Hunkered below a railway arch in Bermondsey, Spa Terminus has long been a go-to for dedicated gourmands; the kind willing to forgo the easy charms of nearby Borough and Maltby Street markets to dedicate their weekends to picking up a specific cut of native breed pork from Farmer Tom Jones (arch 13), sourdough from Little Bread Pedlar (arch five), or viennoiserie from Hedone Bakery (RIP).
Though it supplies many of the city’s best restaurants (it was established by Neal’s Yard Dairy and Monmouth Coffee Company, after all), the market had lacked a restaurant to showcase its produce. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when Dockley Road opened on the market’s south-west corner.
It’s co-owned by chef Emily Chia (ex-St John, Joe Beef in Montreal and Le Grand Bain in Paris) and general manager Klaudia Weisz (ex-Rochelle Canteen). They’re joined by Alex Keys, another Rochelle Canteen and St John alum who also co-owns Farmer Tom Jones. He tells Broadsheet the team was approached by Spa Terminus to fill the empty space.
“The opportunity seemed too good to pass up,” he says. The trio received the keys in August and put the restaurant together at speed, funding it entirely themselves with start-up loans and help from friends and family.
The 45-cover space feels intimate but deeply personable, with design touches reflecting the owners’ journeys. There are old menus from Weisz and Keys’s former restaurants, annotated with prep lists and notes from service, as well as those from pop-ups that Chia has cooked at in France and beyond. Vintage finds speak to the hours the owners spent trawling through antique markets hunting for crockery. And the shimmering bar was made by Brighton studio Weez & Merl from waste plastic, coloured and compressed into a mesmerising marble effect.
Wines are from neighbouring Dynamic Vines and St John (“because we all have worked in the St John sphere,” says Keys), while Weisz’s Hungarian roots gives the list a central and eastern European lean, with an array of special bottles from importer The Jolly Merchants. Keys’s time cooking with Margot Henderson and Valentine Warner at Kitchen on the Edge in Lofoten, Norway connected him with bartender Nick Strangeway, who has put together a succinct list of pre-batched cocktails. Several are fat-washed using Farmer Tom Jones beef fat, including a Martini and a Bloody Mary that appears on weekends.
The menu’s supplier-driven MO plays into Chia’s culinary ethos, which she describes as “50 per cent creative, 50 per cent classic”.
“Part of the reason for cooking is that there’s an endless ability to create and to be validated right in front of me by [diners],” she says.
Like the drinks, dishes draw from local producers as well as Chia’s experiences cooking abroad. For example, snacky panisse made from Hodmedod’s chickpea flour and served with mayo is a riff on a dish at Le Grand Bain in Paris.
Meanwhile, Chia says that during her time in Montreal she was inspired by the joyful relationship and curiosity her peers had with food. “At Joe Beef, the menu changed really frequently and was always just inspired by things that the chefs ate over the weekend, or something from childhood,” she says. “And they weren’t afraid to be creative and to be a bit silly and just have fun with the food.”
Her banh mi terrine is one example of Chia’s creativity. It combines pork and chicken livers with five-spice, garlic and ginger. The mixture is layered into custom terrine moulds and served after a couple of days so the flavours get to know one another. It comes with bread and pickles in a playful subversion of the Vietnamese sandwich’s colonial history.
Elsewhere, look out for Chia’s take on a Lancashire hotpot, made with beef mince and Kernel stout in dinky custom pots that the chef picked up at a market. Plus, there’s a cacio e pepe dauphinois that’s been making the rounds on social media.
Ultimately, the trio wants Dockley Road to foster an ecosystem that benefits both the restaurant and the market – without any pretence. “[Emily is] like, ‘I just want it to be a fun place for people to come and eat, a place for people to come and work, and it hopefully doesn’t have any graces,’” says Keys. “Get great produce, present it in a way that’s fun and interesting and lets it shine.
“You [can] come in and sit at the bar and have a panisse and a terrine and a beautiful cocktail and spend £40,” he says. “Or you can come in and get a big steak for sharing and spend 200 quid for two or three of you, and really push the boat out. You’ll be able to have whatever kind of dining experience you want to have.”
Dockley Road
1 Dockley Road, SE16 3AF
Hours:
Wed & Thu 5.30pm–9pm
Fri & Sat midday–2.30pm, 5.30pm–9.30pm
Sun midday–3.30pm
