Food Service

Vegan Chef Gaz Oakley Opens Travelling Pop-Up Restaurant

Vegan chef Gaz Oakley, best known for his YouTube channel Avant Garde Vegan, has announced he will be opening a travelling pop-up restaurant called Nana O’s.

Named after his grandmother, the restaurant will begin in Oakley’s hometown of Cardiff and will be focused on comfort food. The chef announced in 2016 that he would open a restaurant once he reached a million YouTube subscribers, a milestone that he achieved during the pandemic.

“I have always dreamed of having my own restaurant”

Due to the recent challenges faced by the hospitality sector, along with his desire to have a kitchen garden on the premises of his restaurant, Oakley says a permanent site is not currently feasible. Instead, he has chosen a popup concept — and hundreds of bookings have already been made since it was announced. Nana O’s will open at Cardiff’s Neighbourhood Kitchen from June 23rd to July 3rd.

© Tom Lewis/Avant Garde Vegan

“Since I was a young chef, I have always dreamed of having my own restaurant and back then I thought by now for sure I would have one..but life works in mysterious ways,” Oakley said on Instagram. “Here we are 14 years after I first walked into a professional kitchen, announcing the start of my new pop-up restaurant tour concept, Nana O’s. It is only right that I start off in the city where I first started cooking, my home town Cardiff.”

Collaborations

In recent years, Gaz Oakley has worked with several businesses — he creates dishes for The Vurger Co, and has designed a vegan jacket in collaboration with fashion brand Embassy of Bricks and Logs. Additionally, Oakley supported grain and legume brand Merchant Gourmet in its transition to becoming fully plant-based, and has created a dish called Avant Gard’n for restaurant chain Wagamama — which became 50% plant-based last October.

“The Wagamama collab is one of the best things that has happened to me,” Oakley told Totally Vegan Buzz. “For a mainstream restaurant like Wagamama to give me the opportunity is just unbelievable.”

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