9 bonkers London food trends that we can’t believe are real

They say that you are what you eat. But if you've chowed down any of London's latest, freakiest food trends, then you're some kind of monster.

We've rounded up nine of the craziest, weirdest, strangest, and down-right scariest crazes that are currently running riot around the eateries of our capital city. 

Prepare your stomach for a whole load of confusion...

Freakshakes

Look at the state of it. It’s monstrous, disgusting, horrendous, ugly, disgraceful. There’s no way you’ll find us at Molly Bakes in Dalston, or queuing outside Maxwell’s in Covent Garden for their ‘BanScoffee Freakshake’. What is a 'BanScoffee Freakshake'? Eurgh, it’s a “banana fudge shake with slathers and dribbles of toffee sauce, a light cloud of whipped cream blended with banana, creamy toffee and fudge bites topped with more toffee sauce, crumbled honeycomb chocolate and banana, creamy vanilla ice cream with chocolate wafers and marshmallows dipped in toffee chocolate.” No no, not for us. Sounds absolutely magical filthy.  

Meat doughnuts

It’s the bakery staple that the American police force was built on. With unnaturally vibrant glazes, faker-than-fake fruit fillings and enough sugar to send Jamie Oliver into a fury coma, the donut has been top of the cheat eats ever since an Irish nuclear scientist named Donald O’Nut accidently created one in a test tube mix-up back in 1741 (remember to check this fact).  Now, they’ve mutated. They’ve mutated BIG time. London restaurants have gone meat mad with them, adding animal flesh to the once jammy centres. BIRD on Kingsland Rd have been known to add bacon and maple syrup to theirs, with crab donuts coming from Chiltern Firehouse and spicy ox cheek donuts coming at you at Duck & Waffle. But the king of them all has to be the mighty Donut Burger from Red’s True BBQ. Put simply, it’s a delicious £12.95 heart attack. 

Stuff served in tins

You might remember a short-lived Soho restaurant named Tincan that cropped up back in 2014. There, inspired by a tiny Lisbon eatery doing the same thing, you could tuck into any number of really fancy tinned fish cans, including mackerel fillets and urchin caviar. It only hung around for six months, but the tin thing didn’t die when the temporary shop shut it doors. Endure the vertigo at the new Notch rooftop garden and drink ace pre-batched cocktails, such as negronis, in vessels very like tuna tins, or hit up Jose Pizarro, and chomp your way through their sardines served in their little metal coffins. 

Phonebox salads

It’s a salad, served from a phonebox. Gettit? Clever chef Ben Spier has saved one London phonebox by turning it into his own little salad bar, offering loads of tasty and fresh options every day. You’ll find him in Bloomsbury Square. 

Naked dining

Yeah, we all heard about this one a few weeks back. We get it – eat your dinner in the dark with no clothes on. Actually, we don’t get it. We don’t get it at all. Moving on…

Political burgers

Should we stay or should we go? Are we in or are we out? Forget biased news reports and agenda-setting politicians – why not turn to this burger from The Blues Kitchen for EU referendum advice? The beast's stack of ingredients come from our Euro neighbours, and forms a tasty slab of anti-exit propaganda that highlights what we stand to lose if we vote out. Go eat them up all through June 2016. 

Beer pizza

In a pretty clear example of just banging two good things together in a bid to make an even good-er thing, Pizza Hut recently launched two pizzas with craft-beer infused dough. They only stuck around for one day in May, but did we care? We did not. That’s because we got wind of brilliant London pizza joint Yard Sale adding beer to their ‘Mullered Mushroom’ dish in June when they open their Finsbury Park eatery, and that sounds way better. 

Sea water pizza

Images of a moustachioed Italian man serving you a steaming-hot red pizza pie only to throw a bucket of water all over it? Yeah, us too. Luckily, that’s not the case here. A traditional pizzeria is opening up in July 2016 in London Bridge that offers ‘healthy pizza’. HEALTHY. PIZZA. What is this witchcraft, we hear you cry? By adding pure sea water to their dishes, ’O ver say there will be 40 times less salt in what you get on your plate at their new place. Healthy pizza. Unreal. 

Bugs

Many have tried, and failed, to get creepy crawlies to catch on in the capital. Mexican giants Wahaca, for example, served up grasshoppers on their menu for a while, before getting back to what they know best – killer tacos. But a weird little eatery on Cleveland St has been doing it for aaages. Run along to Archipeligo and get your chops around their ‘Love-bug salad’ for £7.50. Yeah, best not knowing what goes into this one.