NUSA KITCHEN
Tell us how you created Nusa Kitchen? What kind of processes did you go through?
Nusa Kitchen was created more than 15 years ago by Patou Cox, a lovely lady from Singapore who moved to London. She missed the spicy and tasty food from her native country and opened her own little soup shop in Old Street. My partners and myself got involved 6 years ago and together with Patou we have grown and developed Nusa into what it is today.
What was the most challenging thing whilst you were establishing Nusa Kitchen?
Growth is always challenging, it looks so easy on paper to create a project, a business plan, numbers, but then to make it work in real life is a completely different thing.
What is the story behind the name Nusa Kitchen?
Nusa is the Indonesian/Malay word for island. We are an island in the City of London where you find food that tastes like nowhere else.
Nusa Kitchen grew significantly, in a short time and now you have six well located shops in London. Which unique elements of your business do you think brought you the success?
There are a few things that differentiate us, first of all that we cook all our food ourselves, in our own kitchen, using fresh and healthy ingredients. We also rotate our soup menu weekly, nobody else does that and it helps us to keep things exciting for our many regular customers.
Since you started to build Nusa Kitchen, vegan shops have become `trendy` and now pretty much every food supplier has started to serve vegan and healthy options to their customers. How do you differentiate yourself from those businesses?
We do not have to differentiate ourselves; a majority of our food is vegetarian and vegan. Coming from SE-Asia this was easy for us, a large proportion of people in countries like India are vegetarian and many authentic dishes from there are too. We didn’t have to “veganize” a burger or fish&chips, our dishes were already vegan or vegetarian.
You add new recipes and especially soups to your menu regularly. How do you manage the process? How do you decide which recipes will go on the menu?
It is challenging and a lot of work, but if you want to survive in a competitive market like London you have to keep things exciting. Our founder is still developing all our new recipes, and with Nada, our new head chef from Malaysia, she has a very competent and creative partner.
Our menu is decided based on seasonality, availability of fresh ingredients, and we always try to make it a balanced range that offers something for everyone.
What is your most popular soup?
We have many top sellers but the absolute #1 is our Thai Chili Chicken soup.
How important do you think social media is for a business like yours?
It is extremely important as it has become a major part of our lives and most of our customers use it very actively. It is a great and effective way for us to be in touch with customers and inform them about what we are doing.
As a business partner of the Magic Stamp, how do you think it has helped/supported your business?
I have been looking for some kind of loyalty card for a long time and customers were asking about it frequently. I wasn’t happy with any solution until I found Magic Stamp, it is the perfect platform for us, and also for customers who do not have to download multiple cards from every business they visit. We have been generous with our awards, but it makes customers happy and gets them closer to Nusa, hence it is a win-win situation.