Right now there are two things to tell you about The Pearson Room.
The first is that it’s just launched its new cocktail list for winter 2022, with the bar team working hard to come up with 14 drinks to tickle the tastebuds of thirsty Wharfers.
“I would describe it as focused on smoky, spicy and sweet flavours as those are right for this time of year,” said Theo Damse, assistant bar manager at The Pearson Room.
“We try to make it so we have as little waste as possible behind the bar and we make use of as much of each ingredient as we can.”
That means the venue, which is located above Waitrose overlooking Canada Square, is all set for winter, with a special Christmas drink – Santa’s Little Helper – also in the pipeline for the festive season.
General manager at The Pearson Room, Emilie Parker-Burrell said: “We like our menu to be original, creative and something you won’t find anywhere else.
“The team have been amazing, coming up with all these drinks since we first talked about changing the menu in June.”
See below for our six picks from the new list.
Also on Wharfers’ radars should be the venue’s loyalty scheme, which applies to PAs, EAs and anyone working at a company who has responsibility for making corporate bookings.
“We’re calling it The Pearson Collective,” said Emilie.
“The way it works is that those on the scheme get points based on the number and size of booking that they make with us.
“Because we are owned by Third Space, those points can be used as credit at the club, Natural Fitness Food and Third Space Spa.
“You’d get one point for a booking for four people, which works out at £5.
“The Pearson Room is very flexible – it can handle small dinners right up to receptions for 350 people.
“If you booked exclusive hire of the whole venue, that would be 40 points, so £200 in credit. We want to reward those who are loyal to us – it makes sense if we give something back.”
Email events@thepearsonroom.co.uk for more information about The Pearson Collective
SIX OF THE BEST – OUR PEARSON ROOM PICKS
1. Cinema Seat – £14
Mezcal Montelobos, Cointreau, popcorn syrup, lime, pineapple juice
This punchy drink comes garnished with a few sweet kernels of popped corn and some sticky syrup to help the medicine go down
2. Fairy Belle – £12.50
Belle De Brillete, Benedictine, pistachio, pear, Prosecco
The ideal welcome drink for a festive bash, this slender, elegant flute comes with a couple of pistachio nuts and a crisp, clean flavour
This pale purple drink lies as lightly on the tongue as the first whisper of ice crystals forming from the morning dew. A subtle cocktail in debt to the classic Aviation
4. Winter Drop – £14.50
Rémy Martin 1738 cinnamon, lemon, orange juice, fresh orange segments
This is a proper, grown-up drink served with slices of fun – literally three toasted orange segements dipped in sugar and cinnamon
5. Just Chill – £11
Ocho Tequila, watermelon liqueur, grenadine, watermelon syrup and chilli
This is the partygoer who makes an entrance in a stunning shade before hitting the dance floor to spice things up. Carefully balanced
6. Santa’s Little Helper – £14.50
Bruichladdich Port Charlotte, Mount Gay Rum, Cherry Heering (served hot)
Available from November, this brilliant, potent drink should be a Wharf rite of passage. Heady, smoky and warming for winter
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
The topic of energy is seldom out of the news at present.
There’s the government plan to cap household bills at an average of £2,500 through 2023 with six months of equivalent support for businesses at a cost of more than £100billion.
Then there’s the longer term problem that, unless humanity brings down global carbon emissions by finding ways to generate the power we need in more environmentally friendly ways, then our activities on this planet will be the end of our species.
Whatever is going on in the market or with the planet, organisations’ ability to accurately know their own usage and impact is essential.
That’s where Utilidex comes in. Founded in 2012, the company is based at Level39, Canary Wharf’s tech community, spread across various floors of One Canada Square.
“We create software for businesses, the public sector and industry,” said co-founder and director Mike McCloskey.
“We do three things. Firstly, we do billing and, by default, bill validation for our customers.
“Secondly, we handle energy procurement – that means buying energy for the future for large corporates and industrials particularly.
“The reason we do that is so companies are less exposed to big changes in prices, to mitigate big shocks in the market.
“Then thirdly, from the data we receive, we create, assess and monitor the carbon footprint of an organisation based on the latest conversions.
“These actually change every year based on how much renewable energy is in the system.
“Once you have that data, which tends to be in half-hourly granularity in the UK, you can make observations – a business can monitor things like how much energy is being used when a property is vacant or a floor is empty in a building.
“You can work out things like energy intensity per square foot and then compare different buildings to see how they differ.
“That’s how you start to understand whether you’re wasting energy.
“Once you start looking at data in this highly granular form, then the observations become more interesting.
“These days, companies are devoting a bit more time to this – they are carbon aware – but even prior to that there was still a requirement for people working in facilities management to understand day-on-day, week-on-week, month-on-month, whether the organisation was making energy reductions and procuring power more effectively.
“These are the sorts of things we try to inform our customers about.
“With our software, it’s all about usability and understanding how the system works – getting as much benefit as you wish and deciding how much activity you can and want to devote to energy.
“In terms of value, we can measure the impact of projects and behavioural change – for example, swapping to LED light bulbs.
“The data can provide the justification for doing things like that.
“We also do the basic things like ensuring our customers’ bills are accurate.
Utilidex co-founder Mike McCloskey
“If your bill is £5million, then you’ll want to know if it’s correct or whether you’re under or over.
“It could be that a company is still being billed for a property it no longer owns, that the rates have changed or that the meter data is either not coming through or has been poorly estimated.
“There’s a lot of talk about energy suppliers over-billing, but in my experience, they’re just as likely to under-bill which is equally problematic if there’s a shock at the end of the year and it wasn’t in the budget.
“Traditionally much of this work was done manually, which was time consuming and prone to error, so we do it digitally.”
Utilidex, which has recently added water to the list of utilities its software supports, did not spring fully-formed from the minds of its founders – Mike and co-founder and CEO Richard Brys.
Instead it is a company where change and evolution have shaped its activities, growth and direction.
“When you start a business in the utility sector, especially if you’ve got some experience, you usually have a plan,” said Mike.
“But as the market evolves there has to be re-calibration and sometimes chucking everything out of the window and starting again.
“All these things happen in a dynamic fashion, but you have to adapt to those changes to stay in business.
“We were very lucky. Our first two corporate customers – Bourne Leisure and Aviva – had massive environmental awareness in 2014 and still do today.
“Their interest drove us into an area where we had to learn quite quickly what had to be done to support behavioural change in buildings.
“Nowadays, every organisation above a certain size in the UK has a carbon target.
“These are set at board level, so have to be adhered to, and there are lots of opportunities where our data can be used either by consultants, developers or sales providers to build a business case for a project.
“We want to build our business in the UK and grow it here – there’s a lot to do.”
One of the parts of its business Utilidex hopes to expand is the ways it supports organisations to reduce their carbon emissions.
Mike says industrial companies will invest in making their own energy
“I’m actually more optimistic now about climate change than I was eight months ago,” said Mike.
“Sadly, that’s down to the rocketing energy prices.
“They will cause a dark winter where energy conservation becomes really important for financial survival, be that for households or businesses.
“The impact of this will accelerate the process because it will force everybody’s hands and that should be a good thing for the planet.”
While Mike said there were no easy fixes for businesses facing escalating bills, he said some would be in a position to take action.
“It’s a massive problem and will need to be addressed in a variety of ways,” he said.
“One way for organisations to do that is to become both producers and consumers of energy as well as investing in batteries to help avoid peak rate tariffs.
“Where firms have the capital, now would be a really good time to invest in wind or solar – and make their own energy. That’s the way industrials will need to go.
“It’s also good because it creates additionality as well – there’s one more solar panel or wind turbine generating power that can be used or fed back into the grid.”
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
Refugees have to leave everything they know – not just places and people, but communities, careers, sights and sounds they have found comfort in their whole lives.
They arrive in a new world and are expected to assimilate. But how do they do this when everything around them is unknown?
This is the struggle Dash Arts seeks to capture with its new production Dido’s Bar, an immersive retelling of Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, set in Royal Docks.
“I’m Jewish and British, English and a Londoner and have always felt I’m many things – on the edge of so much,” said director Josephine Burton.
“I’ve enjoyed being in that liminal place between different communities. It’s how I see the world, so I’m interested in seeing other people’s otherness too.”
The story of migration and love will be told through the eyes of refugees today and unfold in a real life bar built in part of a former Tate & Lyle warehouse.
Audiences will, we are told, be immersed in a strange world when they arrive, where they are unsure what motivates the people around them.
They will mingle with the cast as the story of Trojan refugee Aeneas unfolds around them.
But instead of being set in ancient Italy, the production has been transported to a jazz bar with a line-up of live musicians.
It’s set to run at The Factory from September 23 to October 15, 2022.
“The audience will walk into the venue, with a house band warming up in the corner and they’ll grab a drink from the bar,” said Josephine.
“Then the drama of this amazingly powerful love story between Aeneas and Dido and the great battle between Aeneas, the foreigner, and Turnus, the local boy, will creep up around them.”
Josephine is co-founder and artistic director of Dash Arts, which is based in Whitechapel.
For the last 15 years it has worked with 9,000 artists to create work that bridges divides across art forms, cultures, languages and communities.
“We go on a bit of a journey and spend a lot of time listening, understanding, meeting and researching artists and eventually creating work with them,” said the 45-year-old.
“It’s like opening up a Pandora’s box with this extraordinary wealth to explore, understand and then share with audiences.”
Dido’s Bar has been two years in the making and was first inspired back in 2017 when Josephine met Kurdish Iranian refugee Marouf Majidi in Finland.
“I had been on an exploration of what it means to be European which had emerged out of the Brexit referendum,” said Josephine.
“I met Marouf in Finland in 2017 on my way back to the airport over a coffee and he told me his story of traveling to Europe.
“He fled Iran as a refugee and was relocated to Finland, where he settled and eventually studied at the Sibelius Music Academy in Helsinki, where he now teaches.
“He’s been on an extraordinary journey from the music conservatoire in Tehran where he studied Persian classical music, to teaching Finnish folk music.
“He found it very hard at first to establish himself musically and connect with the musicians he was playing with in Finland.
“Eventually something shifted for him and he found his place, but he was no longer ‘in tune’ with musicians from central Asia.
“It was such a short meeting, but that thing he said about feeling out of tune lived with me.
“I picked up the phone three months later and said I really wanted to tell his story and wanted him to be at the heart of it.”
Marouf Majidi – image Ali Wright
He agreed, but at first Josephine struggled to find the right way to bring his story to the stage.
“I wanted to tell Marouf’s story and find a way of understanding what it is to be European through the experiences of refugees who travel here,” she said.
“It’s perhaps the people who move here and go through such a transformation, musically and emotionally, to insert themselves and settle in a new place, that can help tell us who we are. They can be that mirror for us.
“But I didn’t want to just tell a personal story, I also didn’t want to create a super band of musicians. I wanted to do something theatrical and dramatic.”
Her lightbulb moment came when she remembered a text she had studied 20 years ago as a classics student.
“I was chatting to someone about how the Aeneid is the story of our time, of the refugee and the struggle to find a place to belong,” she said.
“Aeneas flees Troy in the war-torn East and travels across the Mediterranean to seek sanctuary and build a new home in Europe
“It’s the story of both the experience of fleeing and having to assimilate and discover that, once you’ve arrived, it’s only the beginning of the story.
“Suddenly I realised it was the perfect way to tell Marouf’s story and to understand the role of Aeneas in a contemporary setting.
“The original epic poem is pages and pages long in Latin, involves mass battles and love affairs and is very involved and beautiful.
“We’ve taken that story and mapped it on top of Marouf’s.”
She developed the idea during a series of residencies with playwright Hattie Naylor and Marouf, who has composed the music alongside Riku Kantola.
Research and development in Scotland in February 2020 was followed by a residency in Finland – a few days together as part of Royal Docks Originals – and a residency in Cornwall.
Marouf then moved to London this summer to finish developing the show.
The cast of 10 is a mix of nationalities – image Ali Wright
“I remember the two of us bent over on the floor in Scotland in the rain with copies of the Aeneid in English, Latin and Arabic ,” said Josephine.
“We spent hours trying to work out what the story was and finessed it to the point where we would challenge each other to tell it in less than a minute, then 30 seconds, then 10.
“Then we did a lot of jigsawing and planning and brought in Hattie who had adapted the Aeneid for Radio 3 as a drama.
“She’d go off and write and then we’d write a song together. It really was a collaborative process.”
The result is a show where the epic warriors of the original story are now musicians trying to make it into the spotlight and the goddesses are sisters who own two bars – one on the edge of town and one in the centre.
It draws on the backgrounds of its international cast who hail from Morocco, Madagascar, Germany, Finland, and Eritrea, and uses their native languages to enrich the performance.
Josephine said: “The show now is about how to understand an old myth written 2,000 years ago that feels so resonant and timeless.”
It will be staged in Unit F of The Factory, disused sugar warehouses that have recently been transformed into a series of new venues and workspaces.
“It could never be in a black box theatre,” said Josephine.
“I wanted the audience to feel that they were somewhere impromptu and exciting and slightly makeshift. We spent quite a lot of time trying to find a place and saw some extraordinary places across the Docks.
“Then, last May, I visited The Factory when it was in quite an early stage of development.
“Projekt, our partners for the show, had just got Unit F from Tate&Lyle and, when we walked in, there were pigeons in the rafters and sugar all over the floor.
“It was sticky and black underfoot and it felt very powerful as a venue – I just knew it would amazing.”
Dash Arts has built the bar from scratch and it will serve up beverages from nearby Husk Brewing using local staff.
Newham artists will take to the stage each night and the show will be complemented by a programme of gigs, talks, food events and workshops to engage the local community, which has been shaped through the area’s history of immigration and dockers.
“It’s a perfect marriage for us of place and story because the audience is really going to feel that they’re coming to somewhere incredibly exciting and diverse,” said Josephine.
“Newham is one of the most linguistically diverse boroughs in London – there are hundreds of languages spoken there – and it has always been a first port of call for people.
“So to tell this timeless epic story today in Newham’s docks is really thrilling and right.”
The project has been co-produced with the Royal Docks Team and Jospehine said they have worked hard over the last year to embed it into the community, meeting local groups and running music workshops.
“There is a real sense of culture and community building happening there and I got very excited about that,” she said. “I had this real instinct that there wasn’t anywhere else to put Dido’s Bar.”
She hopes the audience will embrace the world they have created.
“I really want them to have a wonderful night and love the music because it’s extraordinary,” she said.
“I want them to feel as I felt, that this old ancient story has such resonance today, to feel moved by the protagonists and the journey they have taken.
“I hope they feel we have done justice to some of the biggest questions of our time, about how to assimilate into our communities.”
THE FACTORY – A NEW VENUE FOR ROYAL DOCKS
Once used by Tate & Lyle for sugar production, this 5.2 acre site on Factory Road is now a series of work and event spaces run by meantime use specialist Projekt (also behind the Silver Building)
It landed the first grant from the Royal Docks Good Growth Fund for a year-long refurbishment and opened the 100,000sq ft space in June.
Organisations that have made The Factory their home include Community Food Enterprises, Links Event Solutions and The Beams – a new venue by Broadwick Live.
Unit A is home to a cafe run by The Breadmeister, Unit D is a set of workspaces and Unit F is a refurbished warehouse that will be hired out for film and TV productions.
Projekt said the venue provides new work and event spaces that will “safeguard and grow the already burgeoning artistic and cultural community around the Royal Docks, as well as providing a significant amount of affordable workspace.”
Musician, sound designer, producer, curator and promoter Pouya Ehsaei wants his audience to join him on a journey and it’s called Parasang.
Talk to him about the project and it quickly becomes apparent that the British Iranian creative is more or less constantly in a state of flux himself – sands shift, ideas evolve and develop.
Parasang is a Farsi word for an ancient unit of measurement – specifically the distance it is possible to travel from one location to another in a single day.
“If you were to go from London to Reading, for example, that would be two parasangs,” said Pouya. “If you go today, then you’d get there tomorrow night.”
Parasang isn’t, however, about traversing great distances.
“It’s a live collaboration between Pouya and a series of other musicians, fusing his electronic music with their free improvisation.
Created initially as a club night, it ran for 30 performances between 2018 and 2020.
“The idea was to invite musicians from around the world with different backgrounds who would not normally play with electronic music to join me on stage in a club so we could improvise and play together,” said Pouya.
The project then went virtual during the pandemic and has now changed again.
“That was using streaming platforms and we were jamming online,” said Pouya.
“There was me in my room and musicians from all over the world – from Detroit, Berlin, South Korea and Brazil – we played together remotely, which was very complicated to set up, but we managed it.
Pouya’s system allows him to jam on stage with musicians – image Monika S Jakubowska/Kings Place
“Now we changed Parasang to be a bit more like a trio or duo that plays electronic dance music mixed with world music in a concert set-up.
“I developed a hardware system so I could improvise with the musicians on stage.
“I have a modular synthesizer, a sampler, a drum machine and a few effects pedals – I signal process all of the sound from the musicians I’m working with as well.
“Everything goes through my system. I mostly make the structure with simple beats, atmospheric sounds and modular generated patterns and then the musicians will freely improvise over the top of that.
“Each of our concerts is one of a kind – the music is made there on stage and it will never be the same again.”
Parasang is set to be one half of the double-bill event Arsenal Of Sounds, which is set to take over Woolwich Works’ Beanfeast venue at Royal Arsenal Riverside on October 7, 2022.
Also on the bill will be Addictive TV’s Orchestra Of Samples, which sees soundscapes created from a vast library of recordings from musicians all around the world.
For this iteration of Parasang, Pouya will be joined on stage by Kadialy Kouyate, a kora player and griot (storyteller and musician) from Senegal.
“Every time I’ve played with him – three times so far with Parasang – it’s magic,” said Pouya. “His sound, his voice and his kora go very well with the stuff that I do.
“I’m really looking forward to the performance at Woolwich.
“The main idea is the sense of journey in our music. We start with something very pure and we take that purity to many places and we like our audience to come with us.
“Our music is hypnotic, immersive and atmospheric.”
Addictive TV’s Orchestra Of Samples is also on the bill
Pouya has been on a journey himself, both physical and musical, to get to where he is.
“Originally I’m from Iran and I started as a musician when I was a teenager – I took flamenco guitar lessons before moving on to classical guitar,” he said.
“In my early 20s I was teaching classical guitar in a school in Iran and then I found out about the electric guitar and I got into metal, nu-metal and rock music.
“It was a big thing back then.
“This was all underground though, in people’s houses or very small venues because that kind of music was banned.
“It was very hard to have a band and to do concerts – really to keep everyone motivated – so I gravitated to electronic music because you could just do that on your own.
“I could sit in my bedroom and send it out into the world, just to have a voice. There was no need to find rehearsal space for a band.
“It’s hard to be committed as a group if you can’t play concerts or really get any kind of feedback on what you’re doing.
“So then I stopped playing guitar and applied to study music technology at York and then I did a PhD before moving to London 10 years ago.
“I’ve been playing music here for a decade now.”
In many ways, Pouya created Parasang in an effort to recapture the feeling he’d had playing music as part of a group, rather than creating it on his own.
“When I came to the UK, I was working on electronic music and that aspect of being in a band with others was missing,” he said.
“That’s why I thought I’d get rid of the laptop and arrange my instruments so I could just play with others intuitively and do that live if I wanted.
“I really like it, the state of flow you get into – the connection I feel with the musicians is completely different than if you just play alone.
Pouya will be joined by kora player and singer Kadialy Kouyate for Parasang in Woolwich – image Monika S Jakubowska/Kings Place
“Especially when you’re improvising, you have to be present in the moment – all your senses are at work – and with my setup there are so many cables, knobs and buttons, they demand a state of complete focus. That’s something I really enjoy.
“When you come to a city like London it’s so vast and so big that you’re a little bit confused in the beginning.
“Finding people you want to work with and feeling part of a community can take a long time.
“But I have that now and I really feel that this is just the beginning for me. I’m now in the process of turning Parasang into more of a band situation.
“We don’t want to be a club night any more.
“The plan is to have an album a year with, say, with two musicians I want to work with, and then to go on tour with that before changing the line-up.”
It’s also through collaboration that Pouya came to be aware of the work of Addictive TV, the group he’s now sharing a bill with for the second time.
“I have a band called Ariwo, which is me playing with three musicians from Cuba – mixing Cuban and electronic music,” said Pouya, who has performed at venues such as King’s Place, the Barbican, the Royal Albert Hall, the Southbank Centre and the Royal Academy of Arts.
“We were playing at the Womad festival and I saw Addictive TV’s Orchestra Of Samples there – I was totally blown away by what they’d done.
“They saw one of the Parasang club nights in London and we got in touch. I think it was in May that we did a similar thing to what we’re doing in Woolwich – getting together for a concert. That turned out really well – we’re a good combination.”
Arsenal Of Sounds – Orchestra Of Samples And Parasang takes place at 8pm on October 7, 2022. Standard tickets cost £10.50.
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
There’s more to going into work than toiling at a desk or moaning about your employer in the office kitchen.
It’s about coming to a different environment and being able to take advantage of facilities that simply don’t exist in the suburbs or the home counties.
Set over three floors, it boasts more than 100,000sq ft of training space including a climbing wall, swimming pool, boxing ring and pretty much every piece of exercise equipment you can call to mind.
Regular readers of Wharf Life will already be familiar with the hundreds of classes it offers every week, with everything from Yoga and Pilates through to the epic Yard WOD set in its purpose-built CrossFit-style training area.
The club recently launched its autumn campaign, offering memberships with no joining fee, encouraging Wharfers to see its extensive facilities as an extra benefit to heading into work, as more and more people transition back to regular commuting.
Elite personal trainer at Third Space Canary Wharf, Stephanie Whitehead, said the benefits to exercising this way were clear.
“Training at the gym is very different from training at home,” she said.
“During lockdown, because I’m a trainer, I could be very resourceful and come up with great workouts using just one kettlebell and that would be great fun.
“But we don’t have to do that anymore. The difference here is, firstly, the environment. This isn’t working out on a mat on your kitchen floor.
“Here, you’re in amazing surroundings with people doing really cool things. You’re somewhere else and focused – you’re ready to train.
Third Space Canary Wharf has received some recent upgrades including to its free weights area
“Secondly, it’s all the equipment. You’re not limited by what you have at home.
“If you haven’t been in a gym for a while, that can seem overwhelming – which is why having the input of a personal trainer is really important.
“Suppose, for example, you’re coming into the office a few days each week.
“We can put a programme together for you that fits that, tailored to maximise what you get out of each specific visit.
“Each trainer will have a different style and a different approach, but it’s our job to give you that clarity, structure and focus.
“It also prevents you just doing the things that you are good at, which can create imbalances in the body.
“My approach would be to work with a client on an all-round programme based on the number of days they are coming in to make sure all of their muscle groups are getting involved and we’re working on their whole body.
“For example, I’ll do strength training, but in terms of conditioning, I’ll always try to throw in bigger, full-movements like thrusters or squats.
“That way you get better results and the client gets more bang for their buck.
“I’d say a minimum of three visits a week is a good idea because that is just enough to build habit and consistency and it’s achievable.”
Stephanie says she believes in pushing herself and her clients
Stephanie has worked in the industry for more than a decade and has been a trainer at the Canary Wharf club for eight years.
She is also assistant fitness manager there, meaning she mentors new personal trainers as well as working directly with clients.
Having discovered a passion for fitness at university while studying psychology, she went on to compete in CrossFit before developing a career on the gym floor.
That broad background means she is well-placed to understand the benefits training can have on her clients’ mental health as well as their physical state.
“A lot of my clients would say they have very stressful jobs – lawyers who work really long hours, or bankers who might deal with mistakes involving millions of pounds – really high levels of pressure to deal with,” said Stephanie.
“Firstly, coming to the gym is a distraction and, secondly, it’s a complete break with everyday life.
“I always say to people that this is a place where they can leave work behind – one hour, which is just for them.
“No work, no phone if they want – just the training.
“Exercise is an outlet – a lot of my clients have a little vent at the beginning of their session and then forget the minutiae of the day.
“There’s also that feeling of achievement – getting that personal best on the 2k row or lifting heavier than ever before.
Third Space’s recent upgrades include new pin-loaded weight machines
“With consistency and discipline you will see results and that’s what’s so rewarding about it.
“It’s positive reinforcement and it’s just different from the feeling you get from, say, buying a nice pair of shoes.
“That can be great, but it wears off quite quickly, whereas the feeling you get from achieving in the gym, whether it’s building muscle or losing body fat, means you get fitter and stronger.”
Over the pandemic, many people will have naturally lost the habit of going to a gym and may be nervous about their ability to return to regular training.
Stephanie said the best remedy was simply to start exercising, but not to worry about attaining a certain level of fitness before getting back in the gym.
“Personal trainers are not like drill sergeants – we’re not going to go crazy at the beginning,” she said.
“Personal training is very tailored, so each individual client will have a different ability level. We’ll assess that in the beginning and we just go from there.
“Every single person, no matter what strength or fitness level they’re at will certainly see progress by the end of a few months.
“It might be that that they’re moving better or they feel less out of breath. They might be stronger or feel better.
“But there’s definitely no minimum standard to start coming to the gym – any time is a good time to start.
“My tip would always be to increase frequency.
Stephanie says commuters can get great benefit from exercising three times a week
“If you’re going only once a week and progress seems slow, then going up to three times will be of benefit.
“It’s also important to not just do that same movements over and over. That’s where a personal trainer can really help.
“Personally, I like having a certain amount of pressure.
“That’s why I compete in CrossFit, because having that constant challenge to improve gives me a limitless reservoir of drive and motivation.
“My training philosophy has always been to push myself and, within their own limits, that’s how I work with my clients too.”
In addition to its Canary Wharf club, Third Space operates in the City and at Marylebone, Islington, Mayfair, Moorgate, Soho and Tower Bridge.
Third Space is currently offering memberships to its clubs with no joining fee.
Other incentives include discounted personal training sessions, two complimentary guest passes to the club worth £50, a meal from Natural Fitness Food, 10% off at The Pearson Room and a 25% discount off the member’s first treatment or massage at the Third Space’s Canary Wharf Spa.
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
For the last two years it has been heads down at Craft Central to keep things ticking over.
The creative charity on the Isle of Dogs had to bring in outside funding for the first time as the effects of the pandemic took hold.
But there is a new director at the helm – Jo McLean – who is ready to build the organisation back up and is looking around her to find its future direction.
“I took the job because I was really excited by the idea of a creative hub,” said the former professional musician, who knits and silversmiths in her spare time.
“I’m very much driven by community engagement. I think artists should sit at the heart of communities and be a really great resource for them. I see the potential for that to happen at Craft Central.”
A classically trained French Horn player, Jo spent 12 years touring internationally before packing away her instrument and starting a career in arts organisations.
“My first proper job was at Cove Park, an artist residency centre in Scotland,” said the 52-year-old.
“I was in charge of a capital project bringing in more accommodation and supporting the visual arts and crafts residences. That was when I first got interested in design and craft.”
A graduate of the Royal Northern College Of Music in Manchester, Jo lived in Scotland for 25 years working for organisations such as Uz Arts and The Touring Network and overseeing the creation of her own home, which gave her a new appreciation of architecture and buildings.
“I’ve always been really interested in good design and craft,” she said.
“So that’s kind of where my path into this area has come from.
Craft Central is based at The Forge on Westferry Road
“I’ve led organisations across all genres of arts, from performance through to visual arts, theatre, literature and lots of consultancy work as well around organisational development, which is, I suppose, where my real interest lies.
“This job brings together my two passions, which is great.
“It’s been a turbulent few years and the charity wanted somebody who was going to come and build up the organisation again and I have the skills to do that.”
It was love as well as work that brought Jo to the capital as she met her husband, a Londoner, and they tied the knot a few years ago.
“We had a long-distance relationship for quite a long time and decided we needed to come together,” said Jo, who recently dusted off her French horn to play on a new album by The Bluebells’ of Young At Heart fame.
She first moved to London just before the pandemic to work for Clod Ensemble, based on Greenwich Peninsula, but returned to Scotland after a year. When she saw the role at Craft Central she knew it was her chance to move down here for good.
“I was ready for a challenge, said Jo, who now lives in north London. “I’ve done organisation internally in CEO type roles but this role was very much building based, which I’d never done.
“The pandemic has left its financial mark on the organisation.
“It’s always been self-sustaining, but the next couple of years are slightly trickier in terms of how we make the business model work as well as it used to.
“All the parts are there, it just sort of needed an architect to put them all together and help everybody to make it work, which is what hopefully I’ll do.”
She had never set foot in the area before, but had heard of Craft Central from friends who have studios there.
Formed in 1970, the arts organisation spent 40 years in Clerkenwell, but in 2017 moved to The Forge on the Isle Of Dogs – one of the last buildings from the golden age of shipbuilding in the area.
Located on Westferry Road, it was built in 1860 for CJ Mare And Company and constructed the keel for battleship HMS Northumberland.
It fell into decline in the 1900s, but was restored and transformed into studios and workspaces used by Craft Central, by the construction of a virtually freestanding two-storey birch plywood structure within the existing Flemish bond brick walls.
“I was blown away – it’s a stunning, incredible building,” said Jo, who is currently hunting for a facilities manager to help take care of the site.
“What I really liked about it is there’s a connection to the west coast of Scotland, which has a really rich shipbuilding heritage and I’ve been told that a lot of Scottish people moved to the Isle Of Dogs for the shipbuilding industry down there.
“So being in that sort of very heavy industrial building feels quite comforting to me.”
The Forge’s studios are home to more than 70 makers
With around 77 makers based there, the studios are almost full, but Jo is concerned about the effect the cost of living crisis will have this autumn.
“Artists are going to be really hard pushed to afford the luxury of having a studio,” she said.
“I am anticipating people will have some very difficult decisions to make and I’m thinking about how we can make sure that we have a full space and keep the business model working.
“Our rent review will be due next year and I’m sure the utilities will go up. We are going to have to face some harsh realities about increases to our costs.
“I’m going to do my very best to make sure we don’t pass those on to our studio holders, but it will largely depend on whether we can find some support to help us.”
The pandemic already saw bosses seek outside funding for the first time, from the Foyle Foundation and Garfield Western Foundation. Jo said more would be needed this year to make the figures work.
“My ambition is that in two years we won’t be relying on any sort of trust, foundation or public funding in order to operate as a centre for craft, but we would be looking for funding to run programmes with the community,” she said.
Jo is hoping to forge relationships with companies in Canary Wharf and beyond to help spread its work further into the Island.
“Craft Central isn’t just about the building – it’s going to be really important to take the brand beyond that,” she said.
“I’m trying to find as many places to connect to as I can, locally and more widely. I’ve inherited a really fantastic team and we’re looking forward to the future.
“For a while its been head-down, let’s hold this together and the team did a fantastic job of that. Going forward, it’s our ambition to be much more embedded in the community.
“Ways we can work with residents and local groups is going to be a definite focus.”
Jo already plans to register Craft Central as an Arts Awards venue to help broaden its work with young people.
“I think it’s really important that we engage with children,” she said.
“Craft isn’t taught so much in schools any more and I think a part of what we can offer is a window into another world for young people.
“We want to work more with older people, because the motor skills associated with craft are a recognized benefit in ageing as well.
“There are so many benefits associated with art of any type, but particularly in craft. It connects you to yourself.”
Craft Central’s makers work in a wide range of different areas
It wasn’t so very long ago that there wasn’t really much to visit Wood Wharf for. Those days of promissory hoardings are long gone.
MMy Wood Wharf is finding its feet, complete with a basement jazz club, Emilia’s Crafted Pasta is well established as a place for generous bowls and Hawksmoor continues to be a lunchtime hit, ably assisted by arguably one of the best bars on the Wharf – The Lowback – beneath.
But those are just for starters. Patty&Bun, a chain so hip all its melons are twisted, is serving decent drippy burgers on Park Drive and recently launched hotel Tribe has opened its doors as the first place for visitors to stay actually on the Canary Wharf estate.
Its bar and restaurant, which also acts as a workspace, is the optimistically named Feels Like June – a moniker that is entirely appropriate for a heatwave but that might be more a reach in, say, January.
For restaurant manager, Juan Esquivel, the name is more about the warmth of welcome his team and the hotel aim to extend to visitors and guests.
“First of all, we are casual – you won’t find us in suits,” he said.
“We want people to feel like they are on holiday when they come here and we don’t want people staying with us at Tribe in their rooms, we want them here.
“The social hub is the lobby and there’s a salad bar and a grab-and-go coffee shop.
Feels Like June manager Juan Esquivel
“But Feels Like June also works as a standalone restaurant. It’s inspired by California both in what we serve, but also by the state’s summer vibe.
“I think the designers have done a really good job – you won’t find a normal linear restaurant here.
“It’s more relaxed, like a lounge, so people can sit with a drink and a book or do some work on a laptop.
“We want this place to be for everybody – an approachable product with great service – a place where Wood Wharf’s residents can meet holidaymakers, Canary Wharf workers and the hotel’s guests.
“The name isn’t about the weather, it’s about the warmth we bring to our guests. The seasons may change, but here you will get that same summery feel – always welcoming.”
Originally from Argentina, Juan has worked in Mexico, Spain and London, most recently for six months at Gaucho.
“I’ve always worked for luxury brands and, for me, coming here was about asking why we can’t bring that level of service and product to a wider audience,” he said.
“Tribe is part of Ennismore (which recently merged with hospitality giant Accor), and we are really proud to be the first hotel on the Canary Wharf estate.
“As a brand it’s a new concept and this is the first in the UK – the flagship for all of the openings around the world.”
Open all day with options for breakfast, lunch and dinner, food and drink-wise, Feels Like June promises diners dishes that prioritise health and natural ingredients.
“Personally I love the sea bass, which comes with herb butter and lemon curd,” said Juan. “It’s very tasty and the steaks are good as well.
“All of our desserts are gluten-free and we do things like a banana split because that’s something fun to share – we have a lot of families at the weekend so it works for kids as well.
Food at Feels Like June
“We also have a caramelised pineapple dish with mango sorbet, which is very summery and has rum in it so there are lots of tropical flavours.
“At the bar we are looking to have lots of low alcohol versions of drinks – our versions of classics.
“For example, guests can have our Minimal Colada, a version of a Pina Colada that’s clarified and more summery with coconut rum, banana, pineapple, coconut water and salt.
“The idea is you can have a drink with lunch and be fine to do some work.”
Guests can expect to pay around £13 for a cocktail, while small plates cost between £8 and £17. Main dishes range from £14 to £25 and salads are about £12.
“We’re open for breakfast and we will have a lot of guests from the hotel, but we also have an a la carte menu for our other customers,” said Juan.
“We’ve also just introduced a brunch menu, which we think is going to be very popular at the weekend.
“Feels Like June really brings a different kind of space to Canary Wharf where everyone can find something to enjoy.
“We already have regulars and I really like our staff to engage with our customers and to have conversations with them.
“In turn I think the people who are living here are very happy that more things are opening. Here we want people to always feel that they are welcome.”
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
“I think there needs to be a big shift in theatre to consider disabled audiences, and how you can make work that aims to be more inclusive,” said Chloe Palmer.
“No show is ever going to be 100% accessible, but having companies that are evaluating what they can do and how they can support people with disabilities has been a catapult for us.”
Actors and devisers Chloe, Sam Brewer and Aarian Mehrabani make up FlawBored – an emerging, disabled-led company – that’s set to stage three performances of its debut production at Greenwich Theatre in September, 2022.
A work in progress,It’s A Motherf**cking Pleasure is a satire encompassing blindness, influencer culture and non-disabled anxiety about trying to get things right and do the correct thing.
“It’s really good fun, not harsh and nasty,” said director Josh Roche.
“It’s about the way some people presume to know what is good or useful for those with disabilities and gently mocks that anxiety.
“It’s very funny, very fast-paced, very playful, and it tends to let you know where the floorboards are and then unsettles you and turns things on their head.
“It’s also about how disabled identities talk to each other and how they’re competing for space.
“It focuses on a young influencer who is trying to give disability a social cachet and the compromises they have to make, just like other social justice movements at the moment.”
The hour-long show follows “megalomaniac blind talent manager” Tim who’s on a mission to rebrand disability with “ambitious but naïve” blind influencer Ross as his possible golden ticket.
Audiences can expect glittered-up canes, blind TV spin-offs and hijacked political causes in the mix. It’s fair to say there’s a lot going on, with accessible layers to match.
Sam and Aarian on stage
“This is a piece we’ve worked on for a year,” said Chloe.
“Sam came up with the original concept and approached Aarian and me to ask what we could do to explore how blindness could become dramatised?
“We then spiralled from that. A lot of our process is based on doing research and focusing on ideas we want to explore within the theatre world.
“We go away and explore a question and, because access is so important to us as a theatre company, we also make sure that every idea we come up with can be made accessible.
“Alongside the devising, we have an access language and we look at how captioning and audio descriptions can be integrated into the script and scene – it’s not something we do at the end with limited time.
“Sometimes in theatre the audio descriptions are done by companies who don’t have much to do with the production process, but we say that you should start with access in the forefront of your mind and it should be turning in your head while you create work, which will be enriched because of it.
“You think about the language you can use in a play and the form it can take, and access is just another language, which allows the audience another way to experience your work.
“For example, captions can add an extra layer of experience for anyone who can read them and you can use them however you want.
“I think the support we’ve had for this project is a testament to the fact that a lot of theatre is still inaccessible.
“You’ve got people exploring these languages but not necessarily the know-how to use them.”
In some senses that’s less of an issue for FlawBored because Sam and Aarian are blind.
Having graduated from the Royal Central School Of Speech And Drama in 2020, the three actors teamed up with the idea of making a show together, before finding support and funding in the form of a company.
One of the missions of that company is to put blind characters on stage that don’t conform to tired stereotypes.
Sam said: “I’m blind and so is Aarian, but we are very different people. We simply find ourselves lumped together by the happenstance that we are blind.
“This is one of the things we’re trying to find our way around.
“There are a lot of tropes around vision-impaired characters, historically – oracles in Greek tragedies, soothsayers, characters who see the world differently – that’s all rather boring.”
Aarian added: “We’re trying to show that people are an amalgamation of many identities – our gender, class and nationality, for example – blindness is just another one of those differences.
“Sam and I are both visually impaired but that’s just where our similarities cross – we’ve got completely different life experiences.
“All of the characters in It’s A Motherf**cking Pleasure are fully rounded and deep. Inherently they all have loveable and likeable characteristics, but are also deeply flawed.
“It’s a complicated relationship between the characters and the audience and we never want to be saying: ‘These are the blind characters – and you know how to treat them’.”
Josh said: “You always know which identities on stage are allowed to be themselves and which are treated with kid gloves.
“Visually impaired people are typically clairvoyant or see life in a deeper way than those around them.
“When you allow them to be just as flawed as all of the other characters in a play, you’re understanding that visually impaired people are just people – they’re as good or as bad as anyone else.”
Having won support from Arts Council England, Greenwich Theatre (which presented FlawBored with its 2022 LET Greenwich Theatre Award), Theatre Deli, Camden People’s Theatre, Les Enfants Terribles, Wildcard Theatre, Watermill Theatre and Extant, there’s clearly an appetite in the industry for the company’s work.
Sam said: “I think theatre can be really good at doing moments, but it’s about how those artists can then be developed.”
Josh added: “I think there’s a difference at the moment in the way arts funding is focusing towards different identity groups and the way they’re perceived in wider culture.
“I think there’s a reverence about the way funding operates, which can be incredibly useful but can also be quite restrictive – it’s not always as playful or bold as it could be.
“There’s a distinction between this and, for example, the way social media represents different identities.
“The hope is that others will find it easier to develop work in these areas and these ways if people have already done it.”
Performances of It’s A Motherf**cking Pleasure are set to take place at 7.30pm on September 14, 2022, and 7.30pm and 2pm on September 15, 2022. Tickets cost £15.
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
One of the regular pillars of the sublime Greenwich + Docklands International Festival (GDIF) will once again take over Canary Wharf for a whole weekend, filling the estate with free shows for all to enjoy.
Running from 1pm to 6pm on both September 10 and 11, 2022, this year’s outing will see 12 separate companies and artists put on some 22 performances in eight locations.
Consequently, its 2022 iteration offers the familiar opportunity to both explore the estate on a Saturday and Sunday, while catching some very high quality dance in the process.
While it’s worth aiming to see all of the shows – GDIF has a well deserved reputation for giving a platform to artists of the highest quality – there’s a real buzz around one of this year’s pieces.
Sleepwalker is a collaboration between disabled dancer Joe Powell-Main and the Royal Ballet in a story that has almost as many twists and turns as the choreography.
Born in mid-Wales, Joe began dancing aged five, auditioning for the Royal Ballet School’s junior associate programme, travelling to Birmingham to train every Saturday and going on to perform with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
“From there, when I was about 10 years old, I auditioned for the Royal Ballet Lower School in Richmond and gained a place there,” said Joe.
“There were dancers competing for a place from all over the world and they only took a dozen girls and boys each year.
“I studied there for about three and a half years, and I was lucky to perform with the Royal Ballet in Nutcracker.”
But then disaster struck – a period of prolonged growth meant Joe developed problems in his left knee that led to surgery and further complications.
Then he was involved in a serious car accident that left him unable to use his left leg, meaning he had to leave the Royal Ballet School.
“That’s when I acquired my disability,” said Joe. “It was a very tough time. Since I was young, I’d poured my heart into dancing.
“My parents had supported me and taken me everywhere. I’d put all my eggs in one basket, and having the rug pulled from under me like that at 14 was not a nice thing.
“What was difficult for me as a child and as a teenager was that I had been very active.
“Then there I was, in a place where I was having difficulty with my physical mobility – it was difficult for me to see what I could do with my life.”
It took some time, but Joe found his way back to dance.
His mother spotted some classes for wheelchair users on a trip to see his ballet teacher sister perform and, although they were in Manchester, the family made things work.
He spent a few years dancing Latin and ballroom, going on to win competitions before embarking on a performing arts course at college, initially in musical theatre before switching to dance with the encouragement of his teachers.
A degree in dance and performance at the Arden School Of Theatre in Manchester followed during which time he was making efforts to connect with ballet dancers with disabilities on social media.
These endeavours led him to connect with Ballet Cymru in Wales where he first attended a summer school, gained acceptance as an apprentice and joined the main company in 2020.
Joe and Isabel Lubach will perform Sleepwalker four times over two days
“Because of lockdown, it was a year of waiting, but in 2021 things started opening up and we did some performances of Giselle,” said Joe.
“Then someone reached out to me from the National Lottery to be a part of the ParalympicsGB Homecoming ceremony.
“They also made the decision that it would be cool to reach out to the Royal Ballet, given my connection with them previously and we did a performance last September at Wembley Arena.
“That’s how I became the first dancer in a wheelchair and on crutches to perform with the Royal Ballet and returned to that connection.
“I was asked if I would be interested in doing something for GDIF this year – another collaboration with a company – and luckily the Royal Ballet were really interested in keeping contact going between us and seeing what was possible.”
That has led to Sleepwalker, a piece directed by Royal Ballet principal dancer Alexander Campbell, which explores themes from George Balanchine’s ballet La Sonnambula.
“It’s something people haven’t seen before,” said Joe.
“We started the process of creating the 10-minute piece in March with some research and development. I think there’s a perception, especially with classical ballet that dancers make everything look easy but one of the beauties of this duet is that we’re not afraid of showing the work that’s going on
“I think the audience will have an expectation of what’s coming next, but they really won’t know. Also, because people will be all around us, everyone will view it slightly differently and that’s exciting as well.”
While he acknowledges that his childhood classical training prior to acquiring his disability puts him in an unusual position, Joe hopes his performances and career will serve to inspire companies to embrace greater diversity in the dancers they work with and the programmes they develop, not least so more people can enjoy the benefits of performance.
“While rehearsing, outside of performing, I would classify myself as quite shy,” he said.
“I don’t know what happens but when the music comes on and I’m on stage I gain confidence from somewhere.
“I’m not sure where that comes from, but it’s very enjoyable.
“What’s most important to me is the sound of the music I’m performing to.
“You can explore the choreography, but when it all comes together, that’s the most exciting thing.
“In front of an audience I’m not the world’s most confident public speaker, but when I’m dancing I can express things through movement – you don’t need words.
“Even if it’s a piece you know well it feels new every time you perform.
“It might be finding something different in the venue or in the movements and I find that really interesting.
“I’ve not been to Canary Wharf before but I’ve seen pictures and I think performing the piece outside will be a big change with people all around us.
“I hope that our audiences for Sleepwalker will have their perceptions of what a classical ballet dancer might look like challenged.
“I also hope they seek out opportunities to see more dancers like me.
“I hope companies will also be more willing to bring disability and classical ballet together – if we can keep an open dialogue, we can tackle anything.”
Sleepwalker will be presented at 1.35pm and 3.55pm on both days of Dancing City at Canary Wharf’s Columbus Courtyard.
DELIVERING THE FESTIVAL
GDIF artistic director Bradley Hemmings
“As always, for Dancing City, we like to make a virtue of the stunning outdoor spaces, piazzas and waterfronts which characterise Canary Wharf,” said GDIF artistic director Bradley Hemmings.
“We’ll be down at Jubilee Plaza, Westferry Circus and Wren Landing, but we’re also trying to explore more spaces on the estate than we have in the past so there will be events at Crossrail Place and at Harbour Quay Gardens at Wood Wharf.
“It’s an event where you can imagine you’re in a European city with all the squares and open spaces – that’s the spirit of it.
“We all know Italy, Spain, Portugal and France, with their wonderful street cultures and that’s what this part of the festival does for east London.
“This year we have a range of fantastic shows on offer including Migrare by Cia Maduixa, which is presented entirely on stilts as four migrant women fight for a new place to call home.
“Then there’s Four Seasons at Westferry Circus by James Wilton Dance with capoeira, acrobatics, martial arts and classical dance all set to music by Vivaldi.
“There’s new work from the hip hop company AndroidX + MHz called Crowd_Ctrl.
“This integrates movement with a projection screen behind, which will be like watching a choreographed graphic novel at Jubilee Plaza.
“That’s a London premiere. And there are so many other things besides.
“We’re so pleased to be supported by Canary Wharf to fill the estate with companies from the UK and overseas again for 2022.”
- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
They say you are what you eat. Well, layers of Deptford life are folded into the pizza at The Yeast Brothers.
Firstly, the sourdough base is made by catching the wild yeast in the air around the Artworks Creekside and fermenting each ball of dough for 48 hours.
“The dough is the main thing,” said co-founder Rafael Pinto, 25. “We don’t like to talk about what goes into ours – it’s secret – but we mix different types of flour so it is very light and crispy at the same time.
“It’s all about the fermentation. If you leave it to over-ferment it’s not going to be nice and we have to control the temperature and hydration overnight. It’s a science.”
The next layer is their background. Bermondsey resident Rafael and co-founder Ale De Menezes, 43, both hail from São Paulo in Brazil, but left their homeland’s traditions behind to mix Italian style with their own modern take, which includes vegetables from Deptford and chorizo from Spain.
“Pizza is a very big thing in Brazil,” said Rafael. “They say it’s the best in the world. The Italians would disagree with that, I’m sure.
“It’s a different style because they don’t use a long fermentation like the Italians. They make the dough in the morning for that night.
“Here, the long dough is very important to us. We like to be patient and let it grow by itself and don’t try to push it.
“It makes it easier to digest because you use less yeast but, of course, without the yeast we would be nothing.”
Hence The Yeast Brothers. Except they’re not actually related. Not by blood anyway.
Ale has been friends with Rafael’s father since they were teenagers in Brazil and it was he who introduced the youngster to pizza making in Deptford.
“When my dad knew I was coming to London, he contacted Ale to help me,” said Rafael.
“Ale used to work in TV production in Brazil and made pizzas but it wasn’t his main job.
“A few years back he went to live in Australia and started working in a kitchen making pizza. When he came to London, he kept doing it.”
When Rafael arrived in London, fresh from culinary school in Brazil, Ale helped him settle in and get a job at Wandercrust at The Duke pub in Deptford.
It was here that the ingredients of The Yeast Brothers began slowly fermenting.
“Ale was the master who taught me everything I know about pizza and we sort of became brothers for life,” said Rafael.
The duo worked at Wandercrust until April 2021 when the business moved to Greenwich, building on their shared love of pizza and dreaming of their own operation.
The Brazilian duo offer a range of flavours – image Matt Grayson
It was lockdown that gave them the push to roll out their own dough.
“During the pandemic, it was just us in the kitchen not talking to anyone but the drivers, so it gave us time to talk and come up with the concept and choose our identity,” said Rafael.
“Ale’s the most hard-working guy I know, so I knew he would be the best partner for me.
“I feel like the pandemic helped because otherwise, it would have taken a lot longer.”
Money to make the dream a reality was tight, but then the team from Deptford Bus approached them with “the perfect opportunity” – a space and some equipment to get them started.
They traded there until December last year but once again were left stranded when the business closed.
Again, Deptford came to the rescue when the team from Artworks approached them with a space.
Hopefully now settled for a while, they are concentrating on developing their menu which offers up classic pizza flavours and some surprises.
“We used to do Neapolitan pizza, which is popular in London, but we thought we could do something different,” said Rafael.
“People who make it tend to follow the traditional techniques but we use a different flour and folding method and try to expand our ingredients – charcuterie from Spain, cheeses from France and not just Italian products.
“For us to actually have an impact we had to have the classics, because that’s what people look for.
“So we use tomato and mozzarella from Italy, but we try to mix it up as well. We do a pizza with Montgomery Cheddar from England and chorizo from Spain.”
His favourite is the burrata and nduja pizza and they also offer four vegan options – a truffle pizza and a weekly special.
“I feel like eventually we’re gonna get rid of some of the classics and try to have more unique flavours,” said Rafael.
It’s a very competitive market and there are so many different styles as well. You have the cheap pizzas, the Domino’s, and the more artisanal ones.
“I feel like we are in the high end of pizzas now in terms of quality and prices.”
They are also adding another layer to the business with a van featuring a wood-fired oven.
The duo have just used it for a stint at West India Quay as part of the Kerb Incubator programme and will now be heading to the street market at the Gherkin in the City.
Rafael said he couldn’t see the business leaving Deptford though – they love the neighbourhood so much and are enjoying experimenting with how they do things there.
Their wives take turns to help out in the restaurant at weekends and they have been adapting their hours and menu as they go along based on what customers want.
“We’re still figuring out when is best to be here but enjoying it all,” said Rafael.
“I don’t remember once having an argument with Ale – we are pretty chill.
“We know how to respect one another, that everyone has their moments and how to give one another space.”
So how does this bubbling, almost-finished business compare to their Deptford pizza past?
“It’s just us in the kitchen like it was before, but it’s great, because here the customers can see the pizzas being made and we get to see them eating it,” said Rafael.
“That’s what we’re here for – to see their faces when they enjoy the food.”
