Frobisher Passage – Wharf Life

April 3, 2024April 3, 2024

Canary Wharf: How Kricket and Soma are set to bring late night Indian flavours to E14

Restaurant and bar in Frobisher Passage will see the Soho success story move east with a 2am licence

Kricket co-founder Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell outside their Soho restaurant

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Kricket is set to try something different in Canary Wharf.

Over recent years, the estate’s restaurant and bar scene has flourished thanks to a torrent of new arrivals.

The likes of Dishoom, Hawksmoor, Mallow and Oysteria have built on the solid foundations laid by Amerigo Vespucci, Roka and Boisdale Of Canary Wharf to transform the estate into a compelling culinary destination.

However, even with a wealth of destinations to choose from, finding food after 10pm can be challenging.

While some venues are open until midnight and a few don’t close until 2am, they are the exception rather than the rule.

But Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell feel this corner of London is now right for a venue that cooks into the small hours.

“We’ve got a late licence on the site so we can open to 2am, which is great for our bar, Soma, but we’re also going to use that for our restaurant, Kricket, and do the full service until late, on the nights that demand it – Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” said Rik, who co-founded the business with university friend Will in Brixton.

“It’s a selling point and I think we can get a following going for it.”

Will, who works as the business’ executive chef, added: “We took a lot of our team over to Mumbai in January this year – many have been with us for five years or more – as we wanted to show them the city we were inspired by.

“There’s a lot of late-night eating there and we thought it would be great to recreate that vibe – Mumbai really is a 24-hour city, even if London isn’t.”

There’s something fitting, perhaps, in the arrival of a cutting-edge brand in Docklands that started life in a shipping container in Brixton.

Those metal oblongs were themselves a transformative force for shipping – their introduction one of the factors that left the docks obsolete, clearing the way for Canary Wharf to emerge.

“We started Kricket in 2015,” said Will, who went straight to work in a London kitchen after university in Newcastle, before moving over to India.

“I cooked the food and Rik served the customers.

“It was like a foray into the darkness – we didn’t really know what we were doing until we opened – then we learnt as we went along.

“From there, we opened in Soho in January 2016.”

Rik, for his part, had always wanted to work in hospitality but spent time at Deloitte in corporate finance before joining forces with Will.

Their Soho venture was a success and Kricket now operates three sites – a restaurant under railway arches in Brixton and another in White City.

“Having been in India, we wanted to showcase what we’d seen there,” said Will.

“When I was first over there, I was running a European restaurant – but I was always more interested in what I wasn’t cooking.

“In London at the time, there were high-end Indian fine dining establishments and curry houses with very little in between.

“It was about waiting for an opportunity and that was the container.”

Rik added: “We were young – in our mid-20s – and naiveté was bliss.

“We did 50 covers on our first night – mostly friends and family – but we had no kitchen porter and no bar.

“A lot of time we would get out of trouble because Will’s food is so good.

“We had a lot of fun, just focused on the food and service and worked really hard doing 90-100 hour weeks.

“It was an important part of the journey, but you couldn’t pay me to go back there now.”

The buzz the duo created won them recognition and a shot at Soho, attracting a line of diners with an open kitchen and counter service.

“Eventually they took on the space next door, opening basement bar Soma at least partly to lucratively lubricate those waiting in the queue.

It’s this combination that will inform their forthcoming Canary Wharf branch – tentatively expected to open in July, 2024, at Frobisher Passage under the DLR.

“The site was in a very unassuming building, quite un-Canary Wharf, but Rik said we must go and see it,” said Will.

“It’s underneath the DLR, quite tucked away, opposite Blacklock.

“Neither of us had been to Canary Wharf for about 10 years, and we’d assumed that it wasn’t really where we wanted to be.

“But when we went over there, we were really surprised by how much it had changed.

“It’s a full seven-day operation with an established community – lots of committed residents, people visiting and staying locally.

“You can get to our Soho branch near Piccadilly Circus via the Elizabeth Line in less than half an hour.”

So what can people expect from the new venue when it opens its doors?

“Kricket is our interpretation of Indian food,” said Rik. “It’s such a varied cuisine – there’s so much to learn and to eat.

“Our menus are constantly changing and we showcase local ingredients in dishes that are designed to be shared, just as they are in India.”

Will added: “We’ve designed the restaurant so people can come on their own, as a couple or with eight or 10 people for a feast.

Mussels Goan chorio and other assorted dishes

“We have dishes from £2-£45 so it’s accessible.

“The most expensive one is really a big showcase of a plate.

“We’ve always had open kitchens, which is unusual for an Indian restaurant and it’s how we like to eat – up at the counter.

“Then there will be Soma, which will have a different feel and its own entrance.

“If Kricket is a bustling market-like place, then Soma is the quiet little sister – a little broody and underground.

“In Canary Wharf it will be India and beyond with a definite Japanese influence and elements from across Asia.

“Our Soho bar was formerly a Japanese gentleman’s club so we’ve taken inspiration from that in the classic style of the drinks. High quality and reasonably priced.”

While the last time Will and Rik ate together at Kricket they had the steak with garlic bread, when asked for guidance, Will was clear.

“Start with the tomato rasam pani puri (£2) and then have the bhel puri (£7.50),” he said.

“The first is an explosion in your mouth and the second has been on the menu since day one.”

Anyone else salivating?

key details

Kricket and Soma are set to open in Canary Wharf’s Frobisher Passage in July, 2024.

Find more information about Kricket here

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- 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

May 4, 2023May 4, 2023

Canary Wharf: How Blacklock wants its bills to give diners a positive shock on price

Brand is set to open its fifth restaurant at Frobisher Passage overlooking North Dock on May 15, 2023

Dishes are served communally a Blacklock on mismatched crockery

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“When you go to a great restaurant, it can be very expensive,” said Gordon Ker, founder of Blacklock, a small chain of four chophouses that’s set to open its fifth in Canary Wharf this month.

“But we want to give our guests a positive shock when the bill arrives. We want them to be asking: ‘Is that right? What’s been missed off? When can we do this again?’.”

Check Blacklock’s menu and it’s serving up skinny chops for a fiver each, steaks for £18 or less and a burger for £12 with sides on offer for £4 a go.

That’s in contrast to, say, Manhattan Grill – just over the waters of West India North Dock – where sides are £6, steaks start at £32 and a burger is £17.

It’s not like-for-like, of course. One is a restaurant in a five-star hotel serving American beef, while the other takes its inspiration from the workaday chop houses of old.

I suspect, however, that Gordon would be willing to pit the Cornish, grass-fed meats Blacklock serves against anything imported from across the pond.

It’s also his brand’s approach to the produce that, in part, explains the lower prices.

“We’re certainly not buying cheap meat, it’s expensive stuff that we serve,” he said.

“But we try and be sensible about how we source and utilise the animals.

“The first thing to say is we buy the whole animal, and we use as much of it as we can.

“That way there’s no waste for the farmer so we get a better price.

“A steakhouse might buy prime cuts, but then the farmer has to shift the rest of the meat.

“Supply and demand means if everyone wants the same cuts, then the price for those goes up further.

“We get a fixed price for the whole animal, which is cheaper, and then we get inventive with the menu – selling cuts people might not be familiar with.

“For example, we sell a sixth rib eye, which is a little further down from the prime ribs – but that’s £18 in contrast to a typical rib eye for £30.

“Then we do a starter – Pig’s Head On Toast, where we cook down the whole head and then pull the meat apart, braise it, spice it, and serve it on bread with gravy.

The Canary Wharf branch will feature a brand new bar menu

“Our message on sustainability is also that people should be eating better meat less often.

“Our meat comes from Philip Warren in Cornwall and is regeneratively farmed to help improve the soil.

“The animals live a comparatively long and happy life and the farmers aim to keep out of things as much as possible.

“There are no antibiotics or growth additives or negative things like that.

“Our margin on food is less than what standard restaurant economics tell you to make it.

“But that’s part of our commitment to providing exceptional value for money.”

Gordon is not a man afraid to go his own way.

After studying law at UCL, he embarked on a career as a solicitor and found himself an associate at London-based firm Olswang, dealing with hospitality and leisure firms.

But despite the regular income and reliable prospects, he found the law unfulfilling and started formulating plans to escape it.

Having got to know Hawksmoor founders, Will Beckett and Huw Gott, as clients, when private equity firm Graphite Capital bought a majority stake in their business, he told them he intended to launch his own restaurant.

Describing it as “a terrible idea” they did their best to discourage him.

Diners are encouraged to share dishes, much like they would do at home

They said I had a stable job, that running restaurants was really hard and wondered why I would want to do it given I knew nothing about it,” said Gordon.

“That made a lot of sense at the time, but I was persistent and I think they took pity on me.”

So, when Gordon quit his job, he went first to work at Hawksmoor for 10 months to learn how a restaurant worked while simultaneously scouring the capital for a suitable space to try out his ideas.

While Will and Huw helped him out with some early investors and remain shareholders in Blacklock today, it took Gordon a while to find a landlord willing to take a punt on a business with no track record.

Nevertheless, against the odds, Gordon opened his first site in a Soho basement formerly used as a brothel.

He and his team overcame water leaks and a lack of both gas and electricity to launch the first restaurant “as cheaply as possible”.

Having grown from those early days to locations in the City, Shoreditch and Covent Garden, the brand retains a charming bootstrap ethos.

Cutlery, with the exception of the knives, is second hand, as is the crockery.

The aim is to create a familial atmosphere, with food doled out at the table – a haven of comfort, not ceremony.

Blacklock’s Canary Wharf branch is located in Frobisher Passage and is expected to open on May 15, 2023, – although reservations are already being taken.

It’s located in a space under the DLR tracks that once served as the estate’s security and pass issue office.

Inside, it’s a cosy space with frosted windows that seems deliberately conceived as a refuge.

There are glossy dark walls, wry signage and plenty of dark wood furniture.

The glasses, plates, spoons and forks are all second hand at Blacklock, as is much of the furniture

“It’s important for us to be in buildings that have character,” said Gordon.

“We want to transport people to a place that’s full of heritage but also very relaxed, vintage with a natural feel.

“Everything’s reclaimed – the tables, the chairs, all the wood, the crockery, the forks, the spoons and the glassware. It all has that special, nostalgic feel.

“With the trains going overhead it has a speakeasy, New York vibe – people can enjoy the gentle, comforting rumble.

“We want it to be the kind of place where you come for lunch which, after a few Old Fashioneds, becomes dinner.”

The Canary Wharf branch will also feature a bar menu.

Blacklocks typically offer cocktails from £7.50 and alcohol-free mixed drinks from £4.

Staffing is perhaps the final piece of the jigsaw at Blacklock, with Hawksmoor’s reputation as a great place to work clearly finding resonance in Gordon’s approach to running his own restaurants.

“The first thing I say to people at their induction is that most restaurants will tell you to put the customers first – to make them happy,” he said.

“Of course they are important, but they are number two in our business because it’s our people who are important.

“For us, opening new locations is about building careers for people so they can take that next step.

“That creates the opportunity for people to grow within the company and gives people purpose. It’s about culture.

“I passionately think people do great things when they are motivated and invested.

“That’s what we are seeking to create.”

Read Wharf Life’s e-edition here

Subscribe to our Wharf Whispers newsletter here

- 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