Their original touring home – Tommy's car – was soon replaced by a converted ambulance, and the brand took off. The pair visited markets, festivals and events, opening pop-ups in Pop Brixton, Peckham, Camden and Leicester Square, getting to grips with the pace and challenges of cooking on-the-go. ‘I liked meeting different people and rocking up somewhere completely different,’ Matt says. ‘But it is quite stressful – in a professional kitchen you have everything at your disposal, but with street food you have to adjust and adapt.’ In 2019, they opened their first bricks and mortar restaurant in one of Brixton’s refurbished railway arches, where they are still at home today, followed by a second in Clapham Junction in 2022, which has since been replaced by Matt and Tommy’s latest project.

As the Other Side Fried mini-empire ballooned, Matt started to feel a pull back to his more refined roots. He started his cookery career as a teenager at the Park Plaza Hotel in Cardiff while studying music at university, quickly finding a place in the frenetic energy of professional kitchens (he soon swapped visions of a life behind DJ decks for one behind the hobs). After graduating, Matt moved to the capital, starting work with Jesse Dunford Wood at Notting Hill pub The Mall Tavern. ‘That was amazing,’ Matt says. ‘Jesse played with nostalgic British food; it was quite quirky with lots of theatrics, and it was inspiring.’ Stints as head chef at St John’s Hotel (which reopened as lively Soho restaurant One Leicester Street under Tom Harris) and Parlour in Kensal Rise followed, as well as alongside Joe at Lamberts in 2013. He counts his time there as among his most formative culinary experiences. 

‘That was a really, really big influence for me,’ Matt says. ‘I learned a lot about how to run a business and fix problems. I’d watch how Joe handled it all – if something broke, he’d fix it. If someone called in sick, he’d work.’ Those lessons proved particularly useful when Other Side Fried came into being and meant he already had solid entrepreneurial foundations when he embarked on his latest restaurant. ‘It has always been in the back of my head,’ he says. ‘I always wanted to have a nice restaurant and wine bar. Ever since I left cooking to open Other Side Fried, I’ve always loved eating out and I went all over the world eating out and thinking about what I’d want to do.’ 

In May last year, those plans crystallised into Ploussard, a Parisian-bistro-inspired restaurant and wine bar which opened in Other Side Fried’s second home after a speedy six-month turnaround. ‘The restaurant is super relaxed and intimate,’ he says. ‘I would say it’s a nod to French cooking but in an unpretentious way, with bold flavours – if it says an ingredient on a dish, I think you really have to taste that.’ Its European small plates menu is dotted with dishes like madeleine with comté and cep custard, a savoury snack and their twist on a French onion soup, as well as a devilled crab sandwich with sugar kelp waffles.

Wine is given equal billing; around 85% of the wines at Ploussard – which takes its name from the French red grape wine varietal – are French, and there’s a mix of natural, low-intervention and field blend bottles from small producers. With its first anniversary on the horizon and Other Side Fried still going strong, the pair certainly have enough to contend with, but Matt has one eye on future plans, which might see a pub added to their empire. After all, they appear to have stumbled on a winning formula. ‘We’re a good team – Tommy is really supportive of what I do,’ Matt says. ‘If I have an idea, he lets me get on with it and vice versa. We're just really supportive of each other.’ Team work, as they say, really does make the dream work...