I s s u e 1 Dispatches from Television Centre Food Slice of life: Meet the team behind Homeslice Landscapes A closer look at Hammersmith Park, which isn’t where you think it is Culture Many moons ago: The story of the BBC’s broadcast of Apollo 11 transmission 1 WELCOME WELCOME The future is a bright one in W12. Warehouses are turning into homes, industrial spaces are becoming startup studios and both Imperial College a n d t h e Roya l C o l l ege o f A r t a r e expanding their campuses into White City. B u t i t ’ s n o t a l l n e w k i d s o n t h e b l o c k . To p e o p l e l i k e Mario Testino, Stella McCartney and fast fashion retailer Monsoon, w h o a l l operate their businesses from the area, t h i s c o r n e r o f w e s t L o n d o n i s o l d n e w s . To businesses like the S o h o H o u s e G r o up, w h o are set to open a new members’ club, hotel and gym, or like YOOX NET-A-PORTER, w h o are moving their tech operations to White City Place, this once overlooked slice of the city marks the next frontier. Indeed, the historic Television Centre Bright is a catalyst for much of the surrounding regeneration – and this circular structure is g o i n g t h r o u g h a t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f i t s o w n . lights, C a l l i t t h e r e i n v e n t i o n o f t h e w h e e l , b e c a u s e f o r t h e fi r s t t i m e i n i t s h i s t o r y , Te l e v i s i o n C entr will be opening its doors to residents, diners and revellers, with BBC’s television production White humming along in the background. T h e r e ’ s a l o t m o r e w h e r e t h a t c a m e from, so in the words of our friends on the telly: City stay tuned. Television Centre 89 Wood Lane London W12 7FA 020 8811 8720 Live in Television Centre. televisioncentre.com Cover image: The Japanese Garden emanski at Hammersmith Park L by Tian Khee Siong Transmission is edited and produced by dn&co. dnco.com Mike Illustration: 2 3 HOMESLICE HOMESLICE How Homeslice went from a DIY pizza oven in east London to serving the best slices citywide All fired up A few items into Homeslice’s menu, things start to get weird. Pleasingly weird. Classic pizza toppings of the ham and cheese variety are replaced by inventive offerings with only the margherita as a safety net. Think: butternut pumpkin with broccoli, pecorino and crispy onions. Wild venison with kale, onions and dukkah (an Egyptian blend of nuts and spices). Oxtail and watercress with horseradish and sorrel cream. 4 5 HOMESLICE HOMESLICE “When looking at different toppings and different a cookie cutter chain restaurant,” says Mark. 1 ingredients, we’re not looking at it only as a pizza,” “So it has to suit the environment it goes into.” The says co-founder and chef Ry Jessup. “The pizza Jessup met Mark when he was working at is a plate for us on top of which we’re creating a Flat White in Soho, a café and small-bite spot that idiosyncrasies dish. We don’t make it interesting for the sake of it, claims to be the first to serve flat whites in London. we use everything that’s available to us.” With the Mark was a regular (“A very picky customer!” says breadth of ingredients, it’s clear the minds behind Jessup) and after several run-ins, Mark agreed o f e a t i n g p i z z a the pie, Jessup along with Mark and Alan Wogan, to come try the pizza Jessup was making out of are ardent eaters. The culinary diversity of London a homemade wood-fired pizza oven. The Wogan comes together here on an impossibly light crust. brothers, who had worked together previously, had Homeslice’s pizzas are 20˝, to be It’s this – and their unwillingness to compromise always wanted to open a restaurant. Homeslice’s on the quality of ingredients – that has repeatedly first bricks and mortar location opened its doors 2 shared between two to three people, wedged Homeslice’s Shoreditch, Covent Garden ten months after Mark tasted his first slice. or served individually by the slice. and Fitzrovia locations high on lists of the best pizza The forthcoming location in Television Centre in the capital. As of next year, Homeslice will be is not uncharted territory for Mark and Alan, whose Those are just two ways to do it. serving its famous fare out of a brand new outpost father Sir Terry, the late great television personality We look at the idiosyncrasies of at Television Centre. The upcoming opening is the who fronted programmes like Blankety Blank and eating pizza first in a brand new building and will have a much Children In Need, had spent a fair share of his time larger outdoor seating space than other locations. on this very site – a proud homecoming, any way “Our intention is that wherever we open a Homeslice you slice it. we’re opening your local pizza joint, rather than 3 1 NYC Fold The New York slice is almost as iconic as Lady Liberty herself, and it’s meant to be eaten in a New York minute. The most efficient means to mitigate a sloppy situation is to fold it in half and bite. 2 Scissor slice Where pizza wheels rarely do a thorough job, this is a hack for the home. Some restaurants have even 4 started serving their pizzas with a pair of scissors. It works. 3 Everything but the crust A rookie mistake, truly. Potentially executed by those trying to be “carb-conscious.” We recommend forgoing this completely and savouring the doughy goodness in the company of a good chilli oil. 5 4 Knife and fork For those with a higher sense of decorum or generally with Neapolitan sensibilities. The benefit here is the slow enjoyment of the dish. It ensures you will not inhale the thing within a matter of moments. 5 Doubles Find a partner, order two pizzas, and split them yndon Hayes yndon L for ultimate eating. Homeslice take care of this by offering the topping of two on separate halves of the pizza. Illustrations: Illustrations: 6 7 HOMESLICE HERITAGE Homeslice Neal’s Yard I n f o c u s 13 Neal’s Yard Homeslice chef and co-founder Ry Jessup Covent Garden London WC2H 9DP Homeslice Fitzrovia 52 Wells Street Fitzrovia London W1T 3PR Ten thousand Homeslice Shoreditch 374–378 Old Street Shoreditch London EC1V 9LT tiny pieces What spurred the idea to build So what happened after? a pizza oven? We finished the oven and then It was just a summer project, we organised an event at what really, something to do and have a was then the London Field’s bit fun. We weren’t looking to turn Brewery, which then turned into it into a business to be honest. Climpson’s Arch where Som Saa But the more time we spent on and things like that started. They the oven – and the more money were launching their new brewery we spent on trying to finish it – and we teamed up with them. We we realised maybe we could turn did the opening party and we sold it into something real. out halfway through the day. So we made more dough and then Can you tell us what the first started baking and sold out again oven was made of? at 10pm that night. We had a frame made out of box section steel. We put it Did you feel something was in the communal area of my missing in London’s pizza friend’s flat in Whitechapel, landscape? and we constructed a concrete I think so. I’ve always been a huge oven on top of this steel box. It pizza fan. The traditional pizza had refractory cement on the market is very, very strong. But inside, which was the structural unfortunately, any time there was integrity of the oven, and then we something more experimental Copyright BBC photo library photo BBC Copyright covered it in a compound called in terms of toppings, you lost vermiculite on the outside, which the quality. So I wanted to do was the insulation. something that had a modern twist and didn’t necessarily This sounds pretty technical. follow all the traditional toppings, Do you have a background in but had the traditional integrity, building things? quality, methods and processes. I don’t, my background has always been food. One of the friends who I was building it with was a builder, and the other has a design degree and was very interested in product design. I was the food guy, so we all yndon Hayes yndon An iconic mosaic mural by British artist John Piper L had our jobs.