Westside Acton Park: Food vendor guide for Canberra's shipping container village

• Comment: Let's support the birth of a new street-food venue

Wondering what the new Westside shipping container village has to offer? Here is our guide to what these food vendors are offering.

The Aviary Bar and the Courtside Bar

It's a rooftop bar with a stunning view over the lake, where a bartender can shake up cocktails with a panorama of Parliament House behind them. Suspended high over the futsal slab, the bar is filled with couches fashioned from recycled pallets, complete with inbuilt herb planters for the cocktails, and bright blue string chairs. Clear plastic sheets over the windows screen out the winter breeze. The Aviary is run by Alex Heslop, a 23-year-old management and marketing student at the Australian National University. "I used to run from my college down past the lake and I saw [the shipping container village] being built. It was literally a case of I stopped and asked what's going on here, what's being built," he says. When he learnt it was a community initiative designed to help young people start up businesses without the usual red tape, he decided to throw his hat into the ring. "Not only is everything secondhand and recycled, all our wines are Canberra based and that's a policy that we have permanently," he says. The wine list will change regularly, as will the cocktails - when it gets to spring and Floriade, there'll be plenty of floral themed drinks, perhaps with elderflower or botanicals. And Heslop says he plans to run plenty of charity cocktail events too. If you don't feel like going up the flights of stairs, there is a cage lift or you could stay on the ground level and get a drink from the Courtside Bar.

The One Food Van

Tom Luxton and Chris Allan initially meant to start a food van but when the opportunity came up to join the shipping container they did that instead (the food van will come later). Their menu is pressed buns and Thai-style tacos filled with sous vide pork belly and beef short rib. Luxton says he and Allan "wanted to bring new flavours to people, we wanted to create food that no one's tasted before". And they plan to do more. "There's a lot more flavours we're going to be bringing out, more than the Cubanos and the pressed cheese burger that we're doing at the moment," he says. Luxton has been behind the pans for 11 years, working in Canberra and the Gold Coast. He cooked at Brodburger and then at Waters Edge with Clement Chauvin, before moving on to start his own venture with Allan.

Habibiz

Whole chickens roast slowly over coals in a special modified shipping container at one end of the Westside village, behind a glass frontage marked HOT. Inside, Walid Ajaje cheerfully turns out Lebanese street food. He's named his container Habibiz. "Habibiz is a concept that I've wanted to do from a long time ago," he says. "It's meat on the coals, traditional Lebanese street food ... This concept is famous so much in Sydney and I'm one of those people who everytime I go to Sydney I go to have charcoal chicken with garlic dip and tabbouleh. I have heaps of Aussie friends who love this food and they ask me, 'Why [don't] you open this in Canberra?'" So when the opportunity arose, he did. He makes rolls filled with a variety of meat including charcoal chicken, with felafels, sambusik, and fries on the side. "It's meat in a healthy way ... everything is cooked fresh on the skewers over the coals, and all this nice smoky flavour comes up," he says. To drink he's got Turkish coffee and Lebanese soft drinks in a range of flavours - tamarind, watermelon, apple, berries.

Miss Van's

"Street food doesn't necesarily have to be on the street out of a vendor, it can be in a restaurant and from a shipping container. But I think the food trend everyone is loving is stripped back, good, simple food."

O So Smoothie

Vegan and paleo friendly smoothies. Alyssa Latham says the aim is to produce smoothies and drinks that are as healthy as possible. "We have a lot of superfood powders like maca powder. We have optional protein powders as well," she says. There will also be warming soups for the winter and some chia bowls coming. O So Smoothie was one of the earliest food vendors to open - they've been whipping up smoothies since Skyfire. Latham originally started in retail before helping to open O So Smoothies. "We decided to do a smoothie bar and take it a bit further and do all dairy free and nasties free," she says. And they're getting lots of custom from people looking for their vegan or dairy-free fix.

Damn Fine Roasters

Canberrans got a taste of Damn Fine Roasters' drive through coffee when it opened in March alongside O So Smoothie on the foreshore. In the early mornings the drive through is buzzing and busy with mums and dads grabbing a quick and easy cappuccino after the school run. There are more than just the hot coffees - coffee gelato and cafe crema chillers if you're feeling adventurous in the cold - but a warming Italian brew will get you through the winter at Westside Acton Park.