Hello and welcome to the first edition of SPOTLIGHT, a series where we highlight new and old local Putney businesses that are nestled into our community.
Our mission? To champion the remarkable spirit of entrepreneurship thriving right at our doorstep. Welcome to a celebration of what Putney has to offer!
This week we are putting the spotlight on Baseface Pizza, a fresh addition to the bustling scene of the Upper Richmond Road.
After hearing the story of the motivations for starting the business, I knew that this restaurant highlights the best of Putney and deserves to be our first feature. The owner, Tim, has very kindly taken the time to answer some questions and share his insights.
What inspired you to start your business and what drove you to want to open in Putney?
I was a jazz musician up until Covid struck, touring the world and playing in the house band at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, and I suddenly had no gigs any more, so I turned to my little Ooni pizza oven on my driveway on a quest to perfect my pizza making. After a few weeks I realised I couldn’t eat as many pizzas as I needed to make to tweak my recipe, so I started giving them to neighbours and friends in the local area, asking in return for them to donate £5 to the NHS charities. As word got around I ended up meeting the owners of a local wine shop in Acton, Vindinista, who offered me to use the kitchen at the back of the shop to run a residency and serve their customers, once the lockdown rules were lifted. I also started to do farmers markets and other events around West London, and even travelled to pop-up in my friends jazz club in Shoreditch for a period.
After a while I grew tired of the constant packing and unpacking of gear, and wanted more control over my customers’ whole experience, and the opportunity arose to take the lease on my first pizzeria in Hammersmith. After opening there in 2021, I found a great shop on the riverfront in Barnes and opened the second at the beginning of 2023. One of my chefs lives in Putney, and towards the end of 2023 sent me a photo of a vacant property that had been an Italian restaurant on Upper Richmond Road, and together we thought it was a great location and something that would be a great fit for the Putney neighbourhood, so we took the leap into opening Base Face Putney.
I was a jazz musician until Covid struck, playing in the house band at Ronnie Scott’s, and I suddenly had no gigs any more, so I turned to my little Ooni pizza oven
Tim Thorton, Baseface founder
How have the community responded to you being here?
I’ve always aimed to provide a neighbourhood pizzeria, a place dedicated to the people who live there. Serving regular customers, getting to know them and chatting with them upon their visits is one of the greatest joys of this job, so for me Putney seemed to be a perfect next step for the business. It’s a great area full of lovely families and smiling faces, we’ve been warmly welcomed by the other local businesses too and are settling in nicely.
The first week was crazy as we ran a 50% off offer and were completely stuffed to the gills, but since then we’ve calmed down a bit and had some time to settle and start making the place home. It’s always a steep learning curve when you open in a new site, like moving into a new house, you often don’t see what you need to do to the place until you live in it for a few weeks, but it’s a great challenge figuring it out and getting into the natural rhythm of things.
We hope that the local residents will pop in and give us a try, we promise we’ll make you one of the best pizzas you’ll ever have!
Having been in and tried the pizzas myself I can assure you it is definitely worth a visit. Thank you for tuning in this week’s SPOTLIGHT and we will be back next week!
Baseface Pizza can be found at 236 Upper Richmond Road.
