Brick Lane’s Brickhouse
As I walked down Brick Lane into The Brickhouse I was greeted by an apple. She was there along with her colleague, a lemon. Together they were there to promote Eager fruit juices. I saw them later in the loo, struggling out of their suits to have a wee.
Making my way through the club, I came to the back yard, which had been decorated with green paper decorations. But the spectacle was spoilt by the wind whistling bitterly through; a typical London summer night.
I was handed a drink by a tiger: was this a jungle rather than a garden? It was something long with vodka, chilli and pineapples. It had a hint of pina colada. Let’s start a campaign: bring back ’70s cocktails!
My friend arrived and we scuttled inside to the ‘supperclub’. This term seems to be bandied about for almost any event that includes dinner nowadays. Top chefs host a few dinners in a tent, double the price and it’s a supperclub.
Here it meant supper with entertainment. I felt for the pencil-slim singer with bleached blonde hair crooning Radiohead. No one was listening. Likewise the dreadlocked stand-up comedian boomed to an empty room. It’s probably better at weekends. The fire-eater and the hula hoop girl were outside. Your intrepid reporter couldn’t motivate herself to get up to see them. It was far too cold and I like a sit down.
The canapes, delicate filo baskets filled with mushrooms and micro-herbs; teriyaki salmon on a stick and chocolate strawberries showed promise in the kitchen. Two terrifyingly attractive waitresses with professional smiles and guttural accents pirouetted trays.
I left thinking about Brick Lane and how it used to be: Indian cafes with formica tables, a Bengali pub with snooker in the back room selling beer and pakoras, Jewish fabric shops, Saatchi’s first gallery. On Sundays, hollowed-out faces sold a few broken belongings on a blanket. In those days the bagel shop fried fresh doughnuts on a Saturday afternoon. The local Sainsburys in Bethnal Green Road was like shopping in communist Russia: it only sold white bread, fish fingers and fondant fancies.
Now on my journey to Brick Lane I pass huge concrete edifices, more Berlin than the East End, housing the Crossrail. In an area famous for its resistance against the Blackshirts, finally the Aryan architectural ambitions of developers have won.
The Brickhouse
152c Brick Lane
Shoreditch
E1 6RU
Tel: 020 7247 0005