From Pop-Up to Cult Favourite: A conversation with Chef Founder Remi Williams, Smoke & Salt

It’s been five years since Smoke & Salt quietly reshaped how South London eats. Founded by chefs Remi Williams and Aaron Webster, the Tooting restaurant has become a neighbourhood favourite built on memory-driven flavours, ancient techniques and a deeply respectful approach to ingredients. Williams, who grew up across the US, Nigeria and the UK, draws on a multicultural food vocabulary – fermentation, curing, braising, slow cooking – to coax depth and soul from seasonal British produce. What began as a pop-up and shipping container residency has evolved into a restaurant defined by community, thoughtfulness and craft. Here, almost everything is made in-house, and nothing is wasted. The philosophy is simple: the ingredient always leads. As Smoke & Salt celebrates its fifth anniversary, Williams reflects on identity, resilience, and the quiet power of cooking with intention.

Chef Remi Williams

• You originally studied chemistry before switching to cooking, how do you feel your scientific training influences your approach in the kitchen now?

I think chemistry gave me a foundation for understanding why things happen in cooking rather than just how. It made me comfortable experimenting and breaking things down into processes. I found that the understanding of processes made it easier to get a good understanding of what steps would and could work whilst cooking. A lot of our work at Smoke & Salt – fermentation, preservation, even menu testing – comes from that analytical curiosity.

• You have lived across multiple countries and your family heritage is mixed. How do those cultural influences show up in your style / flavour intuition today?

Food memory is a huge part of what I do. Having a mixed heritage and living in different places means flavours aren't overtly bound to one region, it’s more about recognising patterns of comfort and balance. You might see a British ingredient treated with African, American or Asian sensibility, but it always comes from an honest place rather than fusion for fusion’s sake. Technique is always the main driver in those instances with a focus on creating a point of difference through that technique.

• You and Aaron met at The Shed and decided to launch something together. What were the biggest creative tensions or points of divergence early on, and how did you reconcile them?

Fundamentally we both agreed on our desires to create an offering that crossed boundaries whilst remaining interesting and humble. We do have different ways of expressing creativity: Aaron has always been much more thought through with his approach, while I start with many ideas then bring them together into a coherent package, dropping components and ideas as needed. Over time, we realised those differences are complementary. We trust each other’s instincts and push each other to see things from a different angle. That tension still persists and has generally always served us for the better.

Dish at Smoke & Salt

• How do you and Aaron split creative vs business responsibilities now? And has that shifted over time?

It’s evolved a lot. These days I lean more into the culinary, service and concept side while Aaron handles more of the logistics, management, and business dynamics. But the overlap is constant; we make all the big creative calls together, and we’re both involved in shaping how the brand grows. We are trying to start a slight side-hustle of a chef consultancy, in an attempt to continue to work together on projects that might be bigger than ours or that might need that little Smoke & Salt touch.

• Which ancient methods are most at the heart of Smoke & Salt, and which ones are emerging or experimental for you now?

Curing, pickling, and smoking have always been our backbone – those are timeless methods. More recently we’ve been playing with preservation techniques influenced by fermenting. It’s less about being old or new and more about building layers of flavour that feel right and make sense within our offering.

• What is your guiding principle in deciding how much transformation to impose on an ingredient, versus letting it shine on its own?

The ingredient always leads. We used to try a lot of different ideas on a plate but now the process and choices have to add meaning or complexity. Sometimes the most honest thing is to keep it simple and take out the extra component that isn't needed, letting the ingredient do the talking. Other times, a little manipulation reveals something way more. Neither of us have ever really been led or guided by ego.

Dessert at Smoke & Salt

• You opened your permanent site in Tooting in April 2020, right as the first lockdown struck. Having missed the "opening buzz," how did you pivot during those early months, and how did that shape the identity of Smoke & Salt?

We went straight into survival mode: meal kits, takeaway menus, testing ideas at speed. It stripped everything back and made us focus on what mattered: generosity, flavour, and community. That period shaped Smoke & Salt into something more resilient and more grounded in people than we’d planned.

• How do you see Tooting as a neighbourhood influencing your food, your ethos or your clientele?

Tooting has this brilliant mix of cultures and characters. Our guests are adventurous but down-to-earth. It’s made even more fun when guests turn from first-timers in the restaurant to regulars on the kitchen counter. We've always aimed to keep our cooking and style of service accessible; less about fine dining and more about connection. It’s the kind of place where you can be serious about food without taking yourself too seriously. We have always been open with our approach since we launched back in Brixton and it's not about being trendy. One of our key ways to describe the guest experience is to give the experience you'd be proud to give your mother or grandmother.

• You’re known for doing nearly everything in-house. Which in-house processes were hardest to scale, and which have given you the most joy?

Getting our bread program down is, and was, definitely tricky. When we moved out of our shipping container we launched Smoke & Salt, Tooting, with a bread selection. Getting that consistency without losing character is hard. But those are also the most rewarding. Ironically we have now pared back; we offer our OG pretzels (the first bread Aaron ever created for us) and a gluten-free basmati bread for those who request it. I do long to have our sourdough and focaccia back on the menu and hopeful that success through consistency will get us there.

Smoke & Salt exterior

• What are your most effective or unexpected strategies to reduce food waste, both in the kitchen and through menu design?

Designing dishes around preservation and cross-utilisation helps a lot. We also treat trim and offcuts as ingredients in their own right. Sometimes the waste stream ends up inspiring a dish; it’s not about austerity, it’s about creativity. Other times, they find their way into our daily staff/family meal (although the odd local takeaway has been a treat on those more desperate and intense prep/service days).

• At five years, that’s a meaningful milestone. Looking back, what’s a decision you made that now seems pivotal; one you’d do differently if you could revisit it?

Committing to our permanent site in 2020 was both the best and hardest decision, especially when you factor-in launching at the height of a global pandemic. I wouldn’t change it despite feeling that we have re-opened the same restaurant in about four different iterations due to lockdowns, building issues and the unexpected delays of our neighbouring building site (which at one point became a dumping ground for a travelling community). In mid-2024 we finally jettisoned our ailing à la carte menu and haven't looked back. Maybe we should have just led with, and stuck with this plan, in the first place, but I wouldn't shirk the journey and learning opportunities we have had imposed upon ourselves.

• If you had unlimited resources, what’s one "dream project" you’d do with Smoke & Salt?

I’d love a small farm or growing space linked to the restaurant. A place where guests could see the ingredients evolve before they reach the plate. That, and a dedicated fermenting and curing facility to fuel the growth and development of our dishes.

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