Wahaca to open recycled temporary restaurant on London's Southbank
Mexican restaurant group Wahaca is to open a temporary restaurant made from recycled shipping containers on London's Southbank next month.
Located on the terrace of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the restaurant will be built from eight recycled shipping containers, arranged in a two-storey overhanging structure, allowing space for 130 diners, a bar, terrace and outdoor seating.
It will form part of the Southbank Centre's summer-long Festival of the World, which will see the development turn into a port city filled with outdoor art installations from around the world.
Wahaca will be working with street artist Tristan Manco, who will select a series of graffiti artists to decorate the restaurant. Mexican street artist Saner will complete the first series of murals on the site.
Mark Selby, co-founder of Wahaca, commented: "This is a great experiment for us. Placing eight sea containers on the Southbank Centre's terrace without gas and scarcely any electricity and expecting to open up a fully functional restaurant and bar has certainly caused an extensive amount of head scratching, but over the past five years that seems to be what we've done best at Wahaca."
Meanwhile, Wahaca, which celebrates its fifth birthday this year, will open its eighth site on Charlotte Street in August. The new site, which Wahaca acquired from Marlon Abela, will be home to the group's first market store and breakfast bar.
Wahaca was launched by Selby and former BBC MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers and currently has restaurants in Covent Garden, Soho, Canary Wharf and at both Westfield shopping centres in Westfield and Stratford as well as Bluewater in Kent.
MARC sells Charlotte Street site to Wahaca to fund new Mayfair opening >>
Jamie Oliver and Thomasina Miers to open restaurants at Bluewater >>
By Kerstin Kühn
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