Beehive Place Bar & Kitchen
- Jun 17, 2015
- 4 min read
Romantically lured in by the promise of a ‘British Culinary Experience’, we headed down to the Brixton based pop up, Beehive Place, last weekend to check out their bespoke cocktail pairing menu. And if you’re after a new joint to while away your cherished hours whilst gleefully indulging in some fantastic Great British food and booze, then this laid-back, atmospheric hangout is right up your bloody street! But with this menu only available till the end of June, you’d better get down there quick if you want to fully bask in this culinary rapture.
Co-owned by chef Sam Hodges and restaurateur Theo Cooper, Beehive Place is a new kitchen and bar pop up showcasing food and drink made from the best ingredients our sprightly UK has to offer. Situated down a Brixton alley at 11 Beehive Place (just off the market), this hidden treasure is tucked away behind a yellow, bee embellished door and although it may be a little tricky to find at first, once you do end up indoors it’s certainly worth the bloody hunt! For one the place was bloody heaving with happily chattering diners and you immediately got the feeling that you could easily spend hours in this place in the company of some of your finest friends. And it was a pretty damn cool place too. Inside, its vast open space was creatively littered with miss-matched chairs, exposed brickwork, high beams and fresh greenery, providing a chilled out and effortlessly relaxed atmosphere for both diners and drinkers alike. So, I suppose we should get to it and tell you guys why we think you should get yourselves stuck into their pairing menu.
Well to start off with the menu is bespoke, so you get the chance to choose from either a savoury or sweet line up, with everything tailored to you. The bar and the kitchen then work together to create a pairing that will hopefully knock the socks off those well-walked feet of yours. And they pretty much did for us. By far one of our favourite courses was Yorkshire Swaledale beef with nettle green sauce, dehydrated heritage tomatoes and black garlic, paired up with an awesome Tomato Gin Sour. What a bloody great start! The beef was so unexpectedly subtle with the nettle bringing a nutty, earthiness to the dish, and the dehydrated heritage tomatoes were such a bunch of flavoursome little devils, we could have easily just eaten them by the bowlful!
But it was the cocktail accompanied with this dish that really made this course stand out. Made using Blackdown gin, tomato water, lemon juice and garnished with tomato salt and a dehydrated tomato, this Tomato Sour was a tangy, gin-filled glassful of alcoholic delight. It had such a refreshing twang and a long, sharp finish that entwined so perfectly with the food, we had to remind ourselves that this was only the first bloody course! But in all honesty, we’d have happily sipped this cocktail from noon till freaking night just on it’s own!
But these guys weren’t just a one-dish wonder. Oh no! Their Cobble Lane spiced sausage with foraged sea purslane (spinach of the sea, to you and me, and a tasty surprise too!) had such an intense flavour deliverance with a punchy garlic hit, and their well cooked cured pork belly was so delicious it was enough to make you want to run off into the bloody sunset with it! We pretty much inhaled it, it was that good! Pure salty, meaty heaven! But to be fair, serve us up any kind of pig any time of day and we’ll love you quicker than a spinster with a ticking biological clock. But in all seriousness this was good pig, damn good pig. And what was even better about this menu was that you got to taste quite a lot of what they have on offer without forking out a month’s rent for it. It’s £20 a head people for four taster courses, £20 a head!
But we came here for pretty much one reason and one reason only: cocktails! And well, we certainly weren’t disappointed! Mixed, shaken and served by their bartender Jeff Stuit and the team, all ingredients that went into each cocktail were again foraged from the UK with in house, seasonal bitters and shrubs giving twists to old classics but also birth to new creations. And they have one hell of a glassware collection too! Now we’ve already mentioned our favourite cocktail of the night but a few of the others need a bloody mention too!
Firstly their twist on a Dirty Martini (except they managed to make it even dirtier!), using Blackdown gin, Blackdown vermouth (this uses birch sap so is a little sweeter than most vermouths), grapefruit bitters and olive brine went down a treat when paired with the Cobble Lane spiced sausage as the saltiness from the brine cut through the spice, also helping to hero the sea purslane.
Served up with our pork belly was their Somerset Smash, and geese, talk about one hell of a pairing! This was probably our second favourite cocktail. Made up of Somerset Royal Cider Brandy, smashed lemon, Beehive rhubarb liqueur and elderflower spirit, this cocktail delivered such an invigorating cider bite, a good punch of sweetness but also a tartness that gave this cocktail a really nice balance, making this cocktail/food team a match made in palatable heaven! And finally, you must try their Strawberry and Thyme Drambellini; made using Blackdown vodka, Drambuie, strawberry and thyme puree and fizz, it's pretty much a sophisticated summer liquified in a glass!
So as you can tell, we pretty much enjoyed ourselves here! The cocktails weren’t flashy and they weren’t over dramatic; but we quite liked that. They delivered what they intended to deliver but without the unnecessary theatrics. And the food, well, we'll definietly be back in for more! But what we loved the most was that all the ingredients in both the food and the cocktails were British, so it was good to see a place fully supporting what good old Blighty has to offer. And for the price, £20 a head for four taster courses, you get a hell of a lot for your money so it’s definitely worth you guys popping down to check it out, even if it's just for the cocktails. You won’t be disappointed.
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