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Story Deli, the pizzeria which operated out of a distressed, bobo room first on Brick Lane in 2012, is making a surprise return to London this winter. Owner Lee Hollingworth has told Eater London of plans to return to a pop-up location on Cambridge Heath Road in Hackney.
The pizzeria / deli has been operating only in Little Horwood, near Milton Keynes, since shortly after the Brexit vote in June 2016.
Scheduled to reopen in a warehouse space at 15 Cambridge Heath Road in approximately two months time, the brand — among the first to introduce Londoners to a Kinfolk aesthetic (think Abbot Kinney in Venice Beach, without the beach and without the sun) — will arrive in a city whose pizza scene has boomed in the intervening years. Though cult-followed and award-winning, the composition and style of Story’s pizzas — super thin, crisp-based — has been the subject of a debate. Pizza expert Daniel Young raised the question in 2012: were they even pizzas at all?
No matter, what Hollingworth will guarantee is that everything in the base and on the top will be organic. As a committed environmentalist, he had been nervous to announce the new pop-up because he was waiting for confirmation that electricity provider, Ecotricity, could power the project.
Today Daniel Young told Eater that he was thrilled Story Deli was resurfacing.
“I personally think it is pizza and it is great. But if you don’t think it’s pizza, that’s ok. If you think it’s pricey, that’s ok, too. Your prerogative. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s made with superb ingredients and creativity and is wonderful to eat,” he said.
Although the initial plan is for it to be a pop-up, the owners have the option to stay on.
Story’s first location was within the Truman Brewery, just off Brick Lane, before a move to Calvert Avenue and then, finally, a two year stint at 123 Bethnal Green Road, in Shoreditch — a site now occupied by Swedish denim brand Edwin. Hollingworth’s disinterest in permanence is matched only by his surprise at how much people rated what he was doing.
More details on the London menu are expected soon.
Story Deli London, 515 Cambridge Heath Road E2 9BU.