The café’s concept was developed by husband and wife Quintin and Georgina Dawson, who wanted to run a place where customers could relax with good food and not feel pressured to pay up and move on. The new 70-seat glass-fronted café sports an industrial-chic design and serves a range of hand-made baked goods, brunches, sourdough-based pizza, cocktails and coffee.
Sourdough, brownies and coffee
Foxcroft and Ginger makes its ingredients in-house and has a non-stop, 24-hour bakery operation in place to create its unique sourdough, which is based on a secret family formula. The sourdough bread is supplied to a number of top London restaurants and will be available to purchase in store.
The café offers a number of signature dishes such as their best-selling French toast with béchamel sauce and ham and cheese, drizzled with honey mustard, or ‘Eggs Bennie’ with eggs cooked at exactly 63 degrees for an hour to achieve the ideal consistency. They are also known for sweet treats such as their gooey chocolate brownies and gluten-free blood orange and chocolate ganache cake.
Foxcroft and Ginger owner Georgina Dawson said: “What makes us stand out from other cafés is that we make everything ourselves. Things come in as raw ingredients and then we go from there. We make all of our bread, pastries, chutneys, granola, jam, everything really. If we can make it ourselves then we will do."
The café also puts a great deal of work into its coffee, importing beans from The Roasting Party, Has Bean and Caravan and purifying water using reverse osmosis which the owners believe creates a smooth, clean taste. Fresh tea leaves from Chash Tea are available as well as wines, craft beers, and a selection of cocktails.
Vintage touches
The new café follows the same industrial chic design principles as the Soho site and aims for a quirky look. The exposed high stone ceiling houses rows of black bell-shaped miner-esque lamps, which contrast the Lebanese cedar wood tables. There are vintage touches such as mismatched crockery handpicked from various markets, which aim to give the site a cosy feel.
Dawson said: “When we saw the site we just fell in love with the place. It’s a really amazing old building which used to be a department store. It’s got massive pillars on the outside and it’s an amazing space, but it hadn’t been looked after for years.
“There was plaster coming off the walls and exposed bare brick, but we love stuff like that, so the moment we saw it we thought we could do something with the space.
“We haven’t done a lot of work to it. We left the ceiling untouched and just put a bar and the lights in. We tried to use as much of the original features as we could as that’s the look we go for.
“The space is a lot bigger than we’re used to and it’s very nice to work in. We’re extremely excited about the launch.”
The new Foxtrot and Ginger will open on Mile End Road on 3 April.