Award-winning Indian veggie and craft beer venue is making a Bold street food move
BUNDOBUST, the highly-acclaimed Indian street food and craft beer venue, has submitted a license application to open a first floor restaurant above Greggs on Bold Street.
This will be the third Bundobust restaurant for co-owners Marko Husak (of Bradford’s Sparrow Bier Café) and Mayur Patel (from the renowned Prashad vegetarian restaurant). After humble beginnings selling food from the back of the van, their first restaurant opened in Leeds in the summer of 2014, followed by a second in Manchester at the end of 2016.
The brand has so far been a huge success, accumulating a number of awards, a recommendation in the 2017 Michelin Guide and a glowing review from national food critic and fan Jay Rayner, who predicted, “if there isn’t a Bundobust like this in every university town across the north of England within three years I’ll be very surprised.”
Their concept is simple; Gujurat-inspired street food and ‘the world’s best craft beer,' from both local and international breweries. Bundobust offer over a dozen at any time, from pale ales to German pilsner, stout and Weiss bier - including several from the North West.
"We like to support the good local breweries in each city," says Marko. "In Liverpool people like Black Lodge and Mad Hatter are making some really interesting beers, so we're looking at giving them permanent taps."
Food is casual, served on cardboard trays or in pots with biodegradeable and compostable cutlery, and the fact that it’s all vegetarian or vegan is almost incidental. Being meat-free, prices are kept reasonable, so it’s easy to get carried away and work your way through the menu. (Read the Manchester review here.)
Typical dishes include mushroom and cauliflower pakora, idli sambhar and masala dosa, as well as bhel puri, tarka dhal and popular signature appetiser Bundo chaat.
Subject to planning, Bundobust Liverpool is hoping to open on the first floor of 21 Bold Street by the end of summer 2018. But are they worried about a first floor venue being a tricky site?
"We're not a big budget venue," says Marko, "so we have to take weird sites. Bundobust Manchester is in a basement unit with one door but it has 160 covers and we're full every night.
"It's risky of course, but we have a unique offering and have built up a good reputation. The Liverpool unit has three large windows so, once we've added our graphics, we should be easy to spot."
So why did they choose Liverpool for their third venue? "It's a great city, with its own feel," Marko told us. "It supports quite a few good local independents like Maray and Wreckfish along with great history and a cracking music scene. It's a perfect fit."
