Stevie Parle to revive Joy, as restaurant moves home to Marylebone
The chef Stevie Parle and his business partner Tom Dixon, the designer, are to revive their aptly named pop-up, Joy, which closed at Portobello Dock at the end of June after almost a year open.
The pair are taking an iteration of the idea to Marylebone Village for the coming months – like the Portobello Dock venture, it will not be permanent – with Joy now becoming a plant shop and cafe, though it will host weekly supper clubs too.
Opening for the majority of the week in the day time only, from 10am to 7pm, Parle will plate up the likes of burrata with slow-cooked peppers and tomato, an aubergine caponata, and clams cooked in sherry, guanciale and chickpeas. His lauded American-style cherry pie will also return and most dishes will be available for takeaway too.
On Thursdays, Joy will stay open longer – “till late”, they say – as Parle cooks for 30 guests; each night will be ticketed at £55 with a weekly-changing, seasonal menu. As with its Portobello Road predecessor, ingredients will be sourced largely from Parle’s garden and The Goods Shed in Kent, as well as locally in London – the burrata, for instance, will come from Acton.
Besides the cooking, Joy will also sell a variety of miscellaneous bits and pieces, including CBD oil and kefir water. There will also be an array of house plants for sale, which diners will sit among, and which Parle says are now integral to the concept.
Speaking of the project, Parle told the Standard: “I’m really excited to be bringing Joy to Marylebone Village. It’s not the full scale unbridled madness of Joy at Portobello Dock but a small and perfectly formed piece of the (cherry?) pie.
“One of the most interesting things to me at the first Joy was to see people’s enthusiasm for the plants we sold in our store. It soon became a significant proportion of the sales and I think in most people's minds Joy is about plants and flowers as well as food, so for Joy to now be a really special plant shop cafe seems right.
“This incarnation is focused on the power of plants to bring happiness to people. We have a shop overflowing with green plants, CBD from trip (that’s plant magic), a good stash of tasty and delicious live and fermented food and drink, and a little menu of favourite plant-forward lunches.
“The weekly dinners will see me trying to create special menus and good times without a proper kitchen or even a restaurant but I can’t help myself... It’s a perfect base for us while we work on finding a proper home for more Joy.”
Parle and Dixon were forced to leave Portobello Road at the end of June after they could not negotiate a permanent tenancy with the landlord; Parle hosted a well-attended wake for the restaurant.
The new Joy pop-up 94 Marylebone High St. For more information, visit joyatportobello.co.uk
