Naughty Piglets: the next chapter
As you exit Brixton station onto the high street, brace yourself for impact! Urban life is always in full swing. Pedestrians bustle past one another; preachers express their passion for religious texts; buses stop, steam and start again.
As you navigate away from the high street onto Effra Road, it gets slightly more peaceful. However, you would never suspect you were about to find “a buzzy little bistro” serving seasonal sharing plates and delicious natural wines. Hook a left onto Brixton Water Lane and that’s exactly what you find: Naughty Piglets.
We met with the Co-Founder, Margaux Aubry, before recording our latest podcast episode of The Premier Cru.
Where it all began
As soon as you meet Margaux you feel uplifted. We were greeted with real warmth and energy, which is no doubt what every customer feels when they dine at Naughty Piglets. It’s pure joy.
Margaux previously worked at the legendary wine bar Terroirs (now shut). It was London’s first natural wine bar and for a period was “the epicentre of the industry” (hear all about Terroirs and Les Caves de Pyrene). Margaux recounted that she had her “first wine goosebumps” there after tasting a 2012 Ganevat. That’ll do it!
Culturally significant institutions tend to attract exceptional talent. They act as incubators for talented individuals to refine their ideas and eventually start their own projects. When Margaux left Terroirs, she did exactly that and founded Naughty Piglets alongside her Co-Founder, Joe Sharratt.
“We wanted to put into a room all of the experiences that we loved”. The core components included “good produce”, “good wine” and “good people”. It doesn’t get better than that!
Beautiful memories
Naughty Piglets has produced some wonderful stories. Margaux recounted that they hosted a “neighbour’s opening” party to launch the restaurant. It just so happens that Jay Rayner, a prominent food critic who famously used to hate natural wines, lives nearby in Herne Hill. He rung Margaux 4 days before the event saying that he was coming with his wife. Let the anxiety commence.
You already know this story has a happy ending. Margaux served an “unpretentious deliciously drinkable” chardonnay by Jean Maupertuis, which we tasted together on the podcast. Jay Rayner loved the wine and tweeted “thank you to Margaux at Naughty Piglets who gave me the first natural wine I like”. We assume many of his 374k followers are still loyal customers today.
It’s the sort of spontaneous and brilliant story that Margaux attracts and is therefore not coincidence. A year and a half after founding Naughty Piglets, Margaux received a call from Andrew Lloyd Webber PR:
“Andrew Lloyd Webber would like to meet you guys”
“What?!”
His son was a regular customer and Andrew was “on the hunt for a restaurant” to sit within The Other Palace, a theatre located in Victoria that he acquired in 2016. “He gave us a tour of that theatre. On the first floor there was a restaurant which was vacant and he said he loved what we were doing… and then he offered to be our landlord”. Expansion was on the cards and The Other Naughty Piglet opened in 2017.
Margaux remembers fondly that “it was so much fun… I have a little vespa and during the day I would do service in one then service in the other. There was so much energy and so much movement”.
Resilience and creativity
It’s no secret that the last few years have been immensely challenging for the hospitality industry. The pandemic was followed by a period of economic instability as inflation and interest rates increased each quarter for the best part of two years. Business for some became impossible.
The Other Naughty Piglet was a casualty of the pandemic. It shut for a year and a half. After re-opening “everything had dramatically changed”. There were less office lunches taking place and less theatre-goers.
The silver lining is that the original Naughty Piglets survived thanks to the resilience and creativity of Margaux and her amazing team. She recounted that you needed “to be creative in a second and turn around a whole operation in order to survive”. They set up a weekly set-menu for takeaways, which is smart as people craved variety. They also converted into a burger bar and wine shop with a takeaway alcohol license. The local community rallied and supported, enjoying Margaux’s culinary and vinous delights in nearby Brockwell Park.
With context you realise how natural Margaux’s warmth and energy is. The past few years would knock the stuffing out of most people.
The next chapter: a chef in residency programme
We asked Margaux what the future holds for Naught Piglets. A wave of excitement passed across her face as she sat up and started to speak with intensity. She had hardly uttered a word, but we were already thinking: “Bring it on!”
Naughty Piglets is now the home of a new chef in residency programme. The premise is simple. Each quarter a new chef will lead the kitchen. “They have a green card to create exactly what they want food-wise” (within the boundaries of the Naughty Piglets house style).
For customers and the Naughty Piglets team it is hugely exciting. We will all be seeing “different cuisines, different techniques and different energies” regularly. It will create excitement and variety in a business that already has a loyal customer base.
The first chef has just finished their residency and Margaux was thrilled with the outcome. The culinary highlight was a “snack, that I could really have twenty bites of”. It was a “hash brown with shaved parmesan and truffle mayo. It’s an amazing way to start the meal”.
The benefits of this initiative are not just for customers and Naughty Piglets. The participants get to test their expertise “in an established restaurant”. The next chef in resident, Aaron Potter, is in the process of setting up his own restaurant in Belgravia. He has an opportunity to “trial run his restaurant”. Margaux is creating her own incubator.
When we spoke, she had just received the sample menu from Aaron. “It’s fucking banging” apparently. It’s no surprise given Aaron used to work at Trinity in Clapham which has a Michelin star.
A final word
The next chapter for Naughty Piglets is set to be exciting. Aaron starts his residency this month (May). Take the trip to Brixton as we did. You might find yourself making the trip more than once, when the next chef in residency starts tempting you with their fresh new ideas.
