A new 400-capacity live music venue and restaurant will open this Friday inside a former Victorian warehouse in London’s Farringdon.

The Piano Works – founded by restaurateur Alan Lorrimer – takes inspiration from old Victorian music halls in both design and premise.

Film and TV set designer Mark Stevenson has blended the building’s industrial architecture with bespoke modern furniture, made by oak craftsman Marky Tungate, in his revamp of the hybrid space.

The Piano Works – which combines a bar, restaurant and concert area – will also have two live pianists every night to start an audience singalong in the tradition of Victorian music halls.

‘Singing is the primary form of our earliest human musical activity,’ says Lorrimer, who previously founded the Charlotte Street Blues bar and Guanabara in Covent Garden.

‘It takes something incredibly intimate and personal, a sound or lyric that begins inside you and is then safely shared with a group of strangers that amazingly returns to you as harmony.’

At a time where London music venues are dropping like flies, it’s refreshing to see a new arrival.