Borough Market restaurant Turnips launch surplus food menu dubbed Fight the System

This February, restaurant Turnips with Tomas Lidakevicius in Borough Market will host Fight the System in response to the current negative rhetoric consuming our news and communities. From 15^th to 25^th February, Lidakevicius will lead his team in setting aside conformist consistency, eschewing the demand for perfect produce and dishes presented in exactly the way same each and every day. Instead, menus and dishes will be flexible in the extreme, changing daily or even by service to reflect available “surplus” produce. The primary intent will be creative improvisation: a riff where the chefs take advantage of each of the available ingredients on their own merit – however imperfect – and combine them. 

Over the nine days, the team will offer their tasting menus for almost half the usual price, making their dining experience accessible to more people. Concentrating on the surplus from their own kitchen and their trusted suppliers’ networks, their hope is to bring some joy while highlighting how perfectly good ingredients still remain sidelined and classified as “leftovers”.

Chef Tomas Lidakevicius says, “The idea of the initiative came from the discontent and antipathy we all seem to be feeling: if it’s not the cost of living it’s Covid; if it’s not Covid it’s Brexit; if it’s not Brexit, then we have the parliamentary merry-go-round to delight in. Quite simply we want to set aside cost and celebrate value and have some fun in our own way.” 

At the heart of one of London’s most iconic locations, the restaurant offers seasonal, modern dishes starring vegetables. Born from the collaboration with Turnips owner Charlie Foster (a fifth generation greengrocer), the venture started as a pop-up in the middle of the 2020 lockdown and soon became a permanent operation. Both the small plates selection and tasting menu showcase a cooking style that follows the micro-seasonality of the ingredients. 

“Surplus isn’t poor-quality food,” says Charlie Foster. “In fact, it can be food of the highest quality, but for which there is no commercial home: it is often just the result of over-ordering, or slightly not meeting aesthetic standards for their imperfect appearance. By collecting whatever is surplus from our suppliers, we can still guarantee the best ingredients for our menus, carefully selected according to our criteria for world-class fruits and vegetables, but at a much lower price.”

The wine pairing will mirror the food concept, thanks to a relationship with their market neighbour, Dynamic Wines. The list will favour natural and biodynamic producers who focus on minimal waste, no pesticides or chemical fertilisers and bottles that celebrate the quality and purity of the grape itself.  

Food desk

To book a table at Turnips, 43 Borough Market, London SE1 9AH, call 020 7357 8356 or visit the restaurant’s website here.

The Fight the System menu is available from 15^th until 25^th February 2023 and is priced at £50, with an optional wine pairing at an additional cost.