Luca Migliore - Multi Story Orchestra
Jason Allen 02/05/23
Ah, May. The perfect time for a little spring cleaning.
We’ll start with our keyboards.
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And with that out the way, we’ll now tap away at those freshly cleansed letter bricks to tell you about the very best pop ups, events, and festivals taking place in London this month (a month which, by the way, has gifted us with THREE bank holidays). We’ve scooped together everything from a pop up market with a 70 meter long table (at which they’re serving chocolate orange negroni flavour ice cream); seasonal supperclubs in not one but two different botanical gardens; the most rakishly stylish jaunt around town you’re likely to see this year (and it’s nothing to do with the coronation); some synchronised ice dancing followed by a not-as-synchronised ice disco in a 150 year old palace; the welcome return of roof top movies & cocktail bars; a series of spine-tinglingly good concerts in an abandoned car park; and a chance to do life drawing. With miniature pigs.
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See Rye Lane above Rye Lane
The British sleeper hit of the year, Rye Lane, has been building buzz since its release. And now, thanks to the reopening of the Rooftop Film Club you can see the movie while gazing down upon the set from your lofty perch in the Bussey Building, on Rye Lane itself. And there are plenty of other rooftop screenings taking place this month too…
Details: 1st May | Bussey Building, 133 Rye Lane, Peckham, SE15 4ST | £12+ –
Beer & Bread Festival
Beer? Great. Bread? Great. Festivals? Generally pretty solid. Thus when the three things come together, you have one of those rare ‘sure things’ which life so sparingly issues to us mortals. So get thee down to the Brixton Windmill, and bring an empty stomach.
Details: 1st May | The Brixton Windmill, 100 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton Hill, SW2 5DA | Free –
The Coronation of King Charles III
Chris Boland / Unsplash
It’s the big one. But King Charles has elected (okay not the best choice of words) to fly in the face of tradition, and instead of raising an army and invading France, he’s giving everyone an extra bank holiday. Each to their own. There’s plenty going on. Expect a lot of coronation street parties (not to be confused with Coronation Street parties) and all manner of themed menus, cocktails, events and such and such across the city.
Details: 6th May | Across London –
Silent Disco in a Crypt
Crypts are normally quite literally dead quiet.
So yes, it was something of an off-piste move when this particular Central London church decided to start holding live music nights. Now – presumably to return the crypt to its peaceful, uninterrupted state – they’re going to be hosting an event that’s completely silent …to anyone not wearing a luminous headset that’s pumping out dance music for four hours non-stop.
Details: 6th May | St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, WC2N 4JH | £15 –
Beyond The Streets
The writing has been on the wall for some time now.
Graffiti is an art-form.
And it’s an art form that’s long been eschewed by the art gallery crowd, mostly because art galleries tend to be indoors. But now, the most creative form of vandalism has its very own indoor art show, thanks to BEYOND THE STREETS, which is by far the most comprehensive street art exhibition to ever open in the UK…
Details: Until May 9th | Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, SW3 4RY | £15 –
Classical Concerts in A Car Park
London proudly boasts some of the world’s greatest concert halls: the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican… and a multi-storey carpark in Peckham. The unlikely pairing is part of not-for-profit organisation Bold Tendencies’ annual summer programme, where they’ve transformed an abandoned multi-storey car park from a place where people leave their vehicles and loiter late at night, to a cultural hub of sculpture art, literature and music, with a rooftop bar thrown in for good measure.
Details: 10th May – 16th September | Multi Storey Car Park, 95A Rye Lane, SE15 4ST | £6+ –
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Here’s some dramatic news: the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is back open for business this month. Surprisingly for its size – it seats a cool 1,253 (capacity was increased by 53 seats over winter) – it’s a place you wouldn’t really stumble across unless you knew it was there. Hidden away in a grassy corner of Regent’s Park, it’s a sprawling outdoor stage surrounded by a canopy of trees and rows of amphitheatre-style seating, that all allows for the kind of mind-blowing staging that’s hard to get inside…
Details: 10th May – 3rd September | Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, NW1 4NU | £25 –
DEBUT at the Brunel Museum
DEBUT first debuted back in 2015.
They’re a group of extremely talented classical musicians who decided to band together in order to play accessible, fun concerts in interesting & unusual spaces. Since then, they’ve put on hundreds of shows in places like lighthouses, ancient operating theatres and Victorian merchant ships, becoming magnets for effusively acclamatory reviews along the way. And the Thames Tunnel Shaft at the Brunel Museum is both very interesting and highly unusual…
Details: 11th May | The Brunel Museum | Railway Avenue, SE16 4LF | £28 –
Photo London
Martin Parr
It may be called Photo London, but that’s really only a snapshot of what this exhibition’s all about. It’s the largest photography festival in the UK, and for the four day stretch over the 11th-14th May, it’s returning to fill Somerset House’s courtyard with a marquee housing hundreds upon hundreds of the world’s most inspiring stills for you to peruse…
Details: 11th-14th May | Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA | £32 –
Pub in the Park
Pub in the Park is actually quite a great idea. It’s a festival of music and food, only with the quality dials jammed right up to eleven. It’s been around since 2017 (after god cancelled 2020, organiser Tom Kerridge decided to follow suit with his festival) so this will be its sixth year. If it’s anything like the last couple, it’ll see 120,000 revellers drinking & dancing their way around the eight locations they have lined up, including visits to Wimbledon, Dulwich, Chiswick, and St Albans.
Details: 12th-14th May | Wimbledon Park | £49+ –
Mini Pig Drawing
If you’re interested in drawing a real, live animal as it sits before you, Carousel (a Charlotte Street restaurant famed for its residencies) will be hosting a wildlife drawing class in its workshop space this month, featuring the most adorable of models: tiny pigs. And you always get dinner afterwards.
Just don’t get the pork.
Details: 14th May | Carousel, 23 Charlotte St, W1T 1RL | £35 –
The Grand Flaneur Walk
The Grand Flaneur Walk is considerably better than your typical modest flaneur walk, which we see pretty much every day. No, this is a day for the most well-dressed dandies and dandizettes of the city to congregate and simply take a walk to show off their impeccable dandyish garments. There is no destination, unless that destination is stylishness. Join in, have a gander, or merely ignore, it’s up to you.
Details: 14th May | Meeting at the statue of Beau Brummell on Jermyn Street | Free –
The Balloon Regatta
If you tilt your head upwards this month you may well see a whole bunch of balloons interrupting the sky. It’s not clear how many balloons will be taking to the air, but it’ll be a couple of dozen at least, and a whole sky circus of 50+ at best.
Details: 14th May | The Sky | Um, Free –
Peckham Rye Waiting Room
Benedict Looney Architects
Rail Travel was a very different experience in 1865. Because back then, we had waiting rooms to grand and vast that when they get rediscovered 150 years later people find themselves waiting on the train just to get to them.
The one that’s been rediscovered & refurbished at Peckham Rye station is going to be used as a temporary art gallery for the next few months, and it’ll be completely free to enter. You Just need to tap in to get past the station barriers.
Details: 19th May to 17th September | Peckham Rye Station, SE15 4RX | Free –
Ally Pally’s 150th Birthday
Though she may look like she’s barely in her 140’s, Alexandra Palace is turning 150 years this month. And to mark the occasion, she’s going to throw a free party. Expect silent discos, street food, synchronised ice dancing (followed by an ice disco), a maker’s market, a storytelling tent, a DJ set from Mel Blast (of All Saints fame) and movie screenings. Basically all your classic 150th birthday activities.
Details: 27th May | Alexandra Palace, N22 7AY | Free to enter –
Cutty Sark Comedy
Whoever first suggested a Victorian-era tea clipper as a good venue for comedy was probably just being Sark-astic. But, here we are, and the lineup actually looks pretty decent – you’ll get to see three up-and-comers, including Fern Brady (regular on Taskmaster) and Alexandra Haddow, who has won “absolutely zero awards” but, as recompense “does have a quote from Frankie Boyle.” Which is like an award in itself.
Details: 28th May | The Cutty Sark, King William Walk, SE10 9HT | £18 –
Aladdin Sane: 50 Years
Photo Duffy © Duffy Archive & The David Bowie Archive
David Bowie was one in a million.
When others zigged, he… Ziggied.
And to celebrate the half-century since the release of Bowie’s chart-topping album Aladdin Sane, the Southbank Centre is staging a series of events surrounding the artist and his legacy. The centrepiece will be an exhibition of Bowie portraits taken by Brian Duffy, the legendary photographer who captured the album’s artwork (which, at the time, was the most expensive cover ever made). On top of that, there’ll be talks, discussions, live orchestral performances, poetry recitals, and a lot more…
Details: Until 28th May | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX –
Romeo + Juliet by Backyard Cinema
Backyard Cinema’s screenings of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 classic Romeo + Juliet, complete with performances of the soundtrack by a live gospel choir, has been entertaining star-crossed film lovers for the past seven years (excepting the brief hiatus because of that plague upon everyone’s houses). And it’s been so popular, there hasn’t been a single year that it hasn’t sold out completely. So it’s probably pretty good news that it’s now coming to the quite literally palatial grounds of Alexandra Palace for a week of screenings this month…
Details: 30th May – 4th June | Alexandra Palace, N22 7AY | £34.50 –
Between The Bridges
All hail the return of Between The Bridges, London’s 4,000 sq ft festival of fun – which can most boringly be described as a “really big beer garden” but should more accurately be described as “a massive, free to enter al fresco adult playground which fuses a smorgasbord of bars and street food with DJs, live music, drag brunches and special events; all packed into four different dining areas right by the Thames.”
Details: Throughout May | Queen’s Walk, South Bank, SE1 | Free –
Roof East
If there’s one thing a car park rooftop really comes into its own for in the warmer months, it’s parking cars.
But if there’s another thing, it’s hosting throngs of frolicking Londoners in a bunting-strewn outdoor oasis filled with high-altitude games, cocktails and deep-fried cookie dough. And now that spring is here, so is Roof East, which is triumphantly opening its rooftop playground complete with crazy golf, neon-lit bowls, batting cages, cocktails, an open-air cinema, and a lot more.
Details: Throughout May | Roof East | Floors 7 & 8, Stratford Multi-Storey Car Park, E15 1XE | Free entry –
Thin Air
Thin Air has made its way into The Beams over in the Royal Docks, just across the river from Greenwich. And The Beams – if you don’t know it – is all-caps, underlined, italicised, HUGE. It’s 55,000 square feet of industrial space, so quite understandably, the first art exhibition to go on show there is going to make use of that scale in interesting ways. Interesting ways like algorithmically generated images, massive volumetric laser arrays, and large-scale installations that sync with booming sound & music.
Details: Until 4th June 2023 | The Beams, Factory Rd, E16 2HB | £25 –
David Hockney At The Lightroom
Hot tip! Invest in neck braces. Because people are craning their heads up at frankly unnatural angles in order to take in the entirety of David Hockney’s new, illuminated, four storey tall exhibition. Call it immersive if it makes you happy, but the fact is that this thing is gigantic, and will utterly envelope people in vibrantly hued artworks…
Details: Until 4th June | The Lightroom, 12 Lewis Cubitt Square, N1C 4DY | £25 –
Souls Grown Deep Like Rivers
Mud, blackberry juice, grass stain, white pigment, on wood. 31.8 x 63.5 cm. Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta. © The estate of Jimmy Lee Sudduth. Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio.
Souls Grown Deep Like Rivers has come to the Royal Academy. It’s a showcase of the unique artistic traditions & storytelling methods of African American artists from the southern United States, featuring a great many artists who had no formal training, no access to traditional art materials, and no gallery space to exhibit. Many of them had to show their work in their own yards. So whether the Royal Academy is a step up or a step down for them is up for debate…
Details: Until 18th June 2023 | Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD | £15 –
The BBC Earth Experience
If you head to Earl’s Court this month, you’ll get to witness the sheer majesty of one of our planet’s most precious resources: David Attenborough.
He’s provided his velvety, highly informed, and hypnotically engaging voice to the BBC Earth Experience, which is an extremely ambitious affair to say the least: it’s all housed in a new, massive, purpose-built venue in West London into which they’ve stuffed some vast, 360-degree, multi-angle digital screens for you to submerge yourself into the natural world…
Details: Until 31st July | The Daikin Centre, Earl’s Court, Empress Place, SW6 1TW | £28.50 –
All The Flowers Are For Me
Sitting on the eastern edge of Kew Gardens, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery is now be home to a pretty inventive and striking pair of artworks from Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha. They take the form of a pair of elaborately decorated cubes (or should we say Kewbes?) whose shadows paint the walls around them with intricate patterns.
Details: Until 17th September | Kew Gardens | Free with entry to the gardens (£21.50) –
Portraits of Dogs
What do the likes of Gainsborough, Ward and Hockney all have in common?
A love of dogs.
And sure, they were all great painters too. Whatever. The important thing is their mutual love of our canine companions, which this exhibition – possibly the most adorable show going on at London’s art galleries right now – is here to demonstrate.
Details: Until 15th October | The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN | £14 –
Check out an Exhibition
One of the great advantages of living in London is that you have access to more culture than a librarian face-planting into a petri dish – in fact, over the next month alone, you can step out of your front door, and within mere minutes find yourself immersed in a vast showcase of cutting-edge digital art in a cavernously large gallery space; get a glimpse into London’s grizzly history of public executions; explore some room-sized woollen (yes woollen) sculptures made behind The Iron Curtain; take an interactive deep-dive into the ASMR phenomenon; check out some astonishing African haute couture; and see a 40ft cube of moving art… See the best exhibitions on in London –
Go To The Theatre
You may laugh. You may cry. You may throw up, or potentially do all three. This month at the theatre, you can catch medieval comedy, billion-dollar empires made & lost, and immersive gangsterism… See The Best Shows On At The Theatre Now –
Supperclub: Baagh Baagh
Okay, getting the obvious bit out of the way, apparently the words ‘baagh baagh’ refer to a Pakistani feast celebrating the joys of spring, and it’s pronounced “باغ“. And at the South London Gallery, they’re going to put on their own baagh baagh just in time for the warm weather. Expect a colourful & flavourful banquet with ententerintment between courses, which will range from spiced paneer courgette flower pakoras, to slow-cooked lamb raan, and kewra panna cotta with rose petal pink pepper.
Details: 3rd May | 67 Peckham Rd, SE5 8UH | £48 –
An Evening of Seasonal Indulgence
A few weeks ago, just over a hundred Nudge Members escaped the daily grind for An Evening of Seasonal Indulgence: a multi-course, seasonal feast with a live choir; wonderful wines; a harpist; excellent cocktails; and some other rather delightful surprises. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t indulgent… was the fact that it took place for one night only. So in excellent news for anyone who missed out (and for anyone who, understandably, might like to revisit), B&H Buildings will once more be laying on this seasonal spectacle, for Nudge Members only, on Friday 5th May.
Details: 5th May | Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings, 42 Northampton Road, EC1R 0HU | £49 –
Decatur’s Royal Boil
Decatur, purveyors of London’s finest New Orleans style crawfish boils & arch parties is celebrating the coronation with a crawfish boil and an arch party. Expect frozen cocktails, crawfish rolls, boudin sausage, and a lot more. And if you fancy eating indoors? There’s a beer-fuelled dinner at Mortimer House on the 12th & 13th to promote celebrate Duvel’s range of Belgian barleypops.
Details: 6th May | 144 Tillbury Road, E10 6RE –
Poon’s Wontoneria At Carousel
Poon’s has been on a wild ride since opening its first restaurant in Covent Garden back in ’73, winning a Michelin Star, opening half a dozen branches, gaining celebrity superfans, shutting down, being resurrected, and surviving lockdown thanks to a wonton delivery service. Well, now they’re launching a series of ever-more permanent supperclubs and popups, the latest of which is a stint at Carousel’s incubator space…
Details: Until 7th May | No.23 at Carousel, 23 Charlotte St, W1T 1RL –
Joké & Friends
If you don’t know Adejoké Bakare, she ran Chishuru, which was one of Brixton’s best restaurants – that blew everyone away with terrific West African dishes – until it closed last year. The great news is that she’s found a new home already (Fitzrovia), the not-so-great news is that it still won’t open for a while (hopefully towards in the end of summer) and swinging wildly back to great news is the fact that she’s found a temporary home (at the Globe Tavern, from May 9th – July 1st) to pass the time and fill the void until then.
Details: 9th May to 1st July 2023 | The Globe Tavern, 8 Bedale St, SE1 9AL | £30 (lunch) £45 (dinner) –
Septime At Frenchie x Septime Four Hands Dinner
This month, the Frenchest French restaurant in Covent Garden, Frenchie, will be hosting a one-night-only dinner cooked up by the founders of an even Frencher French restaurant in Paris. The chef duo behind Septime (Michelin Star, currently No.24 on the World’s 50 Best list) will be cooking up a wine-paired “surprise five course menu”. Though our semi-psychic intuition we have tells us the food might be French.
Details: 11th May | 16 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 8QH | £125 –
KERB presents: The Table
KERB are opening a summer market outside the National Theatre, and it’s going to pack in eight street food traders, a couple of bars, and precisely one table. Yes, one. It’ll be 70 meters long, with space for 200 people. So, the salt & pepper shakers will probably be in different postcodes, but it’ll look amazing. And the food will be pretty decent too, spanning Lucky’s Hot Chicken, Sicilian-style deep pan from Bad Boy Pizza Society, and chocolate orange negroni flavour Big Kid Ice Cream.
Details: 12th May – 23rd September | The National Theatre, SE1 9PX –
Philli Armitage-Mattin x Kebab Queen
Kebab Queen doesn’t have a chef. He’s going on a sabbatical to spend time with family. So the talented Philli Armitage-Mattin is filling in, and making the place her own personal fiefdom for the three-month stretch starting on May 17th. You may have seen her in the finals of MasterChef: The Professionals, but she’s had a hell of a career besides that, training under Gordon Ramsay, cutting her teeth at two Michelin-starred Den in Tokyo, and running her own lauded residency at Number One Park Lane…
Details: 17th May – 17th September | Downstairs at Maison Bab, Mercer’s Walk, WC2H 9QE | £120 –
Family dinners at Caravel
Caravel, the floating restaurant from the Spiteri brothers, is now home to a series of supperclubs they’re calling Family Dinners. The fact that every evening meal made by the Spiteri Brothers is technically a family dinner is apparently neither here no there – instead they’re inviting in a series of excellent chefs to recreate meals from their own childhoods. This month will see Amy Poon (famed for her excellent Chinese food) to bring some nostalgia to the table…
Details: 23rd May | Caravel, 172 Shepherdess Walk, N1 7JL | £55 –
Roberta Hall McCarron x 180 corner
The chef residencies hitting 180 Corner have been absolutely stellar so far – and that fine tradition of excellence looks to be continuing this month with a two-night popup from Edinburgh-based uberchef Roberta Hall McCarron. She’s won too many awards & accolades to list here (honestly, there are a dozen from the last couple of years alone), but suffice to say she’s not terrible at this whole cooking thing. Here she’ll be putting together a seven-course menu inspired by Scottish produce, including the likes of asparagus with morels & roast chicken hollandaise; raw scallops with basil and tomato ponzu; and lamb with Merguez sausage & anchovy butter flatbread.
Details: 24th & 25th May | 180 The Strand, WC2R 1EA | £75 –
Kew Gardens – A Celebration of the Kitchen Garden
Like the idea of dinner grown in a botanical garden? Join the Kew… Gardens Supperclub, which is launching this month. You’ll get a drinks & canapé reception followed b ya multi-course tasting menu, with themes like ‘the spring kitchen garden’, ‘a taste of Spain’, and ‘the summer kitchen garden’.
Details: 26th May | Kew Gardens, TW9 3AE | £75 –
Chelsea Physic Garden Supperclub
The Chelsea Physic Garden has been around for the past 300 years, and now it has fiiiiiinally come into its own with a series of supperclubs taking advantage of all the goodness they grown there. Expect a four-course showcase of Italian recipes, all made using the bounty from the garden itself, all hand-picked by the head chef at the Physic Garden cafe.
Details: 31st May | The Physic Garden Café, Chelsea Physic Garden, 66 Royal Hospital Road, SW3 4HS | £60 –
The BBQ Club
Jimmy Garcia, prince of pop ups, tycoon of temporary restaurants, baron of BBQs …is back.
His BBQ Club has sold out bewilderingly quickly every year, and because he’s not a total idiot, he’s brought it back. He’s returning to his tried & tested spot on the Southbank, where the Thames-side venue will be split into two distinct areas: a sit down restaurant overlooking the river, and a street food space downstairs…
Details: Throughout May | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX –
Experimental Sandwich Shop
The Experimental Sandwich Shop isn’t so much ‘experimental’ as it is ‘tried-and-tested by millions of New Yorkers over the decades’. Because it’s a subway sandwich shop, directly inspired by the Big Apple’s own plethora of them. Expect gigantic meatball subs and aubergine parms…
Details: Throughout May | St.Thomas Street, Southwark –
Dough Hands
Hannah Drye started out her professional life making pizzas for a Brighton restaurant before finally clawing her way up to becoming an high flying advertising executive… and then realising that being a pizza chef is actually a really fun way to spend your time. So that’s what she’s doing – she’s started her own brand called Dough Hands, and she’s found a home in the new Three Colts pub in Bethnal Green. And she’s really, really good at making pizza.
Details: Throughout May | The Three Colts, 199 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 0EL –
Crunch
Fancy an experimental brioche sandwich from a popup in East London but not sure where to go? It’s Crunch time. That’s the name of this particular temporary eatery, who’ve settled into the Prince Arthur pub for the foreseeable with their bread-wrapped menu. Expect the likes of flat iron steak with torched provolone & chimichurri, Southern fried chicken with baby pickles & allioli, and za’atar roasted aubergine with harissa hummus.
Details: Throughout May | Prince Arthur, 49 Brunswick Pl, N1 6EB –
Tiella at the Compton Arms
The Compton Arms always gets in great residencies. The last two – Four Legs and BELLY – have both impressed massively, so they’re taking a slight risk with Tiella because a) it’s not named after a body part which seems to be the theme here, and b) it’s the debut of Italian chef Dara Klein, who has not yet helmed her own restaurant. But luckily, it turns out that she almost literally grew up in her family’s restaurant kitchen, and soaked up experience the whole time, then worked her way up through the ranks at places like Brawn, Trullo, and Sager + Wilde.
So it’ll probably work out alright.
Details: Throughout May | Compton Arms, 4 Compton Avenue, London, N1 2XD –
esti
If you’ve never had Australian-Greek fusion food before – and we’ll take a wild, stab-in-the-dark guess here and say no, you probably haven’t – then get ready to say an Aegean g’day to the latest popup to hit TT Liquor. It’s called esti (the lower case is intentional), and it’s the work of head chef Sal Galasso, who’s spend the last decade working at some of Oz’s finest restaurants. Now, he’ll be cooking up ‘straight-off-the-coals’ pork souvlaki, twice-cooked lamb ribs with Australian ‘desert dust’ spice mix, and smokey aubergine with brown butter & fried peanuts. It’s due to stick around for six months… but that’s just an esti, mate.
Details: Until September | TT Liquor, 17B Kingsland Rd, E2 8AA –
Whole Beast at The Fat Walrus
Whole Beast, as the name somewhat suggests, specialise in nose-to-tail cooking. That means an ever-changing menu of extremely fresh, and frequently inventive dishes, which they’ll be serving up to punters at The Fat Walrus for the foreseeable. Expect the likes of green chorizo tacos, pork chops with apple ketchup, burnt hispi with pork fat, and more…
Details: Throughout May | The Fat Walrus, 44 Lewisham Way, SE14 6NP –
Only Food and Courses
Only Food and Courses is a pop up food concept that takes culinary trends from the ’80s and ’90s and reworks them for the more modern era. Sometimes the menu changes, and sometimes the venue changes, but like Trigger’s Broom, it remains the exact same outfit. And now the venue has changed once more, moving into a long term residency at The Cheshire Cheese pub.
Details: Throughout May | The Cheshire Cheese, 5 Little Essex Street, WC2R 3LD | 6 courses, £75 –
All My Friends
“Alexa, play All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem…”
…because that’s the song that this pop up is named after, and frankly listening to it gives you a pretty decent sense of the place’s vibes too. It’s got a strong musical element with DJs & a record store, and the food’s being put together by both Japanese street food outfit Sho Foo Doh (who’re slinging tuna tacos, sesame-panko-crusted cauliflower, and banana spring rolls with miso caramel) and True Craft, a sourdough pizza spot from Seven Sisters.
Details: Throughout May | Unit 1, Hamlet Estate, 96 White Post Ln, E9 5EN –
Mostrador
Argentinian chef Fernando Trocca knocked it out the park when he opened Sucre last year, and now he’s hoping to score another homer with his pop up Mostrador. And the fact that he’s already opened Mostrador pop ups in the US & Uruguay, and already scored such, er home runs… you know what, the analogy breaks down here, but the fact is that it’s a very successful concept. It’s go excellent salads, phenomenal pastries (courtesy of seven pastry chefs), and delicious light suppers. It’ll be at the Hart Shoreditch hotel for the next few months.
Details: Throughout May | 61-67 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3HU –
Little Bao Boy
Despite only launching in 2016, Little Bao Boy already has half a dozen locations across the UK making it a not quite so little – and it’s gotten larger still, thanks to a long term residency at the Sun & 13 Cantons in Soho. Expect a concise menu of half a dozen bao (beef brisket, chilli salt tofu, Korean fried chicken, etc) plus pulled pork fried, veg gyozas, and – prepare yourself – deep fried sweet bao covered in cinnamon sugar, berry compote, and condensed milk.
Details: Throughout May | Sun & 13 Cantons, 21 Great Pulteney Street, London, W1F 9NG –
Mondo Sandwiches at The White Horse
Just when we were thinking that Peckham needed more sandwich shops, the absolute king sarnie slingers Mondo Sandwiches announced that they were popping up at The White Horse in Peckham. Not just that, but head chef Jack Macrae has knocked up some shiny newbies for the occasion. We’re talking char-grilled chicken tikka thigh and a punchy Thai vegan number, not to mention the most intense rosy rare beef sandwich we’ve ever seen, served with its own gravy dipping sauce. And it’s not just ’wiches you’ll find either…. Also on the menu are their legendary smash-patty burgers and one hell of a Sunday roast.
Details: Available daily | The White Horse, 20-22 Peckham Rye, London, SE15 4JR –
Bar Night at Novelty Automation
Novelty Automation has some truly weird arcades. There’s a Money Laundering cash drop, an ‘Auto Frisker’ that will pat you down like a mechanical bouncer, and a ‘Small Hadron Collider’ among many others. It’s like satire meets surrealism meets stainless steel. And for one night a month, there’s a pop up bar there too.
Details: 4th May | 1a Princeton St, Holborn, WC1R 4AX | 5pm-9pm –
The King In The Castle
Despite being over a century old, Tesco have never dipped their toes into the pub game. Until now. They’re opening a two-day popup boozer called The King In The Castle serving up the likes of ‘Coronation King Prawn Sandwiches’ as well as nice cold pints. Proceeds will go to The Prince’s Trust charity, and despite it being booked solid, they are accepting walk-ins. You know, like most pubs.
Details: 4th & 5th May | The Castle Farringdon, 34-35 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6DB –
Aberlour’s Speakeasy
As part of London Craft Week, leather smith Charlie Borrow is running a series of workshops where you can hand-make your very own wallet in his workshop just off Columbia Road. And just underneath that workshop there’s going to be a hidden speakeasy serving cocktails and neat drams of Aberlour whisky… and bottles of the stuff to take home, if you’re easily suede.
Details: 11th & 12th May | 59 Virginia Road, London E2 7NF | £18/£50 inc. workshop –
Midnight Apothecary
It’s gotten juuuust warm enough for Midnight Apothecary to reopen their botanical rooftop bar. You’ll start your evening in their charming fairylit urban garden, complete with salvaged garden furniture, firepits, and thriving vegetable and herb patches, before descending down for a tour of the Brunel Tunnel shaft too.
Details: Fridays & Saturdays in May | Brunel Museum Rooftop Garden, Railway Avenue, SE16 4LF | £8 –
Oriole
Oriole is back. The globe-hopping cocktail bar, whose excellent menu jumped from continent to continent, sadly had to close due to the redevelopment of the Smithfield Market area. Well, now it’s doing a little hopping of its own, landing temporarily in the Hoxton Hotel down in Southwark until it can find a new permanent home. Expect their usual blend of live music, delicious cocktails, and exotic bric-a-brac from across the planet…
Details: Until 1st July | Albie, 40 Blackfriars Rd, SE1 8NY –
Amie Wine Studio
Eccleston Yards is a lovely place at any time of year, even in the colder months, when rosé wine pop ups don’t seem like the first port of call. We only mention it because it happens to be home to the first ever pop up from Aime Wine Studio, who’ve gone all-out on their debut with something that’s part bar, part wine shop, and part gallery…
Details: Throughout May | Eccleston Yards, SW1W –
Adam’s
So far, Dalston café Snackbar has been great on the snacks, and a little lighter on the bar. But that’s changed now that Adam Caddy (ex-Quo Vadis and Brasserie Zedel) has taken over on Thursday-Saturday evenings with his pop-up bar, Adam’s. Created in response to the loss of LGBTQ+ spaces in the city, it’s an inclusive bar serving up classic cocktails, Two Tribes brews and a short-but-sweet wine list across the minimalist café spaces and the leafy, fairy-lit garden.
Details: Thursday – Saturday evenings throughout May | Snackbar, 20 Dalston Lane, E8 3AZ –
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