t get both­ered. There’s always some­thing going on, it’s like a walk­ing art gallery for writ­ers near Brick Lane. every time i pass by on the way to work, I see new pieces and think ​“Ah, so-and-so was here.” It’s just like that in Shored­itch, it’s mad. I think Shored­itch is the most cre­ative place in Lon­don right now.

Path from Allen Gar­dens to Cheshire Street

Pie & Mash is tra­di­tion­al Lon­don grub, it has always been pop­u­lar in East Lon­don. It’s basi­cal­ly pies and mashed pota­toes with a green pars­ley sauce called liquor, which was orig­i­nal­ly made with boiled eel juice. When I was grow­ing up, chick­en shops weren’t real­ly a thing, so we’d go for Pie & Mash. It’s beloved by gen­er­a­tions young and old: you always see young kids bang­ing Pie & Mash, to old peo­ple with no teeth.

Sad­ly, as time has gone on, they’ve start­ed clos­ing or mov­ing fur­ther out, so I’ve had to trav­el. When I became veg­e­tar­i­an and then veg­an I thought, ​“Shit, I can’t have one of my child­hood favourites any­more.” But when I found out that G. Kelly’s did a veg­an ver­sion with soy mince, I con­nect­ed with the own­er Neil and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s a place I can take my kids. Espe­cial­ly on a Sun­day after box­ing train­ing, we always head up there and just have a hearty Pie & Mash. It’s an East End tra­di­tion that I can car­ry on with my kids. Hope­ful­ly they can car­ry it on because it’s just East Lon­don food, it’s East Lon­don cul­ture. I still love it.

G Kel­ly Eel & Pie Shop — 526 Roman Rd, Bow, E3 5ES

East Lon­don forces you to be street­wise, so you can always adapt to any sit­u­a­tion. After leav­ing school at 15, I worked my way up from mar­ket food stalls, pub kitchens, 5‑star hotels to Miche­lin-starred kitchens but then I hit a wall. After recon­nect­ing with my Bud­dhist roots, I went meat-free and launched my own veg­an oper­a­tion. Before lock­down I had four Cook­dai­lys run­ning in Hack­ney and Cen­tral Lon­don. At first, I thought we could just ride through it all but when I saw my friend’s veg­an places clos­ing down, I thought maybe it’s time to take a break, take a breather. In the end, one year away from the veg­an scene to spend time with my fam­i­ly became three.

Dur­ing lock­down, I was doing a lot of research into Japan­ese food cul­ture, espe­cial­ly small fam­i­ly-run Japan­ese restau­rants. No mat­ter how busy the cities are, or how advanced, there are always these lit­tle culi­nary gems hid­den away, work­ing hard, day in, day out. Com­ing back to the scene, that’s what I want­ed to chan­nel. Keep­ing it sim­ple, it’s just me in the heart of Shored­itch. So, I put my name on the door: it’s King Cook­dai­ly because I promised myself I want to be in the kitchen cook­ing and over­see­ing every­thing every sin­gle day for at least a year.

Fol­low King Cook on Insta­gram or find out more about King Cook­dai­ly, 10 Han­bury Street, Lon­don E1 6QR. Mon-Sat 12 – 9.