December 2020
““I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring than we were in September. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.”
― Oliver Herford
Last month, after adapting during the first lockdown creating a range of delicious meals to be enjoyed at home, Archie’s Kitchen launched their new at-home menus. You can choose a traditional three course Sunday lunch or a four course menu which sounds perfect for a celebration, special occasion or simply a luxury dine in experience to spice up tier 2 life. Everything is prepared by a talented team of chefs at their kitchen based in Stephendale Road, where pre covid they catered for corporate and private events, and delivered directly to your door with an easy step by step guide so you can finish the dishes off at home.
We haven’t tried their new menus yet but we did order some meals (not gifted) during the first lockdown and they were delicious. The Sunday Lunch Club is three courses including a spicy Bloody Mary, light bite to start and a choice of Surrey farm 24 day aged Roast Sirloin of Beef, Herb Fed Farm Chicken Supreme or Slow Roast Gloucester Old Spot Pork Belly with roast potatoes, sides, gravy (of course) and a dessert for £35 pp. Order by Wednesday for delivery on Friday.
Their Luxury Dine in Experience is available on Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s (order three days before your chosen delivery day). This month the four course menu starts with canapes (Lobster Arancini, Duck Liver Parfait, Goats Cheese Sable), a starter of Cotswold Gin Cured Salmon, Fennel, Beetroot and Kohlrabi Salad with horseradish sauce, main course of Venison Wellington, Pomme Anna, Truffle Cauliflower, Glazed Carrots and Girolles with a Juniper and Blackberry Jus and for dessert a Passion Fruit tart and Double Chocolate Sea Salted Brownies (£65 pp).
William “Archie” Deal told us “COVID destroyed much of our 2020 revenue pipeline. Our short to medium term revenue streams vanished in a matter of weeks. As the Lockdown in March was announced, a clear opportunity arose for us to develop an online food delivery service for our customers. Not only was this financially critical for the business but it offered us the opportunity to provide a service to those in our local area during a nationwide lockdown. After being inundated with orders, we reconsidered our offerings as lockdown 2 appeared imminent: a delicious three course Sunday roast lunch and a luxurious four course menu for our customers, all to enjoy in the comfort of their own home; let’s face it we all like a night off from cooking. We’re also super excited to announce a delivered Christmas Day Lunch which is ready to pre-order from Tuesday 1st December.”. https://www.instagram.com/archiesfood/
Local resident Tatum Storm (fabulous name) lovingly hand makes all her wreaths to order here in Fulham. Prices start from £40 (free delivery in Fulham and Hammersmith) and designs range from the traditional with an abundance of cinnamon sticks, dried oranges to the elegantly simple made with spruce, eucalyptus and pussy willow. Our favourite for a different look has to be “The One with Feathers” made using sustainably UK sourced game feathers tipped with gold glitter.
Tatum told us “our wreaths are made to order and personalised however you’d like, dressed using a variety of luxury items such as natural fresh Fraser fir pine and locally sourced game feathers and pine cones. Don’t forget, a wreath is also the perfect way to bring a winter scent to your home, which can be done by adorning it with cinnamon, dried citrus fruits, eucalyptus, cardamom and star anise, to name a few.”
Wreaths by Tatum can be purchased from her shop on Etsy (see order link below) alternatively get in touch via Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wreathsbytatum/ or email Tatum wreathsbytatum@gmail.com prices start from £40
The door to The KAF Larder opened on the 25 November (192 Wandsworth Bridge Road) selling a carefully curated selection of fine foods and beverages from the British Isles and Europe. This new venture is a real labour of love for sister duo Annabelle & Alexandrina from the hand stained coffee tables, personally stained with actual coffee, to the shelving and display units which have been purpose built by Annabelle’s husband.
For these born and bred Londoners, hailing from just over the river in Putney, Fulham has been their stomping ground since early childhood; Alexandrina even attended nursery a stone’s throw away from their new shop. They both feel that “being from London, you always have your own set idea of where the epicenter of the town is. For us, the bit extending from Parsons green to Chelsea and the river has always been at the heart of where we want to be, where our little haunts are and where we like to hang out or meet up with friends. It’s the perfect location where North of the River meets South”. Alexandrina trained as a chef in New York’s world famous Institute of Culinary Education. Annabelle left her career as an international trade lawyer and is a self taught chef and “ingredients expert”. They explained to Urban Village LDN “our philosophy is to use and sell items produced, grown and harvested from small artisanal producers as close to home as possible. We are indeed purveyors of fine food and drink but since when did that need to be accompanied with airs and graces, we hope to bring a fresh flavour to the area and be a point of reference for anyone who needs help with a recipe, ideas for cooking or sourcing an unusual product.”
The KAF larder offers up a veritable cornucopia of British produce from forgotten gems such as Medlar Jelly to an array of unusual vegetables from producers using traditional agricultural methods, plenty of beautiful European products and some treats from further afield. There’s a whole tuck box of other goodies that fill their shelves, great stocking fillers for foodies, including bread and butter pudding chocolate, hot chilli hodgepodge oil, a spicy chilli spread that looks like a cartoon TNT bomb, hot sauce from Peckham (sorry we got over excited by all the hot & spicy products), and a range of gourmet salts recently launched by Droitwitch Salt from their brine springs in Worcestershire. Annabelle and Alexandrina told us that they will take you on a road of discovery through their foodie treasures and we have no doubt you’ll receive a warm welcome. Stay tuned as The KAF Larder will open their cafe/caff (now you know where the name comes from!) next; we’ll of course be letting you know all about it.
Follow them on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/thekaflarder/
Fulham resident Dr Stephanie Ooi, previously featured here in “Made in Fulham”, has teamed up with fellow GP Dr Punam Krishan to create The Medic Mum Podcast which launched last week. These GP Mums haven’t met in real life yet but connected through Instagram and having their babies at the same time brought them together. Stephanie told Urban Village LDN “we both had our second babies during the UK national lockdown at the height of the first wave. What started off with chats about personal challenges, struggles of parenthood this year and all the “real talks” has now turned into a podcast on a mission! We want to connect with new parents in a bid to share the realities whilst delivering evidence based family health and well being”.
They both experienced first hand how tough it was to be a new parent this year and they are refreshingly honest saying that even though they’re both GP’s this doesn’t mean they have parenthood all figured out. The podcast offers guidance, support and positivity alongside their personal experiences and challenges faced combined with their medical knowledge. Stephanie continues “This honestly feels like a dream! Our mantra through this whole thing has been if it helps one parent feel less alone; loneliness especially in parenthood shouldn’t be a thing. We have experienced it and it’s horrible. It takes a village, a community, a tribe to raise a new Mum, new Dad and their babies. We all should make the effort to check in and help if we can. This podcast is our offering to help any parent who needs to know, they aren’t alone”.
Bridge Baker is giving us festive feels every time we walk past. They’re now taking orders on their luxury Christmas hampers and are offering local delivery or collection (last delivery day 23 Dec). Full of freshly baked festive treats they can be paired with other products including wine, bubbly, chutney, jams, teas, olive oils etc. You can buy pre-prepared hampers or customise your own which Bridge Baker will then wrap beautifully for you. Gift wrapping is a complimentary service for hampers over £25 and their hamper trays are made of recycled cardboard in a festive red and are finished with ribbon and a gift tag. Bridge Baker’s hampers use minimum packaging (unlike some major retailers we can think of) which means less waste. Their handmade and homemade Christmas range includes: panettone, fruit cake, Pain d’épices, gingerbread, biscotti, cranberry shortbread, chocolate truffles, mince pies, gluten-free brownie bites, fig jam and Santa brownies. You can also pre order a Bûche de Noël, a rather luxurious yule log, for £31.95. Freshly made & hand decorated it comes in two variations: chocolate sponge filled with chocolate cream & Amarena and dark cherries or vanilla sponge filled with fresh cream, chestnuts (marron) chestnut puree & a splash of Kirsch. Order required two days before collection. Get in touch hello@bridgebaker.co.uk and consider ordering a hamper locally.
The festive season provides the perfect excuse to treat yourself or your loved ones to a great bottle of wine. If you are hosting Christmas, require wine to match your festive lunch or other family celebrations/get togethers during the 5 days of Christmas social reprieve, get in touch with Friarwood’s expert, Patrice at their Parsons Green branch, who after 30 years as a sommelier will be happy to provide pairing recommendations. For gift options, Friarwood have an exclusive selection of reliable classics and some unexpected discoveries that you will not find anywhere else. As a treat to readers of Urban Village LDN, they are offering a little something to make your holiday shopping and wine sourcing stress-free AND you can enjoy up to 30% off select wines by visiting this link https://www.friarwood.com/collections/urban-village
The Friends of Bishops Park got in touch with Urban Village LDN to ask for your help in improving the Moat Garden in Bishops Park. “The Moat Garden runs alongside Fulham Palace Road, and is looking neglected. The Friends of Bishops Park would like to know what improvements you’d like to see there. These might include renewing the path and benches, creating an extra path through the wild brambles and increasing the diversity of wildlife and planting or creating a learning/story area – we welcome your imaginative ideas. We will then fundraise with the Council and bring volunteers together with Permablitz London to work on the Garden”.
You can respond with your ideas on this piece of land running between the Kings Head pub and the Palace Garden Centre by taking the Friends of Bishops Park short survey (see link below). The deadline to do this is the end of December.
Follow Friends of Bishops Park on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/bishopsparksw6/?hl=en
Lisa Sheppard, a Barons Court resident, got in touch with Urban Village LDN regarding the proposed planning application for a hotel in Hammersmith on the site of the old Magistrate’s building, next to the Ark. “We are a group of residents who are working (relentlessly!) to get LBHF council to review the planning application for a humongous, game-changing, precedent-setting 23 storey, 842 room megahotel smack dab in the middle of Hammersmith (overlooking residents and a conservation area on all sides). The traffic will seriously compound problems on Fulham Palace Road”.
Lisa told us our group has “obtained over 1200 petition signatures, campaigned door-to-door, been covered by My London, Private Eye, lobbied Councillors, planning officers, the Mayor and the Sec of State - and finally have forced the planning committee back to the table to re-assess our concerns”.
Save Our Hammersmith says that at 23 storeys the proposed hotel would be the tallest building in LBH&F “looming directly over residential and conservation areas”, taller than the Ark and the Novotel this new development would become the “defacto architectural symbol of LBHF”.
Read more about the campaign here https://saveourhammersmith.com/ or donate to their legal fund here https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/saveourhammersmith
Social media links: https://twitter.com/OurHammersmith
https://www.facebook.com/OurHammersmith
POST LOCKDOWN URBAN VILLAGE LDN HAS BEEN SHINING A LIGHT ON A DIFFERENT FULHAM BUSINESS EACH MONTH. IN THIS ISSUE WE TALK TO FULHAM RESIDENT AND OWNER OF THE BOTTLE SHOP, NIMESH PATEL
The Fulham branch of the Bottle Shop at 273 New Kings Road opened in October 2019 and of course was featured on our “What’s New” page. A year down the line we got in touch with Nimesh to talk to him and hear more about the story behind his business. “My family have been in retail for many years. Our first Bottle Shop branch opened in Wimbledon in 2016 and I’d been looking for the right location along the New Kings Road for years. I have lived in Fulham for most of my life. My father originally owned Freshco on Wandsworth Bridge Road. I love Fulham and the family vibe that you get round here is amazing.”
We love independent bottle shops and asked Nimesh what he thinks makes his shop different. “I have a passion for selling alcohol and have seen how alcohol is sold differently in other parts of the world. Usually, all the good stuff is behind a counter. This immediately puts a barrier between the customer and the retailer. Both of my shops are open plan. The windows are usually open and clear, but currently we have some window art on both sets of windows which we think makes the shop more inviting and less intimidating”.
The Bottle Shop sells a range of craft beers, wines, champagnes and spirits and Nimesh told us “I tend to stay away from 'supermarket wines' as product lines. Customer interaction is absolutely key in the way I operate my businesses. I have a stool so my customers can come in and have a chat. It is not always about selling products to people, but more about the person that walks into my shops, to us it’s key getting to know and understand the customer, that’s more important to me. I don't sell online, I prefer to get to know my customers, face to face. This practice has been lost by so many retailers”.
We spoke to Nimesh during the first lockdown when we adapted the Urban Village LDN web-site as a local resource for residents so it was interesting to catch up and talk further about how the pandemic had affected his business. “COVID has been a blessing for me in the sense that it has made more of the locals aware that my business is here. People appreciate that I sell really good quality wines and spirits at reasonable prices. I have had many more customer requests for specialty products, due to the limited size of the Fulham shop I am not able to stock a vast array of products but I have been able to source some weird and wonderful products for my customers. I’ve also got better aquainted with my customers. Recently one of my regular customers come in to sit on our stool, she was here for about 2 hours. In light of the current pandemic, her life circumstances had changed dramatically, she needed someone to chat to and just get out of the house. When she left, she said, 'This place is more than a place to buy alcohol, this place is a haven”“.
Instagram @bottleshop_uk
How long have you called Fulham home? 21 glorious years in 4 different places.
Tell us a bit about yourself/and your family One beautiful wife and tall (6 ft 1) wonderful 13 year old boy. Lovers of Bishops Park and local residents.
What’s your favourite local haunt and why? We are big fans of Fulham stalwarts Eamon Manson and Mark Dyer. They opened Brook House last year (having sold Brown Cow and Sands End). It’s a fantastic space with really genuine lovely staff. Chef Martyn’s food is exquisite, his Steak Tartare is the best I have had (it’s my favourite dish) he is a genius and Olivia makes incredible puds (raspberry nougat semifreddo with vanilla donuts). I always find the patrons friendly for a post work chat at a wonderful bar area with a Reverend Hubert winter Negroni naturally. Did you know their veg comes from the Fulham Palace allotments?
What is your slice of Fulham heaven and why? Glo Hair and Beauty opened 16 years ago by two Irish sisters Siobhan and Sinead. We have been regular clients because it’s very good but it’s also fun, chatty and gossipy like a local salon should be. You bump into locals, celebrities or my Mum and have an uplifting hour with them. Carols and Prosecco create a festive feel in December.
What have you missed about Fulham life during the pandemic? I think we all missed the obvious but we found new friends via clapping for the NHS. Our communities are stronger for it. Banging our saucepans (not the Le crueset obvs) introduced us to Emma Farquharson * who has now helped with a partial interior redo and thanks to you guys I met Nimesh who owns “The Bottle Shop” on the New Kings Road who stocks our delicious Winter Gin Liqueur. Personal and business relationships have grown unexpectedly. I missed the pub and Fulham FC too though, obviously!
What local shop/service/business has helped make life easier during the pandemic? The family run Londis, on Kenyon Street was wonderful and open throughout. Just when you were on line looking up which large leaves in the garden were not poisonous they stocked up on some high quality quilted! After the secret local knowledge handshake you could even enjoy treats like pasta at their normal prices. That goodwill shall not be forgotten while others took advantage of demand. Lea and Sandeman on Fulham Road continued to deliver the Burgundy and they do an amazing great value Spanish Garnacha (£8.50) which was recommended by a fellow resident, the amazing Telegraph and drinks journalist Victoria Moore. Lockdown Lobsters was established in Fulham in Spring .These guys delivered live beautiful Lobsters direct from UK sustainable Fisherman on a Saturday Morning which brightened your day. Well we all need a treat; is it just me, seems like I am very focused on eating and drinking.
Tell us about The Reverend Hubert and how it came to be We moved to a new Fulham house with a cherry tree so soon it was cherry brandy, vodka, gin etc. So basically any alcohol with cherries. Soon after I made a half decent Christmas gin liqueur and asked pubs and restaurants if they would like some. Sales were much better than anticipated. The story turns to Rev Hubert when my Aunt discovered his hip flask with a “Christmas Gin” recipe whilst he was serving in Egypt. We decided to try his original recipe (pretty strong) and update it. Boom Reverend Hubert was born. A year on we launched a sophisticated perfected product in 2019 to great reviews and this year we are in Marks and Spencer and Fortnum and Mason; it’s a perfect match for Christmas pud or mince pies. We are proud to give the skinless oranges to Fulham food banks to juice for the people who need a boost and the inside of the Amalfi lemons are used in the River Cafe’s delicious Lemon tart.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking of starting their own enterprise? Ask for help. Most people like to help.
What top tip do you always give to novice/lockdown mixologists? I have never had a bad night that started with a civilised grown up cocktail. My friend Sandro from Dukes Hotel (greatest Barman in the world) keeps it simple: Negroni, champagne cocktail or Pomegranate Martinis are a great start.
READER OFFER: Use code Urban15 for 15% off RRP on line or pop into local stockist The Bottle Shop (273 New Kings Road) owned by local resident Nimesh as featured on our Spotlight page this month.
* see Emma’s listing on our “Interior Design, Build & Architecture” page in our “Discover Local” directory
The Day Louis Was Eating/Le Jour où Louis Mangeait is a new bilingual cookbook from Emma Kershaw, author of A Taste of Le Sud. Following on from the success of her first cookbook Emma, who is the founder of the wine and food school in the Corbières, La Maison du Rire, created a new book featuring her eight year old son Louis and the food he likes to eat; with recipes in both English and French. It's not a children’s cookery book, but a book about creating food that both children and adults can enjoy.
The name comes from a story book that Louis used to love when he was younger, The Day Louis got Eaten, by John Fardell and references the occasions when Louis set aside some of his childhood pickiness and ate – a lot. Louis features throughout the book and there is a section “Cooking with Louis” devoted to his favourite recipes including chocolate and hazelnut spread. Other chapters include Stay at Home Takeaway and I Scream for Ice Cream with recipes such as: mushroom and chestnut soup, wild boar ragout, courgette beignets, tomato curry, mackerel pâté, Vietnamese spring rolls, autumn traybake, almond cake and sablés au beurre.
Emma told Urban Village LDN ‘Louis is a gastronome and enjoys a wide variety of food. My book is an exploration of flavour, of taste, of texture with an eclectic combination of recipes that are sometimes adventurous, but always easy and adaptable to make. It is the food we eat at home that Louis likes particularly. I decided to do the book in two languages for bilingual families like ours and for people who want a fun way to brush up on their French, or vice versa’. The recipes are perfect for the busy parent, providing nutritious and interesting meals for the whole family.
Emma and her husband Chris moved to the Corbières in 2008 and renovated an old winery that became La Maison du Rire. Emma has been teaching about wines to WSET Diploma level for many years and works with chefs and restaurateurs on partnering wine and food as well as informing enthusiastic amateurs from across the globe. Normally, Emma has a busy schedule, hosting tastings and events but this year has sadly put a stop to that temporarily, but it did mean that Emma could concentrate on the book. Emma Kershaw’s first book, A Taste of the Sud, featuring recipes with wine pairings, was published in 2018.
READER OFFER: The book retails at €30 but Emma is offering a 10% discount to readers of Urban Village LDN on orders placed by 23rd December 2020. Use code UVLDN to purchase “The Day Louis Was Eating” and greeting cards with images from the book. Also available on Amazon.
