Venue Focus Magazine Feature, Summer 2003 - 'A Work of Art'

Venue Focus Magazine Feature, Summer 2003 - 'A Work of Art' Information:

Square Meal visits the venue that adds artistic flair to a blank canvas space…

To walk through the entrance of Delfina is like opening the door to a world of possibilities. With its large, open rooms and galleries – completely unadorned but for a coat of white paint – this converted chocolate factory between the London and Tower bridges is something of an event organiser’s dream. There’s space. There’s flexibility. Heck, there’s even room to drive cars directly into the venue!

‘What differentiates this space is that it’s just like a blank canvas,’ says Delfina’s director, Bruce Watson. ‘Event organisers tell me all the time that they go around and look at a lot of different venues and everywhere they look they see something that they need to work around. Here, there’s nothing that can get in the way so they can miss out that first stage and start concentrating on creating exactly what they want straightaway,’ he explains.

It’s not by chance that Watson chooses words like ‘blank canvas’ and ‘creating’ when talking about this venue. In fact, they fit in rather well. Run by the charity Delfina Studio Trust, the site was originally developed to offer work space for up-and-coming artists and its upstairs studios still play host to 12 residents, as well as a number of guest artists, each year – many of whom continue to add to the trust’s growing art and event sets collection as thanks for their free use of the studios.

‘With 35 of the best artists in the country just upstairs, I think you could safely say that we have the best in-house theming resources of any venue – and there is five years’ worth of completed sets stored in the basement ready to bring out,’ says Watson, shuffling through pictures of past events, which range from dinners where the white setting was left untouched to let a striking collection of modern art speak for itself, to parties with elaborate jungle or underwater themes.

Cooking, too, takes an artistic approach. ‘It’s all about experimenting and not having any set boundaries,’ says head chef Maria Elia, who not only devises fortnightly-changing menus for Delfina’s lunchtime restaurant (which has long held a Square Meal star) but whose kitchen also caters to the individual tastes of event clients. And in Elia’s book, it all has to look as well as taste fantastic, so it’s not unusual for beautifully crafted canapes to be suspended from the ceiling on spot-lit Perspex trays that cast arty shadows on the floor, or for nibbles to come spiked atop extra-long skewers presented in large glass vases like flowers.

‘Everyone commented on the fabulous food,’ says Arabella Tindall, the senior event manager at the British Council, who was left utterly impressed after staging the Innovation Awards at Delfina. ‘It has to be one of the best venues I have ever used,’ she raves. ‘Every detail was paid the greatest attention and nothing was too much trouble. I really appreciated the calm, helpful and pro-active way in which the staff dealt with all our enquiries and requests.’

Eleanor Belfrage, the press events organiser at ITV, who organised a Christmas party and awards ceremony, hosted by Ant and Dec, at the venue, agrees: ‘Delfina has everything – intimacy, privacy and escapism mixed with painstaking and attentive service, meticulous organisation and a very well equipped and practical space.’

Indeed, with event space ranging from the 200 sq m Cafe Gallery (which opens up to combine with the 295 sq m Exhibition Gallery) to the small Private Dining Room and bright Skylight Gallery (which fits up to 50 for a reception) it seems all this place needs is another challenge – so go on, do your artistic best!

Venue Focus Magazine Feature, Summer 2003 - 'A Work of Art' Location:

For more information, visit venue’s website.