Business Profile: The Perryvale Bistro & Bar

Belinda Evans from the Forest Hill Society interviewed owner Royston Holmes about his new venture, The Perryvale Bistro & Bar, which is located on the east side of Forest Hill station at 31a Perry Vale.

Why did you choose Forest Hill for your new venture? Opening our business in Forest Hill has been a real pleasure, and everyone has been incredibly kind and complimentary. We were looking for a site in South East London in order to link with my partners’ (Hector, Jen & Matt) other site, The Crooked Well in Camberwell. A lot of The Crooked Well’s regular customers are from Forest Hill and it kept coming up in our search; so, when The Perry Vale site became available we had a really good feeling. 

Tell us a bit about some of your dishes and their provenance? Our menu aims to provide a modern British feel drawing on some classic European influences.

What’s your most popular dish so far? It’s difficult to say which dish has been most popular however our baked squid flies out on a daily basis along with our mustard rabbit leg in its summery broth. We always have great specials on, too!!

How do you choose your wines since you have a really extensive and lovely wine list? Our wine list is personally selected by Hector who has some fantastic contacts in the industry, including some of the best vineyards in South Africa and world-class Master Sommeliers.

Do you use local suppliers? We use local, independent suppliers where we can, including William Rose Butchers in East Dulwich.

What’s your favourite thing about Forest Hill? I’m overwhelmed by the feeling of community in Forest Hill. Ninety-five percent of our customers at the moment live ‘just down the road’ so it’s great to be able to build strong links with the area.

Where do you like to eat out in Forest Hill (or the wider area)? I must confess, I haven’t had a huge amount of time to sample the culinary delights in the area, but I’ve had two really good meals at The Dartmouth Arms.

What do you think Forest Hill needs next? I doubt very much that I am qualified enough to discuss what Forest Hill needs next. However, it would be great to see the Perry Vale side of the tracks given a bit of a lift!

What are your plans for The Perryvale in the next few months or years? Having been open for just a month the focus is very much on gaining confidence in our product, but we’re already looking at developing a weekend brunch and pushing a wallet-friendly lunch menu.

For more info, visit www.theperryvale.com.

The Signal (formerly The Hob)

The Hob, 7 Devonshire Road, temporarily closed its doors in September for renovations under new ownership. Hippo Inns’ Chief Operating Officer, Dawn Donohoe, provided us with news about their plans for the pub.

The Signal will be re-opening The Hob in early October in a very different disguise. We look forward to welcoming local residents and businesses to food tastings and events, and sneak previews from the end of September.

As the pub was originally known as the Railway Signal and we were keen to take it back to its roots, we have chosen to change the name from The Hob. We want The Signal to be a place where you want to chill out and relax, and feel it’s an extension of your own home.

The interior of the pub will feel very homely, cosy and fresh. We are working hard to enhance the original characteristics of the building — we have had to do quite a bit of nurturing to get it back to health!

With regards to entertainment, our focus initially will be on acoustic live entertainment from 6:30-8:30pm, when you will be able to listen to covers of all sorts of old favourites.

Unlike Ron and Emma, the previous owners, we are not comedy experts. However, we do recognise the strong following The Hob had so, we are looking into introducing comedy but need to learn the ropes first — not to mention getting our new team pulling the perfect pint; serving the most delicious, fresh, honest food; and, of course, whipping up the best cocktail you have ever had.

Our food offer harks back to the simplicity of open-fire cooking when ale houses were first born. Our ‘spit and grill’ concept will be visible to the customer, and the menu will showcase the best and freshest British ingredients.

The pub’s main drinks offer will be focused around craft beer and rotating local ales with a 20-strong wine list. Upstairs you will find a feature cocktail bar with the best Gin, Vodka and Rum collection in South London. The cocktails will be quickly and deliciously created by our very own mixologist, who will train and manage our bar team.

We want to get to you know you all and cannot wait to be a part of Forest Hill!

10th Forest Hill Society AGM & Chair’s Report

By Michael Abrahams (Chair, Forest Hill Society)

The first Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Forest Hill Society took place on 25th September 2006 in the Quaker Meeting House on Sunderland Road. That means this autumn, when we will be convening our 10th AGM for the Forest Hill Society, we will begin our 10th year. At our AGM on 22nd October, we intend to look back over what we have accomplished as well as look forward to all the things we have yet to do. We are immensely proud of what the Forest Hill Society has achieved during these past nine years and hope you can join our team to make Forest Hill an even better place to live in the coming years.

Environment Committee

This past year has been another good year for the Forest Hill Society and for Forest Hill. Members of our Environment Committee have been busy maintaining the plants around the town centre: in the planters at Forest Hill station and the Edible High Road tubs for so many of our local shops.

Planning Committee

We were pleased that some of our ideas, developed last summer, for improving the town centre have been incorporated into the early plans for improvements to Dartmouth Road. These plans still need to finalised, but we expect construction works to start in spring 2016. It would have been hard to imagine last summer that, by the end of the 2014, £600k would have been secured by Lewisham Council to start turning some of our aspirations into realities for the town centre. On the back of this, members of our Planning Committee worked with local organisations SEE3 and V22, along with Lewisham Council to successfully bid for additional funding from the Greater London Authority to improve the streetscape between the Forest Hill Pools and Library.

Transport Committee

On transport, we experienced a serious degradation in evening peak rail services from London Bridge earlier this year. However, by keeping up the pressure on Network Rail and Southern Railways through all channels possible, we believe the efforts of our Transport Committee helped in reinstating the rail services that had been cancelled.

Along with other groups we have long advocated for an extension to the Bakerloo line into South East London. Although such an extension may still be some way off, 96% of people who responded to this year’s consultation by Transport for London — for proposed routes that would go through New Cross Gate and Lewisham, and south to Lower Sydenham and beyond — recognised the extension as a useful addition to the transport network. Hopefully, there will be more news on this before the Forest Hill Society’s 20th AGM!

Executive Committee

Additionally, in this past year, we organised informative talks on local history and climate change, as well as another excellent Burns Supper; installed a new street piano in the forecourt of Forest Hill station; worked with local churches to present the annual Christmas tree lighting and carol singing festivities in our town centre; and almost managed to organise an election hustings prior to the Parliamentary elections.

Every year I ask for new volunteers to get more involved, either by joining our Executive Committee or one of our other committees. I am pleased to say that every year our team has seen a few more new faces, who bring new energy and enthusiasm to the efforts we pursue. Nevertheless, once again, I would ask you to consider joining one of our committees, and seeing if you like it. The Executive Committee meets every 6-8 weeks to come up with new ideas and ensure we implement them.

While we surprise ourselves every year with what we are able to achieve, we know how much more we would like to achieve if only we had a few more active members. Whether you have just moved to the area or have been living here for 80 years — it doesn’t matter — what matters is that you want to join our team to help ‘make Forest Hill an even better place to live’!