Vegan chicken appears to be Hackney’s latest success story, with scores of people queuing in the rain over the weekend in order to sample some.
The Temple of Hackney, on Morning Lane, is being billed as a ‘100% vegan chik’n shop’ and their opening weekend proved there is definitely a market for this latest culinary delight.
Speaking to East London Lines, the owner Rebecca said: “The response has been amazing, we are truly overwhelmed.”
People queuing in the rain for vegan fried chicken in Hackney. @templeofseitan seems to be a huge hit! #VeganJanuary #HackneyNews #Vegan pic.twitter.com/TuJoXBtcLt
— TrinaELL (@Trina_ELL) January 15, 2017
The crispy ‘chicken’ is made from seitan, which is a meat substitute made from wheat gluten. Alongside seitan snacks, there are also gluten free options available.
The Temple of Hackney was previously a pop-up selling substitute chicken. It proved so popular that they have now opened their very first stand-alone store in Hackney Central.
A queuing customer told East London Lines: “I don’t know if this response is exclusive to Hackney, but there was a vegan market here not so long ago and everything completely sold out in the first hour.”
Aside from the novelty of meat free chicken, Twitter users couldn’t help but point out the irony of this popular vegan take-away,opening right next door to a butchers, the halal Hackney Meat Centre.
Sad to see this vegan fried chicken place struggling to compete with the butchers next door #vegan #vegetarian #glu… pic.twitter.com/xvDHQO9SUJ
— Scarlet Richardson (@cookingscarlet) January 14, 2017
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