Your Sunday morning best-of-Londonist weekly round-up.
London news
- Find out what happened to your local council in the elections
- Asking prices for London houses have jumped 16.3% in the last year
- A serious fire broke out at Camden Market on Monday evening
- The historic Beefeater gin distillery in Kennington opened a new 'gin museum' this week
- We look at the tube strike that threatened our Bank Holiday weekend, now called off
Must-read articles
- Stephen Wilkes captures major cities during both day and night in the same collaged images
- London's greatest experiments: mapped
- Music Day UK isn't until 21 June, but you can start your preparations now
- Tube etiquette posters reimagined in the style of famous poets' verses
- A round-up of London's biggest heads. Because, um, why not?
- 12 independent London publishers you should know about
- We looked at beautiful London silhouettes in this week's Friday Photos
- London's top postal curiosities
Best pubs in London
We’re building a new website of the best pubs in London (mostly as voted for by Londonist readers). We still have a few areas to explore, but do take a look through the guide so far, and let us know about any scandalous omissions. This week's additions include Craft Beer Co.'s new place in Covent Garden, and the ancient George and Dragon in Acton, with its new Dragonfly brewery. We also fitted in Tap on the Line and The Botanist in Kew. Fine pubs all.
Top reviews
- Cosi Fan Tutte at the Coliseum brings a comic touch to Mozart's opera
- We tried Vanilla Black, London’s only ‘fine dining’ vegetarian restaurant
- The future of the NHS explored, at St James Theatre's This May Hurt A Bit
- In The Heights at Southwark Playhouse is "a glorious, exuberant, urgent, pulsing conflation of music and dance"
- New restaurant review: Bonnie Gull Seafood Cafe in Exmouth Market
- New exhibition at Tate Britain explores Kenneth Clark's impact on the British art scene
- Arthur Miller's breakthrough play All My Sons airs at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
- Best new food shops: Brompton Food Market
- Sonic loveliness and breathtaking circus sights at London Wonderground's Limbo
Things to do
- Kew Gardens' summer festival Plantasia opens this weekend (you can finally climb the Pagoda — much excitement!)
- Plenty of ideas on things to do this half-term, whatever the weather
- You told us your top pub choice in Kentish Town. Now join us on the pub crawl!
- This June, BFI Southbank begins a five month celebration of Chinese cinema
- Love theatre? Here's a round-up of what's arriving on stage in London next month
- Short sharp and sweet — London Short Story Festival at the end of June
- Life from Light: a unique live experience in August that combines operatic performance with multiple musical genres
For even more on London ...
From June, the Royal Academy of Arts hosts a series of events called Looking at London, featuring distinguished speakers from a range of disciplines discussing how the capital has influenced or informed their work. The series begins on Monday 2 June with London-born artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, best known for his Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle that exhibited on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in 2010, and for works that confront issues of race and class in a contemporary context. Please see here for more information and ticket booking.
Other speakers in the series include Ian Martin on 9 June, Patrick Keiller on 16 June and Lisa Jardine on 30 June.
This week's Best of Londonist is sponsored by the Royal Academy of Arts.
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