'Give people a chance': Monica Galetti on the restaurant helping people out of homelessness

Moments away from Primrose Hill, the famous park where locals and tourists descend for summer evenings with views of the London skyline, there is an exciting new restaurant. It is on Regents Park Road, known for its independent boutique shops, cafes and restaurants with pastel-painted terraces. You might spot a celebrity strolling past. 

One of the most recognisable chefs in Britain, MasterChef: The Professionals judge Monica Galetti, is on board as executive chef. She has helped design the menu and mentor the new recruits. 

But what makes 130 Primrose truly special, and what sets it apart from the upscale restaurants in the neighbourhood, is that it has hired people facing homelessness, giving them jobs, training and work experience to help them find a way out of hardship. 

Read more:

• Masterchef star Monica Galetti joins restaurant staffed by homeless people
• Home Kitchen: Inside the world’s first fine-dining restaurant staffed by homeless chefs
• What does the government’s cost of living boost mean for family budgets this summer?

Big Issue met Galetti in the restaurant before it launched in May, and we spoke beside the large windows which let light flood into the dining room. 

Why did she want to get involved? 

“Why wouldn’t you?” she exclaims. 

Galetti is a regular volunteer at Soup Kitchen London, which is run by Alexander Brown, who is also co-founder of 130 Primrose. “Alex reached out and asked if I wanted to be a part of this, and I thought: ‘What a great opportunity.’ 

“I know there are a few other projects like this throughout the UK and London, but for this particular one, I think it’s very important to be able to provide an opportunity to give people a chance to get back into life.”

The restaurant was first launched in 2024 under the name Home Kitchen Diner. With Michelin-starred chef Adam Simmons as executive chef and financial backing from Big Issue Invest, it employed 16 people with experience of homelessness, including care leavers, refugees, prison leavers and people in addiction recovery.

Co-founder Michael Brown (no relation to Alexander) explains that while Home Kitchen was successful in lots of ways, with five of the cohort securing further employment, there were teething difficulties.

“We felt we weren’t getting it quite right with Home Kitchen as the brand. People would often step in off the street and think that we sold kitchens,” Brown says. 

“On the mission side, there were steep learning curves. We hired 16 people from the homeless community and just two professionals, our head chef and general manager. For all of those first cohort, we were their first ever jobs. They weren’t used to working in structured working environments. When we got busy, it sort of fell over.” 

It is a tricky time to launch a restaurant, as the hospitality industry struggles to recover from the pandemic and cost of living crisis, the latter of which is heating up again. People don’t have as much disposable income to spend on eating out. 

Galetti says: “The restaurant industry has already gone through so much change. It’s constantly evolving. It comes with a lot of pressures financially. There’s change that is needed for them to succeed. A lot of small businesses are closing.” 

Home Kitchen got good reviews (currently at 4.7 stars on Google) and the restaurant got good press. People bought into the mission. 130 Primrose is a charity now, rather than a community interest company.  

“It’s been a lot of work, and a lot of love has been put into it,” Brown says. “We’re cognisant of the fact that we didn’t quite get it right the first time. Can we get it right the second time? We’re excited about the potential. People love what we’re trying to do. They see the romance of the big idea, changing the perceptions of what it is to be homeless.” 

Home Kitchen proved this concept can change lives. Ade, who was among the first cohort of recruits, was sleeping rough and struggling to find work when he was hired as a kitchen porter. 

A father of four children from Nigeria, he says: “I have a roof over my head through the help of Home Kitchen. It gave a lot of incentive. Apart from getting a salary, you get paid for transport, you get tips. It makes a big difference to your life.” 

Ade had been separated from his children, now aged between eight and 16, while facing homelessness. “Home Kitchen brought me back to my family. I’ve been a responsible dad,” he says, adding that he now co-parents and has his children come and stay with him. 

He found a support network among his colleagues too. “We work more like a family because we all come from the same background. We were all vulnerable. Being on the street, coming to see ourselves together, working as a team, and being happy together, I feel like I have a new family. I have a new home,” Ade says. 

He now works at Soup Kitchen London as an operations assistant. It’s a job he loves even more than Home Kitchen, as he helps people facing homelessness. 

“I was able to understand how people can feel,” Ade says. “I’m in charge of storage so I can see if they need shoes, toothpaste, clothing, food. I’m able to make a big difference. And the smiles on their faces make me feel gratified.” 

Galetti says she is “passionate about this restaurant being a success”. 

The menu she helped design features classic British food, and Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes. 

“We’re not doing fine dining here. We’re doing accessible food in a neighbourhood restaurant. Look around you. We have people who are heading to the park. We’ve got people in suits. We’ve got neighbourhood mums walking dogs and pushing prams. We want to be accessible to everyone. Fine dining can limit your clientele and that’s not what we want. We embrace everyone that walks in,” Galetti says. 

She adds that it’s important to have people from a range of backgrounds in the kitchen to keep a menu interesting. 

“Food is about cultures and it evolves that way. In my experience, the more cultures I have in the kitchen, the more exciting it is. I love discovering where someone comes from, what they eat when they’re at home or with family. Maybe we get them to make it. If it’s great, we put it on the menu. It makes for a nice atmosphere in the kitchen.” 

Galetti was born in Samoa and she brings her culture into the kitchen. “In my own cooking, you can’t escape it. Even at home, we tend to have quite a bit of it.” 

Samoan food is not currently on the menu at 130 Primrose, but that may change, or one of the new recruits might bring their own suggestions to evolve the dishes. 

Trainees will join the restaurant for six-month stints before they hopefully move on to further employment, which Brown explains is so they can help as many people as possible to find a way out of homelessness. 

They will be referred to 130 Primrose by partner organisations including Big Issue, Crisis, Only a Pavement Away and On the Passage. 

Galetti hopes she can provide mentorship to some of the recruits, as she has had mentors who have helped her throughout her career. After she trained to be a chef in New Zealand, she moved to the UK in 1999 to work under Michel Roux Jr at the two Michelin starred restaurant Le Gavroche. 

“I had great teachers, great mentors in kitchens and in hospitality that I still keep in contact with now. When someone has been very kind with their time with you, it’s the only thing you know to be the same with someone else coming through.” 

The building we are sat in now used to be a restaurant owned by Galetti’s friend Bryn Williams, who she worked with at Le Gavroche. She says the “best thing” about being a chef is the people she has worked with over the years. 

At 130 Primrose, she has brought with her a former colleague who is a pastry chef and a mother of two to work part time. “That’s what I love about hospitality,” Galetti says. “It’s about keeping those relationships.” 

She recently launched a restaurant in Samoa and helped train people there too. 

“When you are given a skill in life, to share that onto the next generation is important. I’ve just opened a restaurant in Samoa and those chefs had next to zero training,” Galetti says. “It was possibly one of the toughest things I’ve done but it’s standing back and watching those chefs taking it on and seeing them flourish. It’s the most amazing feeling you can have that you had a little part in that.” 

Galetti paints a picture of the restaurant industry which seems warm and inviting, a different world to the representations of hospitality often seen in culture, such as in award-winning TV series The Bear or the 2021 film Boiling Point.  

She has never watched The Bear and doesn’t have any interest in watching it – it would be a bit like an A&E doctor watching Casualty. 

Galetti says: “There’s so much more to hospitality than what everyone goes on about. It’s camaraderie. It’s working with a team. It’s building up a team together. It’s the love of making people happy. That’s what hospitality truly is about, front of house and back of house. We cook because we want people to enjoy what we do. 

“We serve because you want people to be happy. That’s the heart of hospitality. The tension does happen in high-end restaurants or any restaurants in a service, but that shouldn’t be the heart of why someone goes to a restaurant.”

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