After four
years of neglect, and five years from its establishment, I've decided to
resurrect the blog, as a vehicle to disseminate news, information and
development at Brunswick House. I founded this place with my brother Frank, in
the year following the first iteration of his eponymous cocktail bar on the
roof of a car park in Peckham. We'd had so much fun working on it that attempts
to find a venue in which we could build something fit for all seasons, and not
just limited to summer, seemed advisable. We were young, foolish and
optimistic: all the necessary ingredients for calamity.
We grew up in
Stockwell, and knew Brunswick House well by sight, initially as a working men's
club, which it had been since the turn of the century, and latterly as a squat,
and the location of some quite legendary parties, all of which we were sadly to
young and green to have attended. Lassco, the marvelous architectural salvage
firm, had taken over the building in the early 2000s, probably at precisely the
point of no return for the buildings slide into dereliction. It is to their
great credit, and our collective good fortune as Londoners, that they set about
methodically restoring the house, the roof, the foundations, to something
capable of weathering the changes the next hundred years of Vauxhall madness
will throw at it.
We initially
approached them to rent us space in their storage annex, with the intention of
opening a coffee and sandwich shop. They were regulars at my fathers beautiful
deli, Italo, and saw how busy it was. They also saw the constant stream of
office workers lining up at their next-door Tesco each lunchtime, and thought
there could be some mileage in collaboration. They were perhaps a little
puzzled to end up with the sons and not the father at that first exploratory
meeting, but the fame and success of Frank's helped to assuage their graver
doubts.
Brunswick House Coffee Rooms, May 2010
On the 3rd of
May 2010 the Brunswick House Coffee Rooms, as it was initially known, opened its
doors. Lassco had installed some linoleum flooring and wall tiles, and we'd
found a second-hand coffee machine and some fridges, as well as cups and
glasses and plates and so on, spending a total of 2k. With nothing left over
for a kitchen, all the preparation was initially done in the kitchen of Italo.
Every morning I’d arrive at 6am to bake scones, sausage rolls, take delivery of
salad leaves, and get set up for the day ahead. I’d then load up a trailer,
attach it to my bike, and pedal it across to Brunswick House. Fortified with an
espresso made by my brother, I’d make up sandwiches for the slow trickle of
bold souls who’d cross the threshold. At 5pm we’d shut up together, and I’d
head back to the deli to roast vegetables, make terrines, and top up the pickle
jars. It was hard, slow, and utterly magical.
It was also totally
unsustainable. For one thing it was turning over less than a thousand pounds a
week, which meant hiring staff or paying ourselves was impossible. And Frank
was due to depart to commence work on the reopening of the roof at the
beginning of July. By the end of May we determined that in order to make a go
of it we had to rethink our approach – cooking and preparation should be moved
onsite, and our menu should expand from just the artful sandwiches I was
laboriously preparing which were unable to compete with Tesco for price, speed
and convenience.
Brunswick House Café, June 2011
We quietly
relaunched as the Brunswick House Café, with a second-hand convection oven and
two induction hobs installed next to the coffee machine. We also blagged and
alcohol license for the at-all-points-surprisingly-helpful Lambeth Council, and
set about opening three evenings a week. Lunch became a medley of soup, salads
and sandwiches, the evenings a selection of small plates, all prepared by me,
and short list of strong cocktails and tumbler wine, initially prepared by my
godfather Jamie Berger, now of Pitt Cue, then working with our former baker
Bridget Hugo in the mornings, my father’s deli at lunch, and me in the evening.
The first evening saw only two guests, a couple who, though now sadly
separated, still visit regularly, however pace picked up, and quickly we found
ourselves regularly feeding 50 or 60 guests a night. While I still shouldered
all the cooking, we were able to recruit more staff, and though I was still
working over 100 hours a week, after six months the steady growth of the
business left me so buoyant I hardly noticed.
Brunswick House Café, October 2011
In the four
years since we’ve continued to grow, re-arranging the building, dropping the
‘café’ suffix, building a kitchen, a bar, another bar. It’s been my great
privilege to work with some wonderful people over the years. Some, like Nick
Balfe, now running the excellent Salon in Brixton, and Jeremie
Cometto-Lingeheim of Primeurs, have not only left us in a better state than
they found us, but have gone on to open marvelous establishments of their own,
and stayed in close touch. Others have drifted off to other countries, other
careers, other lives, leaving but a shadow of their formidable influence on the
growth and development of Brunswick House behind. I continue to rise early
every day to watch the place open around me, willing each service to be an
improvement on the last. Such a grand old building deserves a sterling effort
to reflect its majesty in everything we create within it. The place has evolved
rapidly, but with great effort, and it remains my very real ambition to
continue its development, adding a little here, perhaps removing one
embellishment too many there. It has never been my goal to be the best
restaurant in the world, we are somehow too unique for that, over-determined by
our history and architecture and background narrative, to be anything other
than ourselves – the very best restaurant we can be.
Brunswick House, March 2014
My one regret
is that I haven’t documented the evolution of Brunswick House more systematically.
This diary of our many projects, plans, and plates should become some sort of
compensation.
Brunswick House, March 2014
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