Five days of lunches at Ten4

One of the great things about Ten4 is that we like to eat lunch together, around a table, with plates and knives and forks and everything. It seems like a totally normal thing to do for us, but whenever I mention it to anyone else I usually get a surprised response that ranges from mild incredulity to all out envy. It's not that there isn't a glut of places to eat in Shoreditch these days (there clearly is), it's just that we would all rather eat together (it helps that it's paid for by the company) than traipse off in to the outside world every day to queue up for an expensive sandwich to eat on the fly, or even worse, bring back and munch at our desks. Clients like it, too; if they're savvy enough to time a late morning meeting at our studio, they're also likely to benefit from the communal cooking (one client always asks what's on the menu whenever he calls).

We started cooking for ourselves as soon as we moved in to our current studio, which has a full kitchen and a large family-fridge. There doesn't seem to be much argument over what's on the menu (one of our team isn't too in to dairy, so overly cheesy dishes are a no-no) and we seem to stick to around ten meals, including sandwiches (every monday), roasted vegetable couscous, bangers and sweet potato mash, pasta-pesto, jacket potatoes, chili con carne, nut roast to name a few.

Anyway, to prove we're not lying about the midday meal we all share together (and at the risk of being unbearably smug about the whole thing – we know if we had many more staff or had a different office arrangement this system would likely be impossible) I've documented one week of lunches at Ten4 to share with you.

Oh, one more thing - after cooking for four days, on friday the company treats everyone to lunch out. In fact, agreeing on a restaurant is the hardest choice of the week.

Monday Sandwiches

Tuesday Roasted vegetables and chorizo with couscous, grated carrot and raisins, feta, peas and broad beans

Wednesday Chicken and mushroom pie with sweet potato mash and peas (bit of a rarity, this one, because of the prep time, but there is a growing petition to make pie an official monthly occurrence)

Thursday Pasta with pesto, pine nuts, spinach, broad beans and ham.

Friday Trip to Byron on Hoxton Square.