WE’RE MORE THAN STOKED TO HAVE THE WONDERFUL LD’S KITCHEN SERVING THE FINEST VEGAN FOOD FOR THE SOUL HERE AT THE BLACK HEART
https://www.facebook.com/ldskitchenbristol // https://www.instagram.com/lds.kitchen/

TUESDAY 5pm-10pm
WEDNESDAY 5pm-10pm *
THURSDAY 5pm-10pm
FRIDAY 5pm-10pm
SATURDAY 1pm-10pm (BRUNCH MENU TIL 5pm) **
SUNDAY 12pm-6pm (ROAST MENU ALL DAY) ***

* WEDNESDAYS ARE WING WEDNESDAYS !! 5 FLAVOURS OF VEGAN WING - £2 PER WING !!
** SATURDAYS ARE BRUNCH MENU ONLY 1pm-5pm AND NORMAL MENU 5pm-10pm !! (last brunch sitting 4.15pm)
*** SUNDAYS ARE ROAST MENU ONLY !! (last sitting 5pm, max 6 per table)

ABOUT LD’S KITCHEN

“LD’s Kitchen started because I was pregnant with my son, and started really craving chicken skin. But I’m vegan and that didn’t exist. So, I had to make it myself.”

Obviously there’s a bit more to it than that, but LD’s Kitchen, and her famous skin-on vegan chicken wings, came into the world out of a moment of craving. Locked down during COVID, out of work because (as you may remember) there wasn’t a whole lot of work for musicians during those dark days, and with a newborn baby on the way, Turbowolf’s Lianna Lee Davis got down to it in her home kitchen in Bristol and laid the groundwork for the all the ethical deliciousness that’s been served up by her and her kitchen team ever since.

”All of my touring work with Turbowolf just disappeared. I’d been self-employed as a music teacher, so I didn’t have the option of furlough, I couldn’t get benefits… I was fucked, basically! But, aside from music, cooking was the other thing I considered myself to be good at. So, I created my menu, did some market research, gave up my teaching completely and set out.”

Hiring only her fellow out-of-work musicians, and taking the foundations of her menu from the American side of her family that first introduced her to the possibilities of incredible tasting vegan BBQ soul food (“They were like OG 70s vegans who inspired me so much - I would go over for things like 4th July and they’d cook these incredible BBQ beans, they basically turned me vegan”), LD quickly built up a mini delivery empire in Bristol. No Deliveroo, no Uber Eats, just a bassist banging out amazing vegan food and (more often than not) a guitarist or drummer delivering it to wherever it was needed

”Half my band got hired - despite having no kitchen experience - and I trained them up as far as I could. I was never properly trained up myself, though, so I had one of my ‘proper chef’ friends come in and teach me, then I passed that on to everyone else. Then, while all this was happening it got extremely popular before we’d even really realised. People loved it, and we started getting loads of attention.”

The problem with a small business you run from your home kitchen, though, is that once popularity starts to snowball it can be hard to keep up. And, as it turned out, a life of making rad (but maybe not the most sensible in the eyes of a credit agency) choices can really scupper even the best-laid plans.

“Being a self-employed musician my whole life I couldn’t get approved for a loan. So I had to shut down the business in Bristol.”

Clearly, though, the LD’s story doesn’t end there. We’d all be a lot hungrier if it did.
A longshot text to our very own tech manager (shoutout to Paula, forever and always) about looking for a space in London lead LD to The Black Heart, and it’s been a perfect match made in hell ever since.

”Being that music and musicians have always been such a crucial part of me doing this, setting up in a metal bar that’s also a music venue felt like a perfect fit. As soon as I came in to scout the kitchen I knew it felt like it was just the right place to take what I was doing to the next level. It’s felt like home ever since.”

Since then, things have come a long way. Starting out with a wings-based menu, LD’s Kitchen has gone on to develop incredible offerings for Saturday brunch, Sunday roasts (“I actually wasn’t sure roasts would work - but that’s our busiest day now!”) and festive specials, with more amazing ideas to be taken from brain to plate in the near future. We can’t tell you exactly what to expect yet, but we can tell you to expect it to be just as mouth-watering and authentic as everything else LD’s Kitchen has put out.

“Even now I’m developing new ideas, trying to put even more of what I love into it. But the main thing is that it is what I love, it’s food from the soul - soul food. Every little detail is something I’ve worked really hard on, and still work hard on. My menus are literally me on a plate - that’s why the portions are so big, I’m such a feeder!”

And all this because pregnancy cravings are not to be fucked with. Mad, eh?

PRESS / AWARDS

TIME OUT - LONDON’S BEST BRUNCHES | TIME OUT - LONDON’S BEST SUNDAY LUNCHES | TWISTED FOOD - HOW TO VEGANISE A DISH FEATURE | LITTLE LONDON VEGAN FEATURE | GAY FAT VEGAN BRUNCH COVERAGE |
TASTING TABLE - BEST ROAST RESTAURANTS | THE VEGAN REVIEW - HOW TURBOWOLF BASSIST LIANNA LEE DAVIES STARTED A VEGAN KITCHEN IN LOCKDOWN | TOTALLY VEGAN BUZZ - BRISTOL MUSICIANS USE COVID DOWNTIME TO LAUNCH VEGAN BBQ RESTAURANT | LITTLE LONDON VEGAN SECOND FEATURE | ISSY THE VEGAN - BRUNCH REVIEW | MXDWN - BRISTOL CAFE OPENED BY TURBOWOLF BASSIST FOR STRUGGLING MUSICIANS | TURBOWOLF BASSIST OPENS CAFE HIRES MUSICIANS