Called JOY, the space is described as being ‘a temporary hub of food, flowers and happiness’ and ‘a positive moment in a difficult time’ and will be home to new outdoor restaurant FLORA.
FLORA will serve ‘hyper seasonal, beautifully simple summer food’ with daily changing blackboard menus written by Parle.
Dishes on the launch menu include sourdough flatbread, salted yoghurt, brown butter hummus, radishes, pickles and herbs; watermelon, feta, fresh chilli and mint salad; red prawns, burned lemon, marjoram; whole or half lobster grilled with lardo and rosemary; and grilled courgettes, green wheat, roast tomatoes and tahini sauce.
Desserts will include American pie for two to four people; egg yolk and chocolate cookies; and twice cooked chocolate cake, raspberries.
FLORA will open on Wednesday evenings and all day Thursday to Sunday. There will also be an outdoor aperitivo bar.
In addition, the space will be home to a farm shop from Canterbury-based farm shop and restaurant The Goods Shed, which will bring the best of Kentish late summer produce to London. A bottle shop selling natural wines and craft beer from Uncharted Wines and BierCraft will also feature and a honey shop selling the backlog of London and Kent honey not used by Parle’s locked down restaurants.
The space will sit among bee-friendly flower-show garden of a thousand dahlias designed for the since cancelled Hampton Court show got cancelled, rescued by Parle and transformed by gardeners Caroline Neville and Arthur Parkinson.
Parle closed his much-loved European-focused Dock Kitchen at the end of 2017 having run it for eight years