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Brixton food & drink news: new restaurants, bars, pop ups, cafes and more
- Thread starter Onket
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RoyReed
Must fly!
Oi, I live in Clapham and I don't sound one bit like that. Stop this shit!
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hiraethified
Awesome. I'm so happy for you.
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hiraethified
That's not how it works in a newly gentrified town though, is it?
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Just because you may not agree with something doesn’t mean it is trolling.
That just makes it harder to spot a real troll.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Take this to feedback forum as you have an issue with it.
I looked at a post which I suspected and was shown to be correct.
Its not about me not agreeing with someone.
Correct not aways the case....but sounds like it's happening to brewdog and they have pretty deep pockets so let's see.
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Ms T
Honey-coloured ramparts
There are tons of failed restaurants and food businesses in Brixton. Flip & Dip, that posh burger place which became Calcutta Street and is now an Italian, Brindisa....
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hiraethified
Still doesn't negate my comment though. They were just shit business ideas.
Anyone who knows Brixton knew that Dip and Flip was going to fail. The Laundry, however, is positioned perfectly to serve the well heeled incomers and grazers from the Village, and to provide a truly delightful theatre and dining experience once Oval House opens up.
And that 'south facing Parisian terrace' will soon be full of posh people looking at the poverty opposite.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
I've had spells in poverty, stealing food from Tesco or out of bins. A Big Mac meal would have been an impossible dream. There must be lots of people opposite the Laundry struggling to feed their kids from food banks. I hope their fortunes improve and they can treat themselves to a tenner's worth of luxury some day.
the most expensive one must be the fox / dirty burger in the bottom of piano house.
i mean the one someone spent the most money to implement.
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Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Never are there but the bar was pretty good.
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hiraethified
This notion that local people living on the poverty line and relying on food banks to feed their family would spend a £10 windfall on a single 'madame croquet' in The Laundry as a 'luxury treat' really is as ridiculous as it gets. The Laundry is not for those people. If it was, they'd advertise big discounts to entice in locals from the estate and perhaps use less pretentious ways to describe their food and restaurant.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
I am a local person who was living in poverty.
editor
hiraethified
But now you're not, so I'm not sure what your point is. Upmarket, gentrifying and exclusive places like The Laundry are socially divisive and almost exclusively target, and cater for, those with disposable income for 'occasional treats' a-plenty. Setting up shop opposite one of the borough's most deprived communities while making no concessions to that community offends me. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but that's how I feel about the place.
Each time the topic of the relative exclusivity/inclusivity of new businesses comes up, I go through a similar cycle of loosely related thoughts - and never know the answers:
Firstly, I wonder how many Brixton businesses offer discount schemes. Is there a list anywhere on Urban or elsewhere? In this particular case, do other firms on CHL positively support Southwyck House/Somerleyton Estate residents - especially those premises more directly adjacent than The Lounge. If not, then is it any better/worse than any other?
Then I get to thinking about practicalities. Obviously one can drop vouchers through front doors or ask for proof of address, but this wouldn’t distinguish owner-occupiers from private tenants from council/HA, or the relatively well-off from the unwaged, or the freelance single professional from the refugee family... And so on.
Or perhaps businesses might ask that a recent benefit letter be shown on entry? Is this ethical or even permissible? Again - I don’t know the answer.
I’m genuinely interested in this. Gentrification is real, and its long-term effects are creeping and insidious. But I’m not sure what guidance there is on specific actions that businesses can take. What does the Transition Network or the New Economics Foundation say about it? Is it something that Lambeth could support, or is it a worthwhile potential use of the Brixton BID?
Firstly, I wonder how many Brixton businesses offer discount schemes. Is there a list anywhere on Urban or elsewhere? In this particular case, do other firms on CHL positively support Southwyck House/Somerleyton Estate residents - especially those premises more directly adjacent than The Lounge. If not, then is it any better/worse than any other?
Then I get to thinking about practicalities. Obviously one can drop vouchers through front doors or ask for proof of address, but this wouldn’t distinguish owner-occupiers from private tenants from council/HA, or the relatively well-off from the unwaged, or the freelance single professional from the refugee family... And so on.
Or perhaps businesses might ask that a recent benefit letter be shown on entry? Is this ethical or even permissible? Again - I don’t know the answer.
I’m genuinely interested in this. Gentrification is real, and its long-term effects are creeping and insidious. But I’m not sure what guidance there is on specific actions that businesses can take. What does the Transition Network or the New Economics Foundation say about it? Is it something that Lambeth could support, or is it a worthwhile potential use of the Brixton BID?
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Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Lambeth could help by not setting up schemes like Pop.
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hiraethified
One new food business got in touch with me a few years ago because they said that they sincerely wanted to be part of the local community.
I suggested a range of options, from half price meals on, say a Wednesday afternoon, for local residents, to a 10% daytime discount, to OAP deals, to inviting a community group for tea or whatever on one afternoon a week. Turned out I'd completely wasted my time. They did absolutely nothing and carried on focussing on the incoming affluent demographic.
The harsh reality (as I see it) is that lot of these new, upmarket and exclusive restaurant businesses simply don't want the 'wrong type' coming into their premises and they don't give a shit about supporting the poorer elements of the community around them - even if the smallest gesture would barely impact on them financially.
The Laundry seems a good example as any and that's why I couldn't give a shit if they went bust tomorrow.
Marilla
Member
Sorry I didn’t get the memo. I’m afraid I didn’t realise I couldn’t have my own opinion.
Did they ever say why they didn’t take up your ideas? I ask because there could be many reasons - the difficulties of implementation or deciding eligibility that I referred to in my last post, or that they couldn’t make the numbers stack up (in a trade where margins - for independents especially - are notoriously wafer-thin) or that there was insufficient demand or space in the slots they could make available, and so on. I don’t know who it is you refer to, and have no desire to provide a defence. I just wonder why you feel they actively abandoned their proactively expressed intentions and refocused on an affluent audience?
Re The Laundry - I can’t get excited about them either positively or negatively. Just another fairly identikit independent restaurant taking up a lease in a developer’s refit of an old industrial building. A symptom rather than a cause. They’re not displacing an existing business (since Walton Lodge closed for their own reasons two or three years back), and unlike the many bookies and payday loan shops hereabouts, they’re not actively preying on vulnerable people.
I’d love to support businesses that directly give back to their neighbourhood, or that make their offer open to a broader sector of society than those than can pay full rates. Right now I wouldn’t even know how to look them up.
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hiraethified
To be honest, I think they thought that there would be an easy way to gain the community stamp of approval without actually having to do anything meaningful. The place is doing very well, by the way.
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hiraethified
I'm so happy you signed up just to give a particularly glowing review of this one restaurant.Sorry I didn’t get the memo. I’m afraid I didn’t realise I couldn’t have my own opinion.
And where on earth are you getting this peculiar notion that you 'couldn't have your own opinion'? Has anyone deleted your posts or told you that opinions aren't allowed here? As far as I can see you've been able to freely post up whatever you like.
Sorry I didn’t get the memo. I’m afraid I didn’t realise I couldn’t have my own opinion.
Yes, this thread is only to criticise new stuff in Brixton. Surely that is obvious from the title ?
Alex
editor
hiraethified
I can see loads of positive reviews of restaurants and bars here, so you're clearly talking nonsense.
which is presumably why you are being so sarcastic in reply to one of them
I wouldn’t know about any of that. But it does sound like they failed on a couple of consultation fundamentals in not articulating how the inputs they sought would correlate to outputs, and in not getting back to you to explain the outcomes of the process.
See the thing is, I probably could afford to go to all these restaurants but don’t because: a) I’m time poor and b) what a joyless way to spend money. I’m sure Llewelyn’s in Herne hill is a great neighbourhood restaurant (their words not mine) but lasagne and salad for £29 for two or slow cooked lamb and potatoes for £54 for 3 and that’s just the mains, fuck off. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be able to treat yourself or everywhere should be cheap but I’m fucked if I’m going to spend my hard earned money on dishes which should cost a lot less. Wasn’t there a thread a few years ago about who did the best lasagne and chips?
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editor
hiraethified
When you're looking through online reviews, how do you feel about reading a particularly enthusiastic and wildly glowing testimonial which turns out to be the only post the reviewer has ever added to a site?
do you think the laundry are so desperate for positive press they are paying people to write nonsense positive press on forums which hate them ?
I’d have thought they’d be better off spending more time on trip advisor
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