Ever since he was a young boy in London admiring his grandmother’s professional culinary skills, The Urban Soul Kitchen founder Glen Klean kind of knew what he was destined to do in life.

It took us less than an hour’s chat with him to confirm it; and it is no surprise whatsoever that whatever this man does with food, it’s being done amazingly well.

“My grandmother was actually a head-chef for the British in Cyprus and so was my auntie, therefore cooking was a passion for the whole family”

Klean first went into fashion as a fashion designer and even though he was creative “it was not the kind of thing” he wanted for himself.

“I was working as a sales manager in the UK for years doing at the same time supper clubs. Due to my job I have nevertheless traveled a lot; I have been to Hong Kong, I traveled around Japan, Singapore and Thailand and there I learnt to cook other things, I learnt e.g. how to make sushi (note that was 15 years ago, before it was to become so trendy).

I have also traveled to the southern states of America, namely Louisiana, Mississippi and New Orleans, spending most of my time there working and cooking. All the recipes I have created from southern America was actually the kind of thing I thought I wanted to do».

“Urban Soul Kitchen it’s based on a fusion food concept, it’s not one kind of food we are focused on”

What makes the Urban Soul Kitchen special?

Wherever I have been the street food has always been better

Why street food?

“Wherever I have been the street food has always been better in my opinion. You can see what they are doing, you are interacting with the chef and for me that is the most important part.

While I was in England and passing my culinary skills -I was going to college to learn how to be a local chef- I found out what I was learning compared to what I was doing was two completely different things to me. I didn’t want to be the stereotypical cook chef who works in a hotel or does specific things and only those things so I decided the kind of food I wanted to do was more of a street and fusion food, mixing e.g. Taiwanese with British or southern American with Indian, all these different food I came across on my travels. And this is where Urban Soul Kitchen came from”.

“Basically the concept is natural food as in the best food we can provide and best quality. From the meat to the lettuces to everything, we try to use all local projects as much as we can. And if it is something that we can’t, for example a sauce we want to make, we make it from scratch, everything is made from scratch, we don’t buy anything ready”.

We are active for about two years now in Cyprus. We started at the Fork Food Market.

When I came back in Cyprus I was thinking to start of a food market, that was the thing I wanted to do, to be able to organize different kinds of food stalls. I found a guy who shared the same kind of passion with me; he said to me I am starting a food market so I said brilliant, saves me doing it and if you are ok with it, I’ ll come and do my food.

After the food market we were getting a lot of invitations from bars they didn’t have food plus for events all over Cyprus, mainly bars specialized in cocktails and imported beer. Beer to us is quite important; the idea of a good beer and a good cocktail with our food is what we are trying to aim for.

We then met Dino from Lost & Found and while I was looking to expand, they said why don’t we join forces and do something together and that’s what we did. We nevertheless still do the fork food market and we still got one part of the company that does street food.

Beer to us is quite important; the idea of a good beer and a good cocktail with our food is what we are trying to aim for

“After going around and eating burgers everywhere in Cyprus, I mean literally I have been to every single burger place in the island, I felt that I could still be better. That’s why we introduce burgers and once we did, that was it”.

“Artisan soul food with a twist” means you are going to get the top quality food (being the artisan) and when we say with a twist it always got something different with what you are normally used to. Like the sushi burger which is kind of mixing sushi and burgers together.

Everything we do is different, nothing is the same and all of our food is different and that’s how we like to keep it, something people are not used to.

Urban “soul” it’s basically because of the fact I am a soul man, I love soul music from a child and I have like 3,000 records collections.

Good food, good drink and good music has always been a big thing for us and that’s why we can actually do it.

Who works here

At the Urban Soul Kitchen we are all crazy with the way we think new ideas. If you are not crazy you can’t work here. You got to have something wrong with you otherwise you can’t (laughs)”

At the Urban Soul Kitchen we are all crazy with the way we think new ideas.

Future plans

Quite a few things coming up; we will soon launch a “secret menu” which will be offered once or twice a month. It will have something lavish, very different, something that is seasonal and very expensive, something you can’t find every single day. Something like a caviar burger, to give an example.

Future plans will be also to look for another location and other kinds of food.

Still the Urban Soul will be focusing on the southern burgers and smoked food.