Well ‘Eeled
An adaptive reuse project has turned a former eel pie shop into a Cubitts (image: courtesy of Cubitts).
“This is where the old tank where they kept the live eels was, then they would go straight into cold storage here.” A former eel habitat – and mortuary – is possibly one of the strangest things I’ve encountered after following a designer into a basement, but the new Cubitts store in a restored Grade II-listed eel pie shop is full of surprises.
Frederick Cooke opened a branch of F Cooke at 9 Broadway Market in 1900, and the family business selling tank-to-table eel pie with mashed potatoes and liquor (not the booze, but rather a herbaceous green sauce made with parsley) operated at the site until 2019. Rising rents and shifting appetites for eels forced its closure. Gen Z, if you believe the headlines, are “killing jellied eels” and other traditional British dishes with their namby-pamby tastes, but the more likely culprit is the wholesale gentrification of the East End. Originally snapped up by a developer, the shop remained dark and empty behind its beautiful facade while the pandemic emptied London’s streets.
Countertop tables have been turned into display platforms.
Eyewear designer Tom Broughton, who founded Cubitts in 2012, has both a passion for 20th-century architecture (he lives in the penthouse of the Isokon Building) and a lot of patience. He’s been staking out the area for almost a decade, determined to find a suitable place to refashion into an eyewear store. Broughton originally had his eye on the property next door, but was beaten to the punch by skincare brand Aesop – a herald of gentrification if ever there was. He assures me there are no hard feelings, however, as the old F Cooke shop – lovingly restored and adapted for its new purpose by local architecture and design practice EBBA – has proved a perfect venue for purveying the kinds of hip chunky frames beloved by architects and designers.
The interiors, which date from the 1930s, have been restored to their former glory. Glazed square tiles in mashed-potato cream and watery teal gleam from the walls, with only a few tell-tale cracks and chips that speak to their decades of service. The original terrazzo flooring, which curves gently up to meet the walls and counters (presumably to prevent any pie crumbs from settling in nooks and crannies) looks as if it could have been laid yesterday. EBBA converted the old marble-top countertop tables into display units, cladding the undersides in mottled, amber-hued Richlite panels, which are made of paper and resin. “What’s nice is that everything below [the counters] has warm treatments to bring in nice texture and tones, and then everything above is much lighter,” explains EBBA founding director Benni Allen. Perched atop the marble are cream-coated gridded metal display shelves – “the colour marches the tiles, which Tom chose” – for Broughton’s designs to rest in. Even the large wall mirrors, ideally suited for a glasses store, are original. How do you remove a century’s worth of eel pie grime from such admittedly hardy materials? “Lots of elbow grease,” says Allen.
The original 1930s tiles have been restored.
With its listed status, EBBA had to be careful about any additions. A gridded display cabinet for custom Cubitts, made of stained Birch plywood, had to be mounted where a mirror originally hung, so as not to disturb the tiling. The wooden frames of the glazed shop front have been restored and the original green-and-gold sign painting kept intact, with a small brass Cubitts logo resting in a niche below the F Cooke signage. “The freeholders of the building got permission to remove the signage at the front,” says Broughton. “But we decided against that because it’s so beautiful. It was such an integral part of the design. We tried to retain everything.” Even the wood and wrought-iron benches outside the shop are original, rescued from a dusty corner of storage to be sanded down and cleaned.
A vintage 1930s opticians sign, which Broughton sourced years ago and kept aside for a moment like this, hangs from the ceiling, a rebranding effort that remains in keeping with its surrounds. Of course, as an opticians, the Cubitts store required an eye examination room. The large basement that used to contain the cold storage extends all the way below the shop and underneath the road outside. But as a space for staff and customers, the former eel graveyard lacked that welcoming vibe. “It was really quite dark and dingy,” explains Allen, although to look at it now you wouldn’t guess at the space’s original, somewhat macabre, purpose. The stairwell has been painted a zesty bright orange, and a waiting area has been tiled in orange and blue squares. “There’s that really beautiful, intricate detail upstairs,” explains Allen. “We wanted to mirror that down here.” Stained wood panelling with a square motif runs along one wall, concealing a secret door to the staff room.
The square motif continues downstairs in the optician’s waiting room.
Broughton has also been inspired by the shop’s original detailing. An Art Deco stained glass window with a sunburst motif, restored as part of the fit-out, has informed the shape of Starburst, an experimental glasses frame with arms that recall a stylised beam of light. Nods to the shop’s original purpose, donated by the Cooke family, decorate the back shelves below an original gas lamp: a metal pot and ladle; individual pie tins; a framed black and white photograph of Bob Cooke wearing some terrific 70s shades and brandishing a live eel. While the space has been given a new lease of life, Broughton and Allen were keen that this adaptive reuse project remain as close to the original as possible. “Even though it feels purposeful, it's quite light touch,” says Allen. “People have been really chuffed that it’s stayed the same. Someone could come in here in a decade or two, and actually put it back into a pie and mash shop.” If eyewear goes out of fashion and eels come back in, the place on Broadway Market will be waiting.
Words India Block