The owner of Bermondsey’s local grocery store tells us about seasonal fruits and veggies, and why they wouldn’t set up shop anywhere else
Located on our beloved Bermondsey Street is grocery store Giddy Grocer. Owner Chris Hall set up shop over six years ago and “has always been obsessed with food and sustainability and British produce”.
She tells us: “From a young age, I always cooked. My mum was a good home cook and my dad’s parents had a grocery store in the New Forest in the 1950s. Food was always important in our household.”
Her previous career saw her working in documentaries and television, with one of her last projects before opening Giddy Grocer producing and directing Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares for Channel 4. “And from then on, I became even more obsessed with good food.”
Chris has lived in Bermondsey for nearly 20 years, and has seen the area go through “expediential changes”. She remembers José Pizarro was a sandwich bar, and another opposite where Casse-Croûte is now.
“There were a couple of restaurants, it didn’t have a foodie history, though,” she explained. When opening Giddy Grocer, “the idea was to serve the community of Bermondsey with some really carefully sourced, wonderfully sustainable, seasonal produce. And this property came up and it was an ideal size and location”.
Over the years, Chris has seen Bermondsey “become a wonderful, vibrant community and I’d like to think we have added to that”. With regular customers popping in for essentials and extras, Giddy Grocer is a place where they come to chat with friends – “it becomes a nice energy in here and I love that. I love walking down the street and bumping into customers who say, ‘I had one of your sausage rolls yesterday – delicious’. I like to think we influence people’s understanding of what is seasonal and what is local”.
Customers know “when they buy from Giddy Grocer, it’s the best we can get and the most local we can get”, says Chris, whose focus on sustainability is always at the forefront. “People are more aware of food miles. We still have food from around the world, it just doesn’t come from the other side of it, it’s made by people who live here.”
Off-site is the Giddy Kitchen, which utilises food produce near the end of its shelf life to make dishes and lunches for the Giddy Grocer counter. “If there is a bruised squash, we make soup or when we have an excess of apples, we make pie. I feel very proud that we can hand on heart say that food waste is virtually zero,” she says.
Spring is a “bizarre” time for seasonal fruit and veg, we have what is known as the “hungry gap”, she says. Winter vegetables like cabbage and caulis grow right through until March, and then we wait for April and May to be over so we can “get excited” for spring greens, salad leaves and tomatoes, asparagus, and more.
Bermondsey Street is a “very unique area”, says Chris, “not just the street but around it, too. I love the fact that we are a very mixed community. When I take my dog to Tanner Street Park, I regularly walk with a woman who grew up a proper “Bermondsey girl”, and it’s important that we remember and respect those who lived here before gentrification. But I also love that we attract people from far and wide who come to visit the White Cube Gallery, Eames Fine Art Gallery, and London Glassblowing.”
Chris is often asked why she doesn’t open a shop in another part of London and her reply is always the same: “There just isn’t anywhere else quite like Bermondsey.”
80 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UD
All photo credit: @bermondseyse1
