Albertine wine bar: New episode for the birthplace of EastEnders

Chef McEvedy to reopen wine bar where soap’s first script was written
“Really exciting”: Albertine near BBC Television Centre has been refurbished by chef Allegra McEvedy
Victoria Stewart2 February 2017

A wine bar where the creators of EastEnders wrote the soap’s first script is to be reopened by Junior Bake Off judge and Leon co-founder Allegra McEvedy.

Albertine in Shepherd’s Bush was opened by McEvedy’s mother in 1978 and quickly became popular in the TV and radio industry as it was near the BBC Television Centre.

Chosen as the Evening Standard’s Wine Bar of the Year in 1997, it was where EastEnders creators Tony Holland and Julia Smith held meetings and watched the pilot episode in the Eighties. The bar’s name inspired the setting for the soap, Albert Square. Chef and food writer McEvedy — whose late mother Sarah ran the bar, which she owned with her cousin Camilla Murray — recently bought it from Giles Phillips, who has retired after being at the helm since 1983. “It’s really exciting, I’ve always wanted to do this,” McEvedy said.

She remembers varnishing the bar’s original floors and going with her mother to pick out its church pews.

New owner: Allegra McEvedy, right, pictured with fellow Junior Bake Off judge Nadiya Hussain
Mark Bourdillon

“It just reminds me of my mum, who died when I was quite young, 17. I have memories of going upstairs [after school] to sit on the high stool in the galley kitchen, watching her cook, doing my homework on the side,” she said.

“The longer time goes on after someone dies, you begin to have less and less of their things around you, and so now [apart from great memories], what I’ve got left of her that’s physical is a ring, a hand mirror, and Albertine.”

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McEvedy, who still lives nearby and has known Phillips “for years”, said that having owned it for so long and with increasing rents he decided he’d “had his time. I’d always said to him ‘if you ever get to a point where you want to do something different, do give me a knock first, and I’ll try and do it’.”

When it reopens at the end of this month, the refurbished bar and its upstairs dining room — where cookbooks and board games line the shelves — will be “slightly updated — my mum was definitely more interested in the wine than the food… but we’re going to be a wine bar with more food.”

New head chef and business partner Roberto Freddi will have a simple menu featuring soups, sandwiches and salads for lunch downstairs, with seasonal British and Italian plates upstairs, including smoked eels with yellow beetroots and pickled agretti and gnocchi alla romana.

Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from London’s food scene.

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