This is not just another Shoreditch bar. Well, it is — it’s right in Rivington Street (and you can’t get more Shoreditchy than that) but it’s not Shoreditch as we know it. NOLA is New Orleans. In East London.

Bucking the basement bar trend, this Louisiana living room is tucked away upstairs, a flight above the beats of Bedrooom Bar. It oozes smooth blues, ceiling fans, wooden floors and laid back booths. The whitewashed walls, mirrors, windows (and plans for a balcony) breathe air and space into the intimate venue, which is set up for table-service, but there’s still enough room to swing a hyperactive cat.

In the later hours, candles emerge and the piano comes alive in honour of the USA’s most fun-loving city. It goes without saying that the drinks here are for serious contenders only, with hard classics (sazerac, grasshopper), an array of twisted hurricanes and signature tipples, all shaken up by an expert team, including charming Parisian Charles and appearances by the talented Davide Segat (formerly of Hawksmoor and Bulgari Hotel).

And there’s more. Dirty smoker? No problem, there’s a terrace for when you want to puff your poison. Hungry? In a couple of weeks, there’ll be plenty of simple, southern style dishes, currently being prepped by a Michelin starred, New Orleans native. Stopping out? After midnight, it’s members only. It’s free to apply, just be nice (as in, don’t be an asshat) and you’re in.

This is no gimmick. NOLA articulates a genuine love for The Big Easy — the food, culture and the people who inhabit it. Co-owner Dan Priseman explains: “We’ve taken so much inspiration from there — how could we not give something back?” As such, a pound from every hurricane you imbibe will be donated to relief efforts that are still ongoing after the wake of Katrina. And that sexy membership we were telling you about? Once accepted into the fold, you’ll be asked to make a voluntary donation, with proceeds going towards equally worthy Stateside charities.

Booking is recommended, or just rock up, for comfort food, great music and cracking concoctions. It’s going to be big.

Another French 75, if you please.

NOLA is at 66-68 Rivington Street,  EC2A 3AY

With the West End welcoming an all-singing, all-dancing Willy Wonka into its warm, theatrical bosom this week, it seemed a good time for us to assess the best of London’s real-life chocolatiers. So if you’re yet to buy tickets for the Sam Mendes-directed theatrical spectacular Charlie And The Chocolate Factory here’s a sweet selection of London’s finest chocolate shops as a taster.

The One Run by a Yorkshire Willy
For experimental London chocolatiers, Paul A Young is probably the closest pretender to Willy Wonka’s golden crown. Winner of Best Sea Salted Caramel in the World, a prize with a name surely Mr Dahl would appreciate, Paul’s reputation as a creative chocolatier and flavour alchemist is world renowned. Everything in the shop is made by hand, using the freshest ingredients. The smell of the shop alone can make even the coolest Camden dwellers coo like cosseted school children.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? Just one Paul A Young chocolate costs £2. Choose yours with care
The Golden Ticket: 42 pieces cost £65
The Willy Wonka: Aside from those famous Marmite chocolate concoctions, it’s a tough choice between The Love Potion (with Jasmine flower, ylang ylang, geranium, vanilla and lavender) and The London Gent (a black pepper and treacle caramel ganache)
Address: 33 Camden Passage, Islington, N1 8EA (with other branches in Wardour Street and the Royal Exchange)

The One Run By An Ex-Punk
Rococo was founded in 1983 by Chantal Coady, a punky ex-art student who’d just been sacked from Harrods chocolate department for dyeing her hair green. Back in the 80s, the Kings Road shop was a revelation: painted with cherubs and clouds and featuring a sugar chandelier, it was a world away from stuffy department stores. One of her early customers was Joanne Harris — might Coady be the inspiration for Harris’ hit book “Chocolat”? In 2008, Chantal’s company was awarded a special Academy of Chocolate Award for “Changing the Way People Think About Chocolate”.
Budget Like Charlie Bucket? A 20g Sea Salt Organic Milk Chocolate Bee Bar will set you back £1.30
The Golden Ticket: The massive Nebuchadnezzar Hamper No4 costs £160
The Willy Wonka: A bag of Jersey New Potatoes with Mint, £9.50 (in reality, hazelnut praline covered in white chocolate and shaped into potatoes. Served with crystalised mint leaves, obviously.)
Address: The Rococo flagship store is at 5 Motcomb Street, SW1X 8JU (with other branches on Marylebone High Street and the Kings Road)


The One With The Dessert Bar
A luxury patissier and chocolatier from Scotland, William Curley set up his Belgravia store in 2009, following the success of his Richmond store. Inside, there’s a dessert bar where you can sample a tasting menu of desserts created in front of you by one of the chefs. Look out for the Mille-feuille au chocolate — layers of hazelnut daquoise and chocolate with an orange sauce and muscavado ice-cream. They even have a brunch menu for actual problem chocoholics. William Curley has won the Academy of Chocolate’s “Britain’s Best Chocolatier” Award four times since 2007.
Budget Like Charlie Bucket? Their Nostalgia Jaffa Cake costs all of £3.50
The Golden Ticket: A box of 100 “couture” chocolates costs £150
The Willy Wonka: Look out for the chocolates laced with Japanese black vinegar, inspired by Curley’s wife’s Japanese heritage
Address: Their flagship is at 198 Ebury Street, Belgravia, SW1W 8UN (with a smaller branch in Richmond)

The One With The Royal Seal of Approval
Purveyors of fine English chocolates since 1875, Charbonnel et Walker has always been located in Bond Street. Started by two women, Mme Virginie Eugenie Lévy (née Charbonnel) from Maison Boissier chocolate house in Paris and Mrs Minnie Walker, the partnership was encouraged by the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. It still has a Royal Warrant as chocolate manufacturers to The Queen. A must-try if you find too much cocoa overpowering: because of their delicate flavours, C et W use about 58-60% cocoa in their chocolates. Perfect for chocoholics with a sweet tooth.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? The Delicious Art Dark Ginger Bar will set you back £3.99 for just 85g
The Golden Ticket: A 2,000g box of their fine chocolate selection costs £125
The Willy Wonka: English Rose and Violet Creams. Sound a bit grim to us, but then so does Dahl’s Hair Toffee.
Address: One The Royal Arcade, 28 Old Bond Street, W1S 4BT

The One With Roald’s Seal of Approval
Another of London’s oldest chocolate shops, Prestat has enjoyed the custom of various famous clientele over the years, including Her Maj and the Queen Mum, John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, Tina Turner and Paul McCartney, and brilliantly, Roald Dahl himself. (Prestat chocolates are at the centre of Dahl’s comic romp My Uncle Oswald.) The brand won a Royal Warrant in 1975 as Purveyors of Chocolates to Her Majesty The Queen. As for the shop itself, well, we’ll just say it’s not the place you want to be with a hangover. But if garish is your thing, you’ll be in heaven. Fight through the brightly coloured packaging and the chocolates are a real treat.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? Prestat’s Union Jack Milk Chocolate with Roasted Almond and Sea Salt 25g bar costs £1.25
The Golden Ticket: The Jewel Box contains 98 Prestat chocolates and costs £90
The Willy Wonka: The dark chocolate wafers with fiery chilli and cool lime are kind of Wonka-weird. £11 for a box
Address: 14 Princes Arcade, St James’s, Westminster, SW1Y 6DS

The One for Francophiles
Developed in France by Robert Linxe in the 1950s, La Maison du Chocolat arrived in London in 2004. Linxe was dubbed The Wizard of Ganache in the 70s, and now has shops all over the world, including in Tokyo and New York. The teeny London shop is as suave and sophisticated as you’d expect from a posh Paris expat. We recommend creating your own selection box, as long as you’re not intimidated by the besuited French-speaking staff. Ahh, but the taste of the chocolate as it melts on your tongue makes all the pretentious Parisian nonsense worth while.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? A Bouchee Rocher costs £2.95
The Golden Ticket: The Boite Maison contains 209 pieces of chocolate (including “onctuous (sic) plain dark chocolate truffles) and costs £204
The Willy Wonka: It’s all a bit too français classique to be Willy-innovative. Unless combining pistachio and marzipan (in the Bouchee Jolika) is your idea of a wild time?
Address: 46 Piccadilly, W1J 0DS

The One For Mike TeaVee
This Carnaby Street confectioner Choccywoccydoodah is the sister store of the Brighton original. Run by a team of artists, designers and chocolatiers, the company’s emphasis is perhaps more on crazy cake design than the taste of their chocolate. It’s also been helped by a couple of super-promotional TV series. Inside the tall Carnaby Street store, you’ll find a Marmite combination of super-sweet food and attitude, with a generous side helping of quirk. Some might say it’s guilty of aiming for style over substance; we’ll just suggest it’s in a different league to the posh European-style chocolatiers found elsewhere in the capital.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? A 55g Chocolate Love Heart costs £4.99
The Golden Ticket: The £130 Huge Choccywoccydoodah Hamper was sold out at the time of writing; instead, if you’ve got money to melt burn, we suggest the Milk Chocolate Hand Painted Skull: a snip at £100
The Willy Wonka: There’s a lot in this shop that we think Mr Wonka would approve of. Sticking to our chocolate theme, the £17.50 Salted Popcorn Slab could well be a Willy-inspired creation.
Address: 30-32 Fouberts Place, Carnaby, W1F 7PS

The One Worth Getting the Overland For
Found on the increasingly chi-chi Bellenden Road in Peckham (a Butcher and a Deli have opened there in the last six months) The Melange Chocolate Shop and Cafe is South East London’s finest chocolaterie. Run by French artisan chocolatier Isabelle Alaya, The Melange is a small, unpretentious café specialising in self-indulgence. Look out for the proper thick, rich hot chocolate and chocolate cakes served with a welcoming smile within. We recommend you sample, then leave with a selection of yummy chocolates infused with interesting flavours to enjoy at home.
Budget like Charlie Bucket? A 20g strip of chocolate costs £1.25
The Golden Ticket: 5 strips of 20g chocolate cost £6.25. The only way to spend a lot at The Melange is to book one of their fun-sounding workshops. Prices start from £18
The Willy Wonka: Either Coffee and Aniseed Milk Chocolate, or Cardamom and Clove Dark Chocolate
Address: 184 Bellenden Road, Peckham, SE15 4BW

Have we missed any out? Disagree with our choices? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll add a Reader Recommendations section above.

The bar will also introduce London’s whisky connoisseurs to Omakase, a Japanese concept in which the patron entrusts the chef (or in this case, barkeep) to serve him or her a selection of tipples suitable to their taste and, hopefully, budget. Just don’t blame us if your new-found love for Japanese whisky ends up hurting your wallet more than your head.

The pop-up is on SOS’s first floor bar from 17.00-23.00, 21-31 May. The menu can be seen here, and there’s a little video of what to expect below:

When London’s first natural wine shop opened in Highgate, hardly anyone turned up on its first day. The staff sat twiddling their thumbs, smiling in embarrassment. To the best of our knowledge, it has since closed. What a difference a few years make. Now ‘natural’ wine is a trendy buzzword, and it seems Londoners can’t get enough of it.

Natural wines are celebrated at the RAW Wine Fair, a two-day event taking place on 19-20 May. (There’s also the Real Wine Fair, just before RAW). Such events are common in France and Italy, where the natural wine movement is much better established, but this is only the second year of what has now become the annual RAW Fair.

So what is ‘natural’ wine? It is wine that’s pure, unprocessed and environmentally friendly, made with minimal intervention and without additives (other than sulphite, but only sometimes, and in significantly less quantities than the regulations stipulate). Unlike regular wines, sugars and acidity are not adjusted, and excess water is not removed.

Natural wines divide opinion. Some experts dismiss them as flawed or faddy. However, when wine was first made 8,000 years ago, simply by crushing fermented grapes, it was naturally, well, natural. No vitamins, enzymes, yeasts or other additives were added.

Further controversy arises through lack of accreditation. One must rely on the winemaker’s own integrity. There are moves on the continent to formulate a legal definition of ‘natural’ and establish a quality charter. The RAW Fair has its own charter that the producers must adhere to. 

RAW Fair was co-founded by Isabelle Legeron, France’s first female Master of Wine who goes by the nickname ‘That Crazy French Woman’ (more about that in our interview, below). This year’s event promises to be bigger and better, with respected names such as Ottolenghi on board – and Legeron’s own wine available to sample. 

RAW Fair is at F Block, The Old Truman Brewery, 83 Brick Lane, E1 6QL. Sunday 19 May, 10am-6pm (both trade and public); Monday 20 May 10am-8pm (trade only 10am-5pm, public 5pm-8pm). Tickets: £20 advance, £25 on the door.

Interview with Isabelle Legeron, Co-founder of RAW Fair

What is ‘natural wine’, and how does it differ from organic and biodynamic?

Natural wines are farmed organically and/or biodynamically, but the key difference is in the winemaking. Once grapes are harvested and taken to the cellar, natural wine growers try to intervene as little as possible. They see their role more as guardians — guiding a process that occurs naturally — rather than as trying to force the grapes or juice into particular moulds responding to market demands or trends. Most don’t use any additives in the winemaking, bar at most low levels of SO2, and they steer clear of gadgetry that manipulates the juice, like reverse osmosis machines, cryo-extraction and so on.

The one issue, though, is that natural wine does not have a legal definition as yet, and so can be open to the possibility of abuse. At RAW, we decided that the most important thing is transparency — which is all too absent in the wine world — and so all artisans showing wine at the fair have to declare all procedures used. This information is available to visitors online (a summary is also included in the fair catalogue), the idea being that people can then choose what is right for them. For example, if egg whites have been used on a particular bottle to fine the wine, then the wine will be clearly marked as fined with ‘egg whites’ and ‘not suitable for vegans’. 

Why are you known as ‘That Crazy French Woman’?

It started in South Africa, where my TV show is broadcast quite regularly. One of the winemakers that I featured told me that he often gets stopped randomly in the street by people saying that they caught him on the show ‘with that crazy French woman’. My name can be a little tricky to pronounce, so I guess ‘crazy’ is just easier!

I’m not really crazy at all. It’s more about being outside the box, which I guess I am in wine terms. I like wine that is alive and unmanipulated, characteristics that are surprisingly hard to come by in modern winemaking. I don’t like wines that are worked: heavily extracted, oaky, manipulated, squeaky clean and boring. I like finesse and elegance, and wines that are full of emotion and personality – a bit like people. For this, the winemaker needs to take a step back, and allow his/her wines to go with the flow of nature. Being overly controlling ultimately limits the possibilities and expression of your wine. 

As sugar and acidity in natural wines are not artificially manipulated, does the wine actually taste good, or can it be off-balance or ‘faulty’? 

As with any wine, it can be faulty if it is badly done. But no, I would say that the vast majority of natural wine I come across is not only not faulty, but is deliciously complex and shows far more interesting taste profiles than conventional wine. To be frank, this isn’t really surprising either — if, as you would do in conventional winemaking, you kill off all your native bacteria and yeasts to then add lab-bred ones that have been developed to show specific aromas, you will necessarily have less complex aromatics than if nature — with its infinitesimal variations — is involved. 

Why are natural wines dismissed by some people in the industry?

I have asked myself this question many times. These wines are produced in tiny quantities so they aren’t as widely available as most conventional wines. This means there is a bit of a lack of exposure and awareness where they are concerned.

Our modern palates have also been formatted to appreciate certain styles so that we have come to expect wines to taste or look a certain way, and anything that takes us out of our comfort zone can be challenging. The thing to remember is that our formatted palates are simply the result of technical winemaking developments, which have not really been challenged yet. I hope what we are doing helps to change things. 

Do natural wines give less of a hangover?

Yes they do. This is only based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, but I certainly feel much worse if I drink conventional wine, especially pounding headaches. But again, this is hardly surprising as approximately 60 additives are allowed for use in winemaking by law, and none of them have to be included on the label.

Is natural wine produced in commercial quantities, or is it just hobby drinking for wine buffs? Where can we buy good bottles in London?

It is produced commercially, and it is available all over London. You can even go into old traditional establishments like Berry Bros and you will find plenty of natural wines. Dedicated wine shops that I can suggest include: Antidote (they are a restaurant/bar but all their bottles are available to take home too), the Victualler, and Ottolenghi, which is hosting the official RAW web store this year (it is also available off the main Ottolenghi page). It is online until the end of May and includes a selection of 30 wines from growers coming to the fair. Also, Noble on Broadway Market, and 259 Hackney Road.

What is the purpose of the annual RAW Fair?

RAW celebrates wine with emotion that has a sort of living presence — think farmhouse cheese versus pasteurised, reconstituted cheese-like products – and showcases growers whose fundamental farming and cellar philosophies make living wines possible. It is open to all growers, whatever their size, who comply with our charter of quality. We even have a tiny producer coming from the south of France, for instance, who only has one wine and all his bottles are hand-blown and extraordinarily beautiful!

RAW is a platform for celebrating proper artisan wine that aims to bring people together: the extraordinary men and women who produce it, their importers (and potential importers — come on, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, let’s see some RAW wines on your shelves!), the wine associations to which they belong, the trade professionals who want to write about them or stock them, wine enthusiasts who like drinking them and generally anyone who is curious just to see what it’s all about. I guarantee once you start drinking natural, you really won’t want to go back.

We’re also leading the charge for transparency in wine. We believe that in an ideal world any processing and additives will be clearly communicated to the drinker so that you know exactly what is in your glass. RAW is a first step in this direction and we’re proud to be leading the way.

What do you personally love about natural wines, and what can visitors expect at the exhibition?

I love the fact that they taste more alive. They have a vibrancy and deliciousness that you simply can’t replicate in more mass-market wines.

I also love the texture of natural wines. Most have not been fined or filtered, so nothing has been taken away. They are more whole and complete, and you can definitely feel that added dimension in the wine. It is more sensual, perhaps creamier in mouthfeel, more rounded. It is a bit tricky to explain in words! Best to come taste for yourself. 

Tell us about the wine you yourself have produced.

My wine comes from Georgia. It was farmed organically and vinified in kvevri (also sometimes written ‘qvevri’), which are giant clay pots buried deep underground. It is a Caucasian tradition that dates back some 8,000 years. And what is particularly special is that, although the grapes used (rkatsiteli) are a white wine grape variety, my wine Lagvini is bright orange! This is because the juice is left in contact with the grape skins and stems for months — much like a red wine. The result is delicious — even if I say so myself. It has an orange blossom-like nose, and is very apricoty on the palate with touches of savoury notes like dried sage. And perhaps, most surprisingly of all, it is tannic!

What are the highlights of the RAW Fair – the ‘definitely do not miss’ aspects?

Oh my goodness, now that is a tricky one. 169 of the world’s best wine producers will be at RAW to meet and taste with — that certainly has to be the main highlight, but there is tons of other stuff to see, do and taste as well. For example, there’s a Swiss botanist who harvests fruit for his ciders from abandoned apple, pear and quince trees, some of which are several hundred years old (!); there are tables dedicated to rare junmaishu sake; beer from Bermondsey, including a brew which is actually based on an old Truman Brewery recipe; a proper tea tasting bar, and more orange wines than you can shake a stick at.

And that’s not even starting on the killer food stalls, like smoked salmon from Stoke Newington, cheeses aged in south London, and the wonderful Elliot’s who are doing a pop-up wood fired grill on the RAW patio. This fancy BBQ is being done in collaboration with the infamous Lord Logs from Crystal Palace, and uses single species wood that is a byproduct of managing ancient English woodland, which gives particular flavours to the meat and veggies being grilled.

Talks/tastings-wise, we’ve got the great chocolatier Paul A Young doing a chocolate and wine pairing with me, and big wine names like Jancis Robinson MW (the FT’s weekly wine columnist) who is doing a tasting and book-signing with her co-authors; as well as The Guardian’s wine correspondent Fiona Beckett, who is doing a RAW cheese and RAW wine matching. British artist Hannah Collins is also going to be at the fair for a book signing and pop-up exhibition of her work, tracing the provenance of 30 iconic ingredients that were used in El Bulli cooking.

Which London bars and restaurants do you recommend for drinking natural wines?

I would definitely recommend Elliot’s next to Borough Market — I design the list there and we are one of a tiny selection of places in London that offers a totally natural wine list.

I would also recommend Brawn, Antidote, Duck Soup, and, for fine dining, Angela Hartnett’s Murano or the 2-Michelin starred Hibiscus.

Tell us about your ‘secret London’ – the hidden gems that you’d want to shout about from the rooftops.

Picnics on the Thames’ beaches at low tide. Hardly anyone uses them, and they are one of the best hidden treasures of London, particularly if you choose ones with slightly complicated access.

Spa Terminus Market — really great produce, including London’s best croissants from The Little Bread Pedlar.

And my favourite BYO Thai (although I am not sure if they are really BYO or if I have just imposed BYO-ness on them), The Pie Crust near Stratford, who are apparently a greasy spoon by day but convert into a delicious Thai restaurant by night, and are run by a Thai family that has been there for decades.

Article and interview by Sejal Sukhadwala

Bananaphobes would be best advised to avoid Daisy Green. The yellow fruit is everywhere: printed onto deckchair fabric, piled into arrangements on the tables, propped up (in banana bread form) on the counter.

The proliferation of bananas, not to mention deckchairs, should indicate that Daisy Green isn’t your normal cafe. Eschewing the clean minimalism or rag-tag retro furnishings that seem to characterise most new coffee shops in London, DG goes balls out with colour. The first hint is outside, where a patch of fake grass and a pair of deckchairs are wedged into the small patio. The theme continues downstairs, where the walls are daubed with colourful graffiti by the artist Shuby.

Fortunately the focus on ambience hasn’t deflected attention from the coffee, which was typically good, as you’d expect from an Antipodean: Prue Freeman, the Australian owner, has been driving a van around London’s street markets for the past three years, serving up frozen yoghurt. This new venture marks the first permanent base for her quirky tastes, and being just a short walk from the masses of Oxford Street, is well worth a pit-stop if you’re in the area.

Daisy Green is at 20 Seymour Street, W1H 7HU.

We’re proud to be the media partner for Estuary, the Museum of London Docklands’ tenth anniversary exhibition, which opens on 17 May. The exhibition brings together the work of 12 artists, each of whom has been inspired by that wide-open space where the Thames meets the sea. This Saturday, you get a chance to explore the exhibition while enjoying live entertainment, food and drink, and a quiz at the museum’s Cockles & Muscles late opening event.

As well as access to Estuary, you can also hear from urban sociologist Dr Alex Rhys-Taylor, who’ll offer a mouthwatering journey through the history of British seafood. Then you can try some via pop-up fish restaurants, with contributions from the Billingsgate Seafood School and legendary East End seafood stall Tubby Isaacs. The evening’s live music will be curated by Mercury-prize-nominated artist Sam Lee and the Nest Collective.

Londonist Quiz: We’ll also be putting on one of our fiendish quizzes, themed around the River Thames. Find us up in the third floor gallery in good time for an 8pm start.

Museum of London Docklands Cockles & Muscles Late is on Saturday 18 May 2013, 7-9.30pm, tickets £7. Nearest station is West India Quay.

See also
A trip to an Estuary Maunsell Fort, which protected London from the Luftwaffe during WWII.

On her way to dinner? The Queen gets a new chef

Today is the last day that those who can handle the heat in the kitchen can apply to be the new sous chef at Buckingham Palace. The job description is fascinating.

The wage is £23,000 per year and the successful applicant must have a good knowledge of ‘kitchen French’ (does this mean swearing en francais a la Gordon Ramsey?)

The chefs are as likely to deal with events ranging from banquets for 200 to lunches for two (cosy!). Although the role is based in the Queen’s central London residence, the job actually requires around three months to be spent away from London in the Queen’s other homes such as Balmoral and Sandringham.

We wondered whether a new chef might bring some new food experiences; cue the Londonist Right Royal Menu:

Breakfast: Ma’amalade on toast

Lunch: Sandering-HAM sandwich

Dinner: A choice of: Spaghetti Boleynaise or The Madras of King George

Dessert: The King’s Peach

All served by the Household Carvery. The new chef would also need to deal with complaints (‘Waiter, waiter, there’s an heir in my soup…’).

What other pun-laden items could the Queen expect to see on her menu — add yours below.

The view from Radio Rooftop Bar

Sun’s out? Er, sort of. Time for Londoners of all stripes to peel their clothes off and expose their pale flesh, grown only more cadaverous by a particularly harsh winter, to the warm rays. And where better to do it than on a rooftop whilst sipping on gin and juice? Unlike that SPF 15 sunscreen that’s been rotting in the bathroom cabinet these past few years, we’ve got you covered.

Add your own favourites in the comments.

Radio Rooftop Bar

Sitting atop the newly-opened Hotel Me at Aldwych, this will be Radio’s first summer in operation. They’re likely to attract a strong crowd: the views from on top are stunning, particularly the southern aspect which takes in a huge panorama of London landmarks. If it can’t be seen from this vantage point, it’s probably not worth seeing at all. Named for its location (it’s on the site of the old Marconi House) the historic theme extends to the cocktail menu, which includes concoctions named Radio-Active and AM/FM.

Another newcomer (it opened on 5 May) is the rooftop bar area at this restaurant in, yes, Smithfield. Set in an old Georgian house, it’s operated by Ivy alumnus Alan Bird, and its rooftop terrace has great views across the old market buildings. In case of inclement weather (or after the roof’s 11.30pm curfew) there’s also an underground cocktail bar.

Aqua Spirit

One of London’s most popular and reliable rooftop bars, Aqua affords a fine view of Oxford Street and the West End. It’s part of Aqua Kyoto, a high-end restaurant, and the crowd is suitably suited and booted. Booking required.

Boundary Rooftop

Terence Conran’s ever-popular Shoreditch establishment continues to attract a likely crowd of affluent characters. By day an extension of the restaurant, from 4pm the rooftop becomes a bar, serving cocktails and cigars. Being a fairly squat building in an area devoid of interesting features, the views from on top aren’t the best you’ll find.

Kensington Roof Gardens

Probably the oldest in this list (it’s been around for 75 years), the Roof Gardens in Kensington sit atop the old Derry and Toms department store. Unless closed for a private event the Gardens are open to the public, but the complex also hosts a restaurant, Babylon, which has its own outdoor space that offers a humdrum view across west London, and a nightclub. The biggest attraction, though, are the gardens’ four pink flamingos.

Dalston Roof Park

The views aren’t the finest you’ll see but it does elevate you from the bustle of Dalston Junction and afford a closer view of the unappealing buildings on top of the new Overground station. The gardens also regularly host film nights and other events. Tends to close during inclement weather.

Frank’s Campari Bar

Perched atop the multi-story car park in Peckham, Frank’s has been drawing the crowds south to Peckham for the past four years. The view is one of the best of London from the south. Skip the so-so art that populates the rest of the car park and enjoy a Negroni or two as the sun sets. The bar re-opens 30 June 2013.

Coq d’Argent

Set in the heart of the Square Mile, atop the postmodern erection that is One Poultry, Coq d’Argent continues the building’s playfulness with a rooftop terrace covered with a manicured lawn and rotund boluses that make it look like a golf course designed by James Stirling.

Queen of Hoxton

A rare all-year rooftop bar (they string up a wigwam during the winter months), come summer the Queen of Hoxton throws off its carapace and draws a mixed crowd of Shoreditch funsters and Square Mile suits to enjoy the rays. They also do a film season. The rooftop opens 11 May, from 12pm – 10pm.

Reader recommendations:

Platform Bar, London Fields

Madison, One New Change

Vista, Trafalgar Square

South Place Hotel, Moorgate

Hanging out in the kitchen at parties, besides being an oddly catchy tune, is strategic social genius. You’re close to the booze, fags (and gas hobs to light them off) and chatty types/person you fancy. It was only a matter of time before Kitchen Party came along and stretched this out over three floors.

A new dining concept, starting from tonight, crams some of London’s culinary whizz kids, designers and entrepreneurs into one airy light building in Exmouth Market, Farringdon, in separate rooms – leaving you free to pick which gathering to attend, in a house full of mini ‘kitchen parties’, safe in the knowledge you’re not missing out on anything.

The rolling programme changes every four to six weeks, and so far the line up over May and June is looking mighty tasty:

Idiosyncratic food designers Blanch and Shock will be serving up a four-course fresh and seasonal British menu (£36), full of bread, butter, meats, cheese and delectable florae. And milkshakes. Hmmm.

Meandering booze jockeys The Fourth Wall recreate the aesthetic of Bourne & Hollingsworth Fitzrovia’s venue, with an array of cocktails (£8-£10), in a 20s living room style set-up.

Sit around with Rack & Ruin, and everyone else, around an open grill, tuck into some medieval-era style meats, dandelion and nettle. The smoke fest will be three-courses (£25).

For fans of the experimental, The Robin Collective, who are classed as ‘food futurologists’, present a fully immersive workshop experience in Extreme Garnishing (£15). Past antics have included edible terrariums and a colour-changing cocktail.

The team behind Mile High recreates the underground restaurants of the Soviet 1920s, with food, theatre and cabaret at Russian Revels (£45).

Edible installations, performances, cabaret, secret spies and communal tables where you can squeeze in next to the BBQ sauce-slathered-patrons. In one building. We assume they’ll be writing a lot of ‘sorry if we kept you up last night’ notes to the neighbours.

Kitchen Party is at 42 Northampton Road London EC1R 0HU. Thursday – 6pm – 12.30am – Friday and Saturday, 6pm – 2am.

Having spent the past couple of years carting a mobile oven around London’s street markets, pizza purveyors Homeslice have followed the well established trend and set up their first bricks and mortar restaurant.

Operating out of 50-seater place in Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, Homeslice sells Neopolitan-style pizza by the slice for £4, or whole 20″ pizzas for £20. Choices on our visit included a classic margherita, bone marrow, spring onion & watercress and white anchovy & chard, all cooked in a vast wood-fired oven in the restaurant’s open kitchen.

We went for a slice of the sopressata (a type of salami) & rocket, and another of courgette & artichoke. The slices were  generous, and the toppings applied liberally; in fact so laden was the latter slice that the base succumbed to the inevitable and crumbled under the weight. Messy it may be, but this is seriously good pizza, packed with taste and texture, and among the best you’ll find in London.

The only criticism is that Homeslice have slid their prices up from the street market days, when it was £3 for a slice or fiver for two. Understandable perhaps, particularly when the overheads of a proper restaurant come into play. Oh, and while it was relatively quiet on our visit –  a clientèle of friends, family and Twitter foodies being the early visitors — we expect it to get very busy once word gets out.

Homeslice is at 13 Neal’s Yard, WC2H 9DP. It’s open  12pm-11pm Monday to Saturday, 12pm-6pm Sunday.Follow them on Twitter @HomesliceLDN

More lunch reviews

Disclaimer: We review anonymously and pay for all our meals / drinks.

Sunset from the Shard. Photo Chic*ka

This week the first restaurant in The Shard will open to the public. Oblix, on the tower’s 32nd floor, is a “New York style contemporary rotisserie and grill”, has been developed by the German Rainer Becker and Arjun Waney, the men behind Zuma and Roka. As one might expect from such a high profile building the restaurant is a luxe affair, and boasts London’s first “interactive sommelier station”. Comprising a restaurant and bar lounge, it opens on 7 May. We haven’t spied the menu, but in an interview with Bloomberg Becker said that diners would typically pay between £60 and £80 per person.

Oblix won’t be the only restaurant in the tower for long. Later in the year, Aqua London, a modern British restaurant, will open on the 31st floor, while Hutong, a variant of a popular Hong Kong restaurant, will take the 33rd floor. If that doesn’t appeal, the Shangri-La hotel, which opens in the summer, will sport a cocktail bar.

The new openings will give another reason to visit the building, which has thus far been little more than a pricey viewing platform. Though if you thought that a quick trip up to the restaurants would be cheap alternative to to the £25 View from the Shard tickets, be warned: a cover charge will be levied against any visitors to the 31st floor atrium, which can be offset against a meal.

Elsewhere, much of the building remains empty, although the first office tenant recently put pen to paper.

Photo / Chic*ka

The sun is shining and the beers are on tap — go get ‘em, boys and girls. If we’ve missed any festivals please let us know in the comments!

3-6 May

The Red Lion, Isleworth. More than 50 ales, ciders and perries are available at the May bank holiday festival.

The Alma, Canonbury. Twenty ciders and perries are available at the pub’s cider celebration, which also features live music and DJs.

9-13 May

The Kia Oval, Oval. Combine cricket and beer at this five-day festival, which boasts more than 50 beers and ciders. Tickets to watch Surrey’s matches and enjoy the beer selection start at £10 when bought in advance (or £5 for CAMRA members), check out the festival poster for full details.

9-16 May

The Green Man, Paddington. The newly-refurbished pub is celebrating with a beer festival that offers 10 real ales as well as many more bottled craft beers.

11-12 May

The Lamb, Surbiton. As part of the Surbiton beer festival, the Lamb will be offering 16 beers and ciders between 12-5pm on both days.

17-18 May

The Kingston Beer and Cider Festival, Kingston Working Men’s Club. The 14th incarnation of this festival celebrates the 150th anniversary of Kingston station’s opening. Over 50 ales, 12 ciders and perries, food and outdoor drinking spaces are available. Entry is free until 4pm on Friday, thereafter admission prices vary — see the website for full details.

Brewery Tap opening, By the Horns Brewing Co, Earlsfield.  The south London brewery is opening a new bar, and to celebrate it’s holding a mini festival that features seven of its beers. There will also be beer offers, a BBQ and tasting opportunities, and the festival is open from 6pm on Friday and 12pm on Saturday.

17-19 May

The Forester, Ealing. The pub’s second beer festival features a variety of guest ales from around the country. Entertainment varies from live music and a craft market on Saturday to a quiz on Sunday, and food options include Saturday’s hog roast and the Sunday carvery.

24-27 May

Windsor Castle, Carshalton. Real ales, ciders and barbecue food are on offer at this bank holiday festival, which also features live entertainment throughout the weekend.

Buy the Londonist book of London pub crawls for less than the price of a pint.

Photo by Emily Webber via Flickr

The super-floral Churchill Arms, our winner. Image by Stephskimo in the Londonist Flickr pool.

Part ‘N’ of our alphabetical pub crawl.

We asked you to nominate the best pubs and bars in the Notting Hill area. Here are the results, see below for the pub crawl route:

1. The Churchill Arms, 59 votes
2. The Windsor Castle, 35 votes
3. The Elgin, 20 votes
4. The Cow, 8 votes
=5. The Mall Tavern, 7 votes
=5. The Uxbridge Arms, 7 votes
=7. The Castle, 6 votes
=7. The Westbourne, 6 votes
=7. Portobello Gold, 6 votes
=10. The Champion, 5 votes
=10. The Cock and Bottle, 5 votes

The map below shows where the votes went. Green dotted markers show the top four pubs, which will form our pub crawl. The rest of the top 10 are shown in yellow, while all other nominations are in red. (Note: a red pub doesn’t mean it’s a bad pub…in each case, at least one person thought this was the best, and some might be little-known or on the fringes of the area.)

View Best pubs in Notting Hill in a larger map

Our pubcrawl round the top four will take place on Tuesday 28 May 2013 (the day after the Bank Holiday). Here’s where we’ll go (approx 1.75 miles)…

6.30pm The Churchill Arms
7.30pm The Windsor Castle
8.30pm The Elgin
9.30pm The Cow

Would you like to join us? Email matt@londonist.com, so we can keep an eye on numbers.

The A-Z pub crawl

• A = Angel
• B = Brixton
• C = City of London 
• D = Dalston
• E = Euston
• F = Farringdon and Clerkenwell
• G = Greenwich
• H = Hampstead and Highgate
• I = Isle of Dogs
• J = St James’s and Mayfair
• K = Kennington 
• L = Limehouse and Wapping
• M = Marylebone 

It’s got a relaxed and eclectic interior, with a partial glass façade, mismatched decor, books everywhere, acoustic music and plenty of seating. On a weekday night, it’s quite full with a range of people. There’s mainly students making use of the free wifi, couples catching up and a few just chilling with a book.

There’s a good range of homemade food and drinks at prices you rarely come across in London, as well as halal options. It’s £1.60 for a pot of tea and £4.50 for a vegetable lasagne. They do everything from cakes and healthy snacks, like carrot and hummus, to breakfast and dinner.

While it’s not obvious to those briefly visiting, Departure is run by Christian organisation London City Mission, who aim to provide a safe space for people to meet others.

As 45% of the local population are immigrants, one important function they run is the informal and free English lessons. Another major aim is to support local art. They have a gallery area in the café with paintings by local artists, with the previous series from The Limehouse Group – those who attended classes here. Also, they’ve recently started a new programme called Husk that focuses on graduate work and is run ‘by artists for artists’.

At a first glance, you might think it fits in with the arty cafes popping up in the East End’s steady wave of gentrification. However, it’s clear when you talk to someone a little or do some research into the organisation that they’re trying to make a difference through providing a place where people can connect, experience something new and learn interesting skills.

By Amanda Simms

Find Departure at 649-651 Commercial Road, Limehouse, London, E14 7LW.

Mariachi band. Photo by Pallab Seth

Such is Mexico’s reverence for its heritage and love for a good party that they have three pretty big national holidays: Independence Day in September, Day of the Dead in October and Cinco de Mayo on (obviously) 5 May, which commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862, in which Mexico’s underdog army overran the occupying French forces.

Here’s some ideas on how to celebrate it in London. If we’ve missed anything, drop it into the comments.

We’ve already mentioned the Mexican-themed Cantina de Cuervo at Callooh Callay. They’re hosting a big ol’ Cinco de Mayo party this Sunday, featuring “everything awesome in the world (Mexico), ever, under one roof”. Booking required.

Lupita East on Commercial Street hosts a Cinco de Mayo Brunch Celebration and Afterparty from 12.30-6pm. Reserve a table by emailing east@lupita.co.uk

Over at Roxx London in Notting Hill pop-up dining group Fat Cheeks are hosting a Battle of the Senses. £30 gets you eight small courses throughout the event, before the Latin Dub Soundsystem cranks into gear and has everybody working off the calories. Tickets here.

Mariachi Mexteca, the band seen covering Eighties classics in those Doritos commercials, will perform at the Cinco de Mayo party at Amathus Drinks in Soho on Sunday. There will also be a tequila tasting and offers in-store. From 4pm.

Benito’s Hat are cooking up pozole (a Mexican broth) and tamales throughout the weekend. Follow them on Twitter @BenitosChat and they’ll be handing out prizes each day.

Cantina Laredo in Covent Garden are hosting a tequila masterclass on Saturday 4 May at 1.30, with representatives from the Herradura group on hand to guide customers through the world of blanco, reposado and añejo tequila. Tickets cost £25 and the tasting includes Mexican canapes. They’ll also have the aforementioned Mariachi Mexteca in over the weekend for a bit of horn-tooting.

Islington’s Barrio North hosts a Cinco de Mayo party from 8pm – 3am, with a live mariachi performance alongside Latin-themed DJ sets. They’re also promising £5 margaritas for anybody “with a moustache or in Mexican dress”. 8pm-3am, free entry.

If you prefer to keep things closer to home and are near Borough Market, then head down to the Cool Chile stall where they’re selling Cinco de Mayo cookery kits for £10. As of this afternoon they only have ten left, so make it quick.

Finally on this Mexican tip: if you didn’t see it earlier this week, Picky Glutton has reviewed nearly every burrito and taco in London in a single, mammoth article. Hungry yet?

Photo / Pallab Seth

The 14th Guest, Jonty Hurwitz. Courtesy Old Street Gallery, Photo: Niina Keks

Kaspar’s Seafood Bar & Grill opens at the Savoy today, but who is Kaspar and what is his association with the hotel that merits having a restaurant named after him?

The story starts in 1898 when a party of 14 was due to dine at the Savoy; however, one person pulled out and they were left with 13. One very superstitious guest made the macabre prediction that death would befall the first person to leave this table. The host of the dinner and South African diamond magnate Woolf Joel was not one to pay much attention to superstition, so he took the gamble and left the table first only to wind up shot dead a few weeks later.

The Savoy clearly didn’t want any future parties of 13 experiencing similar tragedies and insisted that all such parties must have a 14th guest. Initially it was a member of staff but they eventually arrived at a less awkward solution by commissioning a sculpture of a black cat who would sit at the table and ward off bad luck, named Kaspar.

To mark the restaurant’s opening, they’ve commissioned artist Jonty Hurwitz to create a sculpture as an homage to the legend of Kaspar. We came across Hurwitz’s work at the Kinetica Art Fair earlier this year and were mesmerised by his sculptures. He uses 3D printing and mathematics to create stretched out shapes that seem abstract at first, yet snap into focus when reflected in a metal cylinder.

The restaurant itself is also worth seeing as it’s magnificently designed and the light fittings in the central bar are particularly impressive. As for the food, it’s both of a quality and a price you would expect with the Savoy. Though we recommend the selection of cured fish with the peppered monkfish a stand out choice.

On your way out, make sure to spend some time with the vast panorama of the Thames by David Downes in the lobby. It commemorates the Diamond Jubilee flotilla and was painted from the roof of the Savoy.

Image by Jennyfer Vigue in the Londonist Flickr pool.

Part ‘N’ of our two year mission to visit the best London pubs, alphabetically.

So, we’re up to part N, and there was only really one choice: Notting Hill. (What do you mean ‘Northolt’?) As ever, we’d like you to vote for your favourite pubs or bars, and we’ll put together a pub crawl round the top few. NOTE: Don’t limit your votes to the centre of Notting Hill — anything within a reasonable distance for a pub crawl can be considered, including Bayswater and Ladbroke Grove.

Here’s how to play:

1. Let us know (in the comments below, on Facebook, or by tweeting #bestNottingHillPub) your favourite pubs in the area.
2. We’ll tally up the votes in a couple of days.
3. We’ll then arrange a pub crawl around the four most popular choices. You’re welcome to join us.
4. As mentioned above, the definition of what’s Notting Hill and what’s Bayswater/Holland Park/Ladbroke Grove is up to you. Feel free to nominate places in these areas if you genuinely think they’re worth visiting.
5. By ‘pubs’, we’re using a shorthand — you can also vote for bars.
6. You can nominate more than one place. All nominations count as one vote, whether you rank them or not. Likes on Facebook and retweets of someone else’s vote are also counted as new votes.
7. Venues should be open to the public with no pre-booking, entry fee or membership required.

So, where shall we go?

The A-Z pub crawl

• A = Angel
• B = Brixton
• C = City of London 
• D = Dalston
• E = Euston
• F = Farringdon and Clerkenwell
• G = Greenwich
• H = Hampstead and Highgate
• I = Isle of Dogs
• J = St James’s and Mayfair
• K = Kennington and Oval
• L = Limehouse and Wapping
• M = Marylebone
• N = Notting Hill

Get the Londonist Book of London Pub Crawls for less than the price of a pint.

Remember the soul crushing disappointment of adulthood? Discovering that having sweets for dinner, like a spag-bol made of strawberry laces, wasn’t the done thing*? Well, screw that, because you can have a whole three course dinner of dessert. And who’s going to stop you? Exactly. The pop-up returns fortnightly on Friday and Saturday evenings at Allpress Espresso in Shoreditch.

This is no vanilla affair. Presiding chef Farokh Talati, formerly of The Fat Duck & Mugaritz, whips up dishes such as ”Dark chocolate & whiskey dome, cherries, oak & salted vanilla toffee”.

And for the (ir)responsible grown up in you, there will be cocktails. Of course.

After Hours are now taking Bookings for 10-11 and 24-25 May at Allpress Espresso, between 7.30pm and 10.30pm each night. £20 for three courses of dessert (choose your favourites from the menu), Allpress coffee & petit fours. To make a reservation please email pete@afterhoursdessert.com or call 07835107570.

*Although Bailey’s on weetabix, when you’re ‘out of milk’, is generally considered acceptable when you’re a student.

After the roaring success of their previous al fresco efforts, in addition to the Food Through The Ages event at The Geffrye Museum, Funthyme return to serve up a three-course ‘family style’ feast, including a BBQ’d dish. The menu is ever-changing, and every month different options will be available with the seasons. Many of the ingredients will be sourced from the farm itself.

Given the unpredictable ‘charm’ of our weather, there will be a newly installed yurt, should it be needed.

Which it will be.

Funthyme at Spitalfields City Farm, Buxton Street, London E1 5AR, 7pm–10.30pm. £30 per person, BYOB (ice bucket provided).  Tickets are still available For Wednesday 15 May. Go to the website to book for  24, 25 and 27 July. June is sold out, but you can e-mail to get on the wait list.

(c) The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2013.

The debates have started, the controversies have appeared and the arguments will go on for the best part of the year. Yes, the annual ‘Wold’s 50 Best Restaurants’ list was revealed during a glittering ceremony at the Guildhall last night. Two London restaurants made it to the list: The Ledbury moved up a place to number 13, and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal rose two places to number 7. The number one spot went to Girona’s El Celler De Can Roca, and second place was claimed by Copenhagen’s Noma — last year’s winner.

The ‘World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ was launched in 2002 by Restaurant magazine as a publicity stunt. Since then, the awards have grown in stature and are widely anticipated each year. The list is compiled by over 900 well-travelled restaurant experts around the world, including food writers, chefs and restaurateurs. Organised by William Reed media, the awards are not really meant to be definitive, but rather “an annual snapshot” and “an honourable survey of current tastes”.

This is how they work: the entire world is divided up into 26 regions that represent the international dining scene. Each region comprises a panel of 36 judges, including a regional chair, and every member has 7 votes – at least 3 of which must be given to restaurants outside their region. The panel changes a little bit each year. UK and Ireland has several well-known London judges, though they wish to remain anonymous.

Voting is strictly confidential, and the judges must have eaten in the restaurant in the last 18 months. They must not have any association with the venues they’re voting for. There’s no set criteria: it doesn’t matter whether the restaurant is famous or obscure, small or large, family-run or Michelin-starred, as long as the food is delicious and exciting.

Brett Graham, head chef at The Ledbury, said after the ceremony that the award means a lot to him: “It’s a great recognition for the team, especially as it’s such a young team, and also for the two fabulous business partners.” When asked what makes the Ledbury quintessentially ‘London’, the young Australian chef said it was a combination of “the Notting Hill location, the English countryside décor and the use of English ingredients.”

Several other London venues made it onto the 50 to 100 list (which is published alongside the 50 Best list): Pollen Street Social came in at number 84, St John at 71, Hedone at 70, and Viajante at 59 – all of which are widely acclaimed and must-visit foodie destinations. For a single city to have so many restaurants on the ‘world’s best’ list is truly astonishing. As talk turned at the after-party about which is the best city in the world to dine out in, it was clear that London has a lot to celebrate.

What do you think of the ‘World’s 50 Best’ awards? Which are YOUR best London restaurants? Have they made it onto the list? Which restaurants would you like to see on next year’s list? Tell us in the comment box below.

By Sejal Sukhadwala

Hoxton Street should probably better known, and not only for the fact that it’s where the video for The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony was shot. Despite running through the middle of Hoxton it has largely escaped the changes that have swept through the area in the past 15 years. That may no longer be the case, if the appearance of coffee shops like Embassy East are anything to go by.

At the northern end of the street, in a unit that formerly belonged to the Alternative Therapy Centre, Embassy East is owned by two former employees of Flat White, the Soho establishment arguably responsible for the ever-expanding number of great coffee shops in London. Inside, it’s much as you’d expect from folk with that pedigree: exposed brick, a small kitchen area in the back, a simple menu (choose from one of three sizes for your coffee) and a wooden bench in the window. The coffee, from Workshop in Clerkenwell, is predictably great, and the cafe had a palpable buzz, filling up quickly on the Sunday morning we visited.

Most of the cafe’s denizens were the type of folk you’d see at any other Shoreditch watering hole, a contrast from the  working-class types who live on the local estates. Whether the latter will be willing to fork out the cash for expensive, if lovingly prepared, coffee is debatable, but Hoxton Street’s relative anonymity is slowly coming to an end.

Embassy East is at 285 Hoxton Street, N1 5JX. Follow them on Twitter @EmbassyEast.

Bursting with love for all things of the decade — including the loo speaker system, which blasts out Mrs T’s famous speeches — the venue is hosting a kitschy night to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the film ‘Cocktail’ on Thursday 23 May.

This celebration of cocktails and (largely unfulfilled) dreams sees the launch of the LED table menus, featuring new tipples, such as the ‘Razzy Cointreaupolitan’ with a berry heavy edge, and the ever-popular ‘Brandy Alexander’ served with marshmallow and brandy snaps. Old school classics like Babycham and pina coladas are also on offer, and provided by staff styled as Tom Cruise’s character Brian Flanagan. We’ve yet to confirm the look-alike factor though, as all our enquires have so far been met with ‘we don’t quite know’ and ‘please stop calling us’.

Turn up early like an uber-keeno before 11pm, and you’ll be able to join in on a special tasting session of sharer cocktails, such as the ‘Wall Street Martini’ and the ‘Maggie’s Head’, which is served in a mug blessed with the former PMs countenance.

We do, however, have to shatter the myth doing the rounds that you must have been born during the magical 80s to gain entrance to the bar. This is not true, as logically speaking, they’d be limiting their clientele somewhat. So for all you 30 year olds and over, the next time you accidentally engage with a super-perky, over-achiever 10 years your junior, you can’t shake them off by drowning your sorrows here. Although we’ve clearly just spotted a gap in the market.

We’ll see you in there.

Cruise’s Cocktail Party at Maggie’s, Thursday 23rd May 201, From 10pm–late. 329 Fulham Road, London, SW10 9QL

Some cakes, pictured recently

Station Road will hope to take some of the attention away from Brixton Village and Granville Market tomorrow when they host the second Brixton Bake-Off.

Dozens of cakemakers will be baking their best efforts and bringing them along for sweet-toothed Brixtonians to sample. The event runs from 10am to 5pm, with a winner garlanded around 2.30pm. Much like last year’s inaugural bake-off, the comestibles on offer will be judged across a range of categories, including cakes,  bread, savouries and vegan. Among the judges this year are the mayor of Lambeth, the MD of Patisserie Valerie and Levi Roots.

Given the rapturous reception her passing caused ’round these parts, we’ll be surprised if at least one person hasn’t baked a cake resembling Maggie Thatcher.

Brixton Bake-Off, Saturday 27 April, 10am-5pm. On Station Road, Brixton.

Photo: Tanya B

Ceviche at Ceviche, Soho

Ceviche has been among the most popular of recent London food fads, and it hasn’t ever really disappeared, which is great news as it’s a terrific dish when done well.

Señor Ceviche (probably not his real name) was one of last year’s star turns, and in May he returns to London with a short residency at the Imperial Arms in Fulham. The sum of £25 will get you a four course menu of Peruvian food, including confit duck lollipops, chicken anticuchos (skewered meat) and, inevitably, several varieties of ceviche. Here’s the full menu. Drinks cost extra (£7 for a cocktail, £3.50 for a beer).

The pop-up is on 3, 9, 16 and 23 May; to book a place, email info@snrceviche.co.uk or call 07540 624255.

The Peruvian theme continues over in Clapton with Pisco Fuego, a Latin-tinged “drinking and dining experience”. The event is held on 17 and 18 May at The Depot on Upper Clapton Road. Tickets are limited to 30 each night, and cost £40, which comprises a seven course meal and a cocktail on entry.

The festival of whiskey sipping, pulled pork consuming, apple bobbing, toy horse racing, cocktail mixing and relentless face-stuffing is set to take place on Saturday 4 May, and pets, kids and hobby horses fashioned out of brooms are most welcome.

This is the second Man vs Food venture the venue has hosted, where brave (or hungry) contenders consume as much pulled pork as possible in 2 minutes, which set to kick off at 3pm.  To wash down all that swine, Tom Vernon, Woodford Reserve brand ambassador, will be conducting whisky master classes throughout the day.

Entry to the hoggy hotbed is £20, and includes a keepsake customised hip flask, a Horses Neck cocktail, plus tangible prizes for the food challenge winner in addition to their bragging rights. There’s an ultra altruistic element too, as all proceeds will go to Heros Charity which helps retired and injured racing horses.

The meaty eatery livens up Curtain Road at regular intervals, having already thrown a pancake day extravaganza earlier this year, and a piggy beer fest for New Year’s, so they’re pretty much the perfect neighbours* for fun. Pass us the pork.

*Pun resisted. Oh yes. Think we’ll go treat ourselves to a pint for that.

Beard to Tail, 77 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3BS. You must register by email to take part. Oink.

Photo from Beard to Tail’s Facebook page, with permission. 

For those with a penchant for the well-hidden basement bar, Bart’s Speakeasy is honouring the Chelsea Flower Show, which happens to be just down the road, from 21-25 May.

Celebrations are best when there’s booze thrown in, so bar manager Vincenzo Sibilia has rolled up his sleeves and created ‘the Chelsea Flower’, Grey Goose vodka infused in-house with lavender, with peach liquor and jasmine essence. The floral martini is garnished with even more lavender: undoubtedly an alcoholic elixir for those who loved Parma Violets in childhood.

In addition, the Cuban garden sees a welcome return (as will the sun), where you can converse among the plants (or with, we heard it makes them grow). The Fancy dress box will be packed with hippy garb, under the theme of ‘flower power’, for when you’re too inebriated to care that you look like the bastard child of John Lennon and Janis Joplin.

Bart’s Speakeasy, Chelsea Cloisters, 87 Sloane Ave, London, Greater London SW3 3DW

Opening Hours: Monday-Thursday: 6pm-12.30am, Friday-Saturday: 6pm-1.30am, Sunday: 5pm-11pm

One of the pleasing things about the growing London independent coffee milieu is the range of different cafés we’re now welcoming. While much of east London continues its evolution into the European cousin of Brooklyn, with coffeehouses full of reclaimed furniture, natty prints and bundles of charm, out west they’re going for a slightly more refined and elegant vibe, as we saw last week with the Monocle café and, now, Talkhouse Coffee.

Located on Portobello Road near the Westway, Talkhouse sports a simple menu: choose from an espresso, or an espresso with milk in one of three sizes. They also pour filter coffees through the increasingly popular Aeropress machines. The beans are sourced from Workshop and Square Mile (a Colombian espresso was the favourite on our trip), and the drinks are prepared on a long wooden brew bar, which matches the café’s minimalist, Scandinavian-chic décor. It’s also the kind of place where they’ll bring a carafe of tapwater to your table without even asking. Coffees range around the £2.50 mark, and there are tea and cakes available.

Overall, it’s among the best coffee you’ll find in the area, in an elegant setting, and hence well worth an hour or two of your time.

For a sweet-toothed, and decidedly more fun, twist on the traditional wine and cheese pairing, jump on a narrow boat, take your place at a candle-lit long table and unashamedly indulge five courses of cakes and complimenting cocktails. The sweet sailing comes courtesy of ambitious liqueur mixers Alchemist Dreams, working in collaboration with Drop Dead Bread, who provide the sweet treats.

Your vessel, the Lady A, will wind its way along the canal from Paddington, through the idyllic Little Venice until it reaches Camden Lock…where you’ll turn around and do it all again. Because if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing twice.

They’ve even got the typical British weather covered, with onboard heaters, blankets and a clear canopy, should it be needed.

The event sets sail on 9 May and has proved so popular (read: it’s already sold out*, slowpokes) that they’ve added an extra date, on 10 May, with a handful of tickets still available.

Tickets for the Cake & Cocktails Cruise are £65 per head including five cakes, five drinks and a scenic cruise. Tickets are available from Ticketscript and subject to a booking fee.

*Except for one, we’re told. We are yet to confirm if the tickets are made of rice paper. If you happen to stick it in your mouth, let us know.

Behind the doors of Soho -- 57 Greek St

This Friday, the Steve Coogan/Michael Winterbottom film ‘The Look of Love’ opens across London. It tells the controversial rags-to-riches story of porn baron Paul Raymond, the ‘King of Soho’, whose W1-based entertainment and property empire made him a billionaire. We took a tour of Soho to see the places that feature in the film, or that were important in Raymond’s life.

Paul Raymond (formerly Geoffrey Quinn) came to London after a less-than-stellar early career as a Clacton Pier mind-reading act. He pulled every trick in the book to dodge National Service, and ended up touring shows. Striptease was illegal, but he recognised how profit could flow if ‘sexy’ could be made glamorous and respectable. In 1958 he found a way — opening the Raymond Revuebar in Soho’s Walkers Court as a private club, with naked women on stage who stayed physically still, but who were moved through creative use of pedestals, hanging ropes and hand-held fans. This was a technique perfected years before at the Windmill Theatre, which had mixed comedy shows with revues of naked still women. The Lord Chamberlain (then the censor of London theatre) had been convinced that naked tableaux were not obscene, based on the logic that statues could not be morally objectionable: “If you move, it’s rude.”

Membership for the Raymond Revuebar was available on the door, and quickly soared to nearly 50,000 — actors, politicians, journalists and much of the establishment all came to see the acts, which included a woman with strategically-placed tassel-bells that audience members could ring. The Ding Dong Girl would later be cited in a judge’s chastisement that the place was disorderly — and furthermore was “filthy, disgusting and beastly”. In the Telegraph’s obituary of Raymond, the opening of the Revuebar was cited as the moment that Britain’s moral decline began. It sniffed that Raymond was a “louche and unhealthy man of vulgar tastes, though he wears good suits”. We think he would have liked this description.

View The Soho of Paul Raymond in a larger map

The Maison Bertaux patisserie on nearby Greek Street features in one scene of the film, which is a perfect excuse to grab something louche, unhealthy but of better taste — which, as always, are made in the kitchen upstairs. Wolfing our chocolate profiterole cake as we walk up the street, we come across the fashionable L’Escargot restaurant. Trendy in Raymond’s time, its name refers to its establishment in 1927 when the owner grew snails in the basement — the only fresh snails served in the capital. Further up the street is the New Evaristo Club, which was typical of members bars Raymond would frequent — hard to find; a respectable ’57 Greek Street’ front door; an almost illegible faded/scratched-off buzzer button; and if the door was open, this meant the members’ bar down the rickety stairs was also open for business.

Looping across the bottom of Soho Square through to Berwick Street Market, it’s worthwhile pointing out that this area became a market organically. There was no official permit — it just grew up, no one minded and so it stayed. This was also the area of Soho workshops, where many Saville Row suits were actually made before heading west to Mayfair. This caused scandal in the Pall Mall Gazette a century ago, when the Duke of York’s trousers were discovered to have been made in a sweatshop full of typhoid. We don’t know where Paul Raymond’s nice suits originated, but it may well have been from around here.

One person’s moral decline is the next person’s social progress — and over the years, Raymond’s activities became more and more risqué, which you could argue drove or tracked society’s fast-changing attitudes. He certainly had a sense of what was popular and almost always knew how far to push the law. In 1958, his Raymond Revuebar had a regular Sunday gay club night — a Gay Revue — at a time when homosexuality was still very much illegal. The Wolfenden Report had only just been published, and it would be almost a decade before decriminalisation happened in 1967. Oh — and he discovered Larry Grayson, giving him his first break. In 1974, Raymond took over the Windmill Theatre itself, restoring it from a cinema to its original revue shows — but this time without the comedy. Rescuing the venue meant it lived up not only to its famous war-time motto “We Never Closed”, but also the equally accurate alternative “We Never Clothed”.

As the King of Soho bought more and more property, he got richer and richer — especially when property values rocketed. He was a supporter of Margaret Thatcher, but his political antenna correctly judged he could not donate his ill-gotten money to her, nor to the Conservative Party. So instead, he offered to extend his porn magazine’s sponsorship of motor-racing to her son Mark Thatcher. Famously, Mark was ambushed walking out of the Windmill Theatre by the press after a meeting with Raymond. Asked by reporters if he had told his mother about the meeting, he sheepishly replied “She’s on tour”.

Our final stop is to Kettners on Romilly Street, which features in the film in a scene that includes the snorting of some nefarious substance in a toilet. We could never condone such a thing, but would certainly toast Paul Raymond with a Pornstar Martini — a cocktail originally created in Old Compton Street’s Lab Bar, with vanilla vodka, vanilla sugar, passionfruit liquer and a separate shotglass chaser of chilled champagne.

Do explore Raymond’s Soho on your own, and consider how this diverse place created one of the richest men in Britain. When he died, the Telegraph obituary derided him as a man that had “an artificial tan that mummified his skin like cracked toffee, a mane of hair like brittle silver lamé and a smear of moustache”. He was also a man with loose morals and a knack for what sells. His property company Soho Holdings still owns much of W1, and his grand-daughter is the youngest person on the Sunday Times Rich List. His reign as King of Soho for half a century continues to shape one of our favourite areas of the capital.

The Look of Love opens on Friday 26 April — click here for cinemas and showtimes. Londonist wandered Soho with Westminster guide Peter Berthoud. Image is author’s own

Coffee houses are the new pubs, reckon some folk. There’s no better example of the pivot from shandy to soy latte than the London Coffee Festival, which once again rocks up at the now-dry Truman Brewery from 25-28 April.

Coffee is big business (£6bn a year nationally) and the festival reflects what a significant presence it has become on the streets of the capital in recent years. Split across eight ‘zones’, the festival encompasses  tasting sessions, demonstrations from some of the world’s leading baristas, competitions, music, street food et al.

‘Cafficionados’ (not a word we’ve made up, more’s the pity) will be particularly attracted to the True Artisan Cafe, where “bespoke coffee and cocktails” and a chance to parlay with some of the country’s Marzocco maestros. Elsewhere, L’Accademia di Cimbali looks interesting: it will showcase historic Italian espresso machines and brew the coffees of yesteryear.

Tickets to the festival start from £9.50 in advance.

Photo / Kim Clicks

A Beirut-based restaurant that steers clear of traditional Lebanese cuisine to offer a very American dining experience, BRGR.Co opened its first foreign outlet in December to broadly negative reviews. Now that it’s had a few months to bed in, have things improved?

We chose the 6oz ‘tender blend’ and a side of chips from the menu. Whilst waiting for our food to arrive we perused the placemat, which is covered in verbose text about the art and science of “BRGROLOGY”, which apparently involves the “study of all things BRGR” and takes up to eight years to master (a PhD in the subject requiring twice as long).

After such lofty promises, it was a little surprising to see the curiously flat burger presented to us. The meat was secured between a sorry-looking brioche with a patina of grease brushed on top and what looked like the letter ‘H’ etched into it. Beside it was an arrangement of salad. The burger didn’t taste bad, though nor did it taste particularly great; the meat was decent enough but without a huge amount of flavour, which made all the fancy menu-talk we’d consumed beforehand seem redundant.

The crunchy chips were poor comparable to the sort you’d find in McDonalds but even saltier. They’d also been heated up so much that we’d finished the burger before the chips were even cool enough to touch.

BRGR.co isn’t really too bad. The staff were unfailingly polite, and the atmosphere pleasant. But it’s opened at a time of fierce competition amongst London’s burger-slingers. When you’ve got the excellent Honest Burgers and Slider Bar within a few minutes walk, or the likes of MeatLiquor and Patty & Bun a little further afield, it’s difficult to recommend a so-so experience like this.

A burger + fries (no drink) came to around £11 for one, including service charge.

BRGR.co is at 187 Wardour Street, W1f 8ZB

Disclaimer: We review anonymously and pay for all our meals/drinks.

There’ll be jazz, drinks with a twist and, of course, heaps of jambalaya. Executive Chef James Browne has returned from his travels in the southern states (not that we’re jealous, or anything) and is serving up three variations of the traditional Creole dish, large enough for 2-4 people, or groups of 8-10 if you’re up for recreating the party time feel of America’s most celebration-prone city. Other offerings include baby back ribs, fried chicken and Muffuletta, for the veggies.

It has a limited run, from Tuesday 16 April to Sunday 28 April, so there’s still time to sample some deep fried soft-shell crab and maybe have a tipple or two*.

*If you’re more restrained than us, that is

The Jam Tree Clapham, 13 – 19 Old Town, London SW4 0JT
The Jam Tree Chelsea, 541 Kings Road, London, SW6 2EB

Monocle is a magazine, founded in 2007 by Wallpaper* creator Tyler Brûlé , responsible in its own words for “keeping an eye on the world”. That it does, in a peculiarly stylish way: the title, with its adherence to brand fetishism, an obsession with Japanese and Scandinavian culture and enthusiastic if often clumsy reportage of global affairs, makes it an object easily lampooned (check the @OhMonocle Twitter for examples).

Yet it also inspires envy: the magazine has a healthy readership, and its purview now extends to a 24-hour internet radio station, shops and cafes, of which this newly-opened Marylebone branch is the first in London.

If points were awarded for provenance, Monocle would be leader of the pack. Every facet of the cafe’s design, and its beverages and foodstuffs, has been clearly thought out; even the staff look like they’ve been plucked from one of the magazine’s photo shoots. A recent four page feature in the magazine painstakingly listed where everything is sourced from: mugs from Hasami, furniture from Truck of Osaka, lamps from Manufactum. Meanwhile the Monocle monogram is plastered on everything from napkins to complimentary chocolates, the aforementioned radio station burbles from the speakers, and back issues of the magazine are arrayed throughout. The overall experience is pleasingly absurd: it’s a little like being in the antechamber at the headquarters of a benign, and aesthetically rarefied, cult.

The coffee itself keeps things closer to home — it’s from Allpress on Redchurch St, east London — while the cakes are made by Masayuki Hara of Lanka. Both the coffee and the chocolate roll we enjoyed were excellent, although we got little change from £10 for the pair (a macchiato, brought out on a neat little tray, was £3, the cake £4.90). Then again, this is Marylebone.

Though narrow, the cafe extends far back, with the main area giving way to a small area with armchairs and a TV tuned to CNN. Downstairs there is more seating; this area can also be reserved by Monocle subscribers for meetings or presentations, though as the toilets are also down there it’s hard to imagine how they’ll section it off. Subscriber-only loos? Well, it’s one way to boost your readership.

Monocle Cafe is at 18 Chiltern Street, W1U 7QA. Open Mon-Fri 07.00-16.00, Sat 08.00-16.00, Sun 09.00-15.00.

More of the capital’s great coffee shops on our London Blend map

Disclaimer: We review anonymously and pay for all our meals / drinks.

Formerly a private members’ bar, the Jubjub now hosts a rotating series of “experiential events”. Until 18 May it’s the turn of Cantina de Cuervo, with tequila maker Jose Cuervo doling out Mexican food and drink to the discerning masses. The menu shifts every week of the residency; this week’s (PDF) includes a cocktail named The Suspender Belt, which improbably blends tequila, white cacao, pomegranate syrup, cream, mezcal and dark chocolate into one beverage.

Each week is also themed differently: there’s a special Cinco de Mayo week (around 5 May, naturally), a margarita week and an appearance by Tomas Estes, formerly of Cafe Pacifico and La Perla, who’ll be reading from his book, The Tequila Ambassador, on Tuesday 16 April.

See also:

A Mezcal Bar Crawl Around London

From rooftops to hot-tubs, quirky cinema settings are in abundance (if you can get your hands on some tickets). If you don’t rock the all over ‘prune look’ (especially after Apocalypse Now Redux) or you simply yearn for something a little more swanky, the upmarket Bulgari Hotel & Residences has an celluloid twist on their extravagant Italian Sunday brunch, where a complimentary screening is thrown in afterwards, for free, in their ultra-modern private screening room. Which is considerably better than a crumbly mint. Or a fortune cookie. Especially the ones that lie.

The line up includes an array of classics, new releases and major sporting events:

• 5 May The Great Gatsby
• 12 May Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• 19 May Lawrence of Arabia
• 26 May Back to The Future
• 02 June Annie Hall
• 09 June The Goonies
• 16 June A Hard Day’s Night
• 23 June Man of Steel
• 30 June Formula 1 British Grand Prix & Senna

The brunch itself is buffet and a la carte, Italian style, offering delights such as fresh fruit, hams and cheeses from the homeland and larger dishes such as sea bass carpaccio and aubergine caviar. And of course there’s Limoncello and tiramisu to follow.

It’s a family-friendly and very high-end affair, at £58 (£39 for kiddies) per head, which also includes a cocktail on arrival, and for a supplement of £25 you can help yourself to some free-flowing Moet. Which is definitely a good deal to us. Just be classy about it and don’t bring a funnel. That kind of thing is frowned upon. Apparently.

Bulgari Hotel and Residences, 171 Knightsbridge, City of Westminster, SW7 1DW. For more information see the hotel website.

Following the last instalment of Mile High: Destination Gothenburg at the beginning of the year, the intrepid crew now ventures onward to Beirut, which will be departing 1-4 May, with an inbound trip scheduled 8-11 May.

The ‘secret’ venue is more central this time around, located somewhere on South Regent Street, and will be reminiscent of the 1950s ‘café culture’. We’ve been promised that the long standing and over-familiar shisha pipes and mint teas, as delightful as they are, will not be making an appearance.

As before, guests will ‘check in’, have some pre-flight cocktails, and interact with follow diners and crew ‘on board’. Chef Oliver Templeton is back for this second helping (sorry, couldn’t resist) and flying foodies will be presented with four-courses of authentic, modernised, Eastern dishes such as Smoked Labneh with Sour Cherries, and Rose Water and Pomegranate Jelly.

A host of inflight DJs man the (flight) decks to round off your evening of wilful suspension of disbelief and you ‘may also be lucky enough to have a drink with the captain’. Oh, Fresh.

Wait, so, who’s watching the plane? We are? Awesome.

Mile High will take place in a secret London location. Return tickets cost £65 (Wed to Sat) and includes two cocktails, a four-course meal, and access to the departure lounge and in flight entertainment. Weekend Departure Lounge ticket (Fri and Sat) costs £15 and includes a unique Mile High cocktail and entry to the exclusive Mile High departure lounge. Opens at 9pm. Mid-Week Departure Lounge ticket (Wed and Thurs) – it’s free! Get booking!

Photographs by Chloe Crewe-Read 

There aren’t enough places doing pancakes in London. Not crepes; this isn’t bloody Paris. We mean American-style pancakes, delicious mounds of buttermilk batter slathered in butter and maple syrup. And they’re hard to find (no, McDonalds does not count).

Luckily, there’s now one more place to add to the short list. Australian chef Bill Granger opened his first restaurant outside the Asia-Pacific last year in Notting Hill (but where the others are called Bill’s, this goes under the name Granger & Co, presumably because of the rather similar, but not connected, chain). It’s open all day but we’d heard good things about the pancakes, so we headed there for brunch.

OK: the pancakes aren’t called pancakes. They’re called hotcakes, but they’re still basically pancakes. Fluffy, light, and yet substantial enough to have us gently burping afterwards, they encase a dollop of tangy ricotta to undercut the sugaryness of maple syrup and two rounds of honeycomb butter. Oh, honeycomb butter. We’ve been dreaming of that rich, smooth, sweet honeycomb butter. You also get a banana so you can pretend you’re being healthy. You’re not. You’re eating top quality food, but these hotcakes are not your waistline’s friend. Sod your waistline: when did it ever let you have fun?

We had even more fun with two thick slabs of toasted coconut bread, like coconut macaroons but moist, warm and, well, bready. Hot chocolate is made with Callebaut, liquid chocolate mixed with milk that you can also just lick off the spoon. Our dining companion pronounced the flat white to be fantastic and ordered another cup, but frankly by this point we’d stopped listening and were wondering if it’s possible to marry a foodstuff.

If you prefer your breakfast less sweet, you can get a ‘full Aussie’ or try the scrambled eggs, which have the reputation of being the best in the world. We’re also told that the sweetcorn, tomato, spinach and bacon fritters are to die for. But we’re all about the pancakes.

Granger & Co is at 175 Westbourne Grove, W11. Disclaimer: We review anonymously and pay for all our meals/drinks. Brunch for two with drinks and service came to £40. And we’d like props for writing a whole review about hotcakes without making a ‘going like’ gag.

Tacos from Breddos Tacos

Such is the sheer number of burrito bars and taco vendors clogging up London’s streets, that it’s perhaps inevitable things would turn violent. Fortunately the only shots fired during the Taco Wars are likely to be of tequila.

Organised by the @Tweat_Up Twitter account, which is run by Jonathan Downey, whose Rushmore group owns Milk & Honey, Giant Robot and others, Taco Wars will see some of London’s finest taco purveyors cooking their best at Merchant Yard, in Hackney, with punters encouraged to taste then place a vote on which they like best.

Details of who is taking place are scant at present, but hopefully it’ll include Breddo’s (pictured above), a staple of Netil Market in London Fields and makers of one of the finest tacos we’ve tasted outside of Mexico. We’re also expecting Buen Provecho, Luardos and Wahaca to fetch up.

Tickets go on sale at midday, and cost £35, which includes a belt-troubling 10 tacos and two drinks. Follow @Tweat_Up for more; they’ll be tweeting the link to buy tickets at midday today (11 April). Only 250 are available, so you’ll need to be quick on the draw.

Street food mavens Yum Bun have gone semi-permanent with a new shop just off City Road, near Old Street roundabout. They’ve fetched up in a tiny unit next to a new bar called the Rotary; both will be in place for the next ten months.

Yum Bun has been a fixture on London’s flourishing street food scene for a couple of years now. For the uninitiated, the ‘bun’ in this case is a soft, almost indecently fluffy steamed thing (actually a version of a Taiwanese gua bao), crammed with one of several fillings: on our visit it was pork belly, chicken, mushroom or fish, but they also do beef and salmon.

The highlight was the pork belly. Augmented with sliced cucumber, hoisin sauce and spring onions, this is seriously pleasing comfort food, easily devoured in a few messy bites. There’s pure delight in the balance between the bun’s softness, the cucumber’s crunch, the tang of the hoisin and the succulence of the meat. The veg one was nearly as good, combining portobello mushrooms, cucumbers and a miso glaze to great effect. It’s really one of the best quick-stop lunches we’ve ever had in London.

Each bun is £3.50, or get two for six quid; a £7.50 bento box gets you two buns, a salad, a gyoza a miso soup.

Yum Bun is at 31 Featherstone St, London EC1Y 2BJ. It’s open 11.30-14.00 Mon-Fri, and 17.00-22.00 Thursday through Saturday.

Disclaimer: We review anonymously and pay for all our meals/drinks. 

Food by The Rib Man, photo by Simon-K

This Friday (12 April) sees the return of Street Feast to Dalston.

The wildly popular market was all the rage in E8 last year, so expect the same thing this time round. Some of the traders on the opening Friday include Big Apple Hot Dogs (we’re fans), The Ribman, Bleecker Street Burgers and Anna Maes (full list here). These are probably familiar names if you’re one of the many pilgrims on London’s street food trail, and if you’re not, prepare to become very acquainted.

Another talking point is Ben Spalding, the ex-Roganic chef last seen having a semi-public falling out with the John Salt pub in Islington, which resulted in his widely-acclaimed residency coming to an abrupt ending. He’s returning with Stripped Back, a sit-down dining experience comprising four courses and a drink, for the price of £27.50. Tickets can be booked in advance.

Street Feast is at Merchant Yard, E8 4DL until the end of June. Nearest station: Haggerston.

Photo / Simon-K