Longtime customers from the stall, these two had a coffee and a cake and set the tone for the shop.

It was the first day with my new/old french table and when Lazlo walked in wearing those stripy trousers, I knew I had chosen the right piece of furniture for the window seat.

We are now serving delicious sandwiches daily on St. John sourdough along with our already popular savoury tarts and quiches. You can have either with a leafy green salad on the side and make a meal of it.

I have been testing some whoopie pie recipes this week and we are soon going to have a Whoopie Weekend at the stall and in the shop to celebrate all the new recipes I have been working on. Get ready guys…

xx claire

Last week in my shop, a very polite and soft-spoken woman asked if she could take a few photos in my shop after she finished eating a cupcake. I used to feel really uncomfortable about people snapping lots of photos at my stall. It felt like an invasion of my privacy a little, you know? But hey! Relax! My mantra is “release the pressure, release the control”. Let people do what they need to do and something good might come out of it, right?

Well it turns out that the lovely woman with the big camera is the blogger: This is Naive. Her post about my shop is beautiful. Her photos are inspired (I have borrowed them here). I’m thrilled. Check out her blog, it is so great. A little about food, a little about travel and a lot about things she finds to be beautiful.

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mini cupcakes for Quinn and Hansen

This Saturday marks the 6th birthday of Broadway Market and Violet’s 5th year trading there. My shop is now open on Wilton Way as well!!

Please come see us xoxoxo

I love my display case

Have a look at Fanny’s beautiful water coloured map and see how to find us.

How to find us from the market

The new sign is on the wall

We have had two consecutively hot days! Two!

I mean it’s not hot by most standards, but in London when the sun comes out so do the short shorts and micro minis. I love it. People drive with the windows down, blasting out the tunes and people actually smile at each other in the street! It’s amazing.

All of the blossoms are out and the city is restless. London Fields was full of revelers enjoying their BBQ’s and take away food from Broadway Market yesterday, I only wish they would pick up after themselves. It was a sad sight this morning when children attempted to play football/soccer amongst the crushed beer cans and hundreds of plastic bags. I was really upset by that. I sure hope there weren’t any cupcake wrappers out there contributing to the detritus.

Seriously guys, can’t we do better????

On another note, it was a joy to see so many of my customers and friends out at the market yesterday and really can’t wait to open the doors of VIOLET so that we can eat treats and drink delicious filter coffee and delicate leaf teas all week!

The tentative date is May 1st

xxxxxxx

Ana icing cupcakes in the new kitchen

It has been blood, sweat and tears but the space is just about ready!!
I keep being teased by friends as I continually say we will be open “in two weeks”.
But that is the truth! I think it’s going to open in two weeks and then something happens like the oven doesn’t turn on (or off!) or a door needs replacing or a dishwasher needs repair. I know these things will go on and on, but it needs to feel like everything is ready for the opening. At least for that day!

I did inaugurate the space last Thursday with a small supper with a great friend and former colleague who is visiting from California. After 16 years as chef at Chez Panisse and 5 years as chef and proprietor of Eccolo Chris Lee and his awesome wife and landscape artist Janet Hankinson are traveling and consulting. Janet was incredible helping me source things and design the space to get it ready for our first event. She and Christopher worked tirelessly for two weeks and what a success it was. The food! Oh my God it was delish. Just so there isn’t any confusion, I’m NOT opening a restaurant. Violet will be a cake bakery where you can buy cakes and have a cup of tea, filter coffee or a juice and a savoury bite such as an asparagus tart. I will keep you posted on special events and can’t wait for you to check it all out.

Here are some photos.

Squab cooked over a hole with treviso salad

Janet's dining room

Yorkshire rhubarb tarts

putting Henry's flowers on the salad

Henry and Jemima hours before the birth of baby Johnny x

See you at the shop very soon… in two weeks!!

our kitchen, painted

We have moved in most of the equipment and are practicing in the kitchen this week!

Did you see it before?

culam with his saw in the early stages

Can’t wait to be up and running. Tasted filter coffees yesterday with my friends opening a shop near Tottenham Court Road. You have to be careful, that stuff can make you high!

The treats you taste this week at the market will have been produced in our cute new (to us) oven you see above. We are still waiting to get our convection oven…

I love the colour of the floor which we had to paint twice because the first colour was horrendous!

We painted outside too!!

damian on the brush

xxxx

Sorry about all the exclamation marks, can you tell I’m excited!!!???

Coconut and blood orange mini cupcakes

Last week at the 60th Berlinale Film Festival, the lovely Alice Waters asked a few of us Chez Panisse alums to join her in making a meal overlooking the Brandenburg Gate. The occasion was to honour her friend, the incredible artist Christina Kim who is the creator of the beautiful and socially responsible clothing company DOSA. Based in L.A., Christina makes the softest scarves in the world and the lady knows how to wear neon pink like nobody (see below)! This year the Berlinale commissioned her to make a curtain to cover the Brandenburg Gate that was then pulled back for the opening of the festival to reveal a newly remastered print of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

The Mayor of Berlin came along with the Berlinale’s entire international jury and Tilda Swinton too. She looks so stunning in real life, you just feel like jumping in a trash can. But she is completely cool and bohemian and she brought her adorable kids who gobbled down the mini cupcakes!

Watching the curtain go up

The curtain

Metropolis at the Brandenburg Gate

view from the dining room

It was freezing, but we wore our vintage furs and new fleeces and puffer jackets to source organic food from the Berlin area for the dinner. Here are some pics for you of the process.

David Tanis and David Lindsay choose the best veg for our lasagna

Our menu

Best rosé in the world x

Spinach pasta

Black truffles for the creamy sauce

The spinach and kale lasagna with truffle cream

I served my apple galettes with buttermilk ice cream. I LOVE German buttermilk

candied violets on violet cupcakes

I was listening to Billie Holiday today while I was working and heard this song for the first time. How is it possible I have never heard this before? Here are the words for you. Still don’t know how to add a song to the blog. Do you? Enjoy the lyrics anyway. x

It was winter in manhattan, falling snow flakes filled the air,The streets were covered with a film of ice,But a little simple magic that I learned about somewhere,Changed the weather all around, just within a thrice.I bought you violets for your furs and it was spring for a while, remember? I bought you violets for your furs and there was april in that december.The snow drifted down and the flowers, and that is where it lay.The snow looked like dew and the blossoms as on a summer day.I bought you violets for your furs and there was blue in the wintry sky,You pinned my violets to your furs and gave a lift to the crowds passing by,You smiled at me so sweetly, since then one thought occurs,That we fell in love completely, the day I bought you violets for your furs.

papered window through the security grates

the sun came out today, hooray!

a table was delivered to the shop (our future work-top was an old art school desk)

it is all getting closer. sigh.

i papered the windows so no peaking!

i want a few surprises.

x x claire

I have taken a break from photographing my customers in order to show you a little of the goings on at Violet on Wilton Way, sorry if it bores you…

There is SO much to do when you are opening a business.

Permits,painting, plumbing, electricity, phones, internet, choosing colours, sanding,sourcing, building, demolishing, ordering, canceling, the list goes on. it makes it hard to breath.

Best friend ever! Aidan is back again this weekend doing some fine painting and keeping it prana in his and his wife’s line of super cute yoga gear, BuddhaMonkey – x They are even planning to have stuff for your pets to stretch in! Where do they find the time?

I would also just like to thank the men of Chilango for bringing good burritos to London. If you are from California you are aware of the craving, like none other in the world, for a burrito. Though I think Chilango has to get rid of that basmati rice and go for long grain, it still hits the spot every time.

burritos and beer, oh yeah

There is quite a lot of anxiety attached to this project, but I tell myself to just keep breathing (through respirators) and keep thanking my incredible husband and friends for helping.

namaste.