“I got shouted at, I burnt my hand and I started work there the next day,” said James Goodchild, recalling his first experience of working in a professional kitchen.
“I’d finished school in Essex, where I lived, without many qualifications – I was a having a year out and my mum forced me to get some job interviews.
“So I went for a role as a barman because I thought it would be a nice easy one with plenty of money.
“That had gone, but they asked me if I wanted to do a shift in the kitchen, which I did to keep my mum off my back.
“But I absolutely loved it – and that’s where my career started. Now my mum is my biggest fan.”
It was the start of a journey that eventually led him to the role of head chef at rooftop members club Upstairs At The Department Store in Brixton.
Then a fresh opportunity presented itself. His colleague at the south London venue – Emilie Parker-Burrell – was leaving to become general manager of The Pearson Room in Canada Square in preparation for its post-pandemic reopening last month.
“I knew she was going to Canary Wharf anyway and I was looking to do something else,” said James.
“So I came over to see the venue – it was a blank canvas, which was very appealing, so I thought I’d give it a go.
“I’d loved working with Emilie at Upstairs and I think we work really well together.
“I’d never had a job in this part of London before or really visited it – it’s very new to me – so I was quite surprised by the number and quality of the bars and restaurants on the estate.
“The Pearson Room is owned by Third Space and we had a briefing from them, to make sure we have dishes that work for what they’re doing on the health side of things, but we’ve had pretty much free rein to do what we want in the kitchen, which is great.
“We’ve created a menu that’s a little bit more casual than some of the other venues around here, food that’s a bit more laid back, but we’ll see, over the coming months, what Canary Wharf wants from us and we’ll adapt what we do.”
Pan-roasted cod with white bean, tomato, mussel and prawn stew
Guests will find the familiar warm browns of the venue filled with the scents and flavours of James’ creativity, ranging from healthier options to more decadent temptations.
Starters (£7-£14) can all be served as mains and include the likes of seared tuna with watermelon, sesame and ginger; quinoa, mint and spring vegetable salad; and poke bowl wakame with daikon and shiso.
Larger plates (£16-£21) include dishes such as roast chicken with carrot salad and whipped Feta, foraged mushroom risotto and pan-roasted cod with white bean, tomato, mussel and prawn stew.
“Flavour is the number one thing we look at here,” said James. “It’s the reason to go out for dinner – to be hit with great big flavours – and that’s what we do throughout our menu.
“I really like simple food. When I was younger, everyone had ambitions to win Michelin stars, but the older I get, the cooking and the food become more relaxed and I think that’s a much better direction to go in.
“I want people who eat my food to be full, content and happy having experienced some bold flavours. A full restaurant, with happy customers, is success in my eyes.
“Staff play a huge role in that. The team of people I have around me is absolutely phenomenal.
“I have great faith in my colleagues. They are all outstanding chefs and we’re all on the same page in the kitchen – everyone can work on every section.
James’ poke bowl wakame with daikon and shiso
“We discuss the whole menu at the end of every session and, if we need to tweak, we do, and so it carries on.
“We never sit still – we’re always looking to be better, and hopefully that will show on the plate.
“We did an incredible number of tastings before we opened and I love the banana tarte tatin because I have a sweet tooth, but my favourite dish is the cod.
“I’ve always loved eating cassoulet – it’s a chef thing to try and get a huge amount of flavour out of it and this recipe started off as a dish we used to have for lunch in the kitchen.
“There are lots of fresh herbs in it, and lemon at the end, which is very French.
“With mussels being in season at the same time as cod, and the prawns adding a bit of luxury – we use the shells for the sauce – it’s great that it’s become a restaurant dish.
“One thing I hate is to change the whole menu on one day – it’s a recipe for chaos and disaster.
“After we’ve been open for a couple of months, then we’ll start introducing new dishes when ingredients are in season.
“We will have an ever-changing menu so when people come there will always be something new.
“It keeps the chefs on their toes as well and gives them a chance to develop their own dishes, get these on the menu and get a bit of recognition.”
A Hoist The Colours cocktail with rum and coconut
The Pearson Room’s bar has also been refreshed with a new cocktail list including beverages such as Fraisier (East London Dry gin with Fraise liquor, lemon and raspberries) and Hoist The Colours (a showstopping combination of Discarded Banana Rum, coconut syrup, pineapple juice, lime juice and kiwi).
James said while there were plenty of healthy options on the menu for those visiting Third Space, The Pearson Room was very much a separate entity.
Plans for the future include creating more dishes inspired by the venue’s wine list, bringing in a dry-ageing cabinet so guests can see the meat they will be eating and setting up an oyster bar to pair with the English fizz on offer.
The Pearson Room is now open Monday-Friday from 10am for lunch and dinner. The venue is also available to hire for events with an extensive range of food and drink options available.
James said: “You have to be approachable – we’re always happy to work with people so they get what they want.”
How do organisations best support and encourage the arts?
Having long brought art into its buildings, the natural step for Brookfield Properties was to recognise makers’ achievements with an annual prize.
The company, which co-owns Canary Wharf Group and is based at One Canada Square, teamed up with the Crafts Council to do just that, recently naming its latest winner.
“We came up with the Brookfield Properties Craft Award in 2020,” said Saff Williams, curatorial director at Brookfield.
“It came out of a collaboration with the Crafts Council. We’ve always hosted free exhibitions in our buildings – it’s part of the Brookfield experience where you have all sorts of things such as art shows, events and wellness seminars.
“I needed work for those exhibitions and people were asking why I was putting pieces in these spaces and what the decision making process was.
“I’d been having an ongoing conversation with the Crafts Council about collaborating and renting pieces from their private collection to show.
“They told me about Collect craft fair, which showcases the best works from makers in this country and internationally. So we developed the concept of a prize to be awarded to an exhibitor at the show.
“Brookfield would then acquire the winner’s works, show them in a free public exhibition and gift them back to the council’s public collection so they can be shown elsewhere.
“So that’s how it started and it’s accidentally become one of the biggest craft prizes in the UK.”
The prize is for £60,000, split between the maker and their gallery, which in Christian’s case is IntoArt – a visual arts charity based in Peckham that works with people who have learning disabilities.
“We work collaboratively with the Crafts Council to decide the winner,” said Saff. “Their curator – Annabelle Campbell – shortlists hundreds of makers at Collect – the top artists they want to add to their collection.
“Then we come up with a shortlist of five, based on work Brookfield would like to show and, after the winner is announced, we buy the work and build an exhibition.
“This year we were lucky enough to be able to go to the studios, see the artists in their space and speak to them about how they make their work, so that helped us identify a winner.
“It’s also a chance for us to talk to them about their story and define who we think has the best work from our perspective of adding to the collection.
“All of our shortlisted artists would have made incredible shows, but with Christian’s work there was such a kind of joi-de-vivre about the light and his colour – a new way of exploring screen-printing in ink.
“I remember when we went to IntoArt, we were blown away by the colour. His work is so beautiful, and he is so prolific in his desire to articulate his work in different media, in silks and also in his drawings.
“It was exciting and I got caught up in it – I thought it was exactly the kind work we should show – the kind our community and tenants would really respond to.
“Art is subjective in so many ways, but Annabelle and I thought Christian’s work was so moving and very exciting.
Christian at work at IntoArt in Peckham
“Because he does his screen-printing on silk, his pieces have this kind of movement about them.
“A lot of them are figurative works, inspired by the Ballets Russes and a lot of research he’s done at the V&A.
“There’s something about the nature of his brushstrokes, that made them feel like figures dancing.
“Even in his drawings of flowers, for example, the petals were almost falling off.
“There is something very gestural about his work. I feel so many artists try to achieve that, but he seems to do it naturally.”
Alongside Christian, makers Anthony Amoako-Attah, Dawn Bendick, Cecilia Charlton and Irina Razumovskaya were shortlisted for the 2022 award.
“What we do is often quite bold and colourful,” said Saff. “If you’ve got 9,000 or 3,000 people coming to work in a building on a particular day, then not everyone is going to like everything, but it’s so important to get art into these environments.
“In the wake of the pandemic, people’s expectations when they go to the office are so much greater now.
“At the beginning people thought it was great to work from home, but now they want to go into work because they can see friends or drop in on a pop-up exhibition opening and have a drink.
“When people hadn’t been into their offices for months and months and saw a show with work by our 2021 winner Anna Ray – so bright and vibrant – people emailed saying that seeing her pieces really helped them.”
As part of the award, Christian’s work will be shown by Brookfield Properties at 99 Bishopsgate in the City during the summer.
Ella Ritchie with Christian Ovonlen
BECOMING AN AMBASSADOR FOR EQUITY IN THE ARTS AND FOR CHARITY INTOART
Brookfield Properties Craft Award winner 2022 Christian Ovonlen makes his work in Peckham with charity IntoArt.
Director Ella Ritchie said: “I co-founded the charity with Sam Jones when we left art school. Based on our experience of volunteering with people who have learning disabilities, we really wanted to make a change because there was no resource for those people to have access to art education as adults.
“We are ultimately an alternative art school that has the same rigour you would find at an art school.
“We introduce people to materials, techniques and opportunities. Our vision really is about equity in terms of access, learning and ambition in the arts.”
Christian joined the collective in 2013 and has been developing his practice for the last nine years.
Ella said: “Most people start with us on a foundation course so they’re learning lots of different techniques, they may never have done much art – it’s very much about exploration and opportunity.
“Over this last three years Christian has taken his drawing practice into this really unique language of textiles, which I think is what has excited people.
“They’re very large scale silks that hang as though they are the drapes of theatre backdrops.
“The series he made for Collect is inspired by the Ballets Russes – the performers, the scenography and the costumes.
One of Christian’s drawings
“He starts with drawings and silk screen prints them onto silks using a very delicate dye technique.
“The resulting textiles are very light and really float in their settings.
“Everything is made by hand including the dyes he uses – he controls the vibrancy and strength of the colours and how that is translated onto the fabric.”
Ella said the prize clearly recognised Christian’s work as on a level with other makers at Collect
She said: “Winning just blew him away. It gave him a direct relationship with the other makers and galleries at Collect – he went round to talk to them as a fellow practitioner and that comes back to that equity.
“Christian is an internationally recognised maker and an ambassador for all of us and our mission to challenge the notion of who can be an artist, maker or designer.
“For me personally, I feel that’s been a long time coming. I’ve always known this work is amazing and the people we work with have such potential.
“I think when people see it, they get it and what’s great about this award is that Christian’s exhibition will be so public and so open to people.”
Croissant crumbs surround Suzie Pennington. But, when you run a cafe called Dirty Apron, a bit of mess and chaos is part of the fun.
“There was a show on at The Albany, so we’ve had loads of kids descending on us,” she said as we sit down to chat about her operation.
The 18-seater venue has been part of the Deptford Market Yard community since November 2016 – more or less when the arches first started opening up – and Its customers are very much at the heart of what the business does.
“A lot of the other vendors that opened with us were from food trucks, so were one-dish orientated,” said Suzie.
“But we’re more like a classic cafe with specials, a soup of the day and a brunch that changes as tastes change.”
Dishes draw inspiration from the season, feedback from regulars and what the local greengrocer has on offer.
“We like classics with a twist, “ said the 38-year-old.
“Not just British but European and Asian and we try to keep all our mains under £10 to make sure the cafe is affordable for the length and breadth of Deptford folk.
“We’re not faddy but, if there is a trend that looks interesting, and our customers ask for it, we will make it because we like to have a two-way relationship.
“We plan the menu around what our customers’ favourites are and speak to the regulars and see if they want anything revisited.”
The Anglo-Indian said her love of cooking started during her childhood in Essex.
“My mum cooked loads of Indian food growing up and I learned how to make lots of dishes quite young,” said Suzie.
“I was about eight when she first told me to make what I wanted from the fridge.
“She also ran a nursing home and I would hang out in the kitchen and learn how to do a lasagne or a roast.
“So I have always been around food and professional kitchens and got the interest and love from there.
“She’s really proud of me. One of the good things about having a cafe is everyone knows I run one so all my friend’s parents talk to me about it.
“Everyone is always interested and I love talking about food and Deptford and I really think everyone secretly wants to open a cafe.”
Dirty Apron is located in Deptford Market Yard – image Matt Grayson
The seeds of her own venture were planted when Suzie met co-founder Holly Williams at Bournemouth University.
“I studied sports science and Holly was doing animation. We met on the ladies football team. I think I tackled her and that’s how we became friends.
“We both just had a love of food and, when we weren’t in lectures, we would go to the local supermarket and try and do student dishes on a budget for the team and make them as exciting as possible.
“We would do big extravagant roasts and lasagne. It was a chance to cater for numbers and was really fun and this working relationship kicked off naturally.”
After graduating they both moved to London and, when the supper club wave hit, they decided to jump on board.
“We would meet up at the pub and organise these themed events over a bottle of wine,” said Suzie.
“It picked up some traction and it was when we did an Orange Is The New Black-themed event and 200 people came to this church hall in Limehouse that we knew we were on to something.”
Next came a six-week stint at Brick Lane Market where they cooked “way too much food” and it was a “bit of a slog”.
But rather than taking a breather, they Googled small festivals and booked every available pitch at events in the south under £100.
“Every weekend for one summer we were somewhere different, “ said Suzie. “It was exhausting but by the end, we decided we were up for the challenge.”
That meant getting proper kitchen experience, so Suzie ditched her job in public health and spent two years at Riley Rocket on the Kingston Road, working her way up to become manager.
When Holly saw the arches in Deptford were being developed and rented, the duo decided it was time to take the plunge.
Suzie said the name Dirty Apron summed up their humour and was a nod to classic greasy spoon cafes.
Over the years they have built up a family of loyal regulars, one of whom has even written a poem in tribute to the £5 coffee and bap deal.
Holly, who now lives in Brighton, manages the business side of things and New Cross resident Suzie takes charge of the cooking and supplies, which come from Tony’s Daily on the High Street, Bread Bread Bakery in Brixton, Ruby’s Of London in Greenwich and Alchemy Coffee Roastery in Wimbledon.
Suzie said: “Our main food is hearty brunches and we always have a vegan special, meat special and a soup of the day.
“We do a curried cauliflower, spinach and sauteed halloumi wrap served with fresh mint yoghurt and a really good tofu scramble with heavily spiced peppers and onions and lovely sourdough and salad and homemade relish.”
In winter, they serve up meat and vegan pies but, now the warmer weather is finally appearing, warm salads with ingredients such as quinoa, roasted broccoli, salsa verde and beetroot will be appearing on the menu.
“I love going out for food and cafe culture to get inspiration,” said Suzie.
“I go to all of the places around here and we are all really good friends, that’s one of the nice things about Deptford.”
The area’s social calendar is also a pivotal part of her planning.
“When the London Marathon goes past we know that we’ll need six people a day to cope with the demand and when Amal the doll came through recently I have never seen anything like it,” she said.
“There were tens of thousands of people. So you have to look at the schedule for what’s going on in Deptford and tailor the rota for the occasion.”
Dishes are developed with customers in mind – image Matt Grayson
Suzie loves to bring people together and has collaborated with Villages Brewery, creating a 150cm sausage roll for their harvest festival, with plans to hold events for the New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival and for Lewisham London Borough of Culture 2022.
“When summer hits, capacity at the cafe will double because of the outdoor seating.
“We are very lucky because it’s very rare in London to get such a large off-road space,” said Suzie.
“It means we don’t have to hurry people. Food can take a while because sometimes we can be a 40-seater restaurant, but people can sit in the sun, have a coffee and enjoy themselves.
“Because it is one room and an open kitchen I’m good at spotting if someone needs someone and everyone does the same – there is lots of communication and chat and customers can basically talk to us from their table. There’s that real dynamic vibe.
“A lot of our customers are regulars so they get to know each other.
“I’ll often be having a conversation with someone on table six and someone from table five will chime in and then they end up talking to each other and then someone else will come and join in.
“Before you know it the whole place is involved in the same conversation, which I think is just the best thing about working here.”
Dirty Apron is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9.30am-4pm.
Something is growing in Tobacco Dock. Tucked away in one of its workspaces is The Rattle – a company that wants to give creatives the same power as tech CEOs.
Deliberately mysterious, its website and social channels are almost barren and membership is notoriously hard to come by. In five years, it has vetted 9,000 applicants and taken 600 members.
But with founders Chris Howard, 40, and Jon Eades, 38, about to land $10million in funding for an international expansion, the subversive ploy seems to be bearing fruit. So what the hell do they actually do?
“I began investing in weird humans in 2017,” said CEO Chris. “I had this personal belief that startups are really boring and every single one was yet another Uber for olives or Netflix for donkey saddles, just the same company over and over again.
“So I gave money to musicians and authors, comedians, math olympiad competitors and psychologists. I wanted to see what happened if you joined their team for six months and, it turned out, it was really cool stuff.
“It shows if you place the same trust you would in a tech nerd in a crazy creative type, they can create something just as valuable and socially powerful as Mark Zuckerberg.”
The premise is simple, at least on the surface. Members of The Rattle pay a fee and can drop into the Wapping site anytime between 8am and 10pm.
It comprises two small studios for writing or recording demos, a live room for up to 10 musicians, which can be used for live streaming and video shoots, and a well-equipped production room for recording and later stage production.
It sounds pretty standard, but under the surface there is much more going on.
“The Rattle is deliberately mysterious and secretive,” said Chris. “We want people to find it hard to join because it implies a certain character type.
“It’s important to us that every member is fucking crazy and has a world view that makes you go: ‘What?’.
“Then they have to be insanely talented at something, particularly something creative, or have made something really special.
“Finally they need to have this magnetism that draws people in.”
The space includes recording facilities
So how do you nurture such a diverse mix of people without stifling them?
“We’re not trying to make another Abbey Road,” said Jon, referencing the studios where he worked for a decade.
“This is a very fluid, very human environment where you are free to experiment and not count the clock or be hyper-conscious of how much it’s costing you.
“It’s a laboratory free from stress for prototyping and experimenting.”
While members casually chat, live stream, record and write, behind the scenes a team of 20 experts is busy documenting every move in order to “engineer serendipity”.
“It’s behind the scenes puppet mastering,” said Chris.
“That sounds weird, but all our members know we do this and the huge wealth of data we track allows our team to understand who needs to meet who and under what conditions.
“Then, for around 20% of our members that move into the venture side, we have a veteran team of about 20 ex-hackers, founders, music folk and tech developers whose job it is to co-create these projects that we think can change the world and transition them into companies. That’s our primary business.
“The last thing we do is connect the outside works into The Rattle so we curate investors and superstars that have done incredible things to come and inspire our members to be more daring and break as many rules as humanly possible in a safe and responsible way.
“Our entire mission as a company is to help the next generation of artists, hackers and inventors become disruptive founders.
“We think they are the ones who change society and the economy and we want to make sure this category of human has a chance.”
The co-founders have very different roles, defined by their obviously contrasting personalities and the diverse paths they took to find each other.
“Day to day, Jon focuses on getting the machinery working well together,” said Chris.
“My job is to make sure the right humans are in the mix from a team point of view and that the people who give us money don’t have too much influence over what we do. So I’m kind of like the shield and Jon’s the sword.”
Neither can keep a straight face at this point but while Chris guffaws with laughter, Jon gives a wry grin.
He grew up playing in orchestras, studied music and sound engineering at the University Of Surrey and pretty much walked straight into a technical role at Abbey Road Studios.
He went on to discover a passion for startups and launched Abbey Road Red, an incubator for tech entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, Chris was the council estate kid with a music A&R dad who he defied to become a moderately successful singer-songwriter.
But believing he was “too shit or too ugly” to make it work, he jacked it in and, on completing a degree in physics and a Ph.D in computational physics, ended up across the pond at MIT conducting research into the online psychology of motivation and social influence “because why the hell not?”.
He spun this into tech company Libboo, which identified audience trends and helped a thousand authors sell their books.
But when it began to fail, alongside his marriage, he landed back in England at Tobacco Dock, as MD of the UK arm of MassChallenge, a global network for entrepreneurs.
It was through their shared passion for music and startups that the two finally crossed paths.
“Having the Abbey Road business card meant I attracted a lot of people and one of those was Chris,” said Jon.
“Most people don’t forget their first meeting with Chris and I certainly didn’t. He just tells it how it is and suffers the bullshit less than some.
“As a young founder if you have a meeting with Chris, you get the truth and sometimes it stings.”
Chris said: “I just sent Jon a random email saying: ‘Hey, you don’t know me but…’ He had his guard up, but I decided to just keep trying and finally he invited me in.
“I just had the impression that he thought: ‘Urgh another one desperate to be involved’. So I just thought: ‘Fuck it, I’m not going to sell myself I’m just going to say what I think’.
“Fair to say I didn’t play it cool. I’m not cool.”
They kept in touch as The Rattle first took root and, when it secured its first investment at the end of 2017, Jon decided it was time to leave the “safe haven” of Abbey Road and follow his “entrepreneurial urges”.
“That’s how The Rattle started officially – on February 9, 2018,” he said. “It was a quick turnaround and at this point Chris decided to get married and go on honeymoon to Thailand.”
Chris, who now lives in Bath and juggles jetting round the world with parenting, laughs gleefully at this point and shortly afterwards dashes off unexpectedly once again to do a pitch to an investor.
“Man on the ground, Jon, notes his business partner has a “love-hate relationship” with raising funds, but his brilliance at doing so should soon land them enough cash to launch the next phase of The Rattle.
The Rattle began with 50 founding members
Jon, who lives in Peckham, said it started with 50 founding members as “an experiment” and they had made tonnes of mistakes along the way, but by the end of 2018 had raised $2million, which allowed them to open a second location in Silverlake, Los Angeles, in March 2020.
“Most people remember that week,” said Jon.
“I got the last flight back as America was closing its borders and we had to put a blanket over it for four months, but our founding members all stuck with it and so did the London crowd.
“There is this real feeling of belonging and being chosen.”
That nurturing environment is now evolving into an ecosystem that he wants to see spread across the world.
“In 2019, we started to explore the notion of venture building where you join someone’s team, temporarily, parachute in and leverage everything you have to help them.
“The other people who tend to provide that sort of thing in music are managers, labels and lawyers.
“Our offering was such a breath of fresh air and we were amazed by the results – that’s become the seedling of everything we have done since.
“Really what The Rattle is today is a venture studio where we can explain our world view about drawing on expertise from the startup world and approach funding in different ways to see how it can benefit them.
“Once you have built that trust you can partner with them and now we are taking long-term positions with people.
“They stop paying us and we take a bit of ownership and hope in five years they become profitable.”
Today it has 75 members per location and has started roughly 25 ventures that it thinks will help change the world.
“It’s not about trying to become famous and high numbers,” said Jon. “Streaming only really makes sense for the Ed Sheerans and Dua Lipas of the world.
“But if you really know who you are and how to engage with high-value fans, there’s real money to be made and a social impact that really affects people’s lives.
“We are the first ones who have found a way to show people a different path, which is all about behaving like a founder, taking responsibility and not handing over control to people prematurely and being taken advantage of.
“If members choose to interface with the existing industry then so be it – we are not anti-label – but we want people to do it from a position of strength so they know what they are getting involved in.”
The Rattle is structures so it shares in members’ profits
Everything The Rattle does is on an equitable basis. They never touch revenue or rights, but become shareholders, so are the last to get paid if there is any profit.
“That means we can give honest advice because if we screw the artist we are screwing ourselves,” said Jon.
“Although we are down every month from a cash flow perspective, we are signing more and more equitable agreements with people, so the assets we are accumulating are increasing.
“At the moment, we are trying to close out $10million, so that’s really exciting and we’re also trying to lead the way by doing a crypto raise, which is attracting more new investors.
“Having that money will mean we can refresh our spaces, maybe even move to new facilities and set-up New York and one or two more within the next couple of years and for the first time be on the map as a real challenger.
“We have been this scrappy outsider so far, but now it is really starting to come together and we can start to challenge some of the bigger record companies and offer the best people a real alternative.”
“Instead of signing a record deal he formed a limited company, sold shares and raised £150,000,” said Jon.
“That enabled him to explore business models and he grew a super fan community using WhatsApp and other platforms and built his whole operation around figuring out what they were interested in buying from him and being quite high touch about it.
“He isn’t very famous, but he has built up a really solid business.”
“Created a platform that allows people to create immersive 3D experiences really easily so musicians can perform inside interactive worlds and make live streaming less dull. They are just closing out a big round of investment.”
Feed Forward
“Using AI to improve music search and retrieval, which sounds quite boring but is quite impactful.”
“They call themselves high five hip-hop. It’s throwback 1990s where they are quite irreverent and write songs around topical themes. They did one for World Bee Day. They have built up a core of fans and throw house parties with beer pong and Super Nintendo.”
“British psychedelic band trying to revive that golden age of the 1970s. Saw other bands doing it and incited a whole lifestyle around tie-dye and slow living.”
You’ve seen Hawksmoor’s barge floating in the dock from Montgomery Square. You’re aware Amazon Fresh has a walk-in, walk-out convenience store opposite.
But now is the time to explore a little deeper into Wood Wharf. Water Street, Park Drive, Harbour Quay Gardens and George Street – these are the locations you need in the back of your head.
Right now it’s the last of these that should be on your radar because, after much pandemic-related delay, Canary Wharf’s emerging residential district has its first bricks and mortar restaurant and bar.
The doors to Emilia’s Crafted Pasta have finally opened at 12 George Street offering Wharfers a place to eat and drink their fill and maybe play on what’s believed to be the first table bocce set in the UK.
For Andrew Macleod, founder and CEO of the business, which has branches in St Katharine Docks and Aldgate, it’s a welcome sight.
“There were times when I didn’t know whether the day would come – the build took six months,” he said.
“We’ve tried to create a very laid-back, rustic feel, where customers feel a bit of a buzz, a bit of action, but a bit of calm too.
“This is not a big fancy restaurant with lots of finesse. We’ve used natural materials throughout, with various types of wood and a terracotta plaster from Cornwall, to recreate that look you see in Italy alongside tiles from the country itself.
“We also like to pay homage to the local area and what’s here – that’s the reason we have kept a lot of exposed concrete throughout the interior – it’s because that is what this area is about, the big new buildings.
“We’ve even left the builders’ pencil markings on the walls from George Street’s original construction.”
The Wood Wharf branch of Emilia’s – image Matt Grayson
The undisputed chief attraction, however, is Emilia’s dedication to the core dish on its menu – pasta made fresh every day on-site and paired with specific sauces.
It’s a process diners and drinkers at Emilia’s can watch taking place.
“When they come in, they find the premises split into two parts – one a fully open bar and the other a trattoria-style dining area with a fully open kitchen,” said Andrew.
“On one side you can watch cocktails being made and drinks being served and on the other you can see the activity in the kitchen.
“In terms of the pasta, the first thing to say is that all shapes are not made equal. I would never tell people what they can and can’t pair with what – that’s their choice. All I can say is what we do here.
“In my opinion, and the opinion of many chefs, you can optimise taste based on the geometry of the pasta you use with a particular sauce.
“When we look at different pasta shapes and sauces, we’re trying to make it so that in every mouthful the customer gets a full set of flavours.
“If you’re ever served a bowl in a restaurant and the sauce and pasta have completely separated then you have a problem.
“It could be the pasta hasn’t been made fresh, that the pasta water hasn’t been used in the sauce or that the wrong shape has been used for the pairing.
“What’s vital is getting the sauce to stick – you shouldn’t see sauce at the bottom of the bowl, oil around the side and the pasta on top.
“I’ve picked three of the dishes we serve to explain why we serve pasta the way we do.”
“We serve our pesto with casarecce – a strange, twisted shape,” said Andrew.
“It’s a very creamy thin sauce and with this shape of pasta you have lots of twists and turns so, when you mix it in the pan, you get the pesto on every millimetre of the pasta.
“If you had a much thicker sauce, it wouldn’t get into these ridges. There’s also a shape called trofie, which is similar.
“When you serve this sauce with either of these two shapes they pick the sauce up and you get the full set of flavours in your mouth.”
Bechamel bolognese with pappardelle – image Matt Grayson
TWO
bechamel bolognese, £12.70
pasta – pappardelle
“This pasta – pappardelle – is like tagliatelle but wider,” said Andrew. “The bolognese or ragu has a lot going on. We cook it for four hours – there’s tomato, vegetables and meat. It’s a very hearty sauce.
“What happens with a big ribbon like that is that everything sticks to it.
“If you take a strand up with all the chunks of veg and meat sticking to it, then you roll that and you eat it, so you have the whole ragu.
“If the pasta isn’t made fresh, the sauce won’t stick so well. Of course, some people like this sauce with spaghetti and I’m not saying there’s only one right way to eat it, but for us this is the combination that works.”
“The final pasta I want to mention is the radiatori – so-called because it’s shaped like cast iron radiators,” said Andrew.
“I loved the novelty of it – a shape you’re not likely to have seen before – and that’s what we’re about at Emilia’s.
“We’re trying to create a pasta experience which is familiar, but a bit different. We serve our tomato sauce with the radiatori.
“It’s quite thin, but the shape of the pasta is able to capture it perfectly. Then you have small chunks of Mozzarella in the bowl and you need to get one of those with a piece of pasta to get the best from the dish.”
It was ancient Greek philosopher Plato who wrote: “Our need will be the real creator”. Necessity has also been the mother of invention for Monica Olivieri and Alberto Pagliara.
Developers were set to start work on demolishing their previous premises to preserve long standing planning permission for blocks of flats, sparking a search for a new space.
That need has resulted in a move into one of the sharply angled buildings at Skylines Business Village – not, perhaps, the most obvious choice for a cafe and food shop.
But La Nina’s new home presents a welcoming face to Marsh Wall and comes with about triple the space of the original business and that brings fresh opportunity.
“It’s best to think of Pepper Street as the pop-up store that launched us,” said Monica. “This is the settled version of La Nina because we’ll stay here for five years.
“For those who don’t know us, we’re a place where people can experience Italian culture through food, art, music and people.
“We’re Italians and we’re here to share our background with our customers.”
As with the previous location, that means an extensive range of edible products, carefully sourced from Italian suppliers, art on the walls, fresh coffee, wine and plenty of food to try.
The grocery on the ground floor – image Matt Grayson
But with the extra real estate, everything has intensified.
“On the ground floor we have the coffee shop and the grocery, on the first floor we have a seating area with tables and a separate kids room, and at the top of the building we have a small cooking school, where clients can learn to make very simple recipes with the help of our chefs,” said Monica.
“Downstairs we have tables outside and also something very new – a machine to roast our own coffee.
“We have partnered with a company called URoast so we’ll receive green coffee beans, roast them daily and have our own La Nina blend.
“In the shop we also have a new machine that can make an express tiramisu, which customers can customise with pistachio, strawberry or just enjoy the classic flavour.
“Of course, we have a range of fresh products made by our chefs including cakes, pastries and pasta dishes.
“Then there are the products we sell, which are sourced from small suppliers – we have one in Puglia where I’m from, for example, that produces food exclusively for us.
“And on the walls downstairs we currently have paintings from Stefano Pallara, an artist who is from my home town of Lecce.
“Upstairs in the dining room we have work from an Italian photographer – Francesco Congedo.
The seating area on the first floor – image Matt Grayson
“It’s a place where people can relax, have a drink, read a book, do some work using our wi-fi connection and enjoy what’s on the walls.
“Across from the dining room we have the kids room where they can come and play. We can have parties here and also there will be kids cooking sessions.
“Next is something I really want to introduce people to because it’s completely new. On the third floor we have our cooking school – it’s cosy, we can only take six people, but it’s a great way to learn to use our products.”
Sessions have already started running at the venue with many more planned.
Classes already scheduled include hour-long tutorials on carbonara, amatriciana and puttanesca sauces for £40 per head on March 4 and kids classes on fresh pasta and pizza and focaccia by arrangement.
“We’ll also be hosting live events,” said Monica. “There will be live music every Friday and stand-up comedy too, as well as storytelling for kids and sessions where they can make their own T-shirts.
“We teamed up with fashion designer Roberta Ripa and got our youngest customers to come up with designs for cushions. We printed them and now they’re in La Nina.
“I also have an idea that I want to teach kids to create their own kites for Easter because in Italy, after you’ve eaten your chocolate egg, you make one out of the silver paper and fly it to launch the spring season.”
That spirit of invention is also present in the fabric of La Nina itself with some of its tables made from doors Monica and Alberto found in their new unit.
“Alberto loves carpentry and he has built everything from scratch,” said Monica. “He is the person who has physically made La Nina.
“The space was used for a clinic before we came here and we used some of the old doors as tables.
“We left the handles on because I wanted to leave a little of the history of what the tables were before so people understand things can be reused.
“It’s good to have a business partner who is also a life partner because Alberto can translate all the ideas I have in my mind. This is not so easy to find.”
Also in the offing is a long-awaited return of an event that had its debut on the Isle Of Dogs in 2019.
Monica’s first Carbonara Day In London, held at Mudchute Park And Farm, attracted more than 3,000 people and she is working on a second edition to take over Island Gardens in the summer.
“We hope to hold this on July 16 and 17, hopefully in that location,” said Monica.
“It’s a beautiful view of Greenwich and is close to the DLR. I really want the Isle Of Dogs to be seen as a live place for food.
“Carbonara Day is a festival in honour of this iconic dish where people can taste the correct recipe made with the best Italian ingredients.
“Chefs will be coming from Rome and they will cook for our attendees. We will also have chefs from London cooking their carbonaras.
“It’s something I’m passionate about – that people can try the real thing and that’s true at La Nina too. For example, here we don’t serve hot drinks flavoured with syrups or anything like that.
Art by Stefano Pallara on display at La Nina – image Matt Grayson
“There’s no chicken in our lasagne or with our pasta because if you went to Rome, Florence or Bologna you’d never find that.
“I want to show people the right way to eat Italian food and it can be a hard mission, but we’ve already had some of our old customers come and visit as well as new clients and curious people.
“I’m sure we will have a line of people very soon, the more we increase the communication of what we’re doing and word spreads – it’s just a question of time.”
La Nina, named after Monica’s grandmother, is open daily from 8.30am Monday to Saturday and from 9.30am on Sundays.
It closes at 8pm except on Fridays and Saturdays, when it’s open until 9.30pm.
The story of The Well Bean Co at Royal Albert Wharf starts with its founder’s social anxiety.
Suffering badly from an early age, Charlie Claydon struggled to make and sustain friendships.
“By the time I was 15 or 16, I was not in a good place with my mental health,” he said. “I had considered taking my life – it was a really tough time.
“I ended up getting into drugs and alcohol really badly at a young age, because it was my way of medicating myself.
“I didn’t know much about mental health at the time – it wasn’t really talked about in school then.
“So I went down that path, making things worse and worse for myself until I realised that enough was enough.
“My life was pretty bad, my relationships with my family and friends had broken down and that’s when I decided I needed to change direction.”
an opportunity
Charlie moved away from the village where he grew up, stopped drinking, smoking and taking drugs. He also found a job.
“I managed to get a position at a bank – the manager was a lovely lady and, even though I didn’t have the qualifications, she believed in me and gave me the job,” he said.
“Within six months I was stepping in as deputy assistant manager – she’d given me a chance, something I’d not experienced a lot before.
“A lot of people had said I wouldn’t amount to much and I’d started to believe that. I didn’t particularly like the financial world, but it was good money, I was good at it and I didn’t have many options open to me, so I kept working, moving into insurance and investments and doing some event management on the side.”
Eventually his career led him to London and a role with the Financial Ombudsman Service, based on the Isle Of Dogs.
gut feeling
“I started off as an adjudicator – it was in the midst of the PPI scandal so they were employing lots of people from the industry,” said Charlie. “I was assessing cases and trying to figure out if people had been mis-sold policies.
“It was the first time where I had a job where I was helping people and doing something positive.
“I quickly grew in the role and ended up becoming a lead adjudicator, making key decisions on cases, which was really exciting.”
At the same time, Charlie continued to struggle with anxiety, trying multiple strategies and remedies to cope.
“It was at this time he read an article about an entrepreneur who’d treated his bipolar disorder through diet.”
Long story short, Charlie tried a similar approach.
“I wasn’t really drinking or smoking, so I gave up coffee, sugar, wheat, and within a week I felt like a completely different person,” he said.
“It made sense to me – your brain and your gut are super connected, they’re both signalling each other all the time.
“I kept experimenting and then, I remember waking up for the first time and not feeling anxious in the morning.
“Suddenly I felt calm, I even wanted to go and hang out with people, having spent my whole life avoiding it. Over the years it has kept improving.”
shed heaven
Charlie’s focus on his diet and mental health became the foundation of the business he runs today.
“I was getting into plant-based food to help with my mood,” he said. “I was experimenting in the kitchen of the shared house I was living in – I’d never eaten plant-based food and it was tough to get my head around not having meat on my plate.
“Then I realised that I was also going to start missing things like chocolate, because it had dairy in it.
“At the time I couldn’t find anything on the market so I looked on YouTube to see how people made it, bought some ingredients and had a go.”
The experiment became a quest. Having failed to get great results with a bowl and spoon, Charlie continued on his mission to create quality vegan chocolate, buying machines to help with production.
Eventually, to save his relationship with his house mates, he negotiated with his landlord to build a small shed in the garden and kept going.
Recipe after recipe followed and he eventually took some into work for his colleagues to try. Positive feedback sparked a change in direction.
Chocolate from The Well Bean Co – image Matt Grayson
chocolate factory
“When I realised that I was creating a product that was pretty delicious, I thought it could be a business,” said Charlie.
“I was already looking for a way out of the finance industry, because I wanted to do my own thing.
“I was already volunteering and I thought I was going to be fully immersed in mental health but, actually being in that industry can be really hard, especially if you’re sharing your story the whole time.
“Having the chocolate was the balance – it was fun, so I thought I’d do a few markets and see how it went – people loved it. Because I’m impatient, I handed in my notice and decided to go for it.”
bench mark
Despite the concerns of family and former colleagues, Charlie sunk all the money he had into equipment and negotiated some table space in a cafe run by Bow Arts at Royal Albert Wharf.
The idea was that it would be a cheap option for his fledgling business and fun for customers coming in.
One table turned into two, then three, then four. Eventually Charlie wound up taking over the whole unit.
cafe community
“Then Covid hit and it was a really scary time,” he said. “We weren’t big enough for people to look for us online, and all the shops we were stocked in closed.
“We’d watched this balance sheet going up, we were really excited, we were doing very well, we’d put all our energy into it, we’d done markets, we were trying to branch out and we were having meetings with Selfridges.
“It was an exciting time, and then it all just stopped. The money just went overnight and it was a very tough time. All I could think was that I needed to save the business.”
The solution, it turned out, was for Charlie to take over the cafe, opening the doors during the pandemic to serve the local community.
Teaming up with actor Oscar Balmaseda – out of work due to Covid restrictions – the pair “fought like cats and dogs” as they served lines of hungry and thirsty locals, growing the business and working seven days a week.
In a year the business went from two to nine staff and Charlie had turned his thoughts back to chocolate as the pandemic receded.
cruel flames
“It was time to get back to chocolate – we had two people and a production plan up on our whiteboards with a smart social media strategy in place,” he said.
“We’d just finished refurbishing the cafe and then two days later the fire happened.”
Disaster. In December in the run-up to Christmas a faulty new machine in the chocolate factory overheated one evening and caught fire.
Fortunately, the unit’s fire suppression systems kicked in limiting the spread of the fire, but smoke and water damage was extensive.
Worse still, the business was under-insured leaving a hole in its finances – a mistake made amid the chaos of the pandemic and the company’s rapid growth.
Charlie is working to reopen in March – image Matt Grayson
back once again
However, the fire will not be the end for The Well Bean Co and its cafe. Ceilings, floors and surfaces have been scrubbed. Furniture has been cleaned, repaired or replaced.
The local community pitched in, raising money to help Charlie, and he and Oscar (who has also gone back to his regular job, performing in Mamma Mia! The Party! at The O2 in Greenwich) are busy getting the cafe and factory ready to re-reopen
“We’re painting this huge building, we’ve got a new counter made of scrap wood and I’ve had to learn new trades I’ve never tried in my life before,” said Charlie.
“But that’s being an entrepreneur – you have to be savvy and learn loads of skills.
“Some things will be the same – we’ll still be serving our amazing hot chocolate that people travel miles for, but we’ve also taken the opportunity to change the menu.
“We’ll be doing plant-based lunch bowls, breakfast bowls and toasties – all super delicious and healthy.
“The factory hasn’t had its day yet, either – there are more plans we have for it – but I believe with a bit more love and attention, it can really soar.
“I want to say a huge thank you to the local community, because, when we had the fire it was devastating.
“This was because of the potential danger to the people who live above it, but also because my business was on fire, my livelihood, and I’d just finished refurbishing two days before.
“I didn’t want to come back. But the number of people who messaged me daily to say they’d help me rebuild made me realise people loved what we’d built and that it was worth bringing back.
“They raised an incredible amount of money to help me pay staff for a bit longer and, to this day we get people coming by saying how good it is that we’re reopening and offering help. The support has been amazing.”
It’s a classic bromance. Gregorio Carullo and Dario Truden grew up on opposite sides of the Tyrrhenian Sea in southern Italy.
As growing boys, they feasted on pizza and, as men, embraced the sensual arts of nude photography and hairdressing.
Fate brought them together five years ago in London when, like so many residents of the capital, they found themselves thrown together as flatmates.
They bonded over their heritage and a shared passion for pizza, which quickly grew into a desire to share it with their new community.
There were ups and downs along the way but, two months ago, the story had its happy ending, when the duo opened Tondo Pizza in Wapping High Street.
The 24-seater restaurant serves up food that fuses traditional Neopolitan flavours with modern sensibilities. I sat down with married father-of-one, Gregorio to find out more.
how did the idea start? Dario and I lived together as flatmates for two years and, although we do totally different jobs, we always had the same passion for Italian food and the dream of opening a small restaurant.
The idea of Tondo started a long time ago when I had the opportunity to work in the evening in a pizzeria here in London and, over six years, accumulated the experience and the desire necessary to start this new adventure.
what inspired you? We are both from the south of Italy. I was born and raised in Salerno and Dario in Sicily, so having the need to make great pizza is in our veins. We both grew up eating it and we wanted to recreate the flavours of our childhood in our own way.
what were the challenges? There were certainly enough difficulties to carry out this project, starting with finding the right place and making everything functional. However, everything was possible thanks to the support and commitment of Dario who immediately believed in the potential of my idea.
why open in Wapping? For me it is the most beautiful neighbourhood in London. It’s an island of quiet in the middle of the largest city in the country. I loved it from the first moment I walked its streets back in 2016, when I first moved to London.
I would come here often to take long walks and relax, away from the chaos of the city and I finally moved here in 2020.
Pizzas are served on wooden trays- image Matt Grayson
what do you love about it? I love the architecture of its buildings and that it is a place rich in history.
what was your childhood like? I was born in Salerno, and my childhood was carefree, my family is the typical family of southern Italy with its rules and traditions to respect. I am the youngest of three children and, perhaps for this reason, I have always been the most pampered.
your first memories of pizza? My first memory is surely the one related to the pizza from the Aquila Nera restaurant, where I had thousands during my childhood. It was my daily appointment – almost a ritual – with my friends.
who taught you to make it? My first teacher was definitely my mother, I will always be grateful to her for having transmitted to me the value of the Italian culinary tradition.
Then I was able to refine my knowledge thanks to the help of colleagues over the years.
what’s a Tondo pizza? Tondo follows the tradition of Neapolitan pizza – using Italian raw materials that are always fresh and working everything slowly. Our dough rests from 48 to 72 hours to allow it to be light and delicious.
what kind of oven do you use? A new generation electric oven that allows us to have a perfect temperature for cooking pizza and does not emit odours or smoke, respecting nature.
We serve the pizzas using wooden trays with sheets of recycled paper, which gives us a water-saving of 90% and we recycle all our waste personally.
where do you get ingredients? All the ingredients are Italian Protected Designation of Origin (DOP) products, from flour to tomato, mozzarella and all the toppings. We are proud that all our ingredients arrive from the producer to our restaurant in less than a day.
what’s on the menu? Delicious starters such as meat platters or burrata and our pizzas range from the well known Margherita to our bestsellers Diavola, Panciona and many others.
We offer vegan and gluten-free options as well. There are also desserts such as Italian pistachio, chocolate and vanilla gelato and then the Neapolitan baba with lemon cream from the Amalfi coast or dark chocolate cream – absolutely worth trying.
Tondo Pizza is located in Wapping – image Matt Grayson
why is your pizza special? Tondo’s pizza fully represents the taste of Italian tradition. Although we started this adventure just over two months ago, our customers have already rewarded us with enthusiastic reviews.
how does it fit with the day job? Luckily I can manage the two activities quite well – by day as a photographer and by night as a restaurateur – like Bruce Wayne and Batman.
Photography is a passion before a job, in fact, I tend to do only personal projects because only that can make you achieve great results.
what kind of photos do you take? I do only nude art. I have been pursuing this career for nine years and it is always a great satisfaction to have the honour of photographing strong and independent women.
They fight every day for their rights, putting themselves on the line, with a type of photography that is sometimes looked at from the wrong point of view by society.
which is tougher? Without a doubt, pizza. Photography can be learned with courses and practice. Pizza must be in your soul.
Executive support is what Liz Agostini is here to talk about.
The portfolio director at Mash Media, which is set to host The PA Show at Excel in Royal Docks on March 8 and 9, is quick to point out that the event is a larger umbrella than its name might suggest.
“It’s for personal assistants, executive assistants, virtual assistants and office managers – it has really broad appeal,” she said.
If anything, that’s a bit of an understatement. Spread over the two days, thousands of visitors will be able to attend dozens of seminar sessions, listen to dozens of speakers and interact with more than 100 exhibitors.
In addition to a theatre for keynote speeches the show will feature a Key Skills Theatre, a Personal Development Theatre and a Tech Theatre with a packed programme of trainers and industry experts.
It will also host the Office Management Conference with discussions on topics such as project managing office moves, supporting a positive culture in the workplace and engaging staff in sustainability.
“Whether you’re working as a PA, EA, VA or office manager, or considering a career in an executive support role, this show is definitely the place to be,” said Liz.
“There are several ways to attend, with a free visitor pass granting access to the Keynote Theatre and the exhibition floor.
“As a business, we’re real advocates for live events – with exhibitions, it’s about touching, feeling and experiencing products and meeting people.
“We’ve all attended webinars and virtual events, but there’s nothing like being in the room with others – humans are social beings, that’s how we’re hard-wired.
“Events like The PA Show also allow for those serendipitous conversations with people you bump into – a chance to build and expand your network.
“Those who don’t want to take part in the paid programme are absolutely welcome to come along.”
Delegate passes – £149 for one day or £169 for both (get 10% off with code PA2216) – not only include entry to the office management conference and all of the theatres, they also unlock Planet PA post-show video content, access to premium suppliers and the option to use The PA Show networking app.
Liz said: “One of the key things about the event is that the educational aspect is absolutely stand-out.
“The whole programme is CPD accredited and the other thing that makes it outstanding is that, within the paid-for programmes, all the people delivering the training are seriously qualified in the area of executive support.
“To go on a day of training with any of these people would normally cost hundreds of pounds on its own.
“At the show what you get is a substantial taster of what they offer. That means you can attend lots of different sessions, see what they are doing and know what you’re in for if you were to book a course with them.
“We cover all sorts of different areas, so it’s a buffet of education – people can choose what they want to attend at the theatres over the two days.”
The PA Show features a number of expert speakers and trainers
Liz said: “We’re working with people who are at the absolute top of their game in terms of the PA world – the cornerstones of the training market.
“Outsiders often greatly underestimate the importance of executive support roles.
“But when you sit down with people working in this field and really take time to understand what their jobs entail, it’s absolutely mind-blowing.
“The roles are so varied and strategic – these people are partners for the executives they support.
“They often have to participate in all aspects of an organisation whether that’s finance, marketing, employment, corporate governance, human resources and sustainability issues. Their remit is absolutely massive.
“I spoke to one PA who answers 90% of her boss’ email as him. Her understanding of the business has to be as good as his.
“That’s why a lot of EAs and PAs move into critical roles within organisations – because of their knowledge of the business they work for.
“I know PAs who have gone into underwriting, stockbroking and mergers and acquisitions.
“At the top level you need to know how the business works and that’s about a million miles away from the stereotype of getting an executive’s clothes dry-cleaned for them.”
The event is now in its 11th year
New for its 11th year is the collaboration with the Office Management Group, bringing the conference into the show’s stable.
“That’s an entirely new stream of content that we’re putting out,” said Liz.
“It covers areas such as facilities and office management and, what’s particularly relevant about that right now, is that so many businesses are focused on bringing their staff back into the office, doing that safely and establishing how they create the right office environment in 2022 and beyond.
“Regardless of how many staff they have in the office in person, businesses are conducting both internal and external meetings virtually, so what kind of facilities do you need to have in place? If people are working remotely, how do you keep everyone connected?
“That might cover questions around scheduling if people are working more flexibly – for example, how do you make sure project teams are running efficiently if participants are only in on certain days?
“Because the whole subject of technology in business is so important we’ve introduced the Tech Theatre to The PA Show this year too and that’s focusing on a whole raft of tools that are now available, not just the Microsoft and Google toolkits.”
PAs, EAs, VAs and office managers are welcome to attend for free
Liz said for businesses wanting to reach the spending power of executive support professionals, exhibiting at the show was a “no-brainer”.
She said: “Nothing beats the personal touch and the budgets people in these roles have access to are significant.
“Our campaign for the show this year focused on PAs and EAs as the power behind the throne – exhibitors need to come along to make sure they are aware of your products, otherwise you’re just leaving them to search the internet, where it’s much harder to stand out.”
“I see it as a unique opportunity to build something new, to learn from my experiences and to launch a lettings and management business within a successful agency that has been trading for 20 years and has done very well,” said Jay O’Dell.
My London Home’s director of property management is relishing the task in front of him. It’s one his whole career has prepared him for.
“After university I needed a job and I found one at a lettings agency,” said Jay. “It was in Cambridge and, outside of London, you work as a combined agent and property manager.
“After working there, going travelling and returning to that role, I moved to the capital and joined Farrar And Co on the Fulham Road – a small independent business.
“At that point I had to make a choice because, in London, the business forks into two, so I became a property manager and was there for nine years.
“After that I moved to Strutt And Parker to head up its property management department for six-and-a-half years. It was a really good company with great people and I learnt a lot.
“However, it went through some really significant changes after it was bought out three years ago by BNP Paribas – the fourth biggest bank in the world.
“I’ve never wanted to work for a huge corporate company, it’s not where I feel at home. Strutt And Parker had been the perfect middle ground – a big company but a partnership and one where you still got to talk with and influence the decision-makers.
“So I decided it was time for a change. I was very clear I didn’t want to swap my job for a similar one at another giant firm. I wanted something new and exciting and that’s when I saw My London Home was advertising.”
The well-established hybrid estate agency, which has offices covering Westminster, South Bank, Battersea, Hong Kong and, of course, Canary Wharf, was embarking on a project to launch a lettings business, having sold its previous operation to another agency a few years ago. It was looking for someone to take the lead.
“I applied and was lucky enough to get the job,” said Jay. “It feels like the right time for My London Home to be launching a lettings business.
“We’ve had a chance to look back at the market while we’ve been out of it and we haven’t seen anybody doing anything very differently, so we think we can bring that to the table.
“The agency is very successful and that gives us an advantage from the start.
“It’s incredibly rare that you get an opportunity to build something from nothing, to develop a new set of systems and processes and to structure our teams to reflect exactly what we think people need today and the way things should be done.
“In my experience, it’s very difficult to change those things once they are established at a company – that’s the same whatever industry you’re in.
“There can be real resistance and that’s a shame because there has been such a lot of positive change in the lettings industry over the last 10 years with some really good tech-based solutions.
“Being able to put things together at the outset and to get them right first time puts us in a really good position in the market.”
Jay says technology plays a key role – image Matt Grayson
My London Home recently launched its lettings operation with a clear emphasis on the benefits of technology.
Jay said: “The advent of proptech has made a massive change to the industry and the way you are able to run your business. That includes compliance, administration and designing how you’re going to do things as a company.
“In setting up the lettings operation at My London Home, I’ve been very much guided by the proptech I wanted to work with and have then built all our processes around it.
“That puts us in a position where we can utilise all of the packages to their full capabilities and, while we are not unique in using them, all the other agencies are bolting them on to an existing service and process and that’s not always going to be a good fit.
“You’ll also have resistance there, where staff won’t want to change the way they’ve always done things.
“To get the most out of proptech, you need your team, tenants and landlords to buy into it. You don’t get the full efficiencies if you’re using existing processes and just diverting into a digital portal as an add-on.
“What we’ve created is a truly streamlined service with the pinch points taken away.”
So what does that look like from the point of view of a tenant or landlord coming to My London Home?
“From the tenant’s point of view, the way we’re structuring the back office is different to the way other agencies do it,” said Jay.
“Typically in the industry, the lettings manager deals with landlords and tenants in the front office, the deal is then passed to a progressor whose job is to sort out the tenancy agreements and referencing and then the tenant is passed on to a property manager who is responsible for looking after the property.
“Then you might have a third party firm looking after maintenance.
“That can lead to tenants constantly being passed from person to person and, unless your internal communication is really on point, people won’t necessarily know where they’re at.
“That process is inefficient and means you look like you have a disjointed company.
“What proptech allows us to do at My London Home is to change that. With us you have our front of house team who deal with the negotiation and then a tenancy manager.
“As soon as the deal is agreed they become the sole point of contact until the tenant leaves the property.
“Lots of agencies talk about offering this, but in reality few, if any, do. The reason we can is because we have the right technology embedded in our processes – onboarding, rent profile, referencing and tenancy agreements.
“An example would be that we’re using PixFlow to streamline the maintenance process as well as a company called HelpMeFix, which is pioneering video technology to help resolve issues with properties.
“Engineers use video calls to diagnose problems and talk tenants through fixing them if it’s safe to do so.
“That might be something like repressurising a boiler and it’s a win for both tenant and landlord because the issue is resolved more quickly.
“Also, the tenant learns how to fix the problem, so in future probably won’t even need to contact the agency if it happens again.
“That means the landlord, rather than paying a call out fee for an engineer, will pay significantly less.
“We’re also using The Depository, a revolutionary piece of tech for the end of tenancy process. It allows one person to manage the whole life cycle of a tenancy.
“Tenants should look at renting through us because we’ve designed our processes to be pain-free.
“The systems we have in place should enable you to go from making an offer to signing your agreement on your phone without having to look at a piece of paper along the way.
“We also have a tenant rewards programme that we’ve introduced in conjunction with a company called Vaboo, which offers discounts of between 5% and 10% at more than 700 national retailers. There’s also a monthly competition to win a month’s rent.
“Even if tenants only engage with it once – to buy half-price cinema tickets, for example – it’s still giving something back as an agency and offering something positive.
“These platforms are also a great way for us to gather feedback to ensure we can make our operation even better.”
Jay said landlords should consider renting their properties through My London Home for a number of reasons including the various service levels available.
“We’ve decided to offer a Platinum Management Service, which has been designed to simplify the billing process for landlords,” he said.
“It means they’ll know exactly what they’re going to earn and covers all administration fees over a tenancy.
“That means no hidden costs and, while the percentage a landlord will pay is slightly higher, we think it offers true clarity so they can plan into the future.
“Our let only fee is 11%, let and manage is 15% and the Platinum Management Service is 17% of the rent and that includes hundreds of pounds of admin costs.
“For accidental landlords it also means the up-front costs of renting a property are drastically reduced as it can be challenging to transition from being an owner to renting a property out.”
Jay said a strong market and the complementary role of My London Home’s sales business made it an ideal time to launch.
“Lettings and sales work hand-in-hand and benefit both sides of the business, because you have the opportunity to pass clients between both sides of the business, but retain that income for the company,” he said.
“It makes our offices more dynamic because, the sales process can take months while the lettings team will be doing multiple deals in a week.
“That means you have that activity, which is good for morale, as well as the repeat income as a business.
“The market is strong right now as the economy recovers from the pandemic.
“Listings typically aren’t on the market very long. There are still issues with the amount of stock, but we expect that to ease over the next six months.
“I think that people are still in homes having hunkered down over the last couple of years – lots haven’t moved.
“The increasing cost of living coupled with fewer people upsizing means you’re not getting the usual turnover of properties coming back onto the market that you would expect.
“As we come out of what appears to be the end of the pandemic, confidence will return and people will start thinking about the next few years of their lives.
“They will start to consider what they want from life, where they want to be living and I think this will fuel people moving more freely and that will bring more stock back to the market.”
