Spirit of choice

As Wodka comes of age in Kensington, Pendle Harte meets its owner Jan Woroniecki, the charitable restaurateur

Wodka may have just turned 18 but it’s been downing the spirits since it was born. Rose petal infused, caramel flavoured, whatever the variety, the grain has been on tap in St Alban’s Grove since this place opened – and long before even, since the site was home to a popular Polish eaterie in the 1950s and 1960s.
Jan Woroniecki remembers it well, since it was run by his father. “It was called Chez Kristof and it closed when my father died,” he says. The family owned the house and when the tenant’s lease expired about 20 years later Jan took on the site. Despite being a photographer and not a restaurateur, he had an instinct for the eaterie and immediately it thrived. The vodka, he says, was the thing. “People really drink less these days. They used to really drink to oblivion,”
he says, dismissing the notion that binge drinking is simply a phenomenon of the present time. And, of course, the Polish-inspired menu that remains a popular alternative to the often predictable nature of London menus, while proving that it’s not all about boiled pork and cabbage. Wodka was the first place in London to serve vodka properly, straight from the freezer in shot glasses.
Woroniecki is W8 born and bred, and even today he lives above the shop with his dog, Stan (the dog, bizarrely, was a Christmas present from his staff a few years ago). He’s a bit grumpy about the area and its endlessly rich and unstylish population – “It’s all just bankers now. I keep walking past houses and seeing builders putting those awful recessed lights in the ceiling” – when he’d rather have a more leisurely, vodka-sipping neighbourhood. Still, the life sounds perfect – owning the freehold, living upstairs from a successful restaurant, not having to actually cook himself, as much vodka as you like – why set up another one at all? “I got bored,” says Jan. So he set up Baltic in Blackfriars, and later Chef Kristov in Hammersmith Grove, named after his father, so now he drinks at all three successful venues, when he’s not at Le Café Anglais, which he likes because he says it suits his age group: “It’s got a sort of clubby feel with all the west Londoners of my age there.”
But his life’s not all about flavoured shots or dinner. Since 2004, Jan has been passionately involved with east London charity U-Turn, which helps vulnerable women involved in prostitution and drug addiction by funding a women’s centre providing counsellors and health workers as well as educational programmes. Jan’s involvement stems from an enormous respect for the project director, Rio Vella, and what he calls “a general feeling of guilt on behalf of my sex” – and his fundraising efforts helped to build the highly acclaimed drop-in centre. It’s a cause which he’s keen to promote to his west Londoner diners, most of whom, he explains, have absolutely no concept of the underbelly of life on the streets on the other side of town.
Wodka has a diverse group of fans, ranging from locals such as Anne Robinson, Dustin Hoffman and the American ambassador to David Bowie and Jerry Hall, via expense-accounted staff from the Evening Standard. It’s a charming local restaurant, a place with a sense of fun and a sense of history. If you know W8 but haven’t been, shame on you. And while you’re there, make a donation to Jan’s cause.  l
Wodka, 12 St Albans Grove W8
020 7937 6513
www.wodka.co.uk
www.uturnproject.co.uk