Food for Soul’s Refettorio Felix Soup Kitchen in London by Studioilse.

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi.

In our world today we are often overcome by the magnitude of the world’s problems. The growing refugee crisis across the planet, to the homeless that sleep on the streets we walk on everyday. It is easier somehow to blame the government, to blame the economics of society, or even to blame the vulnerable than it is to attempt to address the problem ourselves. It seems far less stressful to pick up a magazine filled with photos of famous people and spend time looking at starlets without makeup, or to zone out watching mindless television. Anything to block out the noise of a world we feel powerless to positively affect.

But that does not make for a great nation of people. Scientific studies have shown that when we help others, we are in fact happier than when we don’t. Happiness doesn’t come from obsessing over ourselves – it comes from being kind. If we all took our own little patch and did the best we could to help others, in no time at all we’d not only have great nations, but happier ones too.

And that’s what Food for Soul, a non-profit organisation has done, setting up Refettorio Felix Soup Kitchen in London. It’s taken it’s own little patch and stood up for the vulnerable. And it’s doing a smashing job. St Cuthbert’s Community Centre, the new home to Refettorio, is found in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; areas well know for their affluence, but home also to some of the most deprived members of the community. Designed by Ilse Crawford and her team at Studioilse, this very special project with a social conscience brings together the renowned chef Massimo Bottura, founder of Food for Soul, and one of our favourite interior designers.

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The gig works like this – The Felix Project delivers surplus ingredients from supermarkets then the team at Refettorio Felix transforms them into restaurant quality meals and serves them to the homeless and underprivileged. The existing St Cuthbert’s Community Centre was completely refurbished by Studioilse. Crawford refers to it as “making it beautiful, a universal pleasure that is often missing from social projects”. Refettorio Felix is a multifunctional space – it’s both a dining hall and a home for the community. It has a reading corner and a private counselling room as well as a film screening area, not to mention the fully fledged commercial kitchen. The expectation is that the space which has been so well put together, will be attractive to the rest of the community and hired out for functions to help pay for and sustain the project.

The interior has been kept warm and inviting. Soft pastel green paint in the dinning room is teamed with large, white globes suspended from the high ceilings. They are hung low to reduce the cavernous feeling of the space. Soft lighting, warm grey tones on comfy couches and natural plants bring the focus inwards, creating a space where the visitors can feel closer together and share an intimacy often missing in the life of the homeless and socially vulnerable.

What it offers though is not just great food and a beautiful place in which to eat it. It also offers dignity. When someone is down on their luck, shame sits like a constant companion in the cold, in the dark, when you’re hungry and when you’re sick. To have dignity, to feel love and being cared for are qualities that are priceless. And by feeding people who cannot afford to feed themselves, to offer a space of refuge and respite, a place of aesthetic beauty and peace, is gold.

Food for Soul nurtures not just the people they embrace who come in off the street, but also it nurtures the very people who embrace them.

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[Images courtesy of Studioilse. Photographed by Tom Mannion.]