Mike Davies, The Camberwell Arms & Franks Bar: Surviving a Mental Breakdown and Anxiety Hallucinations, Defining Identity by Business vs. Life Prisms, Staying in Business for 10 Years

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Defining Identity by Business vs. Life Prisms, Staying in Business for 10 Years

I was an scatty anxious swamp of hangover when I walked through the doors. Thankfully. soon changed.

High White Ceilings. Dark Mahogany bar.

The Camberwell Arms is raw and capacious as tables capriciously flux with ravenous rabbles scoffing their faces with delectable dishes.

Here, the staff call you Darling and Honey. They’re Darling Honey’s. Sticky Toffee Pudding Charm. Warm Souls ooze an effortless, achingly cool charm.

We. Yes. Us. A brace of blokes, grabbed a brace of bar stalls, order a brace of brutally cold Estrella’s, braced ourselves for a tornado of unshackled gluttony.

Signature Scotch Bonnet and Pork fat on toast. Door-stop thick sourdough. Smothered in a crispy and cuddly, unctuous-utopia of pork fat. Topped with slap-ya-round-the-face Scotch Bonnet chilli’s.  SO.SO.SO delicious.

Mike Davies, the owner/operator of The Camberwell Arms is a wonderful human.

Mike through sheer grit and graft built The Camberwell Arms into an South London institution.

Mike is a partner at Franks, Peckham, too. Recently voted Europe’s Best Bar.

But success is shadowed with cost.  
In 2019, Mike had a mental breakdown, his head a hive of anxious wasps and worms and bats and bugs.

Thankfully he recovered, our conversation BLEW MY MIND.

Mike taught me something that’ll stick with me forever.

There’s two prisms to define ourselves by

1. Business Prism

2. Life Prism

Post 80’s gnarly nefarious neoliberalism we, too often, derive identity from our Business Prism (this is dangerous). After a while the business prism no longer works.

F*cking loved this one. You’re in for a treat.

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ON THE MENU: 
1. The Power of the Open Kitchen: Why You Must FEEL the Presence of the Landlord and Publican 
2. Why Constraint = Creativity + “The ascetic is the sideshow; people want to feel raw & brash authenticity” 
3. The Danger of the Cult of the Chef: We Are Losing Our Ability to Feel Real Warm Hospitality 
4. One Reframe to Avoid Burnout: What’s the Least Stressful and Easiest Way to Use My Skill Set? 
5. Business Prism vs. Life Prism: “You Are More Than Your Work” + “Work to Live, Live to Work” - Be Careful of the Ambition Trap 
6. Why DO Chefs Have Poor Mental Health? Hospitality Is Solving for Happy 
7. Why Being a Precocious Tw*t Is a Superpower to a Point - “Be Out of Your Depth but Really Believe in Something” 
8. Why You Must Create a Mindset Where You Tolerate the Flex of Ups and Downs and Float Over Obstacles 


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