London & South East Premier Hospitality

Pho (50-52) Battersea Rise

Pho Battersea Rise
Written by Roma Publications

Pho Battersea Rise

Bringing a taste of Vietnamese street food to the UK, Pho restaurants have set up their 11th branch on Battersea Rise.

Previously the Dime Bar, Pho Battersea Rise opened in April, and has since provided fast, casual service of healthy, authentic Vietnamese street food that has proven to be an exceptional success.

Stephen Wall, co-founder and managing director at Pho said:

“Pho Battersea is difficult to miss in a black tiled building on Battersea Rise which was formally the Dime Bar. Across four distinctive rooms, there are around 90 covers including a spacious bar area where you can just grab a stool and test our new cocktails.”

Pho is a family run business, with nine restaurants in London, one in Brighton and one in Leeds. The business was started by husband and wife Stephen and Juliette Wall, after a trip to Vietnam when they fell in love with the cuisine.

Pho say:

“Our specialized menu focuses on a small number of Vietnamese street foods and ensures that we have the time to make everything in-house from the highest quality ingredients delivered daily.”

Pho Battersea Rise

The menu consists of authentic Pho noodle soups, Pho Xao (wok-fried noodles), Com Tam (broken rice), Bun Noodles and Goi (salads) as well as options for traditional Vietnamese starters and desserts. For starters, Pho offers an impressive variety of options; from spring and summer rolls to baby squid and crepes. Desert options include banana fritters, pancakes, truffles and ice cream.

In addition, the menu offers children’s options, some of which are smaller versions of the main menu, and some of which are more simplistic takes on traditional dishes. Take out options are available, known as Pho To Go. The take out menu is available for collection, offering a healthy, fresh alternative to fast food and the usual greasy takeaway options. The menu is a more concise list of authentic Vietnamese dishes, offering the most popular choices from the dining in menu.

Pho Battersea Rise caters for families with a cozy seating area as well as those opting for a shorter stay with a spacious bar area. The bar area offers cocktails such as the ‘Phojito’ and ‘Dua Colada’, juices, flower teas , iced tea, rice spirits and imported Vietnamese beers and coffees.

Pho Battersea Rise is set out across four separate rooms. Upon entrance is the main seating area for customers, with a combination of booths and banquet tables, ideal for families and larger parties. Another room, to the right of the entrance is the bar area, as mentioned above. The bar area has a large communal table centralized, surrounded by flexible stools facing the windows. The bar area was created using a mixture of Reclaimed Timber and Wood, and decorated with neon signs and red adornments. The main contractors for the project were Space Tailors, and they worked with designer Neil Masters from design company Cantor Masters.

Pho Battersea Rise

Stephen Wall said:

“We try not to be formulaic; the issue with current design is that once someone has a good idea that works, every other brand copies the idea and it takes away from the individuality and character of the restaurant. So we always try to stay one step ahead of the game with our interior designs.”

Stephen added:

“We let the space do the work, we work with the canvas we’re given. For Battersea Rise we kept the wallpaper on the ceilings from the previous owners, stripped back one of the walls to its original concrete and painted it.”

With the success of Battersea Rise; the excellent feedback it’s received and the amount of customers entering, particularly on evening and weekends, moving forward, Pho are set to open their 12th branch in London St Paul’s in early September, and have a number of other exciting venues and locations in the pipeline. Watch this space…

Pho Battersea Rise

For more information please visit: www.phocafe.co.uk.

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Roma Publications