Words by Liz Schaffer & Photographs by Orlando Gili
When London went into lockdown at the end of March, life changed. We baked, turned to phone calls, saw neighbourhood walks as an adventure and did our best to adapt to the new normal. It has not been easy. Many have struggled, plans have been paused, and it is likely that the world we shall return to will be entirely different from the one we have known. But while our horizons may have temporarily shrunk, this time has also reminded us just how connected we all are. It has reinforced the power of community, encouraged us to look back, and proved that joy can be found in the simplest of things.
And one of the greatest lockdown joys has been food. Synonymous with family and love, it is a source of decadence and comfort. Not only because (when prepared by professionals) it’s delicious, but because of everything it represents.
As restaurants, markets and cafes begin to re-open in new and curious ways on Bermondsey and Maltby Street (two London destinations long-adored by gourmands), there is a distinct feeling of life returning; of there being new ways to treat ourselves close to home. It has been fascinating to see how chefs like José Pizarro and Angela Hartnett have adapted to the times, how a weekly farmer’s market is bringing flavours from afar to the heart of London, and how our relationship with food is ever-evolving. No one is entirely sure what the culinary world will look like on the other side of this but, having spent the past few weeks photographing and interviewing the chefs and producers of Bermondsey, it’s clear that food is still - first and foremost - all about people.
“I love people and I love being around people. For me it’s so important … I love not just creativity, but to be able to feed people and to make people as happy as they can be with my food.”
José Pizarro was one of the first chefs to re-open his Spanish restaurants (José and Pizarro) on Bermondsey Street, offering customers meals they could ‘finish at home’, wine and cocktails aplenty, and ready-to-eat tapas. Although he suspected a July opening was possible, his desire to work like this - serving people through his restaurant’s windows, striking up conversations whenever time would allow - was done, in part, for his customers. And because sitting at home just didn't feel right. “I love adrenalin, I love to be busy, I love the stress … It’s why I spent three weeks in the house and I didn't like it, I needed to do something. I need to feed the community. I need to help the staff and I need to help myself to be busy … I need to be creative. Being creative doesn't mean only placing fancy food on the plate. Being creative can be in how you approach, how you develop the food. That is creativity as well.”
I doubt José is surprised his menu - filled with classics like tortilla and croquetas - has made people as happy as it has. But while ‘finish at home’ may offer a temporary reprieve, it’s unlikely anything will replace a restaurant’s atmosphere. “I always try to see how I can please people. Hospitality is about customers, it’s not about me. You come here because you want to be out and you want to have a good time, have fun, enjoy. And we are here to provide that.”
“For me food is happiness, food is memories, food is sadness. Food memories are lovely memories. It is something we will always have with us … [We] need to reinvent business - how food is going to be, how you think about food - but love for food will never change. My dad always said, ‘whatever you do, do with love’. Respect the world, respect the planet, your family and the customer. It’s what we need to do.”
Over the past few months, Angela Hartnett’s lasagne has become the stuff of legend on Bermondsey Street, bringing Italian comfort to countless hungry locals. Like José, she’s offered a lockdown takeaway menu, run a small store out of Cafe Murano, and remained aware that dining out is about so much more than what you order. “I think [food is] great, it’s convivial. We all have to eat to survive. We don't have to be foodies, we don't have to love it like I do, but it’s a great leveller in that you sit around a table and you talk because, for me, that’s what restaurants are about. It’s not just what you've got on the plate, it’s how you deliver it, the atmosphere and who you share it with. I think that’s the big thing about food for me, it’s a level of sharing with other people. And it tastes good.”
Our interview took place as Angela made pasta in Cafe Murano’s open kitchen. Garlic bubbled away behind her, to which chef Neil Borthwick (her husband), added tomatoes (a can-opener having been borrowed from Pizarro) and a host of other aromatic ingredients. Yet for all the movement and noise, there was a pervading sense of calm. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing and what others may need. They were in this together.
Such organisation must have proved useful when Angela partnered with Lulu Dillon on Cook-19, a volunteer-led project that provided isolating and exhausted NHS workers with meals and supplies. “Lulu talked to friends and they were saying how many hours they were working and she realised, to help them, she could make a few meals so that they would have some food when they got in. She was going to Sainsbury’s herself, buying the stuff, cooking it all at home. Which was amazing.”
Angela heard about the project and reached out, offering to cook meals herself, which were collected by Lulu’s dad and delivered across London. And the project grew, with the team preparing 50-odd care packages and around 1,000 meals per day, with support from a host of Bermondsey producers. You can’t help but hope that this generosity, this awareness of the needs of others, stays with us long after lockdown lifts.
Moreno Polverini & Fabio De Nicola
Kindred spirits, chef Moreno and sommelier Fabio have wanted to work together since meeting in Istanbul years ago and bonding over their shared passion for food and drink. Baccalà, created with their wives Elif Taner Polverini and Ilanit Ovadya, is their first venture together - an Italian seafood and wine restaurant that opened just a few weeks before lockdown began.
Such timing was no doubt heartbreaking but, as Moreno explains, stopping was never an option. “We love to be in action. We missed cooking, serving our extended friends and family and therefore enjoying our jobs. The only possibility at the moment is what we are doing - takeaway, delivery and a little shop. I like to be in a kitchen with colleagues and I like to feel the enthusiasm for cooking good food. This is a passion, but I also get satisfaction at the end, when serving a nicely cooked dish with a glass of wine. It feels even better, when you have a restaurant full of people eating, drinking and enjoying.”
Part of me wonders though, given that so many of us have discovered our own flair for cooking, if we’ll crave restaurants in quite the same way. This doesn't worry Moreno. “Everyone is baking, cooking and rediscovering something very important to do at home. It’s good for them to do some cooking at home, but they will also come to the restaurant to enjoy something different with us. Like me cooking here for them, but also looking forward to cooking at home on my day off, because that’s when I'm going to cook what I really want to eat at that moment.”
Fabio explains further. “People may change their relationship [with eating out] these days, but I'm pretty sure that when this situation ends - even though they might appreciate a good delivery service or takeaway - they cannot wait to come to a restaurant, because of the soul. Every restaurant has a different soul that compliments the food and wine served. This is a totally different experience than eating at home.”
Maltby Street
Maltby Street was once Bermondsey's worst kept secret - a weekend street market made up of food stalls, gin distilleries and railways arches. About a year ago, a vintage cart appeared at one end of the market, laden with fresh fruit and vegetables. This was Taylor's of Maltby Street, run by Keith and Lorna Taylor - their eldest daughter Rosie has joined them in lockdown. It was Kieth who helped spearhead Maltby Street’s current revival as a weekend farmer’s market - although many of those occupying the arches, like Chuse Valero of Bar Tozino, had opened a little earlier. In Chuse's atmospheric bar-turned-store, wine bottles line the wall, vermouth is poured from barrels, cheeses dot the counter, cured legs of ham hang from the ceiling and conversation flows. Surrounded by this heady produce, it’s easy to suspect, just for a moment, that you've bypassed quarantine and been transported to Spain.
For Keith though - who works largely with Kent farmers - the market was about “trying to get people back on their feet after all that’s happened … Everyone here is a friend. It’s one big family, the Maltby family. So it’s just trying to get everyone going again.”
And demand is clearly there, Taylor’s of Maltby Street began their home delivery service a few weeks before lockdown, aware of the direction things were heading. The aim was to help their customers, but they weren't expecting the explosion of orders - which jumped from 20 to 150 in just two weeks. “It’s gone a little bit mad - from being outside and not really selling much but with a really nice loyal customer base, to this worldwide pandemic causing us to go absolutely crazy. It’s been hectic but we've managed it slowly but surely.”
It has no doubt been somewhat bonkers for everyone trading on Maltby Street. Little Bird, one of the first distilleries to open here in 2012, have made gin throughout lockdown. Chloe from Sicilian Goods Specialist - her wares include wild oregano and pistachio cream sourced from the Italian island - has made and delivered more cannolis in the past few months than ever before.
Pausing to chat to Ben at Bangers - a food stall that sells the most amazing sausage sarnies - I’m reminded just how vital it is for these small businesses to re-open, to trade in any way they can. Ben was once a software developer and jokes that he bought his store from a friend a few years ago when she tricked him into it. “[Bangers] would be something that I never thought I would do - or be able to do - so it’s quite fun. I love it to bits. I’ve been nervous but desperate to get back … You've got to make sure that you're doing it right because we want to make sure this carries on continuously. We don't want to have a break. We don’t want to have to shut this all down again for months.”
Lola works at Comptoir Gourmand, a bakery and cafe with stores on both Bermondsey and Maltby Street. It was founded by her father, Sebastien, and is very much a family business. So while operating in lockdown has been decidedly “weird”, she didn't hesitate when asked to get involved and re-open Maltby Street after people flocked to the Bermondsey Street premises, managed by her brother. “To help a family business I’ll do anything. [It’s meant I’ve also] gotten closer to my brother because the two of us bonded by opening these two shops together and communicating everything … Usually business doesn't bond family, it breaks them, but I guess this one was different.”
Wandering down Maltby Street, it’s clear Keith is correct - there’s a sense of family, that everybody knows everybody. Fishmongers stop by Taylors of Maltby Street for lemons, greetings are called from arches, and Keith is keen to introduce me to everyone with a Bermondsey connection. One such introduction is Sarah Wyndham Lewis who, with her husband, beekeeper Dale Gibson, runs Bermondsey Street Bees. Their headquarters is also their home - once a sugar warehouse - and eight of their hives are perched on their rooftop.
Their fabulous, pollen-rich, raw honey aside, Sarah and Dale have always focused on education, customising workshops for food professionals, fellow beekeepers, ecologists and Women’s Institutes, boasting a formidable flavour library (a collection of honeys from across the globe) and spreading the word when it comes to caring for bees and the environment.
Visiting their Bermondsey home and headquarters, I’m told that beekeeping is both a craft and a science - and in this community, to earn your place and be a sustainable beekeeper, you must have an understanding of both. Beekeeping is, as Dale explains, quite like chess. Rules apply and care must be taken, but there are infinite ways a game can play out.
The duo are determined to do things right, to focus on the environment and leave the smallest footprint possible. Such an approach is partly shaped by Sarah’s childhood. Like José Pizarro (one of the many local chefs who uses their honey), she grew up in a farming family and thus has an awareness of continuity, of the fact that what you do one year affects the next. “The reality is that if you're an artisan food producer, your guidance comes from the past, [from] respecting an extraordinary foodstuff and the creatures that produce it; so you're practising a slower, more holistic way of doing things … We’re making our living from the environment so therefore it falls to us to guard it and, indeed, to put more in than we take.”
The pandemic has forced us all to slow down. We are finishing meals at home, chatting to chefs and stallholders, savouring interactions and thinking about what we eat, where it comes from, and why it makes us happy. Perhaps, as the world begins to open, we will keep this with us. Food is comfort and love. The scene may have changed, but the essence prevails.
