Event venue Dock X is set to reverberate with the sounds of a party that started more than 200 years ago. The Canada Water warehouse space will host London Oktoberfest for three weekends this autumn.
The tradition has its origins in a wedding party held in 1810 for the crown prince of Bavaria (who later became King Ludwig I), which lasted five days culminating in a horse race. Having got a taste for celebration, the following year an agricultural fair was tagged on with food and drink stalls for visitors.
By the 20th century these had become vast beer halls with each local brewery hosting up to 6,000 people a day over the last two weeks in September.
Its something former banker Carsten Raun knows all about. It’s a tradition he’s successfully been bringing to London since 2011.
“It’s the 10th anniversary since we first brought the authentic Oktoberfest to London, which is a celebration in itself,” he said.
“First of all, we’ll have the original beer and sausage from Germany, just as we always have, despite Brexit. The mood in the hall is always fantastic with live oompah music.
“The Brits and Germans share a love of beer, it’s a common theme between the two countries – we brought it to London and found people really love it. The German traditions and the British attitude fit together perfectly.
“This time we have some different ideas too. Dock X is a new venue for us and it means the weather won’t affect the event.
“In many ways it’s like the tents in Munich which are really permanent structures laid out like beer halls.
“There is no Oktoberfest there this year because they’ve decided it’s not the right time to hold an event that sees six million people come from all around the world.
“We can do this in London because it is a local event with a capacity of 1,500 people and we’ll be following all of the government rules with hand sanitising available throughout the venue.”
Dancing and singing are encouraged at London Oktoberfest
For those quick off the mark, tickets are still available for the October 1-2 sessions at the Canada Water venue before the event returns to Rotherhithe from November 4-6 and 11-13.
For those prepared to travel to west London, there will be a chance to sup from a stein under canvas when London Oktoberfest pitches its traditional tent for Halloween from October 28-31.
Those visiting the pop-up in Ealing’s Walpole Park are invited to dress up for a spooky session, with families also welcome on the Sunday.
Carsten said: “In addition to Halloween, we will also be hosting Pink Oktoberfest when we’re back in Canada Water on November 5.
“This started some years ago and now we’re hosting it for the LGBTQIA+ community to show there is some Oktoberfest for everybody – it will be very welcoming.
“While it is a new world since Brexit and the pandemic and it hasn’t been so easy to organise, we have found a way to bring the beer, the food and all our stuff to London.
“It’s something we want to keep doing. For all of our events, I hope people come and experience the same great atmosphere that we always had before Covid. It’s time to raise those steins again.
“It’s so exciting to be coming back to London again and it will be a really wonderful feeling to see people enjoying themselves.
“We hope that the events we are hosting will act as a second freedom day so that people can have a chance to celebrate.”
Prices for Oktoberfest start at £5 for general entry, with a multitude of options available including VIP and corporate packages. Dock X is located within easy walking distance of Canada Water station.
Having been warned by his PR that I’ll have a maximum of 20 minutes to chat to comedian Ed Byrne, disaster strikes within minutes of him picking up.
After exchanging pleasantries, the line suddenly goes dead. Was it something I said? Is Byrne offend-Ed? I re-dial. Answerphone.
For those who care about these things, Ed’s message is functional, polite and short. There’s not much material for an article here, no blistering one-liner to recount. I hang up and call again.
The second hand ticks round. He picks up. That sonorous Irish lilt is back in my ears.
“I’m sorry about that,” he says. “I think I may have somehow hung up on you with my face.”
Ed’s cheekbones aren’t the only sharp thing about him. Since his first gig, 28 years ago this November, the Irish comic has built a career skilfully dissecting his life and presenting its absurdities for the amusement of others.
Having been nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998, he’s gone on to appear regularly on TV including on panel shows such as Mock The Week and game shows as a celebrity contestant while continuing to perform live across the country.
He’s set to perform his latest show – If I’m Honest – at Blackheath Halls on October 20. Although this comes as something of a surprise to him.
“Am I?” he says. “I must be. I think that’s a new venue for me, if I’m not mistaken. What threw me was that I was just in that part of London for the Greenwich Comedy Festival, which was a great laugh. I got the sunshine, I was lucky. It rained the next day.”
That Ed isn’t completely across his touring schedule feeds into the topic of the show he’ll be performing, which considers what traits, if any, he’d be happy to pass on to his kids.
“I haven’t tried to pass anything on,” he says. “But I’ve tried to drill out of them stuff that I know is innately coming from me.
“I’m very bad at being able to find things – my keys, my credit cards – and my older son is exactly the same, but there’s nothing I can say about it, because it’s my fault.
“I’m asking him if he knows where his water bottle is, and, if he had the wit, he’d ask if I knew where my sunglasses are.
“I have two kids, and nothing is more annoying than your children, because they are irritating in ways that you recognise in yourself.
“So I thought: ‘What about me am I happy to be passing on to these children, and what about me am I worried about passing on to these children?
“Ostensibly it’s about kids, but really it’s about me – I’m taking a long hard look at myself. I thought there was mileage in that, and indeed there is.
“I talk about stuff that the kids get from me, that I know I get from my parents – the desire to have the last word in an argument.
“I talk about the good things – I’m quite funny – and it also covers the skills that can’t be taught.
“For example, I’m pleased that since my mid-40s, I’ve become skilled in recognising when a cramp is going to happen and stopping it before it does. You feel it, leap out of bed and say: ‘Not today’, pat yourself on the back and go: ‘Ed Byrne, 1, insufficiently oxygenated muscle, nil’.
“It’s about finding those little victories in life. I tell a story about cutting myself with a knife recently, but being delighted because it’s a blade that I’d sharpened.
“You look for things to be proud of. Doing stand-up is a bit of a relief valve – you might be having a conversation and then later find a way to put the humour from it into a monologue.
“You can say things to an audience that you wouldn’t in real life – for instance, my kids might be really excited to get on a plane and all I want to say is: ‘This is shit, it’s Ryanair’, so I say that on stage instead, embellishing things slightly.
“There’s going to come a point when they watch my stand-up and it will be like handing them the Allen key that dismantles my armour, because my comedy is full of my insecurities and particularly about my failings as a parent.
“I fear that day – when they do finally watch it, will they have respect for the fact that I stand up in front of people and do all these things and make them laugh, or will they say I sound like a loser?
“Talking about how soft my erections are and how bad I am at general life-skills.”
Ed’s latest show is called If I’m Honest – image by Idil Sukan
Ed wrote If I’m Honest and began touring the show shortly before the pandemic hit. Having tweaked the material and performed his fair share of drive-ins and Zoom shows he says it’s delightful to be back in front of live audiences again.
“It’s been such a relief to be doing it,” he says. “We were having to make do. I likened it to really wanting a Mars bar when all you have is cooking chocolate.
“That’s all there is so you make the most of it. Lockdown was miserable and then what we’ve had over the past 18 months has been miserable.
“I think if I’d known at the start it was going to be so long it would have been more frightening.
“I did some other things, some TV and I’m very lucky because I’d been doing that stuff for years so I’d built up some equity – a lot of comedians I know had to go and get day jobs. It’s made me appreciate it all the more.
“When I started out, there was a sense among the grown-ups that you needed something to fall back on. I was making a living out of stand-up in my early 20s, but I’d go home to my parents, and hear from them, friends and neighbours that I should have that.
“It’s a trade, a craft, it’s my job. Now it’s the stand-up I fall back on – I do other things such as acting and a bit of presenting.
“Then, 18 months ago, it was actually, finally taken away, and you go: ‘Shit. This career, that I’ve had for a quarter of a century, isn’t there anymore. It’s finally as unstable as people thought it might have been when I started.”
As a side project, Ed conceived Ed Venturing, a YouTube show launched in February where he interviews other comedians, having invited them to join him in his passion for hillwalking.
“It’s very much in its infancy at the moment – there’s only four episodes up at the moment,” he says. “But there are two or three more in the can, and I’m hopefully going to record some more over the next month or two. So far we’ve released Rhod Gilbert, Stuart Maconie, Desiree Burch and Hal Cruttenden.
“I try to put off looking back as long as possible, until we’re at least 45 minutes into the walk. Then we sit down and talk about their career and how far they’ve come. It just suits the mood.”
Time for reflection is something of a theme with Ed, whether he’s working on new material or considering the view from a freshly conquered peak while consuming peanut M&Ms or a morsel of his homemade beef jerky.
So what does he think about the show he’s touring?
“I really want people to come and see it because this is genuinely in the top three stand-up shows I’ve ever written – it’s worth it,” he says.
“If you’ve not seen a lot of stand-up, then you should come to this show that I think is pretty good. I did one back in 1998, when I was nominated for the Perrier, which was called A Night At The Opera, and that was my break-through.
“Then I did one about 13 years ago – Different Class – which everyone agrees is the best show I’ve ever done. I feel this one is up there with those other two.
“It’s just typical that this was the one that got shut down. The routines feel good, it’s like singing a song, you know where the laughs are – I’m really enjoying it.”
Tickets for Ed Byrne: If I’m Honest at Blackheath Halls cost £25. The performance starts at 8pm.
Everywhere, normal life is reasserting itself. Inboxes are buzzing, people are getting back in touch and returning to the office – Canary Wharf hasn’t been this busy since the first three months of 2020.
It’s time to get out and meet again, to shrug off the PJs, shift those extra pandemic pounds and get in shape.
The solution? It’s not home workouts. Contorting yourself to see a tiny figure on your phone flexing something is so first lockdown.
What’s needed is consistent, energising, professional help and boutique, pay-to-train fitness studio, Sweat By BXR in Canary Wharf has an offer that’s hard to resist.
“We want to encourage people out of their offices and homes,” said managing director Alex Nicholl. “We want people to come and enjoy the experience, to get back in the studio.
“Once people have done that, we then have two introductory offers that work out at £10 per class for a number of sessions.
“With the complimentary class, we just want people to come in, meet us and try out a workout. It’s that simple.
“People just need to scan the QR code on the following page, enter their details and we’ll send them a voucher code that can be used for any of our classes.
“That’s a really good, free and then cost-effective way to get into our studios and experience what we have to offer.”
Specifically the brand’s Crossrail Place branch has two workout spaces that are currently home to three classes – Sweatbox, Strenghtbox and Climb To The Beat.
“We have two concept studios,” said Alex. “One is focused on boxing and the other on Versaclimbing. On the boxing side we have two classes – one designed around boxing and bodyweight exercises that we call Sweatbox.
“The other is designed around boxing plus resistance and weight training – that’s Strengthbox. They both have music and lighting as part of the concept and a really fun atmosphere.
“The studio can hold up to 30 people – 15 can be working out on the heavy bags, while the other 15 are working out on the floor using equipment or their own bodyweight.
“One of the big differences in our product and those offered elsewhere is that our boxing classes come from our heritage with BXR – our concept boxing gym in Marylebone.
“All of our instructors are either current fighters, former fighters or have worked at a high level in boxing so you get a really great workout.
“All the equipment is available at the studio – gloves and wraps, everything is here. We also do pre and post-workout shakes.
“Our workouts are usually 45 minutes, with at least 41 minutes of exercise and a three or four-minute stretch towards the end.”
Sweat By BXR offers boxing-inspired workouts at its studio
Inspired by the regimes of top boxers, who need explosive cardio workouts to compete at the highest levels, Sweat By BXR also has something pretty special.
“At BXR, we opened the first Versaclimber studio in Europe when we launched our Marylebone site in 2017,” said Alex. “It’s a machine at a 75-degree angle that has handholds and pedals to mimic climbing.
“As a machine it’s unique in the fitness world – it’s completely non-impact and burns more calories per minute than any other. It’s a total body workout. You can do an intense interval workout on it – lots of boxers use it before a fight.
“But the first time I tried one, I was on it for an hour and absolutely loved it. There’s a rhythm there, a catharsis in the movement of it. So I sat with some specialists and we were able to conceptualise and create a class for it.
“We launched that in April 2017 and Climb To The Beat became our biggest selling product. The energy, the highs, the pumping music and its crescendos all play into it. I have a background in nightlife so I’m very keen on working with DJs and light technicians to create an atmosphere.
“The energy is unlike anything I’ve seen in a studio before – it’s a particular feeling. The fact your heart rate goes up so high but that you can recover quickly just by bringing your hands down and then go again, makes it a product for everyone.
“Coming out of the pandemic is so much about getting yourself back into a regime – there’s a mental health element to that too.
“Boxing is entrenched in that and the highs from Climb To The Beat also make people feel really good – they walk out of a class with smiles on their faces. We really want people to come and experience that.
“Our pay-ast-you-train model offers our clients a lot of flexibility and that’s key, particularly at the moment.
“We’ve extended all of our expiry dates so people get greater flexibility and can buy a pack of classes, keep them and use them when they need to train.”
VERSACLIMBERClimb To The Beat is Sweat By BXR’s most popular class with participants following the beat of the music on their machines, increasing and decreasing intensity as the sounds ebb and flow.
Beloved of osteopaths and physios, the machines are non-impact meaning the risk of injury is reduced.
Sweat is currently developing a new class, Performance, that will use heart rate monitors to gauge intensity. It’s expected on the Wharf in 2022.
Sweat By BXR’s boxing studio space
BOXING
With capacity for 30 people, Sweat By BXR’s boxing studio draws on boxing concept gym BXR in Marylebone.
The workouts offered within – Strengthbox and Sweatbox – include full body exercises, punching skills and instructors who are either fighters or involved in the sport at a high level.
Participants alternate between floor-based workouts and using the plentiful heavy bags to the rear of the studio space.
Much change is afoot at the top of Cabot Place’s mighty cylinder of escalators. Ride to the top and you’ll find hoardings abound as a fresh crop of restaurants moves in to Canary Wharf.
Lewis Hamilton’s plant-based Neat Burger is soon to arrive as is Marugame Udon, which promises to supply oodles of noodles.
Already open though is German Doner Kebab as the chain continues its roll-out across the UK. Canary Wharf is its 71st branch in this country with a further 26 in the pipeline worldwide this year.
We called up the chain’s managing director for UK and Europe, Daniel Bunce, to find out what Wharfers can expect from this emerging powerhouse of fast food.
what is GDK?
Our brand was born in Berlin in 1989 and expanded at the end of the century into the Middle East to Dubai. Then we came to the UK in 2015. We had six restaurants here at the end of 2017 and Canary Wharf is our 71st opening.
There is a fight about whether Germany or Turkey invented this kebab concept. Germany laid claim to it in 1971. What we offer is different from a Turkish kebab.
We serve beef and chicken – you’ll notice I didn’t mention lamb. That’s where we differ. Both our beef and chicken skewers contain 93% pure lean meat with the rest seasoning and binding – that’s probably double the meat content you’d find in a standard kebab.
what should people try?
We’d always recommend you start with our Original German Doner Kebab with either meat or a mixture.
It’s such a great product – that combination of the bread, the sauces, the salad and the meat. It’s the right one to go to.
what other options are there?
We have an option called the Doner Box, which contains all the ingredients in a kebab and fries but allows you to avoid the bread – that’s great as a lunchtime snack.
We’re famous for a product we call the Boss Box, which has a rather large and grand feel. It was conceived during lockdown, originally for click and collect but it’s proven to be a huge hit with customers.
You get a choice of kebab, sauces and a choice of fries – we do different kinds such as spicy flaming fries, cheesy fries and curry fries.
We also have a home-grown product, which we invented called the Doner Spring Roll. We take our meats, add some jalapenos and a spring roll pastry, so you get a full meal in a box, with a drink, which you could eat outside, if the sun is shining, or it’s very handy to take back to your office and it’s not going to create a mess. It’s proving very popular.
We do a selection of burgers with kebab meat in a brioche bun. We launched the Doritos Crunch Burger as a limited offer but it’s proved so popular it’s become a staple part of the menu.
Basically it’s our standard burger jazzed up using Doritos crisps and some melted cheese, which gives us another flavour.
We also have healthier options like the gym box which has up to 44g of protein and no carbs.
The Canary Wharf branch is already attracting a flow of diners
why Canary Wharf?
It’s a prime real estate – a really prestigious venue and the consumer here is very much our target demographic.
We’ve opened up in very nearly every major city in the UK and we know that our customers are young professionals, although our products are also eaten by families at the weekend.
what’s the restaurant like?
We don’t look like a kebab shop – we’re very bright with lots of colours and our kitchens are all behind glass.
We don’t hide anything from our guests. All the veg that we use is prepared in the morning, or during the day, depending on the levels of business.
We don’t carry any skewers of meat or any of our salad into the next day. So if you look into our kitchens last thing at night or first thing in the morning, there’s no leftover food – everything’s fresh and every single order is prepared in front of the customer. We’re very proud of that. We like to say that we serve quality food done fast.
what about sustainability?
We operate with very little waste – we use the meat from our kebabs in your spring rolls and our vegetables are prepared on a day-to-day basis and we top up later in shift if we need to.
We shave our meat very thinly so our products need to be wrapped up well to ensure everything is kept in the best possible condition, but we’ve made a conscious effort in the last couple of years to reduce the amount of plastic we use.
We want to do more and it’s definitely something we’re working on as well as with our suppliers to overcome the challenges that are presented by a business of our scale.
There’s an energy about Tim Kayode, a determination to progress. Perhaps that’s not surprising given his background. Born and raised in Hackney, he began playing football as a kid, winning a place at West Ham’s Academy.
“I thought that was all I was going to do,” he said. “I played professionally, travelled abroad and played in Germany, Japan and Australia.”
But at 22, disaster. A dislocated kneecap, two years in rehab and then, a crushing blow.
“The doctor was very honest with me – I was going to struggle to play into my 30s,” said Tim. “So, I had to decide – feel sorry for myself, or figure out what I’m passionate about and just do it.
“I had good support around me, a family who encouraged me, including my sister who gave me a good kick up the backside – I was broken, but she asked why if I’d been successful in one field, I couldn’t be successful in another?”
While still playing, he began studying sports and performance therapy straight away – a natural move given his extensive experience of professional sport. After qualification he closed the door on football and launched a freelance practice.
“I found myself very fortunate, because I built a big, strong client base in a short period of time,” said Tim. “I started working with elite athletes straight away, and my first big client was the WBA super-flyweight boxing champion, Kal Yafai who had also won silver for Great Britain at the 2008 Olympics as a flyweight.”
A slew of high profile clients followed, but the need to travel with them, often for months, meant, as a freelancer, Tim was finding it increasingly difficult to find time to treat those left back home.
“My normal clients were getting frustrated with me because they needed to be looked after too,” said Tim. “That was when I realised that I needed to expand, find a team of like-minded people I could trust who would work with me.
“The day the first lockdown started, was the start of this process. I had to pursue my goals and dreams. I had to go for it.”
Tim, along with co-founder Qasim Shah and five other staff members, has created a one-stop-shop dedicated to helping people do the things they want to do, moving without pain or encumbrance.
“The sports and performance therapy industry is quite outdated in terms of the ethos, the methods and techniques that are used,” said Tim. “I feel that, with Myoset, we’re going to shake things up, to push the envelope, change things and give it an update.
“Ultimately it’s all about making people feel better. That’s what we want – people to be healthier, and to do what they like doing pain-free while moving better – that’s the aim.
“What we wanted to do was to create a space where people could come in and benefit from an overall wellness service.
“Not only will we be running massage, sports massage, manual therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic services, we will also have a recovery lounge, where we’ll be using the latest, cutting edge recovery tools and we’ll also have a nurse in, doing IV drips.
“In addition we’ll be offering classes and next year we’ll have a full body cryotherapy chamber as well.
“It’s all in one place and it allows us as practitioners to put our clients in the best possible position to succeed.”
Those are telling words, as Myoset’s ethos is very much geared towards ensuring individuals are approaching their lives and exercises in a healthy manner.
“There is never a wrong time to see a sports and performance therapist,” said Tim.
“The biggest problem that I have as a practitioner is that somebody will come to me when they’re six months into the injury.
“My question is, why do we wait until we are hurt before we decide to look after our bodies?
“This is something that we should be doing anyway – you take your car for an MOT and a service, even if it’s not damaged – we should be looking after our bodies at regular intervals in the same way so we can fine tune and future proof ourselves against getting injured. That’s what we’re trying to do here.
“Myo means muscle and that’s what we’re doing, setting and re-setting your muscles, your body, your alignment and, as a result, the way you feel.
“Everything we do is for that purpose. For example we’ll be offering Pilates because I can get you out of pain as a sports and performance therapist, but the reason you’re coming in the first place may be down to a lack of strength or that your posture needs correcting.
“The way to do that is through Pilates, which we consider to be movement therapy. We want to educate as well, and empower our clients so they feel confident enough to do stuff in their own time when they’re at home – that’s how they will sustain and maintain their bodies.”
Tim said he fell in love with Republic after one of his clients in Canary Wharf suggested he take a look at the area.
“The key thing for me over here is the community, and that’s what we’re keen on,” he said.
“I don’t want people to feel like they’re going to the dentist when they come to Myoset for treatment.
“This is somewhere clients can come in, train, get treatment, do a class, get an IV drip and recover, all in one place
“In a few years time I would like this to be the go-to practice in the country, and I would like our ethos and methods to change the industry, particularly in the UK.
“I plan to open at least two more practices around London. We have a great team here and I feel we can achieve what we want.”
First appointments start at £95 for an hour long assessment with follow-ups at £75 and £50 for an hour or half-hour respectively. Membership options covering a range of services are also available.
Myoset Pilates instructor Rhiannon Williams – image Matt Grayson
TRAINER PROFILE
Rhiannon WilliamsPilates InstructorMyoset
Rhiannon Williams is well used to the principle of using exercise to help deal with pain. Having moved from North Yorkshire to London to train as a dancer, she discovered Pilates from the professional ballerinas training her.
“I actually had a lower back issue, which is how I got into Pilates myself,” she said. “I was in a lot of pain and when I was breathing, I could feel pain in my lower back. Pilates is the only thing I’ve done since then which has nullified it, so I don’t have any issues any more.
“That’s why I had it in my head that I wanted to make Pilates my speciality.
“I qualified first as a personal trainer about four years ago, but I never found my niche. Now I live and breathe Pilates.”
Rhiannon’s role at Myoset is Pilates instructor and, alongside other duties, will take charge of the group classes at the venue.
She said: “Clients can expect to come into a comfortable environment and learn why their body is doing what it’s doing.
“I think that what is key is that everybody’s body is different. Yes, you may have a similar posture, but even if you had the same posture as the person next to you, there’s something different.
“What people will learn here, for example, is why they feel tightness in their right shoulder rather than their left and what they can do when they’re not in the clinic to address it.
“I have a very analytical eye, and I analyse people from the minute they walk in, finding those little things and homing in on them.
“It’s a studio space here, with between six and eight in a class so people can get that one-to-one feeling.
“I love that because you can get up close and personal – you can really get into the nitty-gritty of what people are doing.
“I think for me, once I’ve gone through a Pilates session with someone, they’ll come out and say: ‘How I feel now compared with how I started is great’.
“No-one ever says that they feel worse – they always feel better.
“I know that it’s something that has worked for me, so I know it will work for other people too and I really think it’s something everyone should try.
“A lot of people ask me: ‘Is it like Yoga?’. I feel it’s an exercise method that’s not known about as much as it should be – what you get from it and where it came from is fascinating.
“It’s a full body workout, where you are lengthening the muscles, strengthening them and solidifying the foundations of your body.
“People can leave knowing that they’ve learnt something about themselves as well.”
Follow @rhialign on Insta for more
This article originally made reference to Tim Kayode as a physiotherapist. It has since come to our attention that Tim Kayode is not a registered Physiotherapist. Physiotherapists must be registered with the Health And Care Professions Council, which is the statutory regulator of the profession. This article was amended on October 10, 2022.
The restaurant and bar is set for the ground floor at 12 George Street and features table bocce
Emilia’s Crafted Pasta founder Andrew Macleod – image Matt Grayson
Five years ago, Andrew Macleod opened the first branch of Emilia’s Crafted Pasta at St Katherine Docks in east London. Following its success he opened a second, larger establishment in Aldgate in 2019.
Born of a passion for good pasta and a desire to bring it to Londoners freshly made, served with a punchy array of sauces and at a reasonable price, the brand continue to grow.
That will place his dishes within easy walking distance of the whole Canary Wharf estate, not to mention much of the Isle Of Dogs, for the first time.
“Wood Wharf is an evolved concept,” said Andrew. “Part of what we do at Emilia’s is to keep everything simple and fresh. That’s what we stand by in terms of our food, our business and how we run stuff.
“Whenever we go into an area, we want to be part of it, not impostors. So, what we’ve done with Wood Wharf is to have half the restaurant as more of an all-day bar – for example, there will be a tabletop version of bocce, an Italian game similar to French boules.
“Wood Wharf is going to be a neighbourhood where people come to work, live and enjoy themselves, so what we wanted was the space to be tailored to that.
“For me, that means I want people to walk in, play a bit of bocce, have a drink, a coffee and a catch up, or for them to be hanging out, sitting on a beautiful terrace overlooking the water and the park, eating pasta and drinking cocktails.
“The idea is that you’re coming into a bustling trattoria in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy – a place the whole concept pays homage to, both its food and the techniques used to make it.
“For me, the vision is that we want to bring 100% natural, affordable, fresh pasta to as many people as possible, in a way that respects those traditions, and feels very casual and Italian
“The more we can spread that, the happier I’ll be. We’re not in a rush, we’re not here just to open other branches – we just want to make this one right.”
The Wood Wharf restaurant will feature table bocce
The new restaurant will be located on the ground floor at 12 George Street, overlooking Harbour Quay Gardens and the boardwalk along West India South Dock. Inside visitors can expect rustic wooden furniture, plenty of marble and hand-painted tiles.
New dishes are promised, alongside Emilia’s core menu, which offers bowls of pasta costing between £8 and £14 – the Canary Wharf bar is also expected to offer a range of cocktails based on locally sourced fruits and Italian spirits.
At full capacity, the restaurant will be able to accommodate 100 diners with 70 inside and 30 outdoors.
Andrew said: “For me, launching a pasta restaurant never had anything to do with trends. When I was at university, I loved pasta, but I was really disappointed, because I’d moved out of home and was trying to find good places that did it and the only ones were big chains.
“About 10 years ago most of it was just frozen and horrible and places were charging £15 a bowl. You could pay £20 and get something a bit more high-end but I felt that didn’t really represent pasta in the way it was traditionally consumed in Italy, informally.
“I thought if Emilia’s could make pasta that was significantly better than what people were having at home in the UK, then we would be in with a shot as a brand.
“At the heart of Emilia’s, from day one, has always been that all our food is 100% natural.
“We make it on-site, start to finish, and anything we source, comes from people who are suppliers of food that I would eat every day at home myself and be proud to do so.
“That’s how we’ve built it, and we’ve never stepped away from that. We started in St Katharine Docks in November 2016. We had some nights in the early days without a single customer, but slowly people discovered us and we built up a following.
“Then we got so busy we decided to expand. Aldgate came in 2019 and now we have this fabulous opportunity to open in Wood Wharf.
“We want to be at the forefront of showcasing that, as a young brand, without much funding, you can, with tight cost control, a good team and a good culture, build something very meaningful, and we’ve grown organically from day one. Each of our restaurants comes off the back of our previous operation.
“For us, the key thing is that, if you do something sustainably, it should be able to continue for a very long time without damaging the world or the people who are with you.
“Most of our managers have been with us for more than three years. When Covid hit, we didn’t sack anyone, we paid furlough and topped up people’s wages because that’s who we are.
“Emilia’s is like a family, it lives on. It’s got to be that people are coming to work happy, doing their shift and going home happy. That’s our company culture.
“It’s about being able to see that you’re leaving the world a better place for all the people who have been part of the journey – that’s what sustainability is all about.
“When a business is built, you create jobs, livelihoods. You develop people, help them grow and, hopefully, the soil somewhere is better because it gets properly kept as farmers are following sustainable agriculture and processes to make it better. That’s what it’s about, and that’s what we strive towards.
“I’m very excited to be opening this restaurant and that we’re continuing our mission in one of London’s most exciting developments in a beautiful setting surrounded by green spaces and water.”
The play will be directed by Nadia Fall and stars Rory Keenan and Downton Abbey’s Brendan Coyle
Nadia Fall during rehearsals for Shining City – image Marc Brenner
I keep joking about this, but going to the theatre really is the cheapest form of group therapy you will ever have,” said Nadia Fall. Theatre Royal Stratford East’s artistic director sounds as though she’s in a buoyant mood as I catch her on the phone while she’s striding towards a rehearsal room.
Within, the four-strong cast of the venue’s forthcoming production – Shining City – presumably await. It’s a week before the first night and, as director, Nadia is deeply immersed in the process of production.
Written by Irish playwright Conor McPherson and starring Curtis-Lee Ashqar, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Fox and Rory Keenan, the show will run from September 17 to October 23, 2021.
Nadia said: “It’s set in Dublin in the early 2000s and it’s about a recently bereaved middle-aged guy who’s not one to talk about feelings, not someone to go to a therapist, but he’s absolutely desperate.
“He walks into this therapy session and starts to tell his story, but there’s something more to his tale – he’s having visions of his wife. So it’s an ode to Dublin, but it’s also a story about how men hold their pain and how they don’t talk about it.
“Even now we talk a lot about mental health in men and how it’s not the thing to do to express pain. The play investigates that a bit as well.”
Brendan Coyle is known for playing Mr Bates in Downton Abbey – image Marc Brenner
Coyle, best known for his role as valet Mr Bates in Downton Abbey, takes on the lead role of John. He’s also no stranger to McPherson’s work, having won an Olivier Award for his supporting role in the playwright’s hit The Weir.
“Conor’s work is very celebrated in theatre,” said Nadia. “As a fan watching the original outing of this play back in 2004, I really remember it as one of those plays that gets under your skin, it’s really ripe for revival.
“I thought there might be a whole load of people in east London who might not have seen the original production, so for them it would be a new work.
“It’s a very well crafted play that really fits in our venue – a haunting story in our old Victorian theatre.
“I wrote a love letter to Conor to say how much the play meant to me, and we were very lucky to get the rights to do it, because it’s one of those plays that half the theatres in the land would want to revive. Everybody who saw it remembers it.
“It’s a great ensemble piece and we have a genuinely Irish cast, so I feel it’s really lived-in and authentic.
“While it’s a play about grief and loss, it’s got some gallows humour in it and some really uplifting moments.
“Audiences certainly won’t leave on a downer. I really hope people will want to talk about it in the bar afterwards.
“Conor is a master craftsman. Shining City deals with a macabre subject matter but leaves people on a thrilling high.
“I feel that people, for very different reasons, have had a really tough year with the pandemic. While the last thing I want to do is to suggest people shouldn’t talk about it, sometimes they just don’t want to, they want to be uplifted and be distracted.
“Theatres have an extraordinary way of processing life, which you can’t get by watching the television at home. We do need to get behind our gorgeous venues, or we will lose them – it’s as plain as that.”
Rory Keenan gets to grips with his role – image Marc Brenner
Nadia, who was just embarking on her second season at Stratford East when the pandemic hit, having previously spent three years at the National Theatre as an associate director, said she was quietly hopeful audiences would return to watch live performances.
“I think people need it and there’s an appetite,” she said.
“Being in the rehearsal room, even when things are hard because it’s a difficult play, is just so joyful – you remember why you do the work, and there’s no substitute for that.
“As well as Shining City, this year finally, finally, because it had to be cancelled last year, we’ll have our panto, Red Riding Hood, from November 27.
“Yes, it doesn’t seem like high art, but for so many people it’s their first taste of a theatre, and it’s such an equaliser, bringing all generations, all creeds and colours together.
“It was such a moment, having to cancel that, because it brings all our staff and families together and it’s such a buzz.
“There’s a noise in the building from morning till night when it’s panto season, with young people, and families in the evening – I’m really looking forward to it this Christmas.
“Then, after Christmas, we have the great Lyndsey Turner directing Dennis Kelly’s bitter comedy After the End, which was supposed to be this summer but was delayed due to Covid restrictions.
“It’s an incredibly dark and exciting work that’s both post-apocalyptic and chilling, set in a city that’s just been hit with a nuclear weapon.”
The opening night of Shining City, will be an occasion with a different sort of intensity, as the community of audience and staff once more gather together in a single location for a performance, just as humans have been doing for thousands of years.
“First nights never get any easier,” said Nadia. “In fact, I think I might get more nervous over time. I’m the worst person to sit next to and I’m very superstitious.
“I try to sit next to my brother – he’s the only person I usually invite, poor man.
“He doesn’t work in theatre, he’s nothing to do with it, and I’m digging my sharp nails into his thighs. I watch the productions I’ve directed like I’m watching a cup final – I feel I’m up there with them.
“This time will be a bit different though. Even with staff in the building, we’ve tried to be as cautious as possible.
“Opening up again will be very emotional. We haven’t all seen each other for a long time, whether that’s staff or regular audience members.”
Tickets for Shining City start at £10. Some performances will be socially distanced. Check with the box office when booking.
While alone in offering frisbees, Kaleido isn’t the only new salad game in town. It’s also not the only company to bill itself as delivering something fresh.
Following the success of its first branch in St James’ Park, Urban Greens has opened a second in Canary Wharf, filling space opposite Obica in the West Wintergarden with leafy plants and plenty of pickled and blanched ingredients.
The brand is the brainchild of co-founders Houman Ashrafzadeh, Rushil Ramjee and Ioannis Divas. The three met while studying and remained friends as their separate careers flourished.
“We weren’t business partners to begin with,” said Houman. “But we’d always explore food places together – we’ve always had a big interest in it.
“I grew up in Sweden, Rushil in South Africa, although he’d also lived in London for a long time, and Ioannis in Greece. We would travel to South Africa and other places together and spot these amazing places for food.
“We always had the entrepreneurial spirit in us and, although we had successful careers in the corporate world, we knew that we wanted to do something of our own. A couple of years ago, one thing that came to our minds – London has always been, for us, an amazing place with the best restaurants that you can find on the planet.
“But when it came to the healthy fast food side of things, we always thought it was lagging behind.
“We discovered that in Scandinavia and the US a lot of food brands were doing things that we couldn’t even find here.
“So we started looking into different brands to get some inspiration and we spotted that, when it came to salads, there was a huge gap – no-one was doing them properly.
“You could find salads that had been around a long time, but these were plain ingredients in a bowl with a bit of dressing chucked in.
“They were nothing special, just very traditional, boring salads, which didn’t excite us. People would have them because they were considered healthy, but there was something missing.”
It took the trio about two years to formulate their business plan, working between Athens, London and Stockholm, slowly creating the concept, discussing the menu and eventually negotiating with a landlord to open their first site in 2019.
Rushil and Houman left their jobs to concentrate on running Urban Greens in the UK with Ioannis taking a more passive role.
“It felt scary at first, because we were leaving very steady jobs – very predictable and comfortable lifestyles – doing something that was in a new industry for us,” said Houman.
“Our approach was that, we may not have experience, but we know what good food is, what good service is – we know what we like when we go to a good place. We wanted to try to implement those things in our own business.
“We launched in July 2019 and it started picking up really quickly. People would come in and try it and be very pleasantly surprised from a taste point of view, but also by the whole concept.”
That reaction may very well be down to Urban Greens’ tireless approach to creating a core menu of balanced salads that all offer something out of the ordinary.
“Our salads are not side salads – our portions are quite big,” said Houman. “It’s also impossible to replicate our salads at home because every flavour is elevated – we don’t have any plain ingredients.
“Each salad has a few elements in common – they all have a base such as cabbage marinated in olive oil and salt.
“They all come with one form of protein. That could be quinoa or red rice, for example.
“Then you have something pickled but not just a plain pickle – we add flavours to it. Our carrots are pickled with ginger so that enters the salad.
“Not everything can be pickled, as that would be overpowering, so we add other ingredients but again, we don’t just put cauliflower or broccoli in a bowl – we blanch them to take away that harshness.
“They still add crunch – we don’t boil them – it’s the elevation of taste and flavour that comes with it. There are always vegetarian and vegan options.”
Core dishes include the Jakarta with tempeh, seasame marinated glass noodles, pickled carrots, edamame, bean sprouts, coriander, toasted peanuts and seasame seeds and the Beef Saigon with Irish pulled brisket, glass noodles, blanched broccoli, pickled cabbage, edamame, bean sprouts, fresh mint and toasted peanuts.
“The funny thing is I never get tired of the Beef Saigon or the Seoul Chicken because they both come with a really nice spicy dressing,” said Houman.
“But we always try to encourage our customers to get out of their comfort zones and to try something new.
“The prices vary – the vegan ones start from £7.85, the ones in the middle are £8.85, and the premium ones are £9.95.
“When you visit Urban Greens, everything you see is the result of decisions we have been taking consciously – we are in control of it, involved in every little part of the business.
“After we opened our first store we were approached by quite a few landlords and Canary Wharf approached us.
“We took a look into it and, although neither of us had worked in Canary Wharf – we had worked in the City – we definitely thought that it was one place we wanted to move to as an expansion, but it came much sooner than we had anticipated when we were starting up in the beginning.”
Food charity is looking for more volunteers and donations so it can help feed more people
Staff and volunteers portion up meals at Felix’s Kitchen – image Matt Grayson
Felix’s Kitchen does an incredible thing. Recently opened on an unassuming industrial estate in Poplar the 4,400sq ft facility is ramping up production with the aim of eventually producing 6,000 meals a day using surplus ingredients from supermarkets, wholesalers and restaurants – most of which would be thrown out as they near their sell-by date.
Those meals are then distributed to people who need it for free, via a network of organisations and charities across London.
People are hungry in the capital and cannot afford to buy food. The hard work of staff and volunteers at the kitchen goes some way to addressing that, but The Felix Project – the largest food redistribution charity in London, which operates the kitchen – expects a spike in demand in the autumn as furlough comes to an end and potential benefit cuts bite.
It’s 2021. The UK was the fifth largest economy in the world in January.
That such organisations exist at all is a damning indictment of those managing our society.
That more and more people are expected to need their services is a shameful failure of that governance.
But there are mouths to feed right now and those doing the hard practical work to achieve that end deserve our support and admiration for spending their time on this planet compassionately helping others.
Take Leon Aarts, for example. Having “rolled into hospitality by accident” at age 19, the Dutchman became a chef, rising through the fine dining world to win Michelin stars before moving to London to start a high-end food wholesale business for top restaurants in the capital.
A change of direction followed in 2008 when he decided to close that business and create a charity with an initiative that saw diners pay 15p extra in a restaurant to feed a child in a developing country.
He went on to cook for thousands of migrants in the camps at Calais.
Just before lockdown, he set up Compassion London to cook for those without food in the capital as the pandemic hit, eventually using Wembley Stadium to produce around 5,000 meals a day.
Having joined up with The Felix Project, right now he’s in Poplar, cooking with 12 staff and a group of volunteers as head of Felix’s Kitchen – located next door to parent charity’s latest warehouse and distribution centre.
“It’s terrible that people live in food insecurity, but we can’t let anyone go hungry while those who have the resources are figuring it out – whether that’s the Government or companies,” said Leon.
“I think we can solve this problem if we work together and it’s a disgrace that so much perfectly good food goes to waste.
“The Felix Project gets surplus food from more than 500 businesses, whether that’s small shops or Amazon, Hello Fresh and Ocado.
“It’s really good produce, often close to its ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ date, which means you can’t sell it any more. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. It’s then distributed to almost 1,000 charities all around London who give it to people who live in food insecurity.
“For example, many workers just before Covid were made redundant – people who were living from pay cheque to pay cheque.
“You can see, as you drive round east London, that so many people fall outside the system, and we allow it to happen – with ridiculous wages, not giving people any sense of security.
“Many people in the capital get paid really, really, well, but a lot of people don’t – it’s almost impossible to live in London on a wage of £7 or £8 an hour.
“A few weeks ago I had a charity kitchen doing what we do here and, in talking with The Felix Project, we found funding to create this purpose-built kitchen in Poplar – we’re building up to do 6,000 meals a day, but it takes time.
“I have very experienced chefs, so they look at what comes in and they make meals out of it. We always try to do a variety – it’s crucial we do both nutritious and delicious meals.
“That’s very important to me because when people are not in a very good state, they tend not to eat so well – if you have mental health challenges, eating is not at the top of your list of priorities and they don’t even realise it, so we will be working with nutritionists to help us improve what we produce. We always make sure that there’s protein, whether meat, vegetarian or vegan.
“We’re also guided by the surplus we have – one of our remits is that no food should go to waste, which is a very interesting challenge.
“Right now we are actively looking for volunteers, especially local people, because we serve the local community.
“Also, if local companies have surplus food, then they should get in touch with us because we don’t want any food to go to waste
“We can put it to good use, re-purpose it and give it to the people who need it. We have the resources for that – warehouses, where we can collect the food, sort it and turn it into meals.
“We get black crates from Amazon, for example, that have all different things, and we separate it out. If you’re a small business, then give it to us rather than put it to waste.
“Bigger companies that produce food for supermarkets often have a lot of waste – often it’s not their own fault. For example, if it’s going to be good weather, a firm might make a lot of barbecue packs and then it rains and suddenly they don’t sell anything. But if they don’t put it in the bins and bring it to us we can do something with it.
“We talk to our suppliers, of course, to ask if they have any of a particular ingredient but we’re especially short of staples – rice, pasta, tins of tomatoes – that sort of thing.”
The Felix Project was created in 2016 by husband and wife Justin and Jane Byam Shaw, inspired by the compassion of their late son Felix, who died suddenly from meningitis in 2014.
You can find out more about the charity and volunteering in east London online at thefelixproject.org.
Sew On The Go is many things. Travelogue, inspiration, maker’s guide, cautionary tale, creative outlet. It’s Mary Jane Baxter’s third book and, while it’s packed with crafting projects just like The Modern Girl’s Guide To Hatmaking and Chic On A Shoestring, it embraces something else in its 250 pages – the adventure of a journey.
Six years ago, its author left her job at the BBC after 14 years working across Europe, bought and converted a small van, rented out her flat in London and set off on a trip with the aim of combining her love of travel and making things. The resulting book is the story of that expedition.
“I spent a lot of time building up to it – I did a trip for Newsnight in 2009, which involved travelling around Britain and doing make do and mend tasks in exchange for bed and breakfast with viewers,” said Mary Jane, who curates craft and art shop Made In Greenwich for the Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency.
“In order to have a comfortable night’s sleep, I would do a task, so I made trousers for a stilt-walker, created a hat for somebody to wear at Ascot and swapped a night in a hotel in Edinburgh for hats.
“It was about frugality in response to the last recession and it went down really well. At the time I had a second-hand Nissan Micra. It was quite clapped-out but I’d had the idea for this trip and thought it would be really interesting if I had this really crazy vehicle to do it in.”
Having inherited a few thousand pounds following the death of her uncle in 2014, she decided to take redundancy from the BBC and test-drove lots of “really gorgeous vans” that were all too expensive. Then, while walking through Greenwich Park she spotted a man with a curious-looking vehicle.
“He said it was a Bedford Bambi and told me I could test drive it, so I took it round the park and thought: ‘Yes, this could work’,” said Mary Jane. “I saw one for sale down in Southampton, took the train, bought it on the spot, drove it back to Deptford and started doing it up.
“At the time I was working pretty much full-time in the newsroom at the BBC and, at the time, I lived in a tiny flat, so the van gave me an extra crafting space. I felt like I was building an escape pod – I spent every day working on Bambi.”
The makeover included covering the van’s exterior with wallpaper samples (rescued from a Brighton skip) and varnishing them to protect them from the weather.
“Then Bambi was ready to go and so was Mary Jane, having put together a plan to visit and stay with various friends, mount pop-ups at markets, sell the things she’d made and, most importantly, experience the untold possibilities of the open road.
“It was: ‘Let’s throw it up in the air and see what freedom feels like after working for so long from eight in the morning until seven at night’,” she said. “Setting off on St Gerorge’s Day in April 2015 felt brilliant – it was amazing.
“I packed everything I needed to craft on the road into Bambi – hats I’d made to sell, books I could offload to help fund the trip, haberdashery and my trusty hand-cranked sewing machine.
“I also had no electrics in Bambi – no interior lighting, no drainage, no water, no loo – it was basic camping. I did have the hob for a fry-up on the go, however. Bambi looked incredible and she got so much attention – people waved as we went off.
“I got to the ferry and it was just that feeling that there was no agenda, no commitment – nothing on the horizon that I had to do. What person in their mid-40s wouldn’t want that? To lock the front door and just go.”
Multiple adventures followed over the next four months as Mary Jane made her way through Belgium, France, Italy and up to northern Scotland.
Readers can expect plenty of picturesque escapism as well as moments of drama including an encounter with an ageing campsite Lothario and dicing with the terrifying sheer drops while driving through the Gorge du Verdon. It’s also a tome stuffed with ideas for makers of all levels.
“The book contains 26 upcycled craft projects interwoven in the story,” said Mary Jane.
“There’s always an element of my work that’s about re-using, recycling and creating beautiful things out of stuff people chuck away – everything from no-sew projects to more complicated ones.
“It’s also a rip-roaring travel read, which is an honest and exciting account of how it felt to be in that position of not being able to stand being at my desk anymore answering emails and deciding to bloody well go off and do something interesting instead. It’s light-hearted but it’s also about the creative process and about those life decisions that come your way – you don’t get married or have kids – things you might have expected, but don’t happen.
“What do you make of a life that’s balanced between being creative and being responsible for yourself and how do you make that work?
“The book is about trying to answer the question: ‘What are you looking for?’. I still don’t know the answer, but I’m glad I took this journey in an attempt to find out.
“Often people have ideas but they don’t follow them through. A lot of people, especially women, don’t travel on their own – I talked to a lot of women in their 40s and 50s and they said they would never go off on their own like that.
“I have to say that, as the trip went on, it wasn’t all plain-sailing. There were real episodes of loneliness, and wondering what on earth I was doing. But I’d had the idea, bought the van and I did it.”
Published by Unbound on a crowdfunding model, the book came out in May.
Mary Jane said: “It took six years of hard work, fundraising, writing and journeying. Of all the books I’ve written, this one does hit the nail on the head. Bambi happened and I’m really pleased that I produced something out of my imagination and got it out there.”
Sew On The Go: A Maker’s Journey is available to buy at Made In Greenwich in Creek Road or online for £16.99, published by Unbound.
