James Dye and Netil House go way back. Fifteen years or so ago he was having big nights out at a nightclub – the New Empowering Church – to the rear of what is now a prominent creative workspace and cultural hub in London Fields. Now he is running a produce-driven restaurant there, albeit one that comes complete with a mechanised disco ball.
Dye is doubling down on a model that blurs the line between restaurant, bar and club – something he believes the UK has traditionally kept too rigidly separate – by knocking through into the space that was once home to the New Empowering Church.
The move has nearly doubled the restaurant’s footprint, adding a mezzanine, an outdoor terrace and a larger kitchen. As standalone nightclubs struggle, weighed down by rising costs and often poor hospitality standards, the former dance music promoter sees an opportunity to offer something more rounded: good food, good drinks and good music under one roof.
Most operators are shrinking or even closing their restaurants, but you’re expanding yours. Why?
Bambi is part bar, part restaurant and part music venue. Running all of that out of a 900sq ft space was tough. On top of that it’s hard to make a 35-seat restaurant work. That’s why Bright (the restaurant that occupied the site before Bambi) struggled. And - finally - we’re more of a neighbourhood place. That means we do most of our business at the weekend. To make the sums add up, we need to do big numbers at the weekend and that necessitates a larger space. My other restaurant project One Club Row (which Dye runs with Benjy Leibowitz) is more central but consistently busy, which means it can be smaller. I only took on the site because I knew there was a good chance we could make it bigger.
What exactly have you done?
We have knocked through into a former night club to the rear of the space. I used to go there about 15 years ago when it was the New Empowering Church. It was a crazy place that was open until 8am in the morning. The existing DJ booth and record wall have been pushed back to a new rear wall, and the dining room has been expanded to seat 70 covers, including 16 on a wood-panelled mezzanine overlooking the main space. Our outdoor area is also being enlarged, with additional seating added to the front courtyard alongside new planting and heaters for winter. The outdoor seating and indoor front bar area will remain walk-in only. We have also increased the size of our kitchen.
Taking over the space of a former night club seems apt given what happens after dinner…
That’s right. At about 11pm we push all the tables aside and the dining room becomes a dance floor. I’ve always found it strange that in London and the rest of the UK there’s such an inflexible distinction between bars, restaurants and clubs. In Europe things tend to be more fluid, especially in places like Lisbon, Barcelona and Paris. We now have DJs during dinner every night of the week.
Do you think the rise of restaurants that have a strong music element is linked to the demise of club culture in the UK?
Part of the reason that music venues and night clubs are struggling is that a lot of them provide a poor hospitality experience. They have got away with bad toilets, bad drinks and bad service for a long time. People still want to go to a buzzy, fun place and dance but they don’t want to pay £100 for a crap experience. They also don’t want to queue for an hour to get in. We have two sittings. People typically book into the later slot for the dancing, plus we get walk-ins from other nearby venues. More and more people are going off quiet restaurants that are all about the chef where they have to have the menu explained to them.
What do the physical changes at Bambi mean for the menu?
The style of the food hasn’t changed but in expanding the kitchen we have put in a charcoal grill and a fish and meat aging fridge, which has allowed us to add a new section to the menu. We’re going big on aged fish but we’re not going to talk about it too much because I think people still get a bit confused about it. There’s an idea that fish is only good if it’s very fresh. But the menu is still quite tight, we have a little over 20 dishes in total.
How did you get into the restaurant business?
My parents were both chefs, but I started out as a club promoter around the time of the financial crash. We took advantage of stalled developments and disused offices to throw massive parties flying in DJs from all over the world. They were predominantly legal. Operating in unloved, sometimes temporary sites was a gateway to opening more permanent venues including Peckham Springs (one of London’s original street food venues, now closed) and Frank’s Cafe (also in Peckham). I was also involved in The Camberwell Arms (the highly rated Southeast London pub), but I recently sold my shares.
Why exit such a successful business?
One Club Row and The Knave of Clubs [the pub below it] are doing really well. That’s great, but restaurants have a lot of moving parts, you need to be really involved in them. As soon as you take your eye off the ball the quality drops. That means there’s a limit to what you can do. With High Note Hospitality (Dye and Benjy’s holding company) we want to create great neighbourhood restaurants that people want to go to again and again. Key to that is having a low entry point but also allowing people to splash out if they want to. We’re looking at another site in central London that will also be two venues in one.