Champagne + Fromage to expand to Brixton Village
The company, a partnership between Champagne supplier French Bubbles and cheese supplier Une Normande a Londres, is finalising work on its second site, which is close to Brixton Market and Brindisa Tapas Group's new Brindisa Food Rooms, for an opening on 1 October.
Director Stefano Frigerio, who runs French Bubbles with his wife, said the company had been looking for a second site for about a year and settled on Brixton where a new wave of food-led businesses are making their mark.
"Brixton is really changing and it's a great place to be. It's so opposite to Covent Garden, but it is exciting to be part of somewhere that is evolving. I think our concept will work well there," he said.
Camembert and raclette
The 40-cover site at Brixton will work in a similar way to Covent Garden in that customers can choose a range of cheeses to accompany their chosen Champagnes and serve simple dishes such as charcuterie platters, but it will also specialise in a range of oven-baked Camembert dishes and will have a raclette stall outside to provide take away dishes.
Desserts will range from macarons, to chocolate fondant with blue cheese and Champagne jelly while several grower Champagnes will be available by the glass or bottle. The site will also operate as a retail outlet.
"We want to keep it simple and not move away from what we have at Covent Garden, but it will have some slight differences for the market it is operating in," added Frigerio, who said he and his partners were keen to expand further.
Frigerio said there were no plans to seek outside investment as growth would be organic, but it was hoped that the Brixton site would become one of a small group operating in London.
"Our plan for the future is to have four or five places in London," he said. "East London is becoming very interesting so we are looking there, but we want to grow organically and make sure that what we offer is good quality and keeps consistent. We don't want to rush into opening a mini-chain, but we believe there is a real opportunity to grow what we have."
