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ISSUE 03: SPRING 26
How Getting in Became the Key to Going Out. A CITY OF CLOSED DOORS?
The Surreal World of Schiaparelli How Menu Descriptions Became Dining’s New Battlefront
On The Dance Floor With Eastern Margins
Highgate Is Home to One of Estrella Damm’s Top 50 Gastropubs The Red Lion & Sun placed third in the 2026 Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list. It’s easy to see why.
Leafy Highgate, with its Georgian manor houses, gothic cemetery and cosy, traditional pubs, feels more like a village than a London neighbourhood. On the weekend, it buzzes with Londoners who’ve hopped on the Northern line to escape the city. On a Sunday afternoon, you’ll find many of them by the fire at The Red Lion & Sun, with a beer in hand. The privately owned, Grade II-listed pub recently came third in the 2026 Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list, climbing from sixth place in 2025 . Locals would say its success comes down to the team of chefs enlisted by owner Heath Ball, which turns out a regularly changing menu of elevated British pub classics.
Think pies with braised beef cheek, bone marrow and pancetta; pork chops served with spring-onion mashed potatoes; and gnocchi with wild mushrooms and sage. Meat comes from Aubrey Allen, and other quality suppliers include Natoora and Rossmore Oysters. Naturally, the pub boasts a solid selection of beers, including Estrella Damm’s award- winning lager, brewed to the original recipe since 1876 with 100 per cent natural ingredients. Estrella Damm is committed to supporting UK gastronomy and has been proudly sponsoring the Top 50 Gastropubs for more than 10 years, recognising the hard work and talent of the UK gastropub community.
WORTH LEAVING LONDON The Devonshire in Soho topped this year’s list. But venture further out of the city and you’ll find more top 10 spots. It’s British food with an Italian influence at chef-patron and Estrella Damm chef-ambassador Dave Wall’s Michelin Guide-listed country pub, which came second on the list. THE UNRULY PIG, SUFFOLK
THE WOOLPACK INN,
THE STAR INN, HAROME The tasting menu, by Estrella Damm chef-ambassador Andrew Pern, is a highlight at this 14 th century Yorkshire inn. PARKERS ARMS, LANCASHIRE This classic country pub, lovingly restored by owners who took it on in 2007 , is the perfect end to a rural walk, with its roaring fire and dog-friendly stance.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE Stunning Cotswolds views are a big drawcard here, as is the rustic menu long on locally sourced ingredients. THE ANGEL AT HETTON Chef-patron Michael Wignall’s fine- dining restaurant with rooms, located deep in the Yorkshire Dales, earned a Michelin star just a year after it opened in 2018 .
CREDITS
CONTRIBUTORS
CONTENTS
EDITOR’S LETTER
ZING TSJENG
“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” The words of a fictional editor ring in the ears of real-life ones at this time of year. So expect nothing that might irk the soon-to-return Miranda Priestly in this, our spring issue, where we concentrate on green shoots strictly of the proverbial nature. As London’s Lunar New Year celebrations draw to a close, it feels much more like the beginning of something than January ever did. One trend blossoming into full view is the clubbification of hospitality: a litany of new members-only establishments, restaurants with secret Whatsapp numbers and hush-hush, invite- only club nights. We speak to those on the inside about the rise of the city’s new access economy. There are also tales of revival – like that of the gen Z brands bringing fashion back to London factories, the hotel giving new life to Whiteleys shopping centre in Bayswater, and the V & A’s celebration of designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s resurgent legacy. Elsewhere, milliner Stephen Jones, a true London icon, gives us his neighbourhood guide to Covent Garden; the great Richard Corrigan shares his recipe for a St Patrick’s Day sweet treat; and sought-after garden designer Butter Wakefield talks us through her work uniform (not a floral in sight, actually). All that and some seasonal takes from our regular columnists Hannah Crosbie (on why you should be sipping saké), Jimi Famurewa (on our dining scene’s love of the reboot) and Laura Jackson (on a gentler kind of spring-clean). Spring is springing, basically. Time to get out there and enjoy it. Cheers, Richard MacKichan For your daily Broadsheet update, head to broadsheet.com/london and @broadsheet.london, and sign up to our newsletter.
Zing Tsjeng is a columnist at the i , a writer for Vogue (among other titles) and the former editor-in-chief at Vice UK. She also hosts the BBC podcast Good Bad Billionaire , is the author of four books chronicling history’s forgotten women and is a successful broadcaster. Here she takes to the dance floor with Eastern Margins, the club collective championing East and Southeast Asian sounds. Joseph Bullmore is the editor of The Gentleman’s Journal and a writer- at-large for Air Mail . He’s also the co-founder of The Rochambeau Club, the world’s greatest drinks company and fictional tennis club. For this issue, he looks at the contentious art of menu writing and, for our cover story, investigates the new clubbification of London hospitality.
Broadsheet, Australia’s leading independent publisher, has landed in London, the place that first inspired it. Online and in print, we aim to keep you in the loop with the best the city has to offer. We won’t waste your time with anything you don’t need to know about – just the essentials in art and design, fashion and style, food and drink, entertainment, wellness, and travel.
12 Recipe: Richard Corrigan’s honey and stout tart
Founder and publisher Nick Shelton Managing director Sian Whitaker Editorial director Katya Wachtel London editor Sonya Barber Acting London editor Rose Johnstone Commissioning editor Che-Marie Trigg Print editor Richard MacKichan Sub-editor Annie Toller Commercial director AUS Christina Voss Commercial director UK Paul Davison Director of reader revenue Ross Wilmot Creative strategist Luke Innes Advertise For print and online advertising opportunities please email: paul.davison@broadsheet.com Pitching Please send story ideas to Rose Johnstone: rose@broadsheet.com Disclaimer While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publica- tion, it is all subject to change.
Partnerships & operations manager Sian Jones Group brand & design manager Ben Siero Contributing editors Clerkenwell Boy, Jimi Famurewa Writers Ben Olsen, Chiara Wilkinson, Ella Alexander, Gemma Rolls- Bentley, Hannah Crosbie, Hayley Spencer, Joseph Bullmore, Laura Jackson, Madévi Dailly, Rob Nowill, Stephanie Gavan, Zing Tsjeng Photographers Amy Heycock, Greg Funnell, Rob Greig
14 Stephen Jones’s Covent Garden
JOSEPH BULLMORE
17 Spring Saké With Hannah Crosbie
18 The Surreal World of Schiaparelli
ZOË BARKER
Our cover illustration is by Zoë Barker, a British artist whose work, predominantly drawn in pen and colouring pencil, has been commissioned by the likes of the New Yorker , Dior, Harrods and the BBC. She is often inspired by environments and places where people gather and likes to “capture better versions of reality”.
24 Cover Story: Is London a City of Closed Doors?
On the cover: A City of Closed Doors? illustrated by Zoë Barker
London Unit B 8 , First Floor Surrey Street Building, 180 Strand, London WC 2 Instagram: @broadsheet.london www.broadsheet.com/london Melbourne Level 5 , 71 Langridge Street Collingwood 3066 , VIC instagram: @broadsheet_melb Sydney 285 Crown Street, Surry Hills, 2010 , NSW instagram: @broadsheet_syd
29 Jimi Famurewa on Our Appetite for Revivals
ROB NOWILL
As a writer for the likes of GQ , Another Man , Vice and Hypebeast Rob Nowill has covered everything from fashion week to sex parties Based in South London, he divides his time between magazine features and procrastinating over his first novel. Tailoring brand P Johnson is his subject in these pages. (and, perhaps inevitably, the crossover between the two).
34 Gen Z Is Bringing Fashion Back to Our Factories
www.broadsheet.com/london
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WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration
IN DEFENCE OF... The Urban Fox Ignore the “nuisance” narrative, these wily canids represent the best of us, says Madévi Dailly
THREE OF A KIND
Go-To Products for a Spring Refresh
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39 BC FIG MILK BODY OIL CLEANSER — The newest project from beauty mogul Sharmadean Reid, who’s intent on putting a bit of fanfare into the ritual of bathing, is 39 BC. This capsule collection comprises four different fragranced oil body cleansers inspired by Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The Fig Milk oil is perfect for spring, with uplifting notes of wild fig, cyclamen and green leaf. Unboxing the products – which arrive with a letter “signed” by Cleopatra in a box fastened with a silver seal – feels ceremonial in itself. £ 39 , 39 -bc.com PERFUMER H X STUDIO NICHOLSON SOAP FRAGRANCE — With their shared penchant for minimalism, Studio Nicholson and Perfumer H feel like the perfect fit for this made-in-London collaboration. Fashion designer Nick Wakeman and renowned nose Lyn Harris have collaborated on a scent named Soap, meant to evoke clean fabric on the skin. The subtle fragrance blends notes of cardamom and white pepper with aldehydes and orange flower over a base of white musk and tonka. £ 190 , perfumerh.com KEATS ESSENTIALS BUNDLE — Results-focused beauty brand Keats has gained a dedicated following in an impressively short time. Former Beauty Pie formulator Lucinda Hart launched Keats in 2025 with just two products: a serum and a moisturising cream (in sleek monochrome packaging), both silky-smooth and glow- giving for even the driest winter-weary skin. This bundle gives you both goodies at a discount. Watch this space for a third must- try product. £ 51 , keatsbeauty.com
After a temporary King’s Cross residency came to an end in 2020 , so began the careful restoration of five derelict waterworks buildings in Clerkenwell to create the UK’s first-ever permanent centre for illustration. This passion project of the nation’s most beloved nonagenarian illustrator, Quentin Blake, opens in the New River Head development in May. With free exhibitions, urban gardens and a cafe, plus a studio for budding illustrators to practice their craft, it’s described by the team as “art with a job to do”. Off Amwell Street, EC 1 R 1 XU WE’RE EATING Tuna melts
They’re furtive, fur-wrapped and sport noses so pointy one might be moved to ask for details of their Harley Street surgeon. No, I’m not describing Chelsea trophy wives, but rather the roughly 10 , 000 estimated representatives of the Vulpes vulpes species living in the capital. Notorious sightings of the common red fox include on various TFL buses, at the Pure Gym in Catford and in a kimono-loving, baseball-bat-toting lawyer’s back garden. If you missed the headlines, I’ll spare you the gory details. To say these bouncy, opportunistic foragers cleave opinion is an understatement. Yes, they can carry such exotic diseases as mange, flystrike, canine distemper and tapeworm. Yes, they might dig up your prize lettuces and freesias in search of toothsome voles and mice, ransack your bins and emit an ungodly screech when in heat. Yes, the Daily Mail has branded them an “urban menace” – but if you ask me, that is reason enough to be pro-fox. This time of year is when you are most likely to spot cubs – all oversized ears, bright eyes and bushy tails – taking tentative first steps into the world. I was blessed one spring by their playful, clumsy antics in my north London garden, where I watched them explore the world in tantalisingly close reach. Every encounter felt like being transported into a Studio Ghibli film – great helpings of magic and whimsy in a city that rarely affords us such innocent wonder. Before you reach for the nearest bat to deal with our local “nuisance” (or, like my cat-whispering neighbour, lure one into your car and drive it to Epping Forest), remind yourself that we’ve been encroaching on their habitat since World War I. Fox populations are naturally self-regulating, which means their numbers won’t explode and several charities will send out free treatment for mange. If, like me, you fall hard for a fox, you’re in good company. The wily canids are scrappy, resilient and oddly endearing – true Londoners at heart.
The dowdy tuna melt has been dusted off and upgraded at restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski’s new American diner, Dover Street Counter, in Mayfair. Chef Hamish Brown is mixing preserved tuna with mayo and a mix of secret spices, before layering it with house-made American cheese and red Leicester on organic sourdough, and pan-searing it in brown butter. The kicker? The chopped chives and pickled red chilli garnish, which lifts it to another plane. 31 Dover Street, W 1 S 4 ND
Illustration by Maisy Geddes
Words by Hayley Spencer
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WORK UNIFORM With Garden Designer Butter Wakefield
NECKLACE “The necklace is made by my American friend Nora Brookfield. When I wear it, I’m immediately connected to her. She’s stopped making jewellery now, but I’m hoping she’ll start it up again.”
RINGS “I do like oversized pieces of jewellery. And I like nothing to match. There’s also a family signet ring – well, husband’s family. We got divorced but the ring stayed. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
BLOUSE AND KNITTED TANK “Both of these, which I like to pair together, are made by Penelope Chilvers, who I love. She also makes the comfiest boots.”
“I feel like if you buy a few really good pieces they should last you forever,” says Butter Wakefield, one of London’s most in-demand garden designers, of her clothes-shopping mantra. “That’s how I design, too – do it once, do it right, do it properly. Use reclaimed materials when you can. Buy British where you can. I try to run my life, my studio and my wardrobe in the same way.” Over the past 15 years Wakefield’s work has won countless awards, including a Royal Horticultural Society gold medal at Chelsea Flower Show, and she’s been named in House & Garden’s annual top 50 designers list for six years in a row. Her client list includes designers Matilda Goad and Rita Konig, and actor Keeley Hawes. “There are certain elements that might appear regularly, but I’d like to think that one of my unique selling points is that each project is very different,” Wakefield says. And though she admits to being a fan of the practical and the functional, her bold personal style veers far from the earth-toned outdoors wear usually associated with the garden. “I like a layered look. I like different textures and colours and patterns. Men’s clothes, actually, are just so great. Really good pockets everywhere. Oh, and it has to be warm because I’m always cold.”
TROUSERS “These are quite new Toast jeans, so I’m just wearing them in. I’m a big Toast fan; everything is beautifully made.”
IN SEASON
TRAINERS “Gucci for Adidas. They’re so, so comfortable – I live in them. I’ve got a pink pair too.”
Blood oranges By Che-Marie Trigg
As the final weeks of cold weather drag on, blood oranges come zestily into their own – bittersweet remedies for grey skies and winter stodge. Get them from Natoora, which works with a long-serving Sicil- ian grower. The ruby-red flesh and berry-like flavour of the moro variety heralds the start of the season, then the similarly rouge-coloured moro tardivo hits shelves. The bounty ends with the Tarocco Meli, first found on the slopes of Mount Etna, which has a softer taste than the moros. Around town, we’re drawn to the blood orange’s starring role in a tart at Fink’s in north London and in a rosé champagne-based cock- tail at South Bank’s Lyaness.
Photo by Rob Greig
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Recipe: Honey and Stout Tart By Richard Corrigan, chef- patron, Corrigan Collection To mark St Patrick’s Day, one of Ireland’s most celebrated chef-restaurateurs shares his go-to seasonal sweet treat. Method For the pastry, pulse together the flour, salt, butter and sugar in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then transfer to a bowl. Add two eggs and form into a ball of dough. Do not overwork, just mix enough to bring the dough together. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 150 °C/gas mark 2 . Grease a 25 cm loose-bottomed tart tin and set aside. Once the pastry has chilled, lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll the pastry out into a large circle, 5 cm bigger than your tin. Loosely roll the pastry around the rolling pin, then carefully drape it over the tin and lightly press into the edges to fit. Trim the edges of the pastry using a sharp knife. Line the pastry with some greaseproof paper, then pour in baking beans (rice will work as a substitute, if necessary). Blind-bake the pastry case in the oven for around 45 minutes, until pale golden. Remove from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 180 °C/gas mark 4 . Discard the greaseproof paper and baking beans, and brush the entirety of the pastry case in egg wash – this will help to prevent cracks appearing in the pastry. To make the filling, add the stout and grated apple to a pan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and leave the liquid to reduce by half, then remove from the heat and set aside until warm. Add the remaining ingredients, mix well and pour into the pastry case. Bake the tart for 20 – 25 minutes until the filling is set. Remove from the oven, allow to cool and cut the tart into slices. Serve with a good dollop of double cream or some sweetened buttermilk.
Richard Corrigan’s side orders
Serves 8–10 Preparation time: 45 minutes Cooking time: 1 hour, 10 minutes Filling Ingredients 80ml stout. Use a quality stout for beautiful depth of flavour 1 Bramley apple (approx 150g), peeled and grated 90g golden syrup 50g rolled porridge oats 90g honey 90g stale breadcrumbs 2 eggs Zest and juice of half a lemon Zest of half an orange Pastry Ingredients 250g plain flour 1 pinch salt 125g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing 50g caster sugar 2 eggs 1 egg, beaten, for egg wash
IRISH MUSIC — “The London Irish Centre in Camden is the beating heart of the Irish community in the city. There are weekly sessions, a community choir, and a stage that has welcomed everyone from Imelda May and Liam O’Maonlaí to Maverick Sabre. Shane MacGowan and the Pogues even shot a video there back in 1984 . Today, patrons like Ed Sheeran and Dermot O’Leary continue to keep it alive through fundraising and support. Be it Irish language classes or dancing and live music, it’s a place that keeps Irish culture living, breathing and shared, just as it should be.” IRISH FOOD — “I’m a big fan of Hugh’s food at The Yellow Bittern [ in Kings Cross ] : simple, honest Irish fare – pies, stews, soda bread and good wine. There’s also a take on Dublin coddle. The whole experience is refreshingly unpretentious. Myrtle [ in Chelsea ] is another excellent option and, while the food isn’t strictly Irish, a visit to Darby’s [ in Nine Elms ] by Robin Gill will absolutely give you the warmth and hospitality of an Irish home.” IRISH ART — “Over at Daffodil Mulligan [ Corrigan’s Old Street bar and restaurant ] we have acquired several works by the photographer Jane Bown, who worked at the Observer for over 60 years. Her most celebrated portrait is of [ playwright ] Samuel Beckett, famously captured darting down the side of the Royal Court Theatre in London. We also display portraits she took of other Irish cultural figures including Edna O’Brien, Bono and Sinéad O’Connor. Bown’s portrait of the late Queen was the image used by the Palace to announce her death. Alongside these are original prints from Perry Ogden’s Pony Kids series, as well as artwork by the Dublin-based collective Subset. Together, the collection reflects my enduring love of Anglo- Irish history, music and sport.”
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My quarterly pick of UK-based artists to have on your radar, beyond the major galleries. NO. 1 — EMILY POPE “Full moon energy, the new perfume of the masses.” “Just imagine being reincarnated as an email.” Emily Pope’s witty text-based work, in posters, light boxes and videos, skewers the affirmational absurdities of the moment. Pope is currently part of Discord & Harmony , a group show at Karst in Plymouth (until April 18 ), curated in tribute to beloved local artist Beryl Cook’s long career of painting the under-represented with joy and humour. NO. 2 — KV DUONG London-based Vietnamese Canadian artist KV Duong recently opened his first solo show, Where Wound Becomes Water, at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery (until March 14 ) to much excitement. Group shows in New York and Stoke-on-Trent follow later this year. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art’s MA painting programme in 2024 , Duong has caught the eye of gallerists and awards bodies for his original approach to painting on stretched latex. Continuing an exploration of migration, postcolonialism and queer identity, his latest body of work features family portraits that resemble faded photographs and large panelled landscapes of regions scarred by war. NO. 3 — VERONICA RYAN OBE, RA Montserrat-born, London-raised sculptor Veronica Ryan needs little introduction to art insiders. She began her career with a series of celebrated institutional exhibitions across the UK in the 1980 s and ’ 90 s, and in more recent years has won the Freelands Award ( 2018 ), the Turner Prize ( 2022 ) and was commissioned to permanently honour the Windrush generation in Hackney with her marble and bronze Caribbean fruits. But a spring showcase at Whitechapel Gallery (April 1 to June 14 ) featuring more than 100 works, some brand new, puts Ryan’s whole career in the spotlight and deserves to be seen by the widest possible audience. Gemma Rolls-Bentley is an art writer, lecturer, creative consultant and curator of the largest permanent display of queer art in the UK, the Brighton Beacon Collection. Her new book, Queer Art , will be published by Thames & Hudson in June. Three Artists To Watch By Gemma Rolls-Bentley
MY NEIGHBOURHOOD Stephen Jones’s Covent Garden By Ella Alexander
“My history with Covent Garden began over 45 years ago, when I opened my first shop on Endell Street,” says Stephen Jones, the legendary milliner whose creations have sat atop the heads of Princess Diana, Grace Jones, Björk and even Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil. “Back then, the area was still boarded up after the food market moved to Nine Elms in late 1974 . Much of historic Covent Garden was about to be demolished … and there were only two shops on Long Acre. Everything else was closed. I opened my current store and studio on Great Queen Street in 1995 and have learnt that there is a side to the area that only locals see, like parents taking their kids to school on Drury Lane and the sound of a playground. Tourists love it here because it’s how they imagine ‘Old London’ to be. Covent Garden is unrecognisable today, but it’s still village-like and compact.” OREE — “ A French patisserie and coffee shop with a pale blue exterior on the corner of Wellington Street. The staff are very nice. Even if I’m right at the back of the queue, I get served my skinny flat white first.” SIMPSON’S IN THE STRAND — “It was always one of London’s most legendary restaurants, but it became very fuddy-duddy. I am delighted that Jeremy King has transformed it. I’m sure it’ll once again be the place to be seen.” JUBILEE HALL GYM — “I first visited when it was a roller disco in 1976 , and I’d whizz around in bright blue lycra. Now I’m there wearing black Nike, being put through my paces by my trainer, Erykson [ Mendes ] , who stretches my body to places that I never knew it could go.” PAUL SMITH — “The window displays on Floral Street are always wonderful, and I just love the aura of the place. Paul Smith was the first person to do modern menswear, and I used to see him and his wife Pauline around town in the earlier stages of our careers. They were such successful, glamorous people.” ROYAL OPERA HOUSE — “If you’re an aficionado of the 1964 film My Fair Lady , you’ll know that Audrey Hepburn is [ in a scene ] outside the Opera House selling violets. What you see onscreen was, in fact, created in a Hollywood studio, but I love the film’s celebration of hats, especially in the unforgettable Royal Ascot scene. Because of that I have the most intimate connection to the Opera House.” THE CLUB AT THE IVY — “A members-only club that occupies three floors above The Ivy restaurant. It’s so grown-up and makes you feel as if you’ve really arrived in London.” LONDON GRAPHIC CENTRE — “One of London’s best art and graphics suppliers, LGC really is a great resource. Whenever I go, I always think, ‘I wish I had more time to use everything here.’ I’m so happy that somewhere like it exists and it hasn’t all been swallowed by the internet.” DRURY LANE GARDENS — “I love the little garden opposite St Clement Danes School on Drury Lane. It’s postage-stamp size – a pergola and planters surround a small children’s playground – and unless you were from the area you wouldn’t know it existed. It was actually the first heritage site saved by Octavia Hill, the founder of the National Trust.”
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3 1 — © Emily Pope, 2024 . Courtesy the artist and Quench Gallery. 2 — © KV Duong, Where Wound Becomes Water, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, 2026 . Courtesy the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. Photo by Mark Blower 3 — © Veronica Ryan. Courtesy Alison Jacques and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo by Eva Herzog Studio.
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Meedu Saad’s Burning Passion
“ The idea for Impala started about the same time I had my little boy, who’s five years old now,” says Meedu Saad. “Becoming a dad prompted me to learn more about my cultural heritage, and food felt like the right medium for doing that.” Impala, the restaurant he’s opening this month, brings flavours of North Africa to Soho. It’s the newest member of the Super 8 stable (Smoking Goat, Brat, Mountain and northern Thai institution Kiln, where Saad is co-owner and executive chef). Saad, who was born and raised in Tottenham with an Egyptian father and British mother, has always loved learning about new cultures and traditions but felt “it was time to start delving deeper into my own – as well as those I grew up around in north London”. Named after the 1964 Chevrolet he drove during long, hot summers visiting Egypt in his younger years, Impala channels some of his fondest memories from this period. “My dad is from Ismailia in northern Egypt, which is famous for its mango harvest. I remember my cousin taking me to a friend’s farm where, after a full day in the sun picking fruit, the family put on an amazing spread of roasted birds, rice and fruit,” he says. “One dish in particular was a duck roasted in buffalo butter and stuffed with spices, which has become one of the core dishes on the menu at Impala.” Saad’s other experiences in Egypt – grilling clams gathered from the Red Sea, learning recipes from his grandmother, tapping into the farming communities of Luxor and Aswan, visiting female-led organisations preserving culinary traditions near Cairo – have informed a menu that also shares cultural connections with Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, as well as his native Tottenham. Key to a sense of cohesion is the charcoal grill. “Growing up around the Turkish mangals and Caribbean communities of north London, it feels like a no-brainer,” Saad says. “I see fire as an ingredient, and my cooking relies heavily on smoke and heat to give it its identity. And that ties in beautifully with the regions I’m exploring here, because fire is so prevalent in that food as well.” Saad has built relationships with suppliers across the UK, including revered Cornish fish supplier Kernowsashimi and a network of regenerative vegetable farmers, while also stockpiling a larder of ingredients and spices. “We’ve been pickling and salting chillis, peppers and aubergines at the height of their season, and over winter we’ve been preserving Palestinian limes, quinces and citruses, which will be served alongside interesting cuts of meat grilled over the charcoal.” It will all come alive in a space bathed in natural light and punctuated by pieces from revered mid-century architects Carlo Scarpa and Carlo Mollino. There are intimate corners and a large kitchen counter where diners can observe the ins and outs of Impala’s huge woodfired oven, which references those that serve whole neighbourhoods in community hubs across north Africa. “I hope that Impala feels new but also familiar, that people feel it’s accessible but still special,” says Saad. “Soho feels like home to me and we’re in an incredible location on Dean Street, near some of the best restaurants to ever do it – Quo Vadis, French House, Barrafina. I hope that Impala can further add to the scene.”
Hannah Crosbie COMMENT
The city’s saké scene is blossoming.
A HUMBLE SAKÉ FLIGHT AT HUMBLE CHICKEN There’s no cursory glass of saké in the pairings on this Michelin- starred, Japanese-inspired tasting menu: there’s an entire flight. When I was last at Humble Chicken, I had a combination of the wine and saké menu, but now I’ll most definitely be focusing on the team’s saké favourites. Restaurant manager Aidan Monk is such a saké obsessive he’s earned the nickname “White Samurai” – his favourite, Noguchi Naohiko’s Yamahai Omachi muroka nama genshu, is my next must-drink. YUKI BLOSSOM AT ISABEL If your chips have all come in at once and some Mayfair glamour beckons, there’s the Yuki Blossom at Isabel. As an enormous fan of The Real Housewives of London , I was champing at the bit to go to one of their regular haunts (without having a drink thrown in my face). The Yuki Blossom is the dearest but most spring-appropriate cocktail on the list – a heady mix of Yukigama saké, Suntory whisky, peach liqueur, jasmine, honey and green tea. TSUCHIDA TE TO TE SAKÉ AT SUNE Sommelier and Sune co-owner Honey Spencer is one of London’s most passionate flag-flyers for inventive saké pairings. There has always been a saké by-the-glass at her restaurant when I’ve been, but she tells me she’s recently launched some tempting new pairings. The Te To Te (meaning “sky and hand”) is a savoury, low-intervention saké made with the hands-on Edo-period “kimoto” method. “It’s wildly savoury,” she says. “And tastes a bit like Monster Munch dipped in marmite.” Pair it with Sune’s smoked eel on toast.
From north London to the Nile delta, the Kiln chef shares the locales and life experiences that have shaped his hotly anticipated Soho restaurant, Impala.
By Ben Olsen
Next time you’re out and there’s saké by the glass on the drinks list, I implore you to ask about it. If you’re the kind of person who appreciates a thoughtful wine pairing, you’re likely to derive just as much pleasure from its rice-based cousin. Saké production has traditionally been restricted to the colder months in Japan, when breweries host kurabiraki, or opening ceremonies, to launch the season’s brews. What better way to celebrate the days getting a little longer?
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THE SURREAL WORLD OF SCHIAPARELLI The V & A is giving the influential Italian By Ella Alexander W ithin fashion circles, Elsa Schiaparelli is a leg- end and a heavyweight – an entrepreneurial renegade who walked so Miuccia Prada and
support, could also be fiercely commercially minded. The exhibition features more than 200 objects, including gar- ments, accessories, jewellery, paintings and photographs. “She also created wearable but still quite disobedient fash- ion,” Caston explains. “There was always one subversive detail, whether it was glove fingertips that looked like claws or buttons that resembled insects.” Much has been made of the supposed feuding between Schiaparelli and Chanel. Justine Picardie, fashion biogra- pher and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , says that her extensive research has found nothing to prove the two disliked each other. “They were set up as rivals,” she says. “It’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t it? Women are somehow forced into that position. I like to think that they would have respected one another.” Although their work differs wildly, “both have such clear ideas of their aesthetic, artistic purpose and intent”, says Picardie. “To be working at a time when women didn’t even have the vote in France … It’s just extraordinary what they achieved.” The fashion landscape today owes much to Schiapa- relli. John Galliano’s famed newspaper dress, worn by Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City in 1998 , has roots in her 1935 print. She used the form of a woman’s torso in a perfume bottle long before Jean Paul Gaultier did, and her shocking, statement-making clothes feel like forebears to the work of Alexander McQueen. She also, like Miuccia Prada, recontextualised conventionally ugly objects or visuals (a lobster, torn flesh) by turning them into couture. “She perpetuated the idea that you didn’t have to dress for men,” says Picardie. “You could dress both to please yourself or to make a statement.” Today, her work feels more relevant than ever. Under the tenure of Daniel Roseberry since 2019 , the brand has become a red-carpet favourite and critical hit. Gabriela Gheorghe, who runs the popular Instagram account @schiaparelli.archive, says her biggest demographics are those aged from 25 to 34 and 18 to 24 . “Her work is bound up in authenticity and fierceness,” she says. “In an industry dominated by homogenised aesthetics … her vision offers a compelling sense of individuality.” Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art is at the V & A from March 28 until November 1 .
designer her long overdue moment in the spotlight.
Alexander McQueen could run. But on the average high street, her name would probably draw a blank. Despite her legacy, she is still less well-known than, say, her con- temporary and alleged rival Coco Chanel. (That Schia- parelli’s brand was shuttered from 1954 until 2013 has played its part.) Now the V & A is attempting to correct that with the launch of the UK’s first exhibition dedicated to the Italian designer. The showcase, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art , aims to celebrate not only her surrealist designs (she was the first designer to collaborate extensively with artists, most famously Salvador Dalí), but also her extraordinary life. Schiaparelli was born to a wealthy family in Rome in 1890 but, keen to resist her parents’ plan to marry her off to a Russian aristocrat, moved to London. There she became engaged to a Swiss lecturer within 24 hours of meeting him; they married soon after. The newlyweds moved to Nice, then to New York, where they had a baby, Maria Louisa, nicknamed Gogo. Her husband, however, turned out not to be who he claimed and Schiaparelli eventually left him. (The last straw apparently came when he took the couple’s mink bedspread to a tailor and asked for it to be remade as his coat lining.) Now a single mother, Schiaparelli moved back to Paris almost destitute. Chance meetings enabled her to step inside the art world, where she crossed paths with Dalí, Man Ray and Jean Cocteau, all of whom she would go on to collaborate with. Together, they created some of the most recognisable, original works in fashion: a dress adorned with a vivid lobster print; one covered with tears; a hat made in the shape of a shoe. Another design consisted of a lamb chop carefully placed above the head. “She wasn’t just someone borrowing motifs from artists; she really contributed to the surrealist movement at that time,” says Lydia Caston, one of three curators to have worked on the exhibition. “We’re also excited about showing her story as a female entrepreneur, someone who has, as she said, always ‘dared to be different’.” Schiaparelli is best known for her avant-garde designs, but the V & A presents her as the paradox she was – a woman who loved experimentation but who, with a daughter to
Photo by Giovanni Giannoni. Courtesy Patrimoine Schiaparelli, Paris.
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How Menu Descriptions Became A New Battlefront Within Modern Dining By Joseph Bullmore The
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CRISPY DUCK SALAD
The finest five words on any menu, anywhere, appear on the one at Brasserie Lipp, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris, capped-up in bold red beneath the logo. “NO SALAD AS A MEAL”.
white walls and no-nonsense aesthetic, it stood as a down- to-earth rebuttal of the fine-dining filigrees of the ’ 70 s and ’ 80 s – vast menus written entirely in French in curlicued scripts, descriptors designed not to enlighten diners but to intimidate them. Set against that finery, a dish of “ox liver, bacon and mash”, which appeared on the restaurant’s first- ever menu, seemed beautiful and revolutionary. “It was almost aggressively English,” says Giles Coren, long-time food critic for the Times . “An antithesis to the wordier Michelin-starred style at places like Le Gavroche,” he says, “where my father would only ever order the things he could pronounce. It’s why everyone got the Dover sole and no one ever ordered the bouillabaisse.” Jeremy King, the spiritual godfather of the London restaurant scene, agrees that clarity can be a form of hospitality in itself. “Dishes described in such a way that you don’t know what they are can actually feel antagonistic and arrogant,” he says. “Like interior design, menu writing should never shout for attention – but it should withstand scrutiny. And if all you want is the burger, you shouldn’t have to hear about the cow’s life story to get it.” But a menu, says Poon’s Amy Poon, is merely an exten- sion of a restaurant’s personality. “They need to be easily understood, but I don’t think simplicity, storytelling and flights of fancy need to be mutually exclusive. I love stories, they’re a way of connecting.” Among the austerely titled favourites at Poon’s Somerset House restaurant – steamed pork, shrimp paste; spring onion, ginger, soy noodles – are a few eye-catching outliers. “There is a tradition in Chinese culinary culture for giv- ing dishes rather poetic, allegorical names,” says Poon. “The Hill That Amy Didn’t Die On, for example, came about because I really didn’t want prawn toast on the menu but the team – and my mother – argued in its favour. In consult- ing my father, we found we had a heritage recipe that uses a slice of lardo as a base instead of bread, so I capitulated. “Not that the practice of naming dishes after a story or person is uniquely Chinese,” she notes, name-checking omelette Arnold Bennett, Kaiserschmarrn, toad-in-the- hole, pavlova and tiramisu. That kind of narrative-driven cooking finds its zenith, perhaps, in places like Tom Aikens’s restaurant Muse, where every dish is an evocation of the chef’s most form- ative memories. Like Conquering the Beech Tree, a dish of langoustine, pork fat and burnt apple. In Coren’s opinion this kind of storytelling stems from a core misunderstand- ing of the nature of cooking. “A chef is a craftsman,” he says. “They perfect a repetitive task. They are not an artist, who does something once and doesn’t do it again. So we do not need to know the chef’s divine inspirations. It’s like a car mechanic. I do not care which tree you climbed as a child – so long as you fix the car.” Not that a bit of enigma can’t be useful. Dom Hamdy, the restaurateur behind Bistro Freddie, Crispin and Canal, says that esoteric words can sometimes act as useful bridges between diner and restaurant. “We might put ‘tardivo’ on our menu,” he says. “‘It’s this really beautiful, specific radic- chio grown in Italy in the dark.” Most diners have proba- bly never heard of it, “so [ they ] ask what it is, because they know everything else in the dish. And then you’ve got a tiny little spark of interaction, which I think is generally really positive.” On the other hand, one of the best things on the Bistro Freddie menu, I put to him, is a haiku-grade master- piece of both brevity and evocation: “Chips, mayonnaise”. “We don’t do ketchup,” he says. “And we could have just put ‘chips’. But something like that – it tells a story in itself.”
A s a Gallic shrug against the horrors of modernity – or at the very least kale – it’s masterful. But as a preview of what’s to come? Lipp’s menu is a piece of literary art, almost Proustian in its conjuring power. But it also sits as an unlikely litmus for a thoroughly modern question: just how much do our menus inform the experience of our food? Mark Hix knows this conundrum well. In December, a short clip of the chef speaking on the popular Go To Food Podcast went viral. In it, Hix – long the no-nonsense roisterer of excellent British food – describes his frustration at the con- temporary trend for minimalist brevity in menu writing. “Wherever you go now, 99 per cent of places have ‘ingre- dient-comma-ingredient-comma-ingredient’,” Hix says. “It might say ‘featherblade, shallots, tarragon, peppercorn’. Is it braised, the featherblade? From a customer’s point of view, you’re second-guessing how things are cooked.” Hix goes on to describe how, when hosting a dinner at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage recently, he sent the restaurant manager a menu “correctly written” – only to receive it back, a few hours later, with all the “ands” and “withs” taken out. Something crucial was lost, he says. “Is it lazy, or just incompetence?” “That clip clearly struck a nerve,” he tells me, a few months later. “And it’s quite sweet: a couple of young chefs have actually reached out since and asked if I can read over their menus to check.” His advice to them, and to almost anyone else, is fairly simple: include a few adjectives or descriptors to express specific ingredients, cooking meth- ods or seasonality and perhaps some adjoining words to express hierarchy or composition. At The Hart in Marylebone I recently ordered a dish described simply as “steak, potatoes”. It was excellent (I would order an item called “food” from that particular kitchen). But could it have been better still if I’d known that it was a 28 -day-aged steak, say, raised in Herefordshire and served with potatoes roasted in duck fat? The answer, scientifically speaking, is yes. Professor Charles Spence is an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, specialising in how our different sensory expe- riences interact with one another. Spence was the scientist behind Heston Blumenthal’s iconic Sound of the Sea dish at the Fat Duck, in which seaside sounds were played to diners to make the shellfish taste more shellfishy. Menu wording, Spence says, can similarly change not just the way we think about a dish, but how it tastes to us too. The menu item “crispy duck salad” is an almost perfect encapsulation of this process, he tells me. The opening “crispy” is appetising but also clarifying; the “duck” in the centre sounds delicious and is clearly the primary ingre- dient; and the “salad” at the end reassures us that this will not be too heavy or unhealthy. Put in a different order, or with a subtle tweak, and the dish doesn’t work anywhere near as well. “Salad, fried duck”, anyone? Where does the modern trend for menu minimalism stem from, then? As usual, it can be traced back to St John. When the nose-to-tale temple opened in 1994 , with its
SALAD, FRIED DUCK
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MODERN LIFE IS CLUBBISH Private Whatsapp numbers, invite-only parties, hush-hush openings – the members club playbook is shaping the London dining scene at large. SPRING 26 BROADSHEET LONDON A CITY OF CLOSED DOORS Illustrations by Zoë Barker
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A CITY OF CLOSED DOORS
Illustrations by Zoë Barker
L ondon’s restaurants have never been better; the demand for them never greater. Discov- eries and bookings are digitised and democ- ratised at a previously unfathomable scale. But that culinary silver lining comes with some more practi- cal clouds. For one, try and get a short-notice table at any of the places on your list – in a city that con- spires against it at the best of times, spontaneity can feel all but dead. And secondly, it can leave those restaurateurs who had hoped to cultivate a crowd of returning regulars with a satisfied but transient, hype-chasing audience. So we’re seeing the start of some course-cor- rection – establishments implementing more locals-first measures that reflect a peculiar new atmosphere in the city’s hospitality offering broadly. For better or worse, we’ve entered an era where hot-ticket tables at sceney restaurants get allo- cated by Whatsapp; where carefree club nights are invitation-only; and where the most success- ful openings shun traditional publicity in favour of word-of-mouth murmurings, friendly committees and the social circles of charismatic front-people. It can feel like London is, in many ways, becoming a village of closed doors. Not simply because private members clubs are everywhere now. But because everywhere is borrowing from the private mem- bers club playbook, or so it seems. If such clubbish filters can sound undemocratic (and they can be), there are at least those with pure intentions. Benjy Leibowitz runs the Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch (one of the best London pub openings in recent years) with the lovely, but forever-booked, One Club Row above it – named, in a quirk of kismet, after the street it sits on. The convivial atmosphere of this room can be explained, he thinks, by a mantra he borrowed from New York restaurateur Gabe Stulman: “Look after your locals like celebrities and celebrities like locals.” It’s the neighbourhood regulars, Leibowitz says, who really conjure an enduring mood in a restaurant. “For us, it’s almost like a self-nominating club,” he says. “If you come in and have a really good time and you mention that to a member of our team, we’ll go out of our way to give you contact information to make it easier for you to come back. There’s something validating all-round about that.” These people, he says, are the ones that bring clubby familiarity to a place long after the A-listers, hype-chasers and big-spenders have departed – waving over tables to friends and other regulars. “And so, for us, as we move away from the buzz of year one, I think what’s needed is that we become a place that’s really part of people’s ongoing roster.” “That sense of curated connection – as opposed to just saying ‘we’re a community’ – is going to be the real differentiator now,” says Nadine Choe, who worked in real-estate private equity before starting the Stanza , a newsletter about the inner workings of the hospitality business. Of course, much has been made of the city’s actual members club boom. At the time of writing, there
“For us, it’s almost like a self- nominating club. If you come in and have a really good time and you mention that to a member of our team, we’ll go out of our way to give you contact information to make it easier for you to come back. There’s something validating all-round about that.”
are about 135 private members offerings in London, with at least a dozen more slated for opening this year. News arrives of clubs where clubs never thought to exist. Heralded Haggerston restaurant Planque has one. The revamped Ministry of Sound has one. Selfridges has one. Momentary PM Liz Truss is about to open one (it’ll cost 700 founder members £ 500 , 000 each, according to the Financial Times , and the salad is expected to be extra fresh). Indeed, even the French seem to be priz- ing fraternité over égalité; a new club called 16 Charles is about to open in a grand townhouse on Charles Street under the ownership of the Lou- lou Groupe, best known for Le Flandrin and Le Grand Café in Paris. And then there’s the rush of those opening in the wellness space. Tramp, the subterranean den of excess, is opening a sister entity underneath the Chancery Rosewood called Tramp Health – once a contradiction in terms.
“More clubs have opened in the past four years than in the three decades following the 1985 opening of The Groucho Club,” reads Knight Frank’s 2024 report into the phenomenon. Maybe these are simply the lengths we’re willing to go to so we can guarantee a late drink in the West End, but then the British have always been fond of organising themselves into useful boxes. “The impulse is that people want to be surrounded by people they really like, and to find places that they really identify with,” says Will Woodhams, a consultant to The Pembroke, the Belgravia superclub that will become London’s largest when it opens this autumn. And so, like much in the culture, we hark back fondly to pre-millennial offline moments. Over at At Sloane, the slinky Chelsea hotel that opened with winning understatement in 2023 , the most coveted evenings of the year are its Late Nights
– special late-license events that take the form, essentially, of ritzy basement house parties. For the first one, held in March 2025 , hotel staff invited 15 of their most interesting friends along and told them to invite about 10 people each. No tick- ets or velvet ropes or minimum spends or bottle service. It’s all charmingly impromptu. The events aren’t planned too far in advance, and there’s no strict schedule for when these nights might occur across the year. A source at the hotel tells me that this, effectively, is how things were done in the ’ 80 s and ’ 90 s – a time when the great bars, hotels and clubs of London were mostly owner-led, mean- ing the owner would be in residence most nights, subtly finessing the crowd and the mood. That charismatic central figure can be key, says Woodhams. “It’s how restaurants used to work. Peter Langan, when he ran Langan’s back in the day, was essentially running a club for people
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