Village East
Village East
VO
Over recent years, Bermondsey has become an up-and-coming area which is well worth a visit.
IV: ADAM WHITE Director, Village East
It’s a very exciting area at the moment because there’s been an enormous amount of development over the last five years. Very characteristic buildings have been developed contemporary way inside which has attracted a lot of the creative industry, a lot of fashion, architects, designers, media houses, so it’s a great, great street.
VO
One of the many bars and restaurants to open in the area is the stylish and contemporary Village East.
IV: CLIVE WATSON, Director, Village East
The very building that we’re in sued to be a cloth factory and a warehouse after that, and there are a lot of conflicting styles of architecture in the street, some very very old, and some very very new, and this is a classic example of two particular buildings that have been joined together, that were once one building, but now externally are very very different. So we have on one side a new modern built glass apartment block, and then contrasting next to that we have a very old listed Antiques Warehouse next to it. And it just very very effectively lends itself to all the contrasting types of design we’ve employed within this venue. We have about four different rooms and different spaces that all react from one another but all have different atmospheres within them. We’ve tended to use very very raw materials, lots of rough timber, leather, also some raw concrete. And everything is in its fairly natural state, and we’ve used its natural colour, and the natural warmth that comes from using those materials, I think, to let the design speak for itself. We have an open kitchen, so you get all the noises and the smells that come out of that.
IV: CLIVE WATSON, Director, Village East
Our general philosophy with food is that we enjoy providing everything that’s completely fresh. We buy everything on a daily basis, and our menus are very accessible.
CHEF
You’ve got a spectrum of choice – you can have something simple and cheap, or you can go for something much more expensive and extravagant. If I were going to come here for dinner, I’d probably go for the soft shell crabs with the watermelon wasabi and then I’d follow with the chateau Bryon for two, sharing, which is our two signature dishes, really.
IV: CLIVE WATSON, Director, Village East
We have a very broad encompassing product base. We have a cocktail list, we have a long and extensive spirits list. All of our cocktails are freshly prepared. We’ve got some very very interesting flavours and tastes going on, as with our food. I’d ask people to come down here, you know, come at any time of day for something to drink or something to eat, somewhere where perhaps people can come to a destination, and spend a whole evening, a whole period of a day, with some friends, and not need to necessarily go and move anywhere else, get everything that they want under one roof.
