Cyber esports cafe SideQuest, Asian fusion restaurant Oisoi, and YiFang, the Taiwanese tea specialist, have opened at Elephant Park as Lendlease continues to establish the area as one of South London’s most exciting leisure, food and drink hubs.
The three East Asian brands have taken an inter-connected unit facing onto New Kent Road, spanning over 6,000 sq ft. It includes:
• The sixth UK site for esports café SideQuest, formerly known as Wanyoo UK. The space seats up to 36 players at single computers, with a room available for private hire, creating a high-quality, competitive experience using the latest in esports technology.
• Oisoi, (pictured) a restaurant serving authentic Asian cuisine with a modern twist, including signature dim sum and Szechuanese dishes. Elephant Park is the largest location to date for the brand that is known for carefully curating its dining experience – from elegantly designed interiors to serving dishes on hand-crafted fine bone chinaware.
• A kiosk from YiFang specialising in Taiwanese tea. The menu features pure tea, fruit tea, fresh milk tea, and the YiFang specialty selection. The Elephant Park location also serves the brand’s signature drink known as the ‘MudFlip’, a brown sugar milk tea that is flipped to create a lava lamp effect.
Guy Thomas, Head of Place Assets at Lendlease, noted, “Consumers expect more from destinations post-pandemic and increasingly the right tenancy mix is one that blends traditional retail with one-off venues and experiences.
'The openings of SideQuest, OISOI, and YiFang build on the diverse retail, food and drink offering we’ve created at Elephant Park, bringing authentic East Asian flavour and a unique proposition of gaming, formal and casual dining under one roof. It’s something that really can’t be found anywhere else.”
Michael Mulholland, Marketing Manager at SideQuest, added: “Our new Elephant Park location is a big moment for the brand, as part of our expansion across the UK. We are so excited to introduce SideQuest’s unique experiential leisure offering to an engaged and diverse South London location like Elephant & Castle.”
Lendlease is delivering Elephant Park, a £2.5bn regeneration project in Elephant & Castle, in partnership with Southwark Council. Once complete, it will include over 3,000 homes, 50 new retail and leisure units and 50,000 square feet of workspaces, all centred around a new two-acre park.
This leasing news follows the recent openings of Mexican-inspired restaurant Cheeky Chicos and Korean-Japanese eatery Kokoro on Ash Avenue, and Livelyhood’s community pub, the Rosy Hue, at the development.