Mercato: The firm hoping to bring a food revolution to Mayfair

Market inside a grade-I listed church will host food stalls, a grocery store and a brewery. Hazel Sheffield reports

Andrea Rasca opened Mercato Metropolitano in Elephant and Castle in 2016

It’s lunchtime on a Tuesday and Meliti Bampili Thymara and Vasilis Kalamoukis are busy preparing wholegrain bao buns ready for the launch of Mercato Mayfair. Their business Steamy&Co is barely a year old and yet it is about to take a big leap forward as one of the inaugural food stands at the brand new urban food market opening in a grade-I listed church moments from Oxford Street in London, and they can still barely believe it.

“When we were trading at a weekly Hackney market we wouldn’t have imagined that a year later we would be in such a beautiful setup, in a church. I’m not sure it has settled inside us!” Bampili Thymara says down the phone from Mayfair.

Steamy&Co is one of 19 food vendors opening at the site, which has been through a £5m restoration by the Grosvenor Estate, the Duke of Westminster’s property company, in preparation for its new tenants. When Mercato Mayfair launches, it will be the first time since 1974 that the former St Mark’s Church, now deconsecrated, will be open to the public. As well as new vendors like Steamy&Co, a handful of vendors from Mercato Metropolitano’s original location in Elephant and Castle have been offered a stall in the building, selling gelato, pizza and gin. There is space for a supermarket of artisanal goods, an in-house brewery for craft ales, a florist and a French bistro restaurant.