Guerrillas in our midst

Thought guerrilla restaurants were a forgotten flash in the pan? Think again. In the run-up to Christmas, the temporary restaurant is back ...
North Pole: underground restaurant in Manchester
North Pole in Manchester. Photograph: PR

Do you crave novelty? Are you easily bored? Do you regularly find yourself bemoaning the lack of variety and personality in an increasingly homogenised world?

If so, then Word of Mouth has some good news for you, albeit temporarily. For in Flash, the North Pole and the Double Club, Britain is currently witnessing a small, welcome renaissance of the guerrilla bar-restaurant.

It's like winter 2006 revisited - when, if you cast your mind back, the arrival of Reindeer at the Truman Brewery seemed to confirm a global appetite for short-lived restaurants in weird locations. At the time, you couldn't open a Sunday supplement without reading about Antwerp's Mist; California's unlicensed, unpredictable Blind Pig; or Amsterdam's mass takeaway eat-in, Food Facility. Restaurants, excitable trend analysts babbled, were the new warehouse raves; edgy pop-up spaces for the modern urban explorer. Only with profiteroles instead of disco biscuits.

And then? Well, nothing. The hype was so loud that no authentic grassroots movement could grow. The great guerrilla restaurant insurgency fizzled out and, but for a few random spurts of activity - Paul Kitching's brief return to his Geordie homeland, as part of Eat! Newcastle; this painfully fashion-looking 'happening' in New York; a blink-and-you'll-miss-it vegan cafe in Tokyo - we all went back to eating in proper restaurants with four walls and long leases.

Until now, that is. For once again, we have some substantive guerrilla activity to get our teeth into. Flash, part of a contemporary art event at the Royal Academy of Arts, open until January 19, is the work of restaurateurs Pablo Flack and David Waddington. Like their previous creation, Reindeer, and their long-standing restaurant, Bistrotheque, Flash exists at an intersection of ideas in art, fashion, cabaret and food. Like Belgian artist Carsten Höller's Double Club, an art installation, nightclub and restaurant serving Congolese and seasonal European food, it is a concept which many people will find - how would Waldemar Januszczak put it? - unbearably wanky.

Personally, I don't. I think lots of interesting and valuable things happen in environments which unimaginative people too easily dub pretentious. But that's an argument for another time and blog. So, let's focus, instead, on the North Pole in Manchester, a guerrilla opening that I've actually been to, and one which, unless I missed something, isn't attempting to make any points about western cultural chauvinism.

Housed in a giant tepee behind Urbis, and supported by Manchester City Council, it's the work of local events company Ear To The Ground. I can't think of anything I less want to drink than warm winter cocktails (£3.50), with names like Chocolate Wunder Warmer; the beer selection is boring; and at least one blogger seems to think that the whole thing sums up the elaborate con that is modern Manchester, but I like the place.

I like the quietly quirky all-white space (Christmas trees hung-upside down from the lighting rig; a frost-bitten polar explorer perched in the rafters), and I like the fact that it's attracting a good mixed crowd - curious shoppers and commuters transiting nearby Victoria station, as well as the expected students and Northern Quarter creatives, and in such numbers that, even at 4pm last Friday, there was a nice (dare I say, Christmassy) buzz to the place. But, most of all, I love the food.

Kept simple and relatively cheap, there's a choice of cockle-warming meat (£4.95) and veggie (£3.95) stews on offer, made by the team at the Angel. Someone needs to point out to the staff that, in terms of difficulty, attempting to spread rock hard butter onto a floury bap with a tiny plastic knife is second only to actually trekking to the North Pole, but my chicken, smoked pancetta and slow roasted tomato stew hit the spot. It was full of good, texturally firm chicken, had a rich, satisfying depth of flavour, and it certainly lifted my spirits on a sub-zero afternoon. Even if I was eating stood up, from a disposable paper bowl, using a plastic spoon.

But isn't that what guerrilla restaurants should be? That is, rough, ready and democratic places; eateries that dispense with the expensive bells and whistles of eating out. Places that offer simple, filling food, in entertaining, off-beat DIY spaces. Which isn't to choose the North Pole over Flash or the Double Club. To my mind, all inject a little spontaneity and colour into what can often be the fairly formulaic experience of eating out in a restaurant. The more the merrier.

But what about you? Would you love to see more impromptu eateries? Or are guerrilla restaurants - the chefs inevitably working in unfamiliar, temporary kitchens - always going to be a poor substitute for the real thing? Do you despair at this preference for baubles and novelty over true gastronomic quality? Or do you have fond memories of guerrilla restaurants gone by? If you've eaten at Flash or the Double Club, do share, and if you've heard of any other places popping up, please spill...