London Look
48 hours in London, very food forward itinerary
London has previously seen me as a fifteen year old former One Direction survivor and a twenty year old college student with a more nebulous sense of self. This third time, London saw me able to sculpt my time here with the precision that’s come with age and knowing what I like and want to do.
London feels like a softened, sweeter version of New York. Recognizable archetypes, neighborhoods, transit system, and culture, but smaller, friendlier, and almost quaint (thanks to names like “Piccadilly Circus” that sound straight out of Candyland). I don’t think London is cool in the way New York or Paris is. It’s the Boston of Europe, and I mean that so affectionately. Here’s what I did and what I recommend:
We stayed at The Ned, which is my new favorite hotel and has completed the I-hate-airbnb revolution for me.
The Ned reminded me why people sometimes just don’t leave their hotel on vacation (we did, don’t worry, but I wanted an extra day where I could hole up and not leave). The last time I stayed in a very large nice hotel I was traveling with family, and I’ve grown to associate big luxury hotels with bratty children and pools with waterfalls and buffet breakfasts. The Ned is a big hotel wonderland for adults - it’s a lush, maximalist place that makes you feel like you’re more important than you are, which is what I want to a hotel to make me feel. Chris Black sums it up well, dubbing it a “universe unto itself”:
The Ned is the creation of Nick Jones, founder of the Soho House conglomerate. You can tell that this property is related, because the design and attention to every small detail give it away. But the differences are mercifully all positive, especially when it comes to clientele. Upon entry, due to the sheer size of the place, you feel like you are in Vegas. The Ned is fucking huge, and after sundown, there is a band playing in the lobby. Initially built between 1924 and 1939, the building housed the Midland Bank headquarters until around the millennium. In 2017 it officially reopened as a 252-room hotel and members’ club spanning eight floors above ground and three below. It has nine restaurants, 15 bars, two pools, a spa, a barbershop, a gym, and a Tapestry Room. And yet, somehow, the galleria-level mass scale doesn’t negatively affect the overall experience. As soon as you step off the elevator to go to your room, the live music is gone, and you are in a period-correct ’20s estate. Chandeliers everywhere you look.
The true luxury was in the details - the ~15 different body scrubs, gels, shampoos, and conditioners in the shower, the perfect chocolate/passionfruit/caramel religieuse waiting for us with two tiny dessert spoons after we returned home from dinner the first night, and the complimentary pool, hammam and sauna access we took advantage of on our last day.
After freshening up at the spa (graciously offered as we waited for our room to be ready) and checking in, we did some mandatory department store browsing at Harvey Nichols (where I found and purchased the holy grail Biologique Recherche Masque Vivant, difficult to find stateside!) Department stores in London and Paris are so much better than in New York - they’re stocked with the classics and enable discovery of cool new brands, are democratic and accessible while still feeling special and luxurious, and most importantly don’t feel sad and dated. Galeries Lafayette is my gold standard.
We took the tube to Hammersmith for lunch at The River Cafe, a chef’s favorite restaurant type of institution that trained notables such as April Bloomfield, Jamie Oliver, and Clare de Boer. It’s a white tablecloths place, but the Yves Klein blue carpet and bright pink wood-fire oven add welcome whimsy.
We began with the grilled squid, which was tender and slathered in a sweet-tangy roasted red pepper sauce and served alongside lemony greens. A good dish, but nothing to write home about.
Second was the roast lamb, whose herby goodness and rich umami conjured up Proustian memories of Christmases in the Cotswolds (I have never been to the Cotwsolds. That’s how good this lamb was - it created false memories.)
Dessert was my dream assemblage of sweets: a chocolate nemesis cake with chocolate sorbet and aperol sorbet. Rose Gray, the late chef at the River Cafe, conceived of the nemesis cake as a “sliceable truffle” vs an actual cake, genius. We were definitely the youngest people dining there; I saw two older gentlemen splitting a bottle of red wine over various red meats, a middle school graduation celebration, and what looked like a “meet the parents”. Being there coming off a redeye made it all the more fun and ridiculous. What the hell, sure.
After a cold, refreshing walk along the Thames we headed home to regroup before dinner. I wore an amazing vintage Burberry mini dress (via TheRealReal) over Aritzia trousers with Manolo Blahnik kitten heels I found at Housing Works:
Dinner was at Akub, an upscale Palestinian restaurant in a Notting Hill townhouse. Dim, cozy, but lively and fun. I was excited by the wine list, which featured wines grown in Ramallah and the Galilee Highlands. We were meated-out from lunch, so focused our meal on the many vegetable and legume based small plates, which were warming and clean, spiced but not spicy. Favorites included the beitinjan bil tahinia (eggplant roasted with tahini) and silek siyami (chard stuffed with rice and tomatoes).
After dinner we went to a pub in Notting Hill where the drinks cost what they should in New York ($8 for a glass of wine and $5 for beer, if only). The pub was also playing music people actually wanted to hear (80s throwbacks and 2000s hits) and wasn’t uncomfortably crowded. I’m sad for the state of both regular bars in New York and department stores.
Back at the Ned, we were greeted by a buzzy circa-1920s scene of live music and a hive of people dressed up in the lounge, swaying to the music and imbibing. After martinis and some listening, we explored the subterranean club and lounge in the Ned’s vault and decided to return the following night. This hotel really does everything right - creates an entire universe with a myriad of different sub-worlds within.
Day 2 began in Shoreditch, with a spontaneous visit to Hales Gallery, which was showing Martyn Cross’s Of Oil and Earth. These pieces, while ostensibly playful, to me featured themes of ecological disaster and nuclear holocaust. They felt like a telling of the day after the climate-change driven apocalypse, when the sun rises over a desolate, oozing wasteland. (I really liked the exhibition).
Jolene came highly recommended, disappointed me when my latte was only a hint caffeinated, but delighted me when I took a bite of the orange rosemary olive oil cake. I don’t know if it’s their focus on regenerative ingredients that makes the baked goods so delicious.
We perused a few stores like SeventyFive and UJNG (both very SSENSE / Assembly New York). Two Columbia Road is a sweet vintage home store with a midcentury focus. I loved Record 28 Books, which specializes in the unique/rare/out of print trifecta in regards to fashion, art, photography, and music books. I have to say I wasn’t as taken with Shoreditch as I thought I’d be - it definitely felt like the cool part of the city, but in that sense it was somewhat indistinguishable from what I see going on on the Lower East Side on the weekends, in both business and character.
We went to the adorable Rochelle Canteen for lunch. It is located in the converted old bike shed of a former primary school-turned- art center. It’s tucked away behind the gates of the school so felt like a midday getaway for lunch in a hip British grandmother’s garden. The food is straightforward, leaning modern British/European and reasonably priced. We ordered the celeriac soup to start, which was warming but green, sprightly and fresh. For main, I had the pork chop with mustard sauce, potatoes, and kale, simple in the best way. Dessert was a curious Concord grape sorbet with an amazing flavor but odd texture, but I empathize - it is difficult to make desserts out of grapes. There’s another, better thing to make with grapes, and it starts with w and rhymes with fine.
Hearing British English can be an unsettling experience. We overheard a conversation at lunch that was so uncanny, we felt like we were having a collective breakdown: Phrases that sounded like English but garbled were peppered with barely recognizable bits like “nary absolutely!” I think the uncanniness comes from not only thick accents (these people must’ve been Welsh or Scottish) but the way some words, whose meanings we know, are put together in unintelligible ways: when we went to the Tate Modern museum, there was a huge sign on the wall that said “Clove Hub”. I know what a clove is, and what a hub is, but what do they mean together here? There isn’t a spice vault full of cloves in the Tate, I’ll tell you.
After lunch we shopped at the vintage shops around Brick Lane. I observed that London’s fashion sensibilities feel a few years behind New York’s, at least for mainstream interests: Gen Z shoppers were hungrily descending on dozens of small y2k-aesthetic vintage stores selling corsets, low-rise jeans, and Hysteric Glamour. While I didn’t find much that afternoon, I did really like GOODHOOD and Quatrieme. For men, I saw lots of 2016-Williamsburg style fisherman-sweater and Chelsea boots type stores, as well as vintage Hypebeast stores.
The next stop was the Tate Modern. I particularly loved a gallery that highlighted South Asian and Arab-origin artists’ involvement in the Abstract Expressionist and post-Abstract movement.
For dinner we went to Trishna, a sister restaurant of Gymkhana (I couldn’t get a Gymkhana reservation and am glad I didn’t) - Trishna was outstanding. It’s not dark and sexy, but you can focus on the excellent FOOD and DRINK instead. And you can people watch!
To start we had the coconut-mint scallops and masala fried crab, both shockingly delicious but the masala crab unlike anything else I’ve ever had. The duck seekh kebabs followed - this was one of the best dishes of my life. The duck, just cooked enough to not be tartare, is shaped into a kebab and filled with a tomato emulsion, then topped with a glorious sweet pineapple chutney. A warming cashew and pepper chicken, simple daal, and naan followed. I had a pan leaf negroni and red wine.
After Trishna we went to Cafe Boheme, a British Le Dive if Le Dive didn’t have a stick up its ass. I envy the way other cities are able to have a vivacious, laid back, but still sexy and high-end bar scene without feeling too stuffy (like New York). The main event of the night was in the vault of the Ned, in the club/lounge members space where I saw some things I shouldn’t write here.
We spent our last day holed up in the spa, alternate sauna-ing and swimming. The lounge and locker room areas feel like rooms in a countryside English manor, one where the owners enjoy hunting pheasants and discussing the fall of monarchy. The bathing area feels almost Roman, in the manner of wealth and quiet grandeur, not Ceasar’s Palace.
Our final meal was at Ottolenghi Spitalfields - I’d be in a rut all the time without this man’s cookbooks. I had roasted cauliflower and eggplant and a flaky Middle Eastern phyllo dough pastry filled with sweet Chicken shawarma and nuts. I also made sure to take a date apple cake for the road (read: the plane).
