Salad – Wharf Life

January 14, 2023January 14, 2023

Canary Wharf: How Atis aims to nourish and satisfy with its salad bowls

Co-founder Eleanor Warder talks inspiration and sustainability as the brand opens in Canada Place

The Nourisher salad bowl from Atis in Canary Wharf

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Canary Wharf has, as far as I know, only one takeaway brand that draws part of its identity from ancient mythology.

Atis takes its name from the Phrygian god of vegetation – a deity whose death and resurrection echoes the plants and trees that die in winter only to rise again in spring and whose cult spread from what is now Turkey through Greece to ancient Rome.

The branch the company recently opened in Canary Wharf is its fourth location but there are two more in the pipeline.

Evidence perhaps that its founders – husband and wife team Eleanor Warder and Phil Honer – would like to see the brand spread as widely as worship of its mythic namesake did in ancient times.

That, of course, will ultimately be down to the appeal of what it sells – bowls of salad with an approach inspired by time spent overseas.

“We lived in America for a bit before we launched the business in 2019,” said Eleanor. “Phil was doing an MBA there and I joined him.

“We’d always wanted to do something in food.

“Phil had worked in financial services in London after university and always felt there was something lacking – a place offering simple, fast, healthy, delicious food.

“They say America is always a step ahead and they have companies like Sweetgreen there which are huge – all over the west and east coasts.

“We went there and to similar places a lot when we were living in Boston – we drew inspiration from them.

“So we came back to the UK in the summer of 2018 and spent a year developing the concept.

“It was particularly difficult in the beginning – when we were unknown – and finding our first location took about a year, but we opened in Old Street in September 2019 before going on to launch sites in Belgravia and Notting Hill.

“We want to grow and expand. I’m not sure we’ll ever be the next Pret, although that would be fantastic.

“For us it’s about quality, brand and experience – so we have to keep that in mind as our company gets bigger.”

Atis is located in Canada Place’s Crossrail Walk

Atis does things a bit differently. About half of the unit it has taken in Canada Place’s Crossrail Walk – between Waitrose and the Elizabeth Line station – is filled with staff preparing and cooking the ingredients it serves.

On the other side, a production line stands ready to put together its core range of seasonal salad bowls ranging in price from £6.50-£9.60 for a regular or £7.50-£10.70 for a large.

There’s also an option for customers to build their own for £6.90 or £7.70.

Hot and cold premium ingredients are extra. The aim is to offer Wharfers filling, satisfying products that deliver on flavour – something Eleanor knows all about.

“We have worked with a really brilliant, creative chef to develop core bowls that are really interesting,” she said.

“When people walk in, they see the line is predominantly fresh produce.

“The colour is really important for us – and the taste – so people get the full experience of the food they are buying.

“We’re trying to create a balance between being innovative and giving people what they want. For example, people really love tomatoes, so we do them straight, rather than doctoring them.

“But then we have a section – our hot protein element – where we take things up another level cooking ingredients using lots of spices and marinades.

“This is our main selling point.

“You can have a bowl at Atis that is fully vegan or vegetarian

but people can also add our blackened chicken, for example.

“We toyed with the idea of being completely plant-based, but we decided against it because our ethos is that we shouldn’t cut out food groups.

“The idea is that people can have meat one day and choose not to on another – they have that flexibility.

“The most important thing is that whether it’s regular or large, our bowls leave people feeling satisfied and nourished.

“There’s this old idea that salads are potentially quite grim and won’t fill you up.

“We’re trying to change that so our customers feel what they are getting is satisfying, good value for the price and high on flavour.

“My background is in the wine trade, originally in a startup importing and selling to small independent restaurants in London before I moved into hospitality and became a sommelier.

“With Atis, my focus is very much on the food we serve, developing the menu and the marketing.

“Personally, I flip between ordering the core bowls, and then building my own.

“The latter is very popular, especially on our online platforms, which shows you that people do want control and flexibility over what they eat.”

While Atis probably has Eleanor’s joint honours degree in classics to thank for its name, its presence in Canary Wharf has more to do with Phil.

“Canary Wharf was already on our minds when we started the business,” said Eleanor.

“Phil was very keen and had identified it as a place that would be really good, and I think he was completely right.

“He had worked here, knew that there would be a demand for us and that there were other operators doing really well on the estate.

“The real appeal for us is that our customers are a balance between commercial and residential, and the vertical density of population on the estate is really great for our business.”

In addition to nourishment, sustainability is at the core of Atis’ operation.

Eleanor said: “It’s an area that’s increasingly important for us, as it should be, and it’s been a big learning curve – especially on the packaging front and it’s something customers expect.

“What we have found is that parts of the UK don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to be able to deal with recycling in the right way and that’s quite shocking.

“People think they’re doing good – putting their waste in the correct bin, but there’s a whole other side to it, which makes things challenging.

“Coming into Canary Wharf – which is right at the forefront of sustainability – we’ve learnt that everyone has to really concentrate on making sure what should be happening actually is.

“Obviously there is also the food itself. We are plant-powered and that’s a huge element when we’re talking about sustainability.

“The UK is a small country and we can’t get everything we use from these shores, but we do source whatever we can locally.

“We also have seasonal focus – changing our menu four times a year to reflect what’s available and considering carefully what we can get from the UK.

“Right from the outset we’ve also been working with different partners, one of which is Too Good To Go, which helps to pass on food that would otherwise go to waste at a reduced cost.”

Atis is open in Canada Place from 11am-9pm Mon-Thurs and 11am-3pm Fri-Sun.

The Azteca Bowl topped with blackened chicken

HOW IT TASTES

Azteca Bowl, £14.10 (£10.70 large bowl + £3.40 blackened chicken)

Large really does mean large when ordering from Atis.

The Azteca isn’t quite a bottomless bowl, but by the time I’m done munching through the (optional) blackened chicken, there’s little doubt the brand’s mission to fill me up is a success.

This is more than just unctuous slices of well-cooked protein draped over some leaves, however.

There’s real depth to the Azteca, coming as it does with black eyed beans, charred corn, baby spinach, chopped romaine lettuce, something called “sustain yo’self avo smash”, picked red onions, Feta cheese and some crumbled tortilla chips all topped off with a lime and coriander dressing.

At a chunky 965 calories without the chicken, it’s a pretty serious pot of food but there’s a freshness to it that makes good on all Atis’ fine words.

I’ve no idea what’s in the smash, but it’s delicious and comes together perfectly in a blend that’s balanced enough to let all the big ticket flavours have their space.

If the other salads are this good, Atis will rapidly find its place in the hearts of many Wharfers.

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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com

September 3, 2021September 14, 2021

Canary Wharf: How Urban Greens salads are all about depth, flavour and taste

Recently opened in the West Wintergarden, the brand believes it’s found a gap in the market

Urban Greens co-founder Houman Ashrafzadeh – image Matt Grayson

While alone in offering frisbees, Kaleido isn’t the only new salad game in town. It’s also not the only company to bill itself as delivering something fresh.

Following the success of its first branch in St James’ Park, Urban Greens has opened a second in Canary Wharf, filling space opposite Obica in the West Wintergarden with leafy plants and plenty of pickled and blanched ingredients.

The brand is the brainchild of co-founders Houman Ashrafzadeh, Rushil Ramjee and Ioannis Divas. The three met while studying and remained friends as their separate careers flourished.

“We weren’t business partners to begin with,” said Houman. “But we’d always explore food places together – we’ve always had a big interest in it.

“I grew up in Sweden, Rushil in South Africa, although he’d also lived in London for a long time, and Ioannis in Greece. We would travel to South Africa and other places together and spot these amazing places for food.

“We always had the entrepreneurial spirit in us and, although we had successful careers in the corporate world, we knew that we wanted to do something of our own. A couple of years ago, one thing that came to our minds – London has always been, for us, an amazing place with the best restaurants that you can find on the planet.

“But when it came to the healthy fast food side of things, we always thought it was lagging behind.

“We discovered that in Scandinavia and the US a lot of food brands were doing things that we couldn’t even find here.

“So we started looking into different brands to get some inspiration and we spotted that, when it came to salads, there was a huge gap – no-one was doing them properly.

“You could find salads that had been around a long time, but these were plain ingredients in a bowl with a bit of dressing chucked in.

“They were nothing special, just very traditional, boring salads, which didn’t excite us. People would have them because they were considered healthy, but there was something missing.”

Serving up salad at Urban Greens – image Matt Grayson

It took the trio about two years to formulate their business plan, working between Athens, London and Stockholm, slowly creating the concept, discussing the menu and eventually negotiating with a landlord to open their first site in 2019.

Rushil and Houman left their jobs to concentrate on running Urban Greens in the UK with Ioannis taking a more passive role.

“It felt scary at first, because we were leaving very steady jobs – very predictable and comfortable lifestyles – doing something that was in a new industry for us,” said Houman.

“Our approach was that, we may not have experience, but we know what good food is, what good service is – we know what we like when we go to a good place. We wanted to try to implement those things in our own business.

“We launched in July 2019 and it started picking up really quickly. People would come in and try it and be very pleasantly surprised from a taste point of view, but also by the whole concept.”

That reaction may very well be down to Urban Greens’ tireless approach to creating a core menu of balanced salads that all offer something out of the ordinary.

“Our salads are not side salads – our portions are quite big,” said Houman. “It’s also impossible to replicate our salads at home because every flavour is elevated – we don’t have any plain ingredients.

“Each salad has a few elements in common – they all have a base such as cabbage marinated in olive oil and salt.

“They all come with one form of protein. That could be quinoa or red rice, for example.

“Then you have something pickled but not just a plain pickle – we add flavours to it. Our carrots are pickled with ginger so that enters the salad.

“Not everything can be pickled, as that would be overpowering, so we add other ingredients but again, we don’t just put cauliflower or broccoli in a bowl – we blanch them to take away that harshness.

“They still add crunch – we don’t boil them – it’s the elevation of taste and flavour that comes with it. There are always vegetarian and vegan options.”

Urban Greens' Canary Wharf branch — Urban Greens’ Canary Wharf branch – image Matt Grayson

Core dishes include the Jakarta with tempeh, seasame marinated glass noodles, pickled carrots, edamame, bean sprouts, coriander, toasted peanuts and seasame seeds and the Beef Saigon with Irish pulled brisket, glass noodles, blanched broccoli, pickled cabbage, edamame, bean sprouts, fresh mint and toasted peanuts.

“The funny thing is I never get tired of the Beef Saigon or the Seoul Chicken because they both come with a really nice spicy dressing,” said Houman.

“But we always try to encourage our customers to get out of their comfort zones and to try something new.

“The prices vary – the vegan ones start from £7.85, the ones in the middle are £8.85, and the premium ones are £9.95.

“When you visit Urban Greens, everything you see is the result of decisions we have been taking consciously – we are in control of it, involved in every little part of the business.

“After we opened our first store we were approached by quite a few landlords and Canary Wharf approached us.

“We took a look into it and, although neither of us had worked in Canary Wharf – we had worked in the City – we definitely thought that it was one place we wanted to move to as an expansion, but it came much sooner than we had anticipated when we were starting up in the beginning.”

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September 2, 2021

Canary Wharf: Why Kaleido is putting all kinds of salads in rice paper rolls

Co-founder Laura Mimoun explains how she and husband Denis Dahan came up with the brand

Kaleido co-founder Laura Mimoun – image by Matt Grayson

Kaleido sets itself a little bit apart. First of all, its Canary Wharf branch – the latest location to open and the third in a growing chain – is tucked away off the main stretch of mall that joins Canada Place to Cabot Place, round the corner and into the lower floor of One Canada Square.

When Crossrail opens (although we’ve given up betting on when that will be), the shop will be on one of the main routes into the estate proper. But those days are in the future and Kaleido is slowly building by word of mouth and tempting visitors to nearby Santander.

It’s also an outlier in terms of design – arranged into an angular unit that used to house ATM machines, it doesn’t so much invite passers-by in as push out into the space in front of it with its wares proudly displayed on a bright island unit.

Bright circular murals depicting some of the ingredients used in its products adorn the walls – bright, playful colours and graphics are the thing here. And that’s a choice too because it communicates something about the brand – that it’s approach to salad stands out from the crowd.

Salad rolls by Kaleido – image by Matt Grayson

Kaleido was created by wife and husband team Laura Mimoun and Denis Dahan.

“I wasn’t working in hospitality at all,” said Laura. “I was working in marketing for chocolate brand Green & Black’s. One night, with my husband, we were making Vietnamese rice paper salad rolls – some people know then as summer rolls.

“We’re both French and these rolls are very well known in France. We don’t like to waste food and we had some rice paper.

“We just started putting other ingredients in the rolls and found that it worked very well as a salad sandwich.

“That was how we got the idea for Kaleido. We thought that this is something you can eat with your hands, much like you’d eat a burrito. You can dip it in sauces and have all sorts of different flavours inside. It’s mix and match and this is something we really like.”

From that initial spark of an idea sprung Kaleido, a shop that offers a range of 10 different salads wrapped in transparent rice paper.

Customers can order between one and 10 ranging in price from £2.75 to £19.95 respectively. The cost is the same regardless of the salads chosen The selection currently includes Falafel And Hummus, Tuna And Cucumber, Sweet Potato And Tahini and Chicken Caesar.

“The first part of starting the business was a lot of thinking – evaluating the risk and the opportunities, looking at market trends, and then making the jump,” said Laura. “We wanted to create a fun, healthy brand, so this is why you have the name Kaleido, from kaleidoscope, and it looks a bit different because it’s fun.

“We began by making the recipes at home, and created five flavours that we were happy with and liked cooking. The great thing about rice paper is it’s only 30 calories and what you see through it is what you get. First we did food markets and grew from there.

“In 2018 we did what was supposed to be a pop-up at Selfridge’s but has since become permanent. Then we opened up in Kingly Street and now Canary Wharf.

“More and more people are eating our rolls at our existing units so we are growing, which is great because it’s been a tough year.

“We were originally due to open in Canary Wharf in 2020, but then the pandemic hit – it may not have been the best idea to put ‘coming soon’ on the hoarding. But we launched on Freedom Day in July and we’re very happy with business growing week-on-week.”

Kaleido's Canary Wharf branch — Kaleido’s Canary Wharf branch – image by Matt Grayson

Part of that growth could well be down to the sheer numerical variety Kaleido’s model offers. Eating two rolls a day, it would take a working week to try everything available at lunchtime. The combinations multiply further when you factor in the optional dipping sauces available.

“When people come here they will find 10 flavours each day – some changing, some staying the same and all prepared at our Rainbow Kitchen in Bermondsey,” said Laura.

“The product is innovative in the way we execute the salads – we are the only people doing these rolls here and the idea is to reinvent the way people eat healthy food so it’s also convenient and fun.

“The mix and match is very much about my personality – I’m a Libra and all my life I have wanted this and then that, so here you can have different flavours and sauces.

“My husband and I both come from corporate backgrounds – we’ve worked long hours at desks so we value the benefit of variety, of rotating flavours.

“No-one wants to eat the same sandwich everyday – if they do, then bring them to me and I’ll have a chat with them.”

In addition to the extra attractions of Little Moons Mochi ice cream for dessert, a range of drinks and pre-packed boxes of rice paper rolls – for those who just don’t have time to choose their lunch – Kaleido is responsible for another first.

As far as we know, the shop is the first in Canary Wharf to lend out frisbees to its customers, with six displayed on a wall below an invitation to borrow.

“So far, one person has played with a frisbee,” said Laura. “This idea comes from the fact that we want people to eat healthy and live healthy – coming here and having a few throws with your colleagues outside is what we want to promote – embracing health.

“Our Kaleido rolls are not a diet food product and we would never position ourselves like that. But we believe they are healthy – they’re made only with ingredients you would find in a normal kitchen.

“They’re fresh, they’re simple and this is our vision of healthy food – the frisbee is a bit of fun to go alongside that. The rolls are also very filling – when you see the box, you don’t realise.

“People often don’t know how packed they are with the salad, so we’re going to do more imagery of what is inside in the future.”

Laura, who is originally from Paris said she and her husband wanted to grow the brand in London and then continue to expand.

“First we want to have more of our cabinets so that people can experience this iconic Kaleido way of serving food,” she said.

“Then we would like to branch out to other cities in the UK and across Europe. I’d love to, one day, open a shop in Paris.”

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