Foraged food dining and 900 years of industrial history: inside the new hipster capital of the North

This is lower than average prices on the island, at around £144,000, according to Zoopla, and below Sheffield’s average of around £200,000. However, Lee adds that per square foot, Kelham weighs in at “about the same as the decent places in Sheffield city centre at about £270 to £300 per sq ft”. Another developer, Dun Works, is building affordable housing to rent on its site there, where more than a third of properties are being offered to those earning less than £25,000 a year.

Luke French, a chef who trained under Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck, moved to Kelham Island seven years ago. After working at various restaurants around the area, the 31-year-old decided that he would start his own venture, Jöro, in 2016 with his fiancée Stacey Sherwood. Together, they serve a tasting menu with high-concept dishes including peas cooked in lovage oil, sea trout cured in gin and angelica leaves, with foraged wood sorrel-flavoured ice cream.

“It was a definite gamble when we first started,” he says. “It was a red-light district, full of disused buildings and no one would really have thought about coming to eat fine dining here. And at the start it was very quiet.”

But now the Nordic-inspired restaurant, which holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, three AA Rosettes and a clutch of outstanding critics’ reviews, has an eight-week wait for evening bookings. “What’s exciting is that we’re now attracting people from outside the city who come to eat with us, but then see what a lively little area Kelham Island is. It’s great for Sheffield as a city to have this bubble of creativity because I think the city centre is years behind other northern towns like Manchester and Leeds.”

The area is still a hive of construction work. The building next door to the shipping container that houses Jöro (which also contains a yoga studio and Sheffield’s first rooftop bar) was recently demolished, to make room for new commercial premises that will include another restaurant.

Elsewhere on the island, hoardings announce new cafés and bars popping up shortly, and every Friday evening a warehouse opens its doors to house a night food market. “People queue around the block,” Lee says.

The spread of regeneration creeps over the waterways and out beyond the island to other pockets of formerly disused sites. Kelham Arcade, a short walk from the “main” island, has a collection of businesses in a rebranded industrial unit including a cheese maker, a barber and homeware shop.

French says he’s proud of being part of the regeneration. “This part of Sheffield has such an amazing heritage with the steel factories, but since the decline of the steel industry it’s been a bit forgotten. It feels right that we’re bringing back some energy here.”