Eric Yu

Eric Yu

controlling interest

Eric Yu and Will Beckett

features, June 2008, COMMENTS

Jerry Gilbert immerses himself in the capital’s leisure field, speaks to Eric Yu and Will Beckett, and discovers changing times ahead.

London operator Billy Reilly recently aired his frustrations in NIGHT at the over-regulation that is blighting the country and with it the late night scene. The London leisure landscape is changing faster than the map of Europe after the Great War. While operators like Novus Leisure and The Breakfast Group are claiming the traditional West End heartland, the East End is now moving further out under the stewardship of a host of fastidious boutique operators (including Barworks and Underdog) while the Worst End (as the proliferating genre of private members and ‘celeb party venues’ along the Kensington/Chelsea ribbon are becoming known) are being increasingly vilified.

The social engineering changes in the West End over the next year will be dictated by the effect of Soho Clubs & Bars’ takeover by Novus Leisure (giving them an estate of around 32 units, plus the Tiger Tigers) and the massive Regent Street redevelopment programme planned by Crown Estate. Upgrading the narrow Air Street and Swallow Street feeder arteries alone could have a profound effect at the top end of West End nightlife.

Venture east, and now that the Hoxton triangle (that area west of Shoreditch) has largely become saturated, there is a relentless drive towards Bethnal Green and Hackney, with Brick Lane and the Bethnal Green Road suddenly awash with a gamut of entertainment, from bars to bowling.

One of the first migrants to this once derelict Shoreditch patch were Will Beckett (pictured page 18) and Huw Gott of the Underdog Group, when they opened The Redchurch back in 2003. They underpinned this 18 months later with the mighty Green & Red Mexican bar and restaurant on Bethnal Green Road - now surrounded by another long-timer, Les Trois Garçons and more recently Beach Blanket Babylon and the über-chic Shoreditch House.

As one of the early frontiersmen, Beckett’s view now is that the area has reached saturation point - “but only in its current demographic.” What he is referring to is the huge amount of housing development taking place. “When we first moved in, the area was derelict; now everywhere you look there is building work, which will lead to a population explosion.”

Projects such as the Bishopsgate Goods Yard Development will boost the daytime economy, he believes, and this will be aided by the London Underground, which will finally extend its network to the neglected area of Hackney and Dalston. In fact Bethnal Green and Hackney are already starting to resemble Shoreditch five years ago, believes Will, with “bohemian but cool” places like The Star of Bethnal Green and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

With operators swarming around the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane like moths to a flame (All Star Lanes, Big Chill/Cantaloupe, Brickhouse etc.) can we expect further action from Will and Huw? Unlikely. Underdog are more comfortable with a slightly older clientele and anticipate that as the multiple operators move into the Triangle, they will head West - typically to St. James’s and back into the City, (the Square Mile continues to hold a fascination even during the credit crunch, as Novus Leisure’s recent opening of Abbey in the Minories and Mint Group’s new venue Mary Janes indicate).

Besides, Beckett notes that their old Hoxton patch is much better served by bars than restaurants and their offering is more gastronomically led. The need for the West End’s late night music bars to improve their food offering is one of several issues troubling Eric Yu (pictured above) of The Breakfast Group.

“I’m now paying much more attention to food because it will play a far greater role in what’s happening in the drinks business,” he says. “Salvador & Amanda is introduced as a ‘restaurant’ only because it’s a club doing good food.” With the onset of molecular mixology, foaming etc., the drinks industry has progressed beyond all recognition. “Yet when you look at the quality of food that some of these operators are still churning out in bars - compared to the excellent choice in restaurants - it’s prehistoric. That will have to change.”

Yu has been a stalwart of West End late night leisure since opening Villa Stefano and Saint (now Salvador & Amanda) in the early ‘90s. He now appears to have turned his back on Shoreditch, and in tandem with Novus Leisure’s CEO, Steve Richards, has established his own little micro-climate on a new West End power drinking circuit. Since turning his back on Shoreditch, Yu’s transfiguration of Soho’s Pop into Punk has become the stuff of legends (largely due to the achingly-retro burlesque interior provided by Rock Galpin and his ‘curator’ Holly Restiaux).

The alchemy that persuaded the Lily Allen, Peaches Geldof and Kate Moss brigade to vacate their traditional haunts to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi reached its zenith when Moss hired out the entire venue back in January to celebrate her birthday. “The Breakfast Group tries to do things not because they are currently fashionable but in anticipation of what people want tomorrow - otherwise we would simply have opened another Crystal or Mo*vida,” says Yu. “I have always had this fascination for things that are edgy and creative.”

Next on his programme will be what he calls “the second chapter” of the Salvador & Amanda story off NoHo’s Charlotte Street (South Fitzrovia to traditionalists) this September.

Yet Eric Yu believes that operators like him are still not given the credit they deserve for bringing tourists into the West End. “I have lived in London all my working life and it’s difficult not to have a great affection for this city and not to want the best. For me London isn’t about what’s happening in Uxbridge or Walthamstow, it’s what’s happening in the West End - everything is judged on the West End and that’s what people take away with them.

“I feel I’m part of building up London plc and that’s a huge business; yet we are almost treated like whipping boys.” Where both Eric and garrulous fellow London operator, Mark Fuller, are in agreement is in their castigation of the VIP clubs in the fashionable parts of Kensington and Chelsea, charging up to £1,000 for a table. “It’s sad for me to see this because these places aren’t exactly moving things forward,” says Yu. “You can’t blame people for chasing down that path but I don’t believe it does the image of our city too many favours.”

Fuller agrees, saying that this trend has coincided with the return of the promoter. “Although companies like Nick House’s London Parties are good, I think it’s generally a bad thing when a load of people are herded into a club and for a ‘minimum spend’ table when there’s no real substance; it ruins the whole experience. There was a time when a club meant something, but there are too many of this type of venue and too many promoters. London clubs have to take the control back, and I’m sure they will.”

Having looked at east and west of the city it would be wrong not to venture above the Marylebone Road to Camden where London’s newest live music bar and art gallery, Proud Bar & Galleries in Camden has opened on the site of the former Victorian Camden Horse Hospital. This month they are joined by the third American-style Diner from the excellent Barworks (the other two being in Soho and Shoreditch). As a reference point, Barworks also operate two of the hottest London venues - Electricity Showrooms in Hoxton and on the other side of the Capital, the thoroughly eclectic Under The Westway in Acklam Road.

So if that’s where the future lies geographically, what is its fate culturally?
Eric Yu believes he is in a rare position to be able to wallow in his own prescience; having scoped out his ideal venue in Punk, 12 months later he can admit that this vision has been 100% fulfilled. “It is absolutely where we wanted it to be a year ago and that’s a rare thing for an owner to be able to say. As to the future, I see a lot of things being a moving target: music, fashion, interiors, cuisine and food.
“It’s all in the melting pot and not many people know where we’ll be in 18 months’ time. But when you are part of it, day in, day out ... you look at what people are wearing and note down what they are listening to. It’s all in the sub-conscious.” However, he does wish that the planning of bars and clubs was regulated in the same way as the planning of London’s architecture. “Operators are allowed to open piles of nondescript shit and expect it’s going to do London favours.”

And finally, of course, there is the Boris factor. People like Mark Fuller think that the new Mayor of London will be the breath of fresh air that the capital needs. “But that’s because I drive expensive cars!” Joking aside, he says: “It will give London a boost at a time when the city is looking a bit sad. Hopefully it will help the credit crunch because we are definitely feeling the pinch.”

But people like Will Beckett are rather more sceptical. “I don’t know how he’ll affect things in terms of the late night economy. More of a worry is that I don’t think Gordon Brown will be very good for it.”
While The Embassy remains the lynch-pin of his operation, Mark Fuller (and chef Garry Hollihead) will pursue their ambitions in the Emirates, with a further franchise on the 42nd, 43rd and 44th floor of Dubai’s Grosvenor House Hotel), while maintaining Inn on the Green in Cookham Dean, Geales fish restaurant in Notting Hill and Flying Fish Special Events; they will shortly be opening the much-touted 30-bed boutique hotel, The Sanctum, in the West End’s Warwick Street.

While Steve Richards’ role is clearly to deliver shareholder value to Novus Leisure’s investors, with London’s balance of power returning to the multiples, Mark Fuller can’t help but notice a throwback to the ‘80s. “I can see the nightclub industry entrepreneur slowly drifting away,” he says, as everything becomes conglomerated. “It’s very reminiscent of the ‘80s, with burger bars and chain venues.”

Words: Jerry Gilbert

From: June 2008

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