Stephen Jones, fashion’s favourite — and rather grand — milliner, is not
easily impressed, but gliding regally out of the launch for Flash, the
latest pop-up dining room from restaurateurs Pablo Flack and David
Waddington, he is moved to deliver some rare high praise. “Those two are so
unusual,” he pronounces. “They make things happen against all odds. I’ve
lived in London 30 years and nobody has ever done anything like this. They
are far more than restaurateurs.”
The pair, who reinvented eating out to suit the style and energy of a new
generation of cool kids, have opened in the West End for the party season.
Two weeks in, and Flash, a one-off, three-month-only restaurant at the Royal
Academy, is already almost fully booked. They’re keeping back a few tables
for walk-ins, but, mostly, this gig is sold out.
The half-Chilean, half-Yorkshire son of a coal-mine owner, Flack is
shaven-headed and good-looking. He once had a small but significant fashion
label, House of Jazz, and he is, according to friends, “the anarchist in the
team, the one who comes up with the big ideas”. Waddington, a Central Saint
Martins graduate who majored in menswear, fills in the gaps and makes things
happen. He is also a consummate host. It was these two who took a dodgy old
boozer, the Bricklayers Arms in Hoxton, London, and turned it into the
celebrated watering hole of YBAs such as Hirst, Emin, Turk and Quinn, and
the fashionistas Giles Deacon, Jefferson Hack, Rankin and Katy England. Lulu
Kennedy was the appalling barmaid who went on to become “the fashion fairy
godmother” at Fashion East.
By the time the pair opened their first restaurant, Bistrotheque, in 2004, all
the friends they had partied with so wildly in the 1990s were successful,
and they all steamed up its concrete stairs, despite it being in a
none-too-tempting part of Bethnal Green. The influential art dinners once
the preserve of the Groucho were now held at Bistrotheque.
A few people didn’t get it. One famous model threw a strop when she was
expected to attend a fashion dinner there. Certain critics liked the food
but hated the location; someone else described it as “eating in a loony bin”
(referring to the white walls and hard surfaces).
But with its tranny cabaret act in the basement, its excellent,
just-right-for-now food, tongue-in-cheek bingo nights and brilliant, scene-y
atmosphere, it became one of the country’s coolest restaurants. In their
years at the Bricklayers, the duo did things like wrapping up the exterior
of the pub as a present, and hiring a special-effects company to make it
snow at Christmas. I remember drinking there when the entire place was
turfed. They encapsulated the wit, creative fire and energetic thirst for
fun of the area. Then, two years ago, they concentrated that unique vision
by opening a fantasy winter-wonderland pop-up restaurant in a disused
warehouse: The Reindeer was a huge hit. Waddington describes what they do as
drawing on both their backgrounds in rave and fashion, but essentially, he
says, “we’re creative businessmen”.
Then the Royal Academy came knocking. The Flash design team took a trip up to
Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, the Devonshires’ seat, for inspiration, and built
a room within a room from art-storage boxes. A fine dining room made of
packing cases — are they having a laugh, at our expense? Their friend Will
Broome says: “It’s like they don’t give a shit, they do whatever they like,
but, somehow, they know everyone will love it.”
Needless to say, Broome — an illustrator who has collaborated with Marc Jacobs
and was given his own T-shirt range by Topshop — designed the bespoke Flash
Wedgwood china.
“Everyone we always work with is involved in Flash,” says Flack, reeling off a
roll call of current creative wow. Giles Deacon designed the ominous
chandelier, a 160kg death star studded with 1,200 crystals, that hangs above
the dining room. Rory Crichton, an artist and textile designer for Prada,
Missoni, Gucci and Vuitton, created the intricate and freaky foodscapes that
streak across the walls; works by Alexis Teplin and Simon Popper also hang
there. Gareth Pugh has dropped off his suit of armour.
The opening party for Flash, a dinner for 120, was attended by friends such as
Katie Grand, the stylist now in such demand that Condé Nast has created a
magazine, Love, for her to edit; the photographer Juergen Teller and his
wife, the influential gallerist Sadie Coles; Richard Mortimer, the master of
the underground fanzine and nightlife scene; Nicholas Grimshaw, architect
and president of the Royal Academy. . .
It could be with an envious eye that an outsider might look upon this charmed
gang, not only talented and connected, but assisted and enabled by a company
of similarly talented and connected friends. Bistrotheque is their Algonquin
— or, more aptly, their Moulin Rouge, given the cabaret and bingo nights
hosted by the drag queen and performance artist Jonny Woo.
There was bingo at the Flash opening: more than 100 art and fashion names,
heads down, while Woo, wearing a tuxedo, glittery tights and towering
dominatrix boots, stalked the room calling numbers. Cries of “Fix!” went up
when two of Bistrotheque’s best friends, the designer Hazel Robinson and
Grand, shouted “House!”. The reason they won, though, is more likely down to
a bit more practice than the ladies at Vogue have had. Grand looned around
in her Balenciaga dress, Vuitton shoes and her prize, a big hairy wolf mask.
They may be stars now, but they still roll in the old East End style.
Four days later and Flash is hosting a lunch for the hedge-funders, art
gallerists, tailors and locals of Mayfair. They are fed fish tacos,
chocolate cake and tequila. On a Monday lunchtime. At this bespoke and
decadently temporary London restaurant, it’s impossible not to think, how
brilliant, how jolly, how much poorer we’d be without these two anarchic
artistic restaurateurs in these rather miserable times.
Get the party started
Giles Deacon, fashion designer “To avoid a hangover, don’t stop
partying — stay out. Alternatively, eat a Fortnum & Mason’s scotch
egg on your way out and do 30 minutes of Beverley Callard’s salsasize
routine when you get in, then down a pint of water and head straight to bed.”
Katie Grand, fashion maven “To survive the party season, every woman
should have a tall, dark and handsome date, a pair of thigh-high Azzedine
Alaïa boots (they will help you get a date if you don’t already have one)
and a BlackBerry Bold — nobody should ever do anything without a BlackBerry.”
Richard Battye, landlord of the George and Dragon in Shoreditch “These
jukebox tunes will get every party started: I Touch Myself, the Divinyls;
Making Your Mind Up, Bucks Fizz; Shout! Shout! (Knock Yourself Out), Rocky
Sharpe and the Replays.”
Mandi Lennard, fashion PR “Give grown-up party bags and fill them with
glam items such as mini bottles of Moët or Mac cosmetics, and something
specific to the do.”
Nathan G Wilkins, DJ “Every aspiring DJ should be playing these: Elvis
Presley, Crawfish (Pilooski remix); DJ Mehdi, Pocket Piano (Joakim remix);
Gonzales, Let’s Ride.”
Pablo and David's Tips
Food First rule: knock down a kitchen wall to make room for a big table
next to the cooker. We believe in informality at home — always eat in the
kitchen. Serve food quickly, because you should be with your guests. A quick
cold starter will stop them getting drunk too fast.
Booze Put people at ease with a drink on arrival: champagne or a
cocktail. Get the blender out and make margaritas. We love to buy cheap
fountains from Argos and pump them full of cocktails. Always put open
bottles of wine on the table. Do not turn off that tap.
Play games We love pass the parcel, bingo and treasure hunts. Really
get into it: bury your prizes in the garden — everyone will scrabble in the
dirt for a prize. This year, we’re making them low on expense, high on
humour.
Guests Invite good social mixers, and guests that are prepared to muck
in and help if necessary. Only allow yourself a single “party deadly” — it’s
okay to have one person to bitch about.
Special effects It’s really worth doing something different and fun. If
money is no object, hire a special-effects company. Snow Business
(snowbusiness.com) will make it snow outside your party from about £1,000.
Alternatively, try a foam party or get great effects for not much money with
a smoke machine and a strobe light.
How to be a perfect host
* Get guests on the same intellectual wavelength, but mix up the demographic:
single, couple, author, banker, artist, plumber, rich, poor.
* Make people feel comfortable. Greet them, welcome them and when you
introduce them to new people, talk up everyone involved. Before people even
come, let them know who they are going to meet, give them a little
background. It creates a buzz and puts people at ease.
* Mention single people to other single people.
* Playing games is fun. It gets people up and about and interacting,
especially if they play in teams. I’m nuts about this movie-trivia DVD game
Scene It.
* Restrictive dress codes suck. Smart casual or casual chic encompasses
everything from jeans to a beautiful dress.
* Talk about anything but politics.
* The hostess always starts the dancing and singing: it’s the way you get
everyone else going.
* Know a reliable taxi service. My friends call me the keymaster: I take away
drunk people’s keys and then stick them in a cab.
* Guests too drunk? I like to cheerily say: ‘This is getting a little too
festive. You wanna be the life of the party, not the death of it.’
* Introduce strangers to everyone.
Amy Sacco: Nightlife queen and owner of the cult club Bungalow 8
Flash is open until January 19, 2009, in the West Room at the Royal Academy
of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens, W1; 020 8880 6111, bookflashnow.com
ON THE MENU
Roast
lamb with confit lamb shoulder and grilled vegetables
Ginger
parfait with spiced cox's apple and raspberry puree
Fish
tacos
Jerusalem
artichoke soup
