Traditionally speaking, Croydon isn’t a part of London that brings to mind a sense of culinary ingenuity. Well, hold on: there are good family run Turkish restaurants, and a fairly historic red sauce Italian in Bagatti’s on South End; west Croydon has numerous low-key joints of fine Sri Lankan cooking and there’s Caribbean and its many marvels too. But restaurants that might one day seduce the coldest of Michelin inspectors? Date night spots flogging Korean fried cauliflower and pan-fried scallops, purpose-built to pull in the Instagram crowd? Behave.
But that’s changing. Croydon, for so long devoid of a Birkenstock scene — you know the sort, who you were queuing for flatbreads with in Stoke Newington last weekend — has something new and buzzing about it. Suddenly, there is a suggestion of chic. It is the arrival of Birch in Selsdon (126 Addington Road, CR2 8YA, birchcommunity.com) that affirms such a disarming sentiment. The private members’ club, workspace, gym and restaurant complex might sound familiar — there is another in Cheshunt, just north of Enfield, manned by the inimitable Robin Gill — and this one is another in the same guise, every bit a bucolic escape for young professionals intent on sipping martinis in the leafy cradle of suburbia.
