Beiting & Brew at The Waterside
From bringing restaurant quality dining and coffees to a takeaway platform, Beiting & Brew are now bringing their street food trailer vibes inside with a new location at The Waterside Bistro in Finstown.
We like food that you can eat on the street but can be refined to a level that you would eat it in a sit-down setting. We take food from around the world and then use Orkney ingredients as far as possible and give it our own twist.
Cousins Kit Bichan, and Daniel Gould work together to offer a wide range of delicious food to their customers. We spoke to Kit about their journey.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how Beiting & Brew came about?
A. Dan and I are cousins and have always worked in hospitality and in a of couple places together, in about 2018 we started considering working together. We both really wanted to do something quite grand with big ideas of buying somewhere, doing it up and giving it our stamp. But we soon realised that this was quite unachievable with the funds we had available. And so, we started looking into food trailers.
Looking into it we realised there were some pretty incredible street food traders in Scotland. Over the course of about a year we visited as many as we could and decided the time was right to buy a trailer and just go for it. We bought the trailer in 2019 and got to work on finding a space and getting the licence in order to trade. By early March 2020 we were good to go. Then lockdown hit which put the brakes on until the end of June 2020.
We had to wait a little bit before launching officially and there was a lot of uncertainty but as it turned out it was pure serendipity. We opened when things were starting to ease but because we were outside, there were far fewer restrictions and so we were busy from the start.
Q. How did you come up with the name and how do you pronounce Beiting & Brew?
A. Beiting (pronounced Bae-ting) is Norse for grazing.
Q. Beiting & Brew is now bringing its street food trailer vibes inside with an new location at The Waterside Bistro in Finstown. Can you tell us a bit about that?
A. Our prep kitchen since the start has been at the Waterside which had an unused café attached so the idea to use the space when COVID eased started in the very early days. The bistro has incredible views with the waves hitting the window, you are that close to the sea.
It also allows us to be more creative with the dishes and how we serve them along with some fine dining events whilst also keeping up with the takeaway side, we kind of want to do it all.
Q. Will you continue to run the food trailer or are you concentrating on Waterside Bistro now?
A. The food trailer is being kept and used very regularly at events around the county including Orkney Folk Festival, the County show, Dounby show, weddings and some corporate events so keep your eyes peeled on our social media at https://www.facebook.com/orkneystreetfood
Q. What are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of the industry?
A. Being creative with our menus is definitely the best part. We like to serve food we would like to eat. The most challenging part is not getting to sit down and enjoy it ourselves!
Q. How would you describe the food you offer? Are some/all of the ingredients sourced locally?
A. We like food that you can eat on the street but can be refined to a level that you would eat it in a sit-down setting. We take food from around the world and then use Orkney ingredients as far as possible and give it our own twist.
Q. Do you have a favourite recipe using local produce?
A. Local farmhouse cheese and beremeal waffles with brined and buttermilk-soaked fried chicken with Orkney root vegetable slaw and local Raspberry maple syrup.
To view menus, more mouth-watering photos of food, and to book a table at the Waterside Bistro, please visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/beitingandbrewatthewaterside/
By Victoria DixonOrkney and Shetland fanatic, likes to capture life through a lens, loves creating, eclectic taste in music, enjoys being a Mum; would secretly love to be a star of the West End!
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