Cabaret, martinis and Yorkshire puddings: The Cockatoo by Bistrotheque has it all

A shabby back street in London’s Bethnal Green might not have been the most obvious choice for a French-inspired restaurant and chic cocktail bar, but 20 years after restaurateurs David Waddington and Pablo Flack launched Bistrotheque on the first floor of an early 20th-century industrial warehouse of brick, concrete and steel, the party is still going strong – more so now with the opening of their latest project, The Cockatoo, on the ground floor.

The Cockatoo by Bistrotheque, London

The ground-floor space, legendary for its drag cabaret shows, has been transformed by London-based studio Nice Projects into a standalone restaurant and performance area that can be reconfigured in a flash to cater for private events and dinners. The plan is also to open up the 105 sq m space for dance parties with live performers and DJs drawn from a predominantly queer cabaret scene, such as Bistroteque-favourites Jonny Woo and Dan Wye, aka Séayoncé.

Given a brief to create a flexible layout, Nice Projects’ Sacha Leong and Simone McEwan developed a modular banquette system on lockable wheels, which they paired with green mohair velvet and translucent polyester grating for the banquettes. Extant columns and lit fringe capitals are clad in mirror mosaic, the shimmering confection framed by a sassy fringe ceiling curtain, the latter made of 250m of fringe threads painstakingly zipped to metal grating.

The result is a fresh space that nevertheless cleaves close to its antecedents. As Leong and McEwan point out, ‘Bistrotheque is an east London institution that is now 20 years old. It’s had many successful iterations in the past, so it’s a special space for the creative community.’

Meanwhile, The Cockatoo’s kitchen is headed by Bistrotheque’s head chef Blaine Duffy, whose Mexican-inspired menu features the likes of grilled steak paired with ancho chilli butter, spring onions and lime, and a refreshing salad of grilled jicama, radish, corn and citrus. Traditionalists may prefer to show up on a Sunday for the classic roast and Yorkshire pudding.

The Cockatoo by Bistrotheque is located at 23-27 Waddeson Street, London E2 9DR, thecockatoo.london