Ammermann Chris - Caravan: dining all day

Caravan is Londons award-winning, hugely popular collection of restaurants, famous for bringing all-day dining to the UK. With Dining All Day, Caravan has the whole day covered. It begins with morning brews, healthy breakfasts and unbeatable brunches; next up are fresh lunchtime salads, soups, vegetables and grains, then a pause for afternoon bakes, before rounding the day off with stunning dinners, puddings and of course cocktails on the side.

Founded by New Zealanders Chris Ammermann, Laura Harper-Hinton and Miles Kirby, Caravan embodies an antipodean, well-travelled food culture and with this book you can get exactly what you are craving at any time of day. The ethos is bold flavours and global influences, relaxed and approachable recipes, vibrant and healthy ingredients. Caravan is about living and eating well.

Rowan Yapp and the team at Square Peg; Issy Croker (photographer); David Lane (design); Hannah Meri Williams (design); Clare Sayer (copy-editor); Shamina Somani and Rene Williams (stylists); Charlie Brotherstone (our agent).

Tanya and the PR team at Gerber; Toby Kidman, our operations director; Matt Burgess, our group head chef; all beautiful Caravan staff past and present.

All our amazing friends and family who have supported us along the way, with whom we have shared many a drink and a meal and without whom we would have no reprieve.

The people who have inspired us and for whom we have great respect: Peter Gordon, Anna Hansen, Jonathan Rutherfurd Best, Margot and Fergus Henderson, Nick Lander, Roger Madelin, Andrew Higgie, Al Brown, Ratnesh Bagdai to name but a few.

Chris Ammermann is the founder and operations director of Caravan. He loves people, hospitality and a good system.

Laura Harper-Hinton is the founder and creative director of Caravan. She loves beautiful food and design, grey, and her tape measure.

Miles Kirby is the founder and chef director of Caravan. He loves all things food and drink, beautiful spaces and efficient storage solutions.

Caravan started with a friendship and a passion for food, creativity and hospitality. The three founders met while working in a bustling restaurant and bar in Wellington, New Zealand over 20 years ago. Chris served the drinks, Miles made the food and Laura welcomed the guests. Over many a late night and too much tequila, the idea that would become Caravan was born. Extensive travelling followed before the team landed in the UK and immersed themselves in London hospitality. Much eating, drinking and long working hours followed and the idea of combining house-roasted coffee and well-travelled food, available all day in a relaxed informal setting, eventually crystallised. The rest, as they say, is history.

The concept of an all-day restaurant that roasts its own coffee in-house has its roots in the long-established and thriving caf and coffee scene of our home country, New Zealand. Good coffee is such an intrinsic part of our culture that it was easily one of the things we missed the most when first arriving in the UK 16 years ago. We wanted to jump straight in and open a coffee roastery and restaurant, serving amazing coffee to the uninitiated. Looking back now, we are glad we waited and spent those defining and valuable years immersing ourselves in London hospitality. We ate and drank our way around town and travelled extensively throughout Europe and around the world before opening our first coffee roastery and restaurant in Exmouth Market in 2010. The specialty coffee scene was just starting to take off in London and, by combining our own in-house coffee roastery with our other passion, food and booze, we created something previously unseen in London.

For us, coffee sits alongside our food and drink in equal measures and so it felt right for the first chapter of the book to be all about that very important ritual The Morning Brew. We have included a home filter brew recipe, using one of our favourite easy-to-use pieces of equipment. By making a few simple adjustments to your morning coffee routine, you can vastly improve your coffee experience and (we think) your day.

The food recipes in this chapter are classics that have become staples on our takeout counters over the years and are definitely best when enjoyed with a cup of your favourite coffee.

Weigh 32g of coffee using the scales, grind it to a reasonably coarse grind size; this should have the consistency of rough sand. Place the filter paper into the Chemex. Pour freshly boiled water through the filter, this will get rid of the slight paper taste, and preheat the Chemex. Without removing filter, discard the water from the Chemex. Add the ground coffee into the Chemex.

The boiled water will have now cooled down to the ideal temperature of 9194C. Place the Chemex onto the scales, and tare (re-set the scale to zero). Start the timer and slowly begin to pour 5070g of water onto the coffee grinds.

When pouring, ensure all grinds are saturated, whilst trying to avoid pouring down the sides of the filter paper. The coffee grinds will start to bloom (increase in size); this is the trapped CO2 gas created during the roasting process departing. Allow the bloom to sit, avoiding it drying out.

Before the bloom dries out (roughly 3040sec), start pouring the rest of the heated water. Apply the remaining water in a circular motion, tracking between the inside edge and centre of the Chemex. It should take around 1 minute 40 seconds to reach the total amount of water needed (500g). Avoid moving the Chemex during the process; this will allow the water to pass through the bed of coffee without disruption.

When the bed of coffee is dry, remove the filter paper from the Chemex and discard.