When you leave home, your identity grows, bends, and absorbs the textures of the places you pass through. For many in the diaspora, this mixing of worlds doesn’t just shape how they speak or dress; it inevitably transforms how they cook, eat, and share food.
The kitchen becomes a site where heritage collides with invention and where third-culture experiences craft an entirely new language of culinary exploration. What emerges is not a faithful reproduction of 'authentic' cuisines but a reimagining of food that honours their roots while stretching them into uncharted directions. Across London and beyond, a new wave of independent culinary studios is leading this charge. Through collaborative operations that thrive on partnerships, pop-ups, and residencies, they treat food as expression, performance, and cultural archive, redefining what a gastronomic experience can be. Here are our favourites:
Studio Priyanka is a creative culinary space that redefines food as both connection and design-led exploration. Founded by Priyanka Raj whose journey spans from global public health and consulting to training in Michelin-starred kitchens and cooking on Parisian streets, the studio brings together craft, culture, and care to create encounters that move beyond conventional dining.
Rooted in the philosophy that 'food is a language,' its practice blends culinary innovation with an aesthetic sensitivity often reserved for art and architecture, producing supper clubs, intimate gatherings, and collaborative installations that foreground warmth, honesty, and beauty.
Its past experiences have investigated the overlap between built environments and cuisine, while upcoming projects expand this dialogue, situating meals as sites of encounter and exchange. At its core, Studio Priyanka cultivates 'humble luxury' — spaces where the table becomes a stage for generosity, imagination, and cultural dialogue.
Follow them here.
Firangi Dining is a London and Berlin-based experimental South Asian dining project founded by Ruhi Amin and Simar Deol, who fuse their British-Indian and Delhi-rooted culinary sensibilities. The duo reclaims the term 'firangi' (Hindi for 'foreigner') as a marker of their dual identities — foreign in both India and the UK, while channeling it into a practice that balances heritage with invention.
Their curated pop-ups and residencies have quickly earned cult attention, with menus that recast familiar South Asian flavours into bold, unexpected formats: from keema laab with mango-habanero, rhubarb jeow som with rasam rouille, and masala pork scratchings to trout crudo in rasam-ponzu, hake tartare in kokum aguachile, and chai ice cream.
Each event functions as an experiment in reimagining cuisine, drawing on travels, friendships, and late-night conversations to shape new culinary perspectives. Whether in a London wine bar, a Berlin pop-up, or a short-term residency at Ken’s Kitchen, Firangi’s approach avoids fixed categories, instead offering a continually evolving dining experience that is as playful as it is deeply rooted.
Follow them here.
Fugazzi Fusion, founded by multidisciplinary creative Jinia Tasnin, is a boundary-pushing practice that weaves together her Bangladeshi heritage, Roman upbringing, and years in London’s art and design worlds. Drawing from her background in installation, performance, and food anthropology, Jinia has shaped experimental supper clubs and concept-driven dining that merge Bengali and Italian influences in unexpected ways.
Fugazzi’s menus move easily between comfort and surprise — think coriander chutney cream cheese on sourdough, mooli cakes with garlic chilli oil and jaggery, keema-inspired turnip cakes, or candied figs paired with brie and seeded bread.
Events like 'potluck Iftars' extend this ethos into collective acts of gathering, while Aperitivo menus and gallery collaborations explore culinary invention in yet another register. Dishes such as orange and fennel salads with olives or sourdough with mushroom pâté demonstrate Fugazzi’s ability to make the familiar feel freshly imagined. More than dining, Fugazzi operates as a concept studio where each meal becomes a collaborative gesture — testing boundaries, fostering inclusivity, and turning the act of eating into a form of cultural experimentation.
Follow it here.
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