Join London’s ‘Mile High’ Foodie Club Without Leaving the U.S.

Mile High is a pop-up restaurant exploring international cuisine. (Photo: ProJoe Photography)

Customs was a breeze, and I didn’t even have to check my bag. My passport was stamped, and the next thing I knew, I was standing in a cavernous, dim space drinking a tinto de verano, the quintessential Spanish summer cocktail made with chilled red wine, orange, and bitters.

Did I mention that customs was a breeze? That’s because I never actually left London, where I stood, “boarding pass” in hand, ready to consume a four-course Andalusian feast along with about 60 other “passengers” who had all booked tickets “aboard” this pop-up dining experience called Mile High.

The immersive concept, which debuted in March 2013, is the brainchild of four cousins: Anna, Will, Ed, and Oliver Templeton. Their dads are identical twins who work in education, and the whole clan, claims Anna, is “large and loud.”

Ranging in age from 23 to 32, the two sets of siblings conceived of the idea while driving home from their family’s annual golf championship get-together in October 2012.

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Will, Anna, Oliver, and Edward Templeton (Photo: Oleg Tolstoy)

“None of us wanted to go back to our jobs,” says Anna, who at the time was working in television. “My brother Will was in sales at a record label, Ed was in advertising, and Ollie was working at Moro, a very well known restaurant [in London]. Our dads set up their business together, so we’re used to a family of entrepreneurs.”

The cousins talked about their love of pop-ups “and how exciting the food scene was becoming; how it’s no longer stuffy and formal.” Soon enough, they were flying high on creativity with a side of couscous.

In a matter of months, the Templetons had quit their jobs and pooled their talents and resources to launch Shuttlecock, Inc., a company focusing on all types of immersive dining experiences, from chef residencies, where international cooks come and give Londoners a taste of their home-based menus, to Mile High, which has one chef — Ollie Templeton — cooking various cuisines at an undisclosed London location every couple of months. Hired actors serve as waiters who are dressed as flight attendants, and scripted captains mill about making sure you’re enjoying the ride. The menus always reflect a specific destination, the first of which was Gothenburg, followed by Beirut, Sicily, Mozambique, and the aforementioned Andalusia — “not the obvious ones,” says Anna.

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At Mile High, the wait staff dress up as flight attendants and pilots. (Photo: Mile High)

“We’re not the types to go on standard packaged holidays,” she says. “Learning about new cultures is really important to us. It’s very much part of our upbringing.”

Which is why for Mile High’s next event — their first held outside London, in New York from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4 — they felt strongly about clearing up one classic cultural cliché: British food sucks.

It’s true. We love the Italians for their pasta and the Greeks for their olives and feta. The Argentines have our devotion for their bife de lomo and Malbec, while the spice of our lives comes thanks to the Indians and the Thais and all their cardamom, cumin, and curry. But our neighbors across the pond? What have they given us besides beans on toast and fried fish with french fries masked as potato wedges?

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An Andalucian-themed dish at Mile High (Photo: Projoe Photography)

“British food has such a bad reputation in America,” says Anna. “Yes, old-school, postwar British food is absolutely disgusting, but luckily, those days are long gone.”

Nose-to-tail chefs such as Fergus Henderson of St. John have come out with really exciting menus and skill sets, says Anna: “Great recipes are coming out of this country now, so it’s time we show America we’re not all about pies or ‘toad in the holes.’”

This fall’s pop-up will be held somewhere on the Lower East Side, and 55 guests can expect to indulge in a menu of wildly diverse flavors. Yes, there will be clotted cream and a treacle or two, but other than that, there will be turbulence during the in-flight meal. Think more smoked pigeon breast, less Scotch egg. The secret setting, on the other hand, is primed to evoke traditional Pall Mall gentlemen’s clubs, complete with cigars, tufted leather booths, chesterfields, and taxidermy.

“Picture where all the MPs used to meet and talk,” says Anna. “We want the atmosphere to be extremely old and part of our heritage, while the food will draw on traditional cuts and recipes brought into the modern day.”

Tickets to Mile High, Destination: London, are $120 and include two glasses of Taittinger champagne. The event runs from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4 in New York.

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