Quirky pop-up business Shroom transforming vegan dining by creating one-of-a-kind menu showcasing mushrooms

Trailblazers, Lucy Bridgewater and Antonia Niblock, have launched a one-of-a-kind pop-up vegan business, Shroom, that has gone down a treat with the people of Southsea. The plant based business, which showcases the endless possibilities of mushrooms, was founded six months ago and the two entrepreneurs have already completed two residencies in Southsea.

Currently based at The Royal Albert pub, the two friends have transformed an area of the pub into a vegan paradise where they dish up a range of delicacies including their mac and cheese and BBQ stacker. The two friends completely transform the spaces they work with at each pop-up through the use of mushroom art, pink lighting and unique decor.

Antonia said: “Myself and Lucy met working at the same place and it was quite serendipitous because we both started on the same day and it was a bit of a chance encounter and then we got to know eachother – we are both vegans, both passionate about food and we both realised we were having a love affair with mushrooms.

"We realised there was a bit of a gap in the market because there is no evening vegan spots in Southsea.”

Lucy and Antonia have used their experiences to create a quirky menu that has been carefully crafted. The menu features breaded garlic mushrooms, cheesy truffle chips, pesto mush mac and cheese, the Korean burger, the British burger and the Argentinian burger, all of which have had a brilliant response from customers.

Lucy said: “Before coming to Southsea - I had lived in London for the past 20 years and I left the corporate world and went travelling.

"I went to Argentina and was able to go to a culinary school in Buenos Aires – There were two mushroom restaurants and I had never seen that anywhere and I thought this could really fly in the UK. I moved back to Southsea and I knew I wanted to start a business but didn’t want to do it by myself. I started working at the cafe and met Antonia – it is really difficult to find people that you really get on with and we were working together really well.

"I think sometimes vegans want to go somewhere that is entirely vegan – We want to create vegan food that appeals to the masses, we don’t just want to preach to the choir and the lovely thing about being in The Royal Albert is that it isn’t our usual clients.”

The dynamic duo’s goal would be to have a number of Shroom pop-up’s all over the country in order to give people a unique plant based dining experience.

Lucy added: “We really like the pop-up business model and I think if we could go into unused kitchens in other businesses I could see us having pop-ups all across the country.

"If we can prop up other businesses in the industry with Shroom, it would be great.”

The Shroom pop-up at The Royal Albert is open between 6pm and 9pm from Thursday to Saturday every week. For more information about Shroom, click here.

Here are 12 pictures of the unique business Shroom in Southsea: