A hoppy meal! Pop-up restaurant is serving ‘meat’ dishes made from crickets – and the owners claim they’re selling out every night

• YumBug owners Aaron Thomas & Leo Taylor spoke about their quirky restaurant
• Read More: Crickets, worms and grasshoppers are dished out to kids at school

A London based pop up restaurant is serving meat made from ground-up crickets – and its owners claim customers are going wild for the unusual dishes. 

Aaron Thomas and Leo Taylor appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss YumBug, which is based in Old Street and finishes its run tomorrow. 

Speaking to presenters of the ITV show, Aaron revealed they started selling the insects during the pandemic but due to their popularity they decided to start the restaurant.

He said: ‘It went beyond our wildest dreams, we started with 50 covers a night, we increased it to 60 last week and this week we are doing 80 covers, we are constantly sold out.’

Explaining how they make meat from insects, the entrepreneurs revealed they ‘mince the crickets’, add whole wheat flour and olive oil to make ‘a brisket’ before pulling it apart and adding it to the dishes. 

Speaking about the nutritional benefits of the creepy crawlies, Ben Shephard revealed half a pan of crickets is only 242 calories.

He said: ‘Thirty grams of protein, 12 grams of fat, I mean that’s incredible, an extraordinary amount of protein in one tiny cricket.’

Aaron added: ‘Exactly, dried crickets are actually up to 70% protein, so the raw ingredient itself is actually really nutritionally dense.

‘I think it’s a great addition to a plant based diet, if people are considering being more sustainable because of the nutrition it holds, as you were saying it has more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas, more fibre than brown rice.’ 

A London based pop up restaurant is serving meals made from insects and they are selling out

Owners of YumBug Aaron Thomas (right) and Leo Taylor, (centre) which is based in Old Street until tomorrow, spoke about their unconventional restaurant on Good Morning Britain on Friday

Leo Taylor explained that their customers actually requested more insects in the restaurant

The pair partnered with top chefs to create their creepy crawly menu which includes spiced mince and pomegranate flatbread, (pictured) Sesame crusted polpette, cucumber, kohlrabi and chilli salad, spiced mince hummus and seasonal crudites

Host Charlotte Hawkins said the British public still tend to be more squeamish around eating them, despite over 80% of countries in the world regularly eating insects.

Leo said: ‘That’s exactly the challenge we are here to solve, we got excited by insects because of all the things Aaron was just talking about, but how do we take this stuff to the mainstream.

‘I think what we are discovering is if we create a really good first experience, put food in front of people that looks like food, it looks delicious and tastes delicious, people can be converted pretty quickly.

‘The goal for us to take this mainstream, we would love to see insects available wherever meat is an option, for us that means being on supermarket shelves and mainstream restaurants and chatting to the big players in the game.’

The entrepreneurs explained that their customers actually requested more insects in the restaurant. 

Leo said: ‘The reason we brought these [cricket bar snacks] out into the restaurant is because people wanted more insects, we were giving this stuff were you can’t even see the insects, and people where like where are the insects.’ 

Crickets don’t just have a ridiculous amount of protein, they’re also high in omega 3s and 6s, and have more B12 than red meat.

GMB viewers had mixed reviews with some taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to leave their own thoughts

The pair partnered with top chefs to create their creepy crawly menu which includes spiced [insect] mince and pomegranate flatbread, sesame crusted polpette, cucumber, kohlrabi and chilli salad, spiced mince hummus and seasonal crudites.

GMB viewers had mixed reviews with some taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to leave their own thoughts. 

One person said: ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell, before I eat an insect. Don’t care how much protein it has.’

Another added: ‘Did you just say someone on a plant based diet ie: vegan, could eat insects as an extra source of protein? If a vegan will eat insects, they’re not vegan.’

Someone else said: ‘Don’t care what it looks like, I am never eating bugs.’ 

While a fourth added: ‘Where can I buy these.’ 

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