Blanch & Shock

Blanch & Shock was started by Mike Knowlden, Josh Pollen and Amy Houston in 2009 in London, UK.

Our first projects combined food and the arts. We designed and cooked food and drink for immersive theatre, performance and gallery shows. From this experimental beginning, our interest grew in exploring old and modern cooking techniques and the northern European palate of ingredients.

We were itinerant chefs and designers, cooking where we could. After a couple of years of masterminding projects, Amy left to pursue other work in hospitality and beyond.

Josh and Mike continued, working with some brilliant collaborators and enjoying projects around the UK and Europe. In 2017, we built a kitchen studio at Artichoke Mews, Camberwell.

This was a base from which to prep and to welcome in guests for occasional dinners. Josh cooked and fermented, Mike chose and poured the wine. After a few years in Camberwell, global and personal changes intervened, and we both sought new directions in food and drink.

Whilst remaining close, we are no longer working as Blanch & Shock. Josh chefs and has an R&D/fermentation project and Mike is a wine educator and drinks consultant.

Many of our projects can be seen in more detail on the Archive page.

Publications

Blanch & Shock was featured in Designer 100 | Food Design, a collection of 50 Chinese and 50 global food design projects published in 2023.

Elisa Oliver interviewed us for the Meal edition of the food journal FEAST.

Nevin Taylor interviewed us for Cooking Up a Podcast.

We are featured in in Gestalten’s roundup of innovative culinary projects, A Delicious Life: New Food Entrepreneurs

Our custom serviceware features in Charles Spence and Betina Piqueras Fiszman's The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining

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Blanch and Shock is a trading name of Wow Factor 9 LTD, company number 10067117 registered in England & Wales.