Stable Wines: team behind Goodbye Horses to launch new space on Essex Road

The team behind lauded wine bar and restaurant Goodbye Horses will launch a second site in December.

The new opening, called Stable Wines, will open in Islington this December, bringing another list of natural wines and those much-Instagrammed cheese toasties.

Founders Alex Young and George de Vos said the new wine bar is to be housed in a “distinctive, glass-surrounded space”, with a custom-made counter designed by Leopold Banchini and made from the same oak as at Goodbye Horses.

Also inside will be carved volcanic stone from Mount Etna, while the artist Lucy Stein, who collaborated with the same team on the ice cream shop — and sister project — the Dreamery, has painted a series of “wistful and mythological scapes” throughout.

Stable Wines will offer an ever-changing selection of bottles, each handpicked by wine director Nathalie Nelles and general manager Fred Clelland. While downstairs, in what was once a bank vault, will be a private room for private diners.

There won’t be a full food menu as at Goodbye Horses, but there will be cured meats and cheeses to accompany drinks and, as mentioned, “those” cheese toasties, which people very much enjoy.

Young said: “We’re drawn to the unexpected, things that surprise [us]. This lost greenhouse off Essex Road, hiding a staircase to a labyrinthian cellar, is exactly that.”

Vos added: “Wine and food, of course, will be a central part of Stable Wines, but so is the sound, light and feel of the space. It’s a place to taste, linger, and slip out of the world for a moment.”

Stable Wines opens on December 1 on Essex Road, @stablewines