A popular pop-up French restaurant is to remain in Aldeburgh until the end of the year.
Soho-based L’Escargot launched a pop-up restaurant in the town over the summer, naming it L’Escargot Sur Mer.
The Soho branch of the restaurant is one of the oldest French restaurants in London, having been serving customers for almost 100 years.
George Pell, who runs the restaurant, decided to up sticks with his team and move the operation to Aldeburgh, to the site of the former 152 restaurant and East Coast Café, for the month of August.
“We didn’t really see any interest in reopening in London,” said Mr Pell.
With regular customers staying away from central London the decision was made to move the operation out of the city to the Suffolk coast.
“I thought let’s do a pop-up shop,” said Mr Pell.
“I had visited Aldeburgh before and I knew the building as I had been to it after coming to Latitude.”
Most of the team travelled up on the train, packing their equipment up in a transit van and sending it up to Suffolk.
Mr Pell said the move north had been a real adventure.
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“It felt like were doing something a bit bonkers,” said Mr Pell.
“It’s been amazing. It’s been down to the incredibly hard work of my team.”
Almost immediately Mr Pell could see that the risk had been worth taking as the team ran out of wine in the first weekend at the restaurant.
“The whole atmosphere in Aldeburgh was buzzing,” said Mr Pell.
“All of the shopkeepers and everyone has been so supportive.”
While the Soho restaurant is now once again open there are no plans on the team leaving Aldeburgh at all.
Indeed, the pop-up is now set to become a little more permanent as Mr Pell intends to keep it open until at least the end of the year.
Moving on from there the team hope to buy the restaurant and develop the building further next year.
“If you had said to me last year we are going to move to the coast and do 120 covers a day I would have laughed,” said Mr Pell.
“It’s an amazing building. I am really excited to make it a real destination. It’s really nice to be part of a nice story.”
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