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The Champagne Bar |
Camden food and drink | Don Ryan looks at St Pancras International Station | Cafes, shops, pubs and bars
Don Ryan enjoys a
stroll round St Pancras International, exploring the stylish mix of cafés, shops, pubs and bars
SOMETHING strange has happened to St Pancras International.
It’s not only the new gateway to Paris, it’s also a groundbreaking shopping centre. Under its iron roof – a marvel of Victorian engineering – and behind its spectacular Gothic frontage, has been assembled an impressive array of shops and dining places on a scale unseen in a British station. With the recent opening of The Circle area, providing outlets including Monsoon, La Senza, YO! Sushi and a Boots store with a 12-hour pharmacy, St Pancras International is a destination in its own right for travellers and people from the local community.
This is a place to visit and enjoy regardless of whether you are catching a train or not.
The station is arranged over two levels and combines high street favourites such as Marks and Spencer, not just Simply Food but clothes as well, Paperchase, Prêt a Manger and Starbucks with a variety of more niche retail outlets such as Rituals, Neal’s Yard Remedies and Fossil.
St Pancras International aims to set a new standard for what people should expect to find inside a railway station. Starting on the upper level, known as the “Rendezvous” area, is the Betjeman Arms, a stylish gastro pub offering breakfast coupled with an all-day menu. Traditional English fayre like fish and chips, Cumberland sausage and steak are among the many dishes served in a range of settings, from the casual lounge or bar areas to a more formal sit-down restaurant section.
On the same level, just along from Carluccio’s and the statue of Sir John Betjeman, who was instrumental in saving the station from demolition in the 1960s, visitors will find The Champagne Bar, the longest in Europe which, running alongside the Eurostar platform, offers a unique drinking experience. The high speed Eurostar trains parked alongside inspire thoughts of Paris and beyond, while William Barlow’s magnificent Victorian single-span iron roof arouses feelings of awe and wonder. In this romantic setting, a glass of non-vintage bubbles can be sipped for £7.50 while a bottle of top drawer 1985 vintage Dom Perignon will set you back £750.
Downstairs in The Arcade there is a range of cleverly chosen shops. Long-established traditional retailers operate alongside up and coming, highly regarded privately owned companies, with proven reputations.
There is a Foyles book shop, The Body Shop, Neuhaus, a top Belgian chocolate company, as well as London-based gift shop chain Oliver Bonas. There’s also Hamleys to keep the kids happy and shirt shop Thomas Pink for men. These, along with LK Bennett, Wilton and Noble and Clinique, Estee Lauder and Lancome counters at Boots are just some of the more than 20 non-food outlets that line the atmospheric and buzzing Arcade and Circle areas in the station.
There is also a wide choice of eating establishments spread around The Circle and The Arcade. Some, such as French bakers Paul and Belgium’s Le Pain Quotidien, a bakery-cum-deli café, are already well established as haunts for well-healed customers in up-market districts. While Crepeaffaire, a small company that has reinvented the pancake, as an organic, non-fattening option started in 2004 from a mobile unit at Hammersmith Broadway.
Others, such as the Peyton and Byrne, come with a sprinkling of celebrity stardust. This is the latest offering from Oliver Peyton, a top Irish-born restaurateur and judge on the BBC’s The Great British Menu. His other sites at Somerset House and St James’s Park charge high prices, so it was a surprise to find coffee and a muffin for a bargain £2.50 and a cream tea (advertised as afternoon tea) for £3.00.
There’s no McDonald’s. Instead, burger-lovers are offered a gourmet alternative by the Fine Burger Company, or a patriotic English alternative from The West Cornwall Pastry Company, or can even go to the culinary extreme, with YO! Sushi.
The stylish Des Vins Café and Wine Bar, located in The Arcade, is operated by Glendola, who also run The World’s End pub in Camden Town and the highly successful family favourite Rainforest Café in Shaftsbury Avenue. The bar holds regular wine-tastings and stocks a big selection of wines and beers, all sourced from France, Belgium or England. And there’s more, much more.
The statues are wonderful; the larger than life kissing couple “The Meeting Place” is impressive, while the smaller, windswept Sir John Betjeman is both humorous and endearing.
Take a stroll, its well worth a look and you may well find yourself staying for a while.
CLICK HERE FOR OUR ST PANCRAS INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE |
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