Gizzi Erskine to open restaurant as part of Mare Street Market

TV chef and food writer Gizzi Erskine is to open her first restaurant within the new Mare Street Market.

The 60-70-cover restaurant will open within the 12,000 sq ft Mare Street Market in London's Hackney being built in a former warehouse, and is set to open in March. The market will also have a deli overseen by Erskine, a florist, café and record shop.

Erskine is co-founding the market alongside 2015 Pub and Bar Catey Award-winner Marc Francis-Baum (co-founder and owner of BarWorks, which owns 17 pubs and 10 restaurants in London) who owns the market; and Phillip Way, head of operations and co-owner of Flying Horse Coffee, which will also operate within the market.

The restaurant will be a "casual yet sophisticated London brasserie meets California kitchen", with the menus designed by Erskine, who trained as a chef at Leith's School of Food and Wine. She will oversee the restaurant and menus as executive chef. A head chef has been appointed to oversee the day-to-day running of the restaurant.

The all-day dining, seasonal menu will include wood-fired pizzas; gourmet burgers; Sunday roasts; rotisserie chicken, chips and schmaltz with wild garlic béarnaise; and whole fired Buffalo cauliflower, pickled celery and Gorgonzola cream sauce, with more emphasis on Sunday roasts and brunch on weekends.

The Caterer, “I’m going to be cooking at every opportunity I get."

“It’s going to be somewhere you can go and hang out and have a drink that isn’t a pub. Somewhere you can look at as a home-from-home, elegant and classy, but it will still feel ‘Hackney’ and chilled," she added.

The restaurant space is being furnished by Pure White Lines, and all ornaments and furniture in the restaurant will be for sale.

Pure Filth, a healthy fast-food concept Erskine launched in partnership with nutritionist Rosemary Ferguson, will also be opening in spring 2018, however Mare Street Market will be Erskine’s first solo venture.

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