Sam Bryant is Opening Coal Rooms in Peckham

Chef Sam Bryant is opening Coal Rooms in partnership with the Peckham-based company behind the Old Spike coffee roastery, Camberwell’s Spike + Earl, Peckham restaurant Aside and coffee-based charity Change Please. Bryant moves from Princess of Shoreditch, having previously worked at Smokehouse in Islington. James Galton, also with Smokehouse previous, will front the restaurant as GM.

The Grade II listed former ticket office (once part of Peckham Rye’s train station) will open in mid-August. In the morning, a 24-seater café will focus on bacon: three cuts, cured on site, with a coffee-cured bacon sandwich on the breakfast menu.

In the evenings, the same space becomes a bar and restaurant: 13 counter seats around an open-plan kitchen and a main restaurant space with 30 covers.

The kitchen will operate around a robata grill and coal ovens — the latter will be used to cook flatbreads at lunchtimes, with toppings such pig’s cheek, xo sauce and crackling or crab rarebit, egg yolk and samphire.

At night, the charcoals are fired for meats and seafood: Dry-aged duck breasts; Mangalitsa ‘cowboy’ steaks; roasted cod heads; and 40 day-aged Dexter sirloin and rib. Small plates — natch — and sides include more nods to now ingredients and preparations: Smoked eel; burned corn; roasted bone marrow curry.

Bryant’s meet sourcing seems legit: beef and pork comes from Charles Ashbridge — “Taste Tradition” — in Yorkshire, Goat from Cabrito and Welsh lamb from Daphne’s. Everything will be in the on-site butchery and clearly priced per 100g or served to share.

Reducing waste will be a concern for the kitchen and the business will aim to upcycle would-be waste from the sister sites. The restaurant’s tiramisu, for example, will be made using excess milk from the on-site café. Meanwhile, the restaurant’s cheese producers will offload excess whey so Bryant’s team can make bread.

Of the project, Sam Bryant told Eater: “The whole point of this menu is to take cooking back to a simpler time and I am so excited about cooking over coals to create texture and flavour. My focus, and where I think we’re going to offer something new to [Peckham], is to use the whole beast — every cut of meat, and every drop of fat. I’m confident we’re opening in the right neighbourhood, with the right neighbours, and that there’s an appetite here for this kind of food.”

Coal Rooms will be at 11a Station Way, London, SE15 4RX

Opening times: Bar: Monday to Friday 5pm to 11pm, Saturday 11am to 11pm, Sunday 12pm to 9pm; Restaurant: Monday to Friday 6pm to 10pm, Saturday 11am to 4pm and 6pm to 10pm, Saturday 11am to 4pm, 6pm to 10pm, Sunday: 12pm to 6pm.