Who are they?
South east London has a new fast food eatery on the block, and they’re called Carve. This is the brainchild of entrepreneur, David Bear, and while you probably don’t recognise the name, you’ll more than likely know of his first venture – Eurphorium Bakery. After a very successful start, which also led to selling the franchise to Tesco a couple of years ago, Daniel wanted to set up a new project which was founded on the idea of a good carvery. Tasting Britain were kindly invited to the launch party to check out Carve and see what they had to offer.
What do they offer?
Daniel believes the traditional carvery has been dying in recent years, and the likes of certain chains we shall not name simply don’t do the good ol’ Sunday Roast any justice. With poor quality ingredients sitting under a heat lamp, festering in its own juices, can you blame him?
Don’t worry, because this is where Carve enters the picture. In an attempt to attract the archetypal Londoner who wants something quick, easy and doesn’t falter on quality, Carve offers a variety of meat, fish and vegetarian options (tofu I believe) in a takeaway style format, giving the classic meat and two veg look a fast food revamp. And to help our archetypal time poor Londoner who doesn’t have enough time to think let alone decide what they want for lunch, the entire store is cashless to help speed up the process.
And what do we think about them?
I tried a few of the options on the evening, and the quality – for what is essentially a fast food carvery – is very good. The ingredients taste fresh and are well cooked, and the other think I like about Carve is that there is a focus on locally sourced produce. For example, all of the beers on the evening were supplied by the Bottle Shop in Bermondsey. After speaking to Daniel on the evening, he really has made an effort to make sure quality isn’t sacrificed when it comes to convenience.
However, at around £7 a dish it certainly isn’t cheap. but then most of the people who work in and around the Tooley Street area normally can definitely the prices anyway, so this is largely catering for all and sundry. The next steps are to open 30 more outlets over the next five years. With very ambitious growth plan over the next couple of years, let’s see if Carve really can feed London’s wild side.
The Details
Carve
116 – 120 Tooley Street
London
SE1 2TH
020 7324 7725
https://twitter.com/CarveCity
https://www.facebook.com/CarveCity/
https://www.instagram.com/carvecity/