Piaf restaurant (Dulwich Village)

[sportbilly]

Does anyone know how Piaf restaurant in the village remains solvent given there is never anyone in their? While the Dulwich estate are very tight on some things having failed the community and let two chains (Pizza Express & Cafe Rouge)in to the village there is a space for a good idependant. Unfortunately Piaf does not provide good food! It is a shame but until Piaf goes under we are being deprived of a good restaurant in the village. Any thoughts?

[Huguenot]

Piaf is a chain no?

I don't see how letting firms in that provide reasonable food at reasonable prices is failing the community?

I would have thought failing the community involved letting retail outlets go derelict through snobbery, or allowing all night raves to go ahead?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Huguenot, you have been on immense form recently but I think you have missed the goal, Diana Ross style here

sportbilly accepted the 2 big name chains as the estate preferring that to empty failed restaurants - he/she wasn't saying they were "failing the community"

sportbilly's problem - and it's one I agree with is twofold.

1) Why, in an area like that patch of road is there not a space for a Franklins type operation - something above MOR fare for people who want something a bit special

2) yes Piaf is a chain (albeit a mini one), but whereas people know what they are getting in Pizza Express and Caf? Rouge (decent enough grub, if a bit pedestrian, and decent prices), Piaf is offering more - it has always tried to be the "cut above" restaurant with prices to boot. Once every 2 years I go there, to give it a fair crack of the whip and despite endless change-of-management and menu promises it is always pretty woeful. The food is dull to bad and the service is uniformly shocking

So in the village, one's option for a meal out are

1) The Dog with it's mediocre M&B food - mediocre M&B food you can get anywhere

2) Pizza Express - decent pizza style grub but acoustic nightmare - plus you can get the food anywhere

3) Cafe Rouge - as above but with steak frites

4) Piaf - have a look at the mission statement on their website and compare that with the reality. Then cry. It is the only place in London that has made me genuinely angry when I've been there. And that has happend twice in the 8 years I have been here

Surely the moneyed people of DV can expect and do better than this??

[Huguenot]

Hmmph. Okay then. :-S

[SeanMacGabhann]

* falls off stool! *

[AllforNun]

you have forgotten beuberry house or whatever it is now named !

Anyway La Piaf is an M16 listening post - there can be no other explanation other than it has the interior of the tardis and it is this that allows it to exist outside of time and space, economic changes and the capitalist exchange system that most of us are forced to live under. Or like i said before an M16 listening post !

[Sherwick]

I vote for the tardis idea..

[dulwichmum]

Once Belair house was really great, but now, for some reason, it always smells of cabbage and the decor is very naff.

[SteveT]

I always found belair house over priced for the fayre they served. I never would have described it as great unless 'rip off' was included in the sentence.

[SimonM]

I always found Belair a rip-off and overrated too. But I also knew some people who adored it (admittedly they were on expense accounts...)

[sportbilly]

Thanks for the views on Piaf. Didn't know it was another chain (albeit small)! I tend to agree with the MI6 idea. I think that if Lordship Lane can deliver decent restaurants there is no reason why Dulwich Estate who like the power kick can't think more carefully about which restaurants entering the village.

I have to admit my favourite restaurant in the area is Joanna's up in Crystal Palace.

[Huguenot]

I'm not sure that it's actually a 'Lordship Lane' orgainsation that delivers.

Probably the range of landlords and premises along LL has a limiting effect on rents, with the result that costs are kept in line with the kind of profits that are generated by independent restarauteurs against the number of covers they can fit in the place.

I'll be betting that entrenched interests and limited retail space has kept Village rents quite high. This has meant that restaurants need to cut costs in other areas to keep overall costs down, and the only ones that can do this are chains with bulk buy deals...

[Jah Lush]

I concur with what Sean said wholeheartedly. I absolutely refuse to go back into that place. La Piaf is a disgrace. It's crap. You'd think that in Dulwich Village there would be a decent restaurant but no there isn't one and as for Belair House...fecking rubbish. Nice setting but forget it. Complete rip-off. Crap food, crap service and overpriced.

[AllforNun]

"This has meant that restaurants need to cut costs in other areas" for this bleeding place to cut it's costs to match it's covers it would have to burn itself to the ground and claim the insurance on a weekly basis. It's a listening post i tell you it has to be, next time you go past look at the strange tower coming out of the back, it linked to that big house a few doors up, curtains never open and bristling with CCTV

[sofaRunner]

I agree with sportbilly.... Cafe Piaf is a terrible waste of space! many years ago when it first opened it was really good but has changed hands a number of times & it is amazing they are still afloat. There are some fantastic eateries in Herne Hill - independently owned & it shows in the care they take & the standard.

does anyone know anyone with contacts in Dulwich Estate powers?

[JetSetWilly]

it has gone downhill over the years, familarity breeds contempt perhaps. saying that it used to do a mean coq au vin rouge

[cate]

The only time I ate in Piaf I was served a revolting croque monsieur that has been cooked in grease and was still swimming in it. Completely inedible. I fled and never went back.