Island Poké plans further dark kitchen expansion
Located in Hackney, the new site follows three delivery-only openings in Battersea, Fulham and Notting Hill during the course of the pandemic, which founder James Porter has said all performed strongly both in and out of lockdown.
The offer, which includes build-your-own poké bowls, salad bowls and ready-made house bowls, is available for delivery or click and collect from each location, available through Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat or Island Poké’s own website.
Porter has told BigHospitality's sister site MCA that the White Rabbit-backed, Hawaiin-inspired brand has more launches coming soon, including a bricks-and-mortar opening set for the spring.
“We have more sites coming imminently,” he said.
“This [is] our fourth dark kitchen opening in between lockdowns. We’ve typically been in office-based locations so in the first lockdown we realised we had a gap in our armoury that we needed to fill.
“We’ve seen good successes in the dark kitchen space and we’re looking forward to seeing how it will fare after lockdown.”
Island Poké is considered to be one of the trailblazers for bringing Pacific Island-Asian fusion food to the capital and was founded by Porter, a former Bonhams auctioneer, back in 2015.
