The Gills’ other enterprises include Darby’s, a New York style restaurant close to the American Embassy in Nine Elms, and Sorella, a neighbourhood bistro in Clapham. Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes trailblazed the rejuvenation of Bermondsey when she opened her Fashion and Textile Museum on Bermondsey Street in 2003. Its shocking pink exterior matches her shocking pink hair. The surrounding warehouses have all been converted now to apartments and workspaces. Bermondsey Larder is on the ground floor of a new mixed use development next to Newhams Yard off Tower Bridge Road. Meanwhile uses like nearby Vinegar Yard, a collection of prefab style eateries and bars, keep the area vibrant and constantly changing.
The restaurant’s airy interior is eclectic industrial with white painted exposed ceilings and polished concrete columns. It’s several times larger than the petite Dairy. A variety of tables, banquettes and bar seating is complemented by mismatched crockery. There’s a central tiled bar and metal framed kitchen hatch. The industrial chic reaches a zenith in the unisex bathroom with trough basins and factory taps.
Robin and Sarah’s aim is “to create memories” or sometimes “to create memory loss”, the latter presumably depending on the volume of Pebble Dew sauv blanc consumed. Their goal for The Dairy was “to create an experience as close as possible to dining by a farm or coastline a in central London with direct relationships to our beloved purveyors from the land and sea”. The same goal applies to their new establishment. The word “larder” has a comforting old fashioned feel to it, but while the duo’s is clearly well stocked, this is cutting edge cuisine.