Bella Nova, 304 Brockley Road

It's time to right a wrong and ensure that a new(ish) Brockley establishment gets a mention before the Newcomer of the Year vote.

Bella Nova opened in Midtown in the autumn and is one part Central Perk, one part greasy spoon, serving everything from lattes and ciabatta to full English breakfasts.

Please share your reviews here.

Coming soon: Grounds and Grapes

The store front in HOP

Grounds and Grapes is a new coffee shop and bar that's taking shape in Honor Oak (41 Honor Oak Park). They've been recruiting for a chef and have launched a holding website.

To follow them on Instagram, click here.

Browns Doubles Down

Browns of Brockley has always been too popular for its tiny footprint, so the news that it is expanding in to the vacant Speedicars office is an early Christmas present for dedicated Brownies.

The team confirm that they inked the deal a week ago and will soon be expanding, giving them more space and flexibility in terms of the menu.

Number 50 Friendly Street, Friendly Street

@BrockleyCentral a new shop serving coffee, treats and bites has opened in St Johns/South Deptford. Worth a mention! @no50friendly pic.twitter.com/fNln4oeszR

— Tom Forman (@TomFormanUK) November 1, 2017

Exit Swiftkill, enter Number 50 Friendly Street. Opening next week, the replacement for the pest control office promises to be a classic cafe, with plenty of tea and cake.

St John's is a relatively untapped market and this spot, overlooking a park and just up the road from a primary school, is a promising location, with little nearby competition for nice places to sit.

Mouse Tail, Deptford

Another local archway-dwelling venue, Mouse Tail is the newish coffee shop underneath Deptford Station (Archway 3).

A cosier version of Peckham's Blackbird Bakery, its chocolate-block walls cocoon customers in a woozy half-light - you will need the coffee just to stay awake.

Brockley Mess for sale

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
- The Solution, Bertold Brecht

Midtown cafe The Brockley Mess is up for sale. The estate agents say:

"Contemporary coffee shop & restaurant for sale situated in a desirable location within Brockley. Well-presented trade area measuring approximately 1,066 sq ft (GIA) for 51 covers. Fully fitted trade kitchen. Quaint rear patio area (16-20). Front patio area (8). Established trade with huge scope to increase daytime and evening trade."

The Brockley Mess opened in 2009, in the early stages of Brockley's regeneration. And while its menu and decor were perfectly attuned to local sensibilities, its insistence on devoting a large portion of the space to a gallery area was not. Management often seemed to resent the young families its family-friendly food and furnishings attracted.

The Brockley Mess helped to raise the bar in Brockley and will be missed, but as the estate agents note, there is "huge scope" to increase trade. Step one - lose the gallery space...

Thanks to Monkeyboy for the spot.

Hullabaloo, Deptford

Hullabaloo is a new Indian cafe on Douglas Way, Deptford. It joins a growing list of food options in the area and is a stone's throw from Deptford Market Yard.

Its website gives nothing away, so if you've had a chance to try it out, please share your thoughts here.

Bite Mi, 3 Brockley Cross

Bite Mi is now open. The new Vietnamese cafe in Brockley Cross is a low-fi set-up, with stripped-down decor and a straightforward menu that focuses on classic home-cooked Vietnamese dishes.

Reviews please!

Ladywell Fields cafe burgled

The Ladywell Fields cafe, run by local charity Ten Thousand Hands, has been burgled and around £6,000 of equipment has been stolen. The Evening Standard reports:

"Callous thieves allegedly broke into the Ten Thousand Hands Cafe in Ladywell Fields in the early hours of Sunday morning.

"The café, which opened in 2014, has been used to train young people including those with autism and provide a community facility."

A JustGiving page has been started, to raise funds to replace the lost items. Click here to donate.

Thank you to Jenny for the heads-up.

Good Hope Ladywell - Opening December 8

The charity, For Jimmy, set up after the murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen, is opening a new Good Hope café at PLACE Ladywell in Lewisham; six years after opening Good Hope Hither Green.

The new café will continue to support the work of For Jimmy, with 10p from every £1 going towards helping young people build Safe Havens across Lewisham. These are places young people can turn to when in danger or feeling threatened on the street. Both Good Hope cafés are flagship Safe Havens, alongside Lewisham Shopping Centre and many other businesses across the borough.

The charity will be running the café and a community cinema that is based at the rear of the unit. Lewisham central has been without a cinema since the last one closed on Lewisham High Street in 1986. The 40 seater cinema is a welcome addition to the local community, and will also double up as an event space for use by community groups and organisations.

For Jimmy also partner with Drumbeat School and ASD Services to provide personalised placements for young people with Autism, enabling them to experience the workplace and acquire a range of essential skills. The café offers a fantastic new environment for those young people to experience and work within.

An official opening party is being held on 8^th December, for the local community to see the space and find out more about how it will support For Jimmy moving into 2017. The launch will run from 6-8pm, alongside the grand opening of PLACE / Ladywell.

Margaret Mizen, MBE, mother of Jimmy, said: “We are very excited to have opened another Good Hope café and can’t wait for the community to make use of the cinema and event space. When we opened the first Good Hope in Hither Green in 2010, we could never have imagined how fast the charity would grow and just how many young people would hear Jimmy’s story. The profits will continue to support our work building Safe Havens across Lewisham and spreading Jimmy’s legacy of peace across the UK.”

Good Hope Cafe, Ladywell

Loving the vibe @GoodHopeCafe @PLACELadywell - look forward to coming back to try the full menu! pic.twitter.com/kJrEvQdLHo

— Rebecca Elliot (@RebeccaMCox) November 6, 2016

Good Hope is another new arrival at pop-up development PLACE / Ladywell. The cafe chain, created to honour the memory of murdered teen Jimmy Mizen, began in Hither Green and has expanded to the Lewisham High Street development.

Alongside giving financial support to the charity 'For Jimmy', the café provides training and work experience programmes, and offers work placements in partnership with Drumbeat School & ASD Services for young people with Autism.

For details, click here.

Lemongrass supergrass

New Cross, you've changed. Police were called to local cafe Birdie Num Nums by a customer upset that he had been served lemon and ginger tea instead of the lemongrass and ginger tea that he ordered. The Standard reports:

Sevjan Melissa, 30, who owns Birdie Num Nums in Lewisham Way, New Cross, said staff gave the customer a lemon and ginger tea instead of the lemongrass and ginger tea that he ordered.

She claims that when the man complained staff apologised and offered him a full refund but he was unsatisfied and started writing a TripAdvisor review while still in the café.

Ms Melissa claims that when she asked him to leave, the man then called the police.

However, the customer, Roberto Lattarulo, a 33-year-old recruitment manager for a healthcare regulator, has defended his actions, and claims he was not given a proper reason for being asked to leave.

Mr Lattarulo, who lives in Lewisham and was visiting the café with his girlfriend, told the Standard: "I wanted a lemongrass and ginger tea, it's not something you find commonly in cafés, so I was quite surprised, but instead I got a lemon and ginger teabag.

"If you haven't got something, you tell the customer you haven't got what they ordered and then offer them an alternative, but they just brought the wrong thing."

It unclear at this time where the Ghetto Boys and Peckham Boys stand on herbal tea, but this is a fault line with the potential to tear communities apart.

Thank you to Monkeyboy and Brockley Nicola for alerting me.

Festa, Folkestone Gardens

Festa Sul Prato is a new restaurant in the slightly unlikely surroundings of Folkestone Gardens in Deptford. Between the railway bridge and the skate park sits this pretty little Italian place with an ambitious menu that would make other park cafes blanche.

The Festa team lyricises:

"FESTA opens at eight. We have a Tai Chi group outside and people come in for a morning coffee. Kids go to school, the smaller ones with their parents. People are on their way to work in the nearby offices and light industrial units.

"Mid morning builders from the nearby construction sites come over for a quick coffee and local business folk hold a meeting. Mothers come with their toddlers catching up after having spent time in the playground. On the weekends locals have a leisurely breakfast. The first skateboarders draw their rounds in the skatepark. A handful of people sit with their laptops and work.

"Lunch is for everybody and on Sundays there is a bit more time for it. A couple of ladies sit on a bench and their dogs sleep on the sunny warm pavement. Business neighbours are discussing a new business deal over a glass of wine. Children fetch ice cream. On Saturday a group sets off for a history tour of shipyards, sailors and pirates around Deptford.  A boy’s parents organised a little party in the playground for his fifth birthday and fetch some drinks and sandwiches.

"Office workers come in for an early dinner, families and friends meet for a drink and meal in the evening. Groups of people come after their fitness classes or playing football in Deptford Park around the corner. A community group holds their quarterly meeting.

"FESTA closes at ten in the evening and the last guests go home."

For more details, click here.

Benedict team junks old decor

Benedict's, the Crofton Park coffee shop, is closed for refurbishment. They promise they will back soon with an improved look and menu.

Mountsfield Park cafe plan seeks Greater Brockley support

An artist's impression of the new cafe

The Friends of Mountsfield Park in Catford are trying to rally support for their scheme for a new cafe, which risk being blocked by the Council, despite the fact that the group stepped in to rescue the situation when the Council's own plans fell through. They say:

We have been campaigning for a cafe for years, and have been promised one by Lewisham Council – including as part of the Council redevelopment of the park that created the Community Garden and revamped the play area. But the Council were unable to follow through on their plan to build a cafe at that time.

Since then, we have worked with them to identify some funding – £50k – to launch a tender process to encourage an outside investor to build a cafe in the park.

A viable and attractive cafe plan is in front of Lewisham Council for approval right now – made by a local businessman who has worked closely with the Friends of Mountsfield Park. You can see the plans and some pictures of the new cafe here.

But the planning department at the Council is making unreasonable demands:

Firstly, they are demanding that the new design have a ‘biodiverse living roof’ to replace what they claim is a living roof on the existing, abandoned container units. In fact, the current ‘living roof’ is around a dozen unmaintained planters. We have offered to move these and add them to the Community Garden, so there is no loss of natural habitat, but the Council says this isn’t good enough.

Secondly, they are demanding that the new design meet the ‘BREEAM’ environmental rating of ‘excellent’, even though the Council was prepared to waive this requirement for the cafe they planned to build in Mountsfield Park! In other words, had the Council actually managed to deliver the cafe they promised in 2014, we would now have a cafe that didn’t meet these very high standards. The current proposal meets the ‘BREEAM’ environmental rating of ‘good’ with an aim to achieve ‘very good’. This means the current plans exceed mandatory standards by some margin.

If Lewisham Council turns down the current proposal – for what we think are spurious reasons – it could be years before another option is available and the money we fought to get the Council to commit to support the project – £50k – will be at risk.

We want the Council to take an intelligent approach, to look at the benefits a cafe would bring to Mountsfield Park: it will bring in revenue, encourage people to stay in the park longer and enjoy the Community Garden and play area, improve security by making the park more attractive to families, provide a place for dog walkers to get a cup of coffee, and it will mean that maintained toilet facilities are available in the park. These are far more important than a handful of planters!

We have until August 3rd to make our voice heard, so please add your signature to this petition. You can also email mountsfieldpark@gmail.com by 3 August 2016 with any further comments, thoughts, and experiences. All evidence is good evidence and will help us to make the case.

Noak to reopen

Noak, the Mantle Road bakery, which recently was forced to close, has announced that intends to reopen. A post on their website says:

Things will soon be cooking & happening at Mantle Court. Please watch this page and our social media accounts for dates and events. 

If you are a food/hospitality trader interested in appearing short-term here, please get in touch! It's hello@noak-bakehouse.co.uk

Noak closes

Noak Bakehouse & Brew, the Mantle Road cafe, has closed.

It wasn't the easiest of starts for the business, after the departure of their chef ahead of opening forced a rethink (from pizza place to pastries) and despite earning a loyal following during the daytime, they had struggled to establish themselves as an after-work destination.

The team tells me they are currently reviewing their options. It's a great pity to see it close, but during their short tenure, they established Mantle Road as a day-time hangout, which is progress for this stretch of SE4.

Number 41, Brockley Rise

Very smart looking new place under construction by Dalmain School @BrockleyCentral pic.twitter.com/wqBmUVRq6J

— Molewife (@Molewife) June 10, 2016

No 41 opened at the weekend and the owners say:

Please come along and try our Monmouth roasted coffee and our Tea-pigs tea, you will not be disappointed. If you are hungry why not grab a bite to eat? Everything is made freshly on a daily basis in our kitchen, especially our scrumptious Mediterranean breakfast.

Fred's, 358 Brockley Road

Fred's cafe opened today on Brockley Road. Closer in spirit and menu to somewhere like Oscar's in Ladywell than nearby Arlo & Moe or Benedict's, it should nicely complement Crofton Park's increasingly impressive range of cafes, bars and restaurants.

Inside and outside at Fred's

Fred's stress their family-friendliness (picking a side in the local culture war) and have made smart use of their small garden. Those pining Pat-a-cake's, which this replaces, will be heartened to know that cake is front and centre on the menu - along with delicious flatbread sandwiches.

Please post your reviews here.

Two new hangouts on the horizon

Brockley's bumper year of new openings looks set to continue. Gerri writes:

"The cafe on the corner of Tyrwhitt Road and Lewisham Way [which enjoyed a brief life as a pop-up furniture shop that never opened] is tantalisingly close to being finished. Builders say two to three weeks 'or maybe four'. [Typical] Decor is top notch, beyond what is required/expected to make it pleasant. Was trying to take a sneaky pic but got busted."

Meanwhile, I've just been invited to a hard hat tour of The Brookmill in St John's (65 Cranbrook Road), ahead of its opening later this month. Owned by the same pub group as The Great North Wood in West Norwood, the team have got ambitious plans to turn it into something very cool.