Patchworks — Restaurant in London

This is a brilliant venue run by passionate, visionary people who only get one thing drastically wrong.

The industrial space is gorgeous, light and airy and as perfect for a kid's party as it is for a rave as it is for a market. They've put real effort in to engaging with the local community, running so many diverse and creative events and pop-ups, and saying no to those who want to turn it into a regular wedding reception venue or corporate event space. It's really admirable.

Everyone is friendly and open to new ideas and you get a real sense that this is a gift to the local area.

However, for all the effort they put into regenerating this old warehouse and giving you compelling reasons to visit their events, they have failed to prioritise any incentive for people to visit when nothing is on.

The food during the week is terrible. Stodgy bagels, drab sandwiches and limp pastries. This is a particular shame when they're surrounded by some of London's absolute best suppliers, cafes and bakeries, from Today Bread, Wild Goose, Morny, Charles Bread to Juniper & Co, Wolf & Lamb, Deeney's, Lighthaus and many others who are providing some of London's best food within 1 mile of Patchworks yet none of it finds its way to their customers.

Another aspect is that for all the huge event spaces, repurposed lifts and unusable robot arms on display, they didn't install a basic professional kitchen to use in-house or provide to others.

Failing to utilise some of London's best local suppliers OR provide basic facilities for a boring Tuesday morning to be enlivened by some fresh, seasonal hot food on par with their competitors means that a weekday visit here is really for coffee only. The Wifi is terrible or non-existent so you can't even while away hours working on caffeine alone.

I fear this lack of real engagement with food during the week may keep enough people away to sink the business. There's no point going for lunch, or to work for more than an hour, and so a real opportunity is lost to keep the till ringing from Monday to Thursday.

I sincerely hope they reevaluate their food offering during the week, because at the weekend the pizza and barbecue are well...

Pros (+), neutrals (~) and cons (-)

Great space lot of unrealised potential. Good coffee

~ Decent pastries ~ Decent pizzas

~ They tried to be a night music venue but didn't get the license. I guess they have figured out what it takes yet.

~ the staff is really welcoming but none of them « make the place special ».

Increasingly poor music curation. They had cool djs, gig at the very beginning but those people didn’t continue there cause the curation is all over the place. Recently I found myself wanting to go there for coffee several times and left to Shed immediately because of the music being bad. They need to associate themselves with people that will curate to attract a younger crowd and drive a bit more cultural ambition starting with good music. Not complex! Put NTS radio on as a start. Get some good curators to make mixes for your cafe…

Too many prams in their events.

Vintage market is also quite poorly curated i would say.

We don’t need yet another prams reunion place in Leyton. We need everything else. They can defo make it happen...

Absolutely love this place, its been the best place to have opened in the area! The pizza is amazing. I've been going here since it first opened but I haven't been since its turned into Blondies Brewery - however I would say that thats been a major downside to Patchworks... I enjoy attending their events/fairs that they hold!

The inside area used to be a warm, more inviting/cosier environment. Now its all dark/grunge feeling which isn't bad but it was better before, maybe a bit less would be nicer as Patchworks was truly a gem in the area! There is no where else in the area that is nice and chill, where you can sit all day and have great food/drinks.

However, also so annoying that its they no longer serve coffee after 3pm... I still don't understand why. Its the only local place where I can get fresh roasted coffee yet they're missing out on so many customers/money by not serving coffee. Not everyone wants alcohol when they come as a group of friends, and so many people come after work and watch to eat/chill with a...