Plateful Cafe needs a home… As some of our readers may remember, Plateful Café was at Parkside from June 2023 to April 2024 – first as a hospitality training space for our refugees, and then as a vibrant community café serving a Syrian-inspired menu. For many of our chefs, Parkside was an extremely important space that allowed them to learn and develop crucial skills in the hospitality sector. When our café closed in April after an eight-month pilot, its loss was deeply felt by our team and the community, who had come to see it as a welcoming space to gather and share food. Since then, we’ve continued our mission through pop-ups and community dinners, but operating without a dedicated kitchen has brought real challenges. Preparing food off-site and transporting it to various venues limits the number of chefs we can train and employ, and makes it harder to grow our impact. Despite these obstacles, our commitment to creating opportunities for refugees remains unwavering, and our adaptability has led us to explore new income-generating ventures like catering and private dining experiences! Now, we’re determined to find a permanent home once again that can house our chefs, support our day-to-day operations, and serve as a true community hub. We’re currently in talks with potential partners, including Blackfriars Settlement and Appleby Blueand are definitely hopeful of what these partnerships can bring! Thank you for joining us on this journey! What’s been on October? September was definitely an eventful month! Some of our highlights include the pop-up stall at the Family Mini Festival in Catford and a three-course lunch at Spitafield Farm to celebrate the Power of Food Festival. Both were lovely events where we got to interact with the community. October, so far, has been full of flavour! We kicked off the month with a sold-out Syrian Feast at Hilly Fields Café – a beautiful evening of food, culture, and connection. Following its success, we’re thrilled to share that we plan to host regular dinners there in the future (more information to come soon!) On the 17th, we’ll be welcoming guests to our very first Sudanese meal, featuring live music from Lucie Coholt, who will be performing her latest single, and a menu that celebrates the rich, diverse flavours of Sudanese cuisine. If you missed out on the above, don’t worry! Our regular pop-ups at SET Social and our Wednesday residency at Hill Station Café continue into the second half of the month. Thank you to everyone who’s joined us and supported these gatherings! Want to bring Plateful Cafe to your kitchen? You may have noticed our chefs have been sharing their favourite recipes on Instagram lately – and what a treat this is! Most recently, we have shared Ghormeh Sabzi (Herb and Kidney bean stew), a traditional Persian recipe that is a bowl of warmth and flavour. If you love to try new and exciting flavours, this one is for you. For more recipes, follow our Instagram! Have a special event coming up? Choose Plateful for your next event and make a difference! We cater for any occasion from weddings to corporate events, our diverse menu offers global flavours, and includes three-course meals and delicious canapes. We would love to celebrate your special event with you! For enquiries, please click the link below. For more information please contact: [email protected]
And end of year note from Iolanda Thank you for your support in what has been quite the rollercoaster year for Plateful Café. The biggest challenge ever remains the lack of a permanent venue. Despite an ever-increasing demand for our catering services, presence at pop ups and events, we continue to cook and deliver food from my house. In 2025 we have catered for over fifty events all over London, but predominantly in south-east. Quite often, we cook over three days for a single event due to a lack of storage and space to accommodate multiple cooks each time in a domestic kitchen. I am the shopper, cook, cleaner, driver, fundraiser, coordinator, networker, advocate and so many more roles that it would be impossible to list them all. It is exhausting! As a Founder I have a moral responsibility to keep going in the interest of others and to continue to make a difference in the locality and in the lives of so many people. I continue to believe that we can find ways to change the narrative on migration and rolling up her sleeves to make it happen. We have travelled so far but the journey continues to be so long and arduous on the road to finding our home. I continue to be privileged to work with a wonderful team of volunteers supporting all our efforts as we are still volunteer-run and refugee-led. It is not an understatement to say that the whole team has had to dig deep this year, with their trademark passion and commitment. Holding our mission in mind and navigating anti-migration sentiment in the UK has only made us more determined to realise our vision. As we look towards 2026, we remain driven by the belief that Britain’s story is richer, deeper, and more interconnected than the headlines suggest. A permanent Plateful Café will be a place where that full picture is visible, celebrated and understood. Being a place where everyone can feel that they belong is central to everything we do and the training which we hope to restart. ~ Iolanda Chirico Our Amazing Volunteers Before launching into some of the incredible things our volunteers had to say about the organisation, a quick acknowledgement of their dedication must first be made. With 48 volunteers spread across eight teams of various operations, Plateful Café truly embodies what it means to be volunteer-run. A big thank you to all of you – your efforts do not go unnoticed. “My decision to volunteer with Plateful stemmed from my awareness of the disadvantages and struggles of refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK. Plateful’s aim to reduce socio-economic and ethnic inequality resonates with me deeply.” Orla, Admin Volunteer “I love working with Plateful, working alongside the chefs and volunteers who have faced unimaginable challenges to reach and settle in the UK.” Anne, Plateful driver What Customers Had to Say 2025 was a year of great success for Plateful. It saw catering done for a myriad of events, leaving very fed and satisfied customers. The organisation aims to use the uniting force of food to diffuse its message, and below are some examples of just that. “I really liked the ethos of Plateful Café: supporting refugee chefs – and it turns out the food is absolutely fabulous too. It was great value for money for our cowork Christmas Party 2025: interesting, tasty and well presented too. Highly recommend!” Sarah Greene, Co-Founder Buro Cowork “Everyone had such a lovely time. Seriously, best Christmas party ever. The food was so good, the room was beautiful and the creativity worked perfectly. I’ve sent the Plateful shop website link round and we will definitely spread the word about how brilliant both your organisations are. Thank you, again, for giving us a really special evening” Anood Al-Samerai, CEO, Community Southwark Looking Ahead…. The year is starting in full swing, with us running the Warm Space at Blackfriars settlement. Starting from the 7th of January and continuing each Wednesday, we will be preparing soups from all around the world for sixty people. Jumping to February, our next dinner at Hilly Fields Café will be on 14th of the month to celebrate Valentine’s day. This will feature a Sudanese themed three course menu, with tickets going on sale soon! These are just snippets into the events Plateful holds, so be sure to regularly check both our Instagram and website to avoid missing out on any exciting updates. Once again, Happy New Year from us at Plateful! If you thought that 2025 was a brilliant year (which it of course was), just wait to see what we have in store for 2026…
