“I like to describe ours as the pickle you get in a McDonald’s burger, just way better,” Shedletskys co-founder Natalie Preston tells Broadsheet. “It’s such a memorable pickle for me as a kid.” Although bread and butter pickles are very American, Preston and her partner, James Cooper, are putting them on British plates through their east London pickling and fermenting brand, named Shedletskys after the kosher butcher shop run by Cooper’s great-grandparents in Whitechapel in the ’20s.
Cooper and Preston started running a kimchi club from their home in Dalston in 2014, then launched Shedletskys as a market stall. The business has now matured into a fully fledged fermenting and pickle factory unit, turning out hot sauce, kimchi, sauerkraut, and – most notably – hundreds of jars of bread and butter pickles a week, supplying the likes of The Hoxton hotel and (before its temporary closure in February this year) Chiltern Firehouse.
“We weren’t seeing anything like them anywhere,” Cooper explains. “And we’re both Jewish, so there’s a nice crossover there, as pickles are very Jewish.” Despite their heritage, the couple favour the American-style bread and butter pickle. While the Jewish pickle is naturally fermented in salty brine with no sugar, giving it a sour flavour and salty crunch, the American type is vinegar-based, sweet, and spiced.
The name “bread and butter pickles” dates back to the Great Depression, when meats and cheeses were scarce but cucumbers were plentiful and cheap. Sandwiches often consisted of bread, butter and sugary pickles. These are the pickles of childhood visits to McDonald’s that Preston hoped to recreate and elevate. “I don’t think I would have eaten a cornichon as a kid – but wow, a McDonald’s pickle, definitely,” she says. “It’s a memorable feeling we’ve captured.”
The couple source cucumbers from Leyton’s New Spitalfields Market at dawn. The produce is brought to the production unit where it’s chopped, weighed and salted, then boiled in vinegar with Shedletskys’ signature sugar and spice mix (which includes turmeric, cloves and mustard seeds). Then comes a balancing act with salt: “Even though the pickles are rinsed, they’re still pretty salty. So we have to balance those two against each other, which is a method we’ve learned from kimchi making when pre-salting the cabbage,” Cooper says.
As you’d expect working with fresh produce, no cucumber is the same – especially not year-round. “The art is in the boiling step, as some take longer or less time in the brine. We have to make a judgment call on when they’re at a good point.” As a final flourish, the contents are hot-poured, allowing the flavours set together while naturally sealing the jars.
These days, Cooper and Price are in high demand for collaborations; Slutty Cheff used their hot sauce on her Tart x Yard Sale pizza in November 2024, and Shedletskys pickles have appeared on the menus of Patty & Pickle Burgers and Harley’s Butchery & Rotisserie in Hampstead. On October 14, the duo published a cookbook, Tickle Your Pickle With Shedletskys: How To Make (and Eat) Handmade Pickles, Ferments and Brines. Looking forward, they aim to keep creating “the best versions of classics that just make all your food better, and make your sandwiches sing”.
London Pantry is a series celebrating ingredients made by London’s greatest producers that have gone from cult classics to kitchen staples.
