Gizzi Erskine and the Libertines' Carl Barat to open Margate cafe

The Libertines’ frontman Carl Barât and chef Gizzi Erskine are to open a café in Margate later this month.

The venue, named Love Cafe, will overlook the seafront and is billed as a food and music venue with ‘community at its heart’.

Erskine described the opening as a “sandwich bar on steroids”. Menus will focus on breakfast, brunch, sandwiches and ice-cream sundaes, with the team planning to work with local dairies, farms and producers.

“The great British sandwich has been overlooked and there is something magnificent about the recreation of something so simple, being made with flavour, imagination and humour,” said Erskine.

“We want Love Cafe to take the classic Margate café and evolve it to where it needs to be in 2021.”

Dishes are set to include a ‘Full Kentish’ breakfast made with local produce; and ‘Daily Roast’ sandwiches with fillings such as porchetta, apple sauce, gravy and watercress; and roast marmalade smoked gammon with piccalilli and watercress.

Erskine has created ice-cream sundaes including a miso caramel banana split; rhubarb and pistachio knickerbocker glory; and an affogato with salted caramel ice-cream.

The café has been co-founded by Cruel Hearts Club frontwoman Edie Langley and music industry veteran Ronnie Traynor.

This is not the first venture into hospitality for Barat, who opened Margate hotel Albion Rooms with his Libertines bandmates, including Pete Doherty, and former Soho House head chef Joe Hill in 2020.

The band acquired the five-storey, 10-bedroom property at 31 Eastern Esplanade in September 2017 for £450,000 and gave it a multimillion-pound refurbishment. It is named it after the nickname they gave their east London flat.

Barat said Love Cafe was making good on a “drunken promise to create the finest bar and bistro in the world”.

“For music, ideas and inspiration to flourish, and drinks to flow, this will require an expert chef, a lover, an old friend, elbow grease, midnight oil, patience and unfathomable love,” he said.