Wansteadium

The closure of Wanstead’s admired French restaurant Le Marmiton last week has been followed in swift order by the site’s conversion into a new Italian restaurant to be called Alba Trattoria.

The new restaurant, to be opened by South Woodford local Peter Hughes and his brothers Richard and Chris and their friend Andrea, will be the latest venue opened by the team who also have restaurants in Soho, Hackney and Hove.

Peter said: “At Alba we’ll make all our pasta in house every day, our pizza will be proved for over 48 hours and we’ll celebrate the best of traditional Italian cooking, alongside spritzes, negronis and small-batch regional Italian wines.

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“We live locally and we are so excited to be opening our own place in the heart of Wanstead. We first opened our doors on Brewer Street in 2012. The culmination of a dream and the start of a journey.

“We are three brothers and a friend on a journey to create fantastic neighbourhood venues reminiscent of the fabulous family-run places of northern Italy, where we all grew up – magical Sunday night trips with our oldest brother Patrick and our mum and dad, to our local Trattoria just outside Milan, where we were born.

“The smoke from the wood-fired pizza oven as you walked through the front door of The Maneggio. The warmth of the greeting from the staff and the usual patter about the latest footballing scandal from the Tuscan owners as they seamlessly announced the day’s specials. Our family, all around the table tucking into amazing homemade pasta. These really are priceless memories for us.”

Peter met Andrea, the fourth member of the team, while working as chefs in the Mayfair restaurant Wild Honey. They opened Mele e Pere in Brewer St in 2012.

“Having cut our teeth in one of the most competitive restaurant markets in the world we decided it was time to grow. Gotto Trattoria on Canalside Hackney Wick came along in 2016. The Lock Inn, a Canalside Pub in Hackney Wick in 2020. Pesca Trattoria, which is a collaboration with our former Mele e Pere General Manager – Ed and his partner Steph, in Hove in 2021. And our latest, Alba Trattoria in Wanstead coming in 2023.”

The restaurant is expected to open later this month.

As is our tradition in these parts, thank you to the staff of Le Marmiton for your service, and best of luck to the Alba team for your new venture.

Redbridge leader Councillor Jas Athwal has signalled that there will be no reprieve for the Wanstead Youth Centre when a decision on its future is taken by the council in September.

Writing in the Wanstead Village Directory, Councillor Athwal said: “Wanstead is a wonderful place to live, work and visit. As a council we are committed to investing in services that matter most to the people who live across our borough, but we do need to spend our limited funding wisely.”

He said that the council “had invested significantly in Wanstead”, adding: “We are building an improved leisure centre, which will house a brand-new 25m swimming pool and dance facility.”

However that will not satisfy the campaigners hoping to save Wanstead Youth Centre on Elmcroft Avenue, since the many groups which use it every week have no similar or suitable venues in which they can hold their events. Campaigners say 1,500 people a week use the centre for a wide variety of activities, using the centre’s sports halls, theatre, kitchens and other facilities. It seems inevitable that many of those activities will now cease.

In the article Councillor Athwal said a new lido which is being built in Valentine’s Park would be built sustainably and cover its own costs.

He also said the centre was “unfortunately, in its current condition… no longer suitable for long-term use due to the extensive repairs needed to make it fit for purpose”. However at the public meeting held at the centre in March, Mark Baigent, Redbridge’s corporate director of regeneration and culture, did confirm that the building was currently safe.

Wanstead journalist and poet Victoria Richards has just published her first collection of short stories. It’s typically edgy and – like many things Victoria writes about – involves Wanstead.

“Sylvia Plath watches us sleep, but we don’t mind is the result of a couple of years of early child-rearing, during which I took to ‘haunting’ my own windows at home in the middle of the night, in those ‘witching hour’ moments when it feels like nobody else in the world is awake,” she told Wansteadium.

“I found I had so many tumbling thoughts and ideas, words that wouldn’t wait – half-sketched stories and poems which bled through the ‘notes’ section of my iPhone and then swiftly developed a life of their own on the page.”

By day Victoria runs the Independent’s Voices section. By night she unleashes her creativity – as people who have attended the Spoken Word evenings as part of the Wanstead Fringe will attest. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize, was highly commended in the Bridport Prize and was long listed in the Bath Short Story Award 2017.

The blurb of the book reads:

A Jewish woman has been having ‘unnatural thoughts’ about the softness of another woman’s skin. A feminist arranges to meet her online troll. A woman worries, under her duvet, whether she should sit content in a marriage that has turned comfortable…that is, until she falls in love with a tree…

The tree, in case you’re wondering, is in Wanstead Park.

There are some copies of Victoria’s book on the Wanstead Bookshop bookcase in City Place Coffee, or you can order it here.

Congratulations to Wanstead cricketer Robin Das who made his first class debut on Friday playing for Essex against Ireland – and top-scored with 132.

Wansteadium last mentioned Robin when he was brought on as a substitute for England during the Test match against New Zealand at Lord’s last summer. Since then he has played in the Bangladesh Premier League and has returned to become a part of the Essex team.

The only downside for Wanstead CC is that Robin will be in more demand for Essex duty and won’t be able to play for his original team. But hey, massive congratulations to him and wishing him many more centuries to come.

RideLondon is a massive reminder of how different life could be if we weren’t addicted to motor vehicles. It’s a good thing. But it may be a bit trying if you’re attempting to get around on Sunday. Here is a list of some of the road closures which may affect Wanstead folk most.

ROAD AFFECTED	FROM	UNTIL
Hollybush Hill, A1199	5am	6.30pm
Woodford Road, A1199	5am	6.30pm
High Road, A1199	5am	6.30pm
Woodford Green, A1199	5am	6.30pm
Woodford New Road, A104	5am	6.30pm
Woodford Green, A104	5am	6.30pm
Manor Road, B173	5am	6.30pm
Chigwell Road, A113	7.30am	6pm
Broadmead Road, A1009	7.30am	6pm
A12 – Northbound	4am	12pm
A12 – Southbound	4am	6.30pm
Green Man Roundabout	5am	6.30pm

More details here.

Specialist interest this, but a framed picture of South Woodford station, formerly known as George Lane, didn’t seem to hang around very long at Peter Hucker’s interesting shop on Nightingale Lane. Even now we like to think it’s hanging somewhere appropriate.