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Wild Game Night with The Grand Duchess & 10 Greek Street
Apparently, this game requires two players: it’s a collaboration wild game dinner between chef Cameron Emirali (of 10 Greek Street fame) and the guys at The Grand Duchess, whose floating restaurant it’ll all take place on. There’ll be a 5-course tasting menu including Middle Eastern spiced hare, some pheasant & duck parfait, and a Welsh grouse with tarragon bread pudding.
Details: 10th December | The Grand Duchess, W2 6EP | £50 (wine pairing +£60)
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Table and Candle On A Routemaster
The folks at Table & Candle – who aim to bring the fine dining scene outside of W1 – are going to put a pop up feast on a Routemaster Bus this month. You’ll board the vehicle at Stoke Newington, then take a three hour riverside jaunt while you eat a seven-course Italian Pugliese tasting menu before finally returning to Stokey.
Details: 20th & 21st December | Boarding outside Ryan’s N16 | £79pp
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Chubby Buddies
Chubby Buddies describe their cooking style as “American mess touched by Asian fluffiness”. And that comes across as being startling accurate when you see the dishes they produce: BAOgers (that’s a burger in bao buns) and BAOdogs (you can guess) and other such cross-Pacific fusion.
Details: Until the end of January | The Rose & Crown, 71-73 Torriano Ave, NW5 2SG
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Bar Under The Bridge
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. The bar: a sprawling warm alpine style lodge with cosy heated chalet booths, fleece rugs, and board games, serving up food from Baggio Burger as well as mulled booze. The Bridge: Hungerford, next to the Southbank Centre.
Details: Until January 5th | Under Hungerford Bridge, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX
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Gingerline’s TV Dinners
Gingerline – the immersive dining pioneers who have sold out countless mysterious multi-dimensional dining experiences in secret locations around London, taking you variously through anthropomorphic flavour machines; animated clouds; giant ball pits and time itself – are finally taking on the ultimate bastion of culinary achievement.
TV Dinners… READ MORE
Details: Until 29th December | A Secret Location | £50pp
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The Great Christmas Feast
What the Dickens is the best immersive Christmas feast taking place in London this festive season?
Funny you should ask.
Because it’s unquestionably The Great Christmas Feast; a ravishing retelling of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, with a four course banquet woven into the story itself. The whole thing is set in a secret Victorian yuletide dining room & bar, hidden away behind a nondescript door in Bermondsey… READ MORE
Details: Until 4th January 2020 | 47-49 Tanner Street, SE1 3PL | £34-44 (non-dining) or £79-109 (dining)
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The Gun’s Winter Wonderland
The Gun in Spitalfields have pulled the trigger on their new festive pop up restaurant: a life-sized gingerbread chalet with edible walls. It’s got all manner of sparkling fairy lights, cozy throws, festive decorations, and bricks that look good enough to eat (and literally are). Thankfully, your hunger should be taken care of by their new menu, which includes braised beef short ribs and whole, deep-fried bries.
Details: Until the end of Februrary | The Gun, 54 Brushfield St, Spitalfields, E1 6AG
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Pacific
What covers two thirds of the earth and can be found in Mayfair?
Pacific.
It’s taking up the space in Mayfair’s rotating residency 10 Heddon Street, and it’ll be headed up by Aussie chef Shaun Presland, who’se spent the last 25 years training under the best Japanese chefs on the planet… READ MORE
Details: Until March 2020 | 10 Heddon Street, Mayfair, W1B 4BX
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Pampushka at the Sun & 13 Cantons
We feel cockily confident in asserting that you’ve probably never had Ukrainian food before, which is a pity, because if it’s all as good as the stuff they’re serving at Pampushka – wild mushroom & tarragon dumplings; clay pot chicken with root vegetables; layered chocolate & cream cake – then we’ve all been missing out. Luckily, you can find out for yourself at the Sun & 13 Cantons for the next six months.
Details: Until March 2020 | 21 Great Pulteney Street, Soho, W1F 9NG
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Filthy Buns
Filthy Buns (aka John & Debs) are settling into the kitchen at Dalston’s 3 Compasses, and cooking up their ludicrously large, jaw-dislocating burgers. They’re all made with aged beef, and they’re serving something gloriously called a ‘Sunday Roast Bun’ at the end of the week.
Details: Until April 2020 | The Three Compasses, 99 Dalston Lane, E8 1NH
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Fodder
Fodder’s watchword is sustainability. And they’re going to be sustaining themselves in Brixton’s Shrub & Shutter for the next six months, serving an environmentally aware menu filled with foraged ingredients. Expect confit ray tail, wood pigeon yakitori, and beech leaf sorbet, all cooked up by a former Cub chef.
Details: Until April 2020 | Shrub & Shutter, 336 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8QH
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Emile
It was a sad day when Swedish restaurant Rök was officially beaten by paper. Specifically money. And the lack thereof.
But the good news is that something just as delicious is settling into the Scandi-chic space, at least for the next few months. Emile will be run by chef Damian Clisby (formerly of Petersham Nurseries) and wine man Nick Gibson (landlord at The Drapers Arms), and they’ll be putting together a wine-driven menu of Modern European dishes.
Details: Until mid-2020 | 26 Curtain Road, EC2A 3NY
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Seb Meyers at P Franco
Celebrated wine bar P Franco regularly give up their kitchen space for a new chef residency – And currently, that chef is Seb Myers, whose London cheffing career started alongside Nuno Mendes at the iconic Viajante, and has since taken in Chiltern Firehouse and Sager + Wilde Paradise Row. His menu here changes daily, but you can expect a line-up of around seven or eight elegant dishes – which so far have included the likes of red mullet tartines; pork rillettes and cuttlefish rice.
Details: Throughout December | 107 Lower Clapton Rd, E5 0NP
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Mei Mei’s Street Cart’s Residency at LP Bar in New Cross
Mei Mei’s have already followed the traditional plan of opening pop up, then following it with a permanent restaurant: their north London pop up was followed by a brick-and-mortar joint… in Liverpool. Now they’re back, slinging excellent Chinese fusion dishes (the tacos are particularly popular) at LP Bar in New Cross.
Details: Throughout December | LP Bar, 401 New Cross Rd, SE14 6LA
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Hello Kitty Matcha Bar at Tombo
Sure, Hello Kitty doesn’t have a mouth, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t start a pop up restaurant, which she has: it’s in Fitzrovia for four months. It involves all manner of poke, branch, ramen, and doughnuts. And it’s exactly as charmingly twee as you’d imagine.
Details: Throughout December | 4 Windmill St, W1T 2HZ
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Le Bun
French-American burger outfit Le Bun are taking over the kitchens at Fitzrovia’s Smugglers Tavern, serving up truffle honey bacon cheeseburgers; bone marrow loaded fries, and buffalo cauliflower wings. Oh, and a cheeseburger Scotch egg.
Details: Throughout December | 28 Warren St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 5ND
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Hideaway by Dabbous
Set in the culinary gardens of the ultra-luxe Chelsea Barracks development, Hideaway comes to us from Ollie “I collect Michelin Stars” Dabbous. He dipped his toes into the pop up scene here briefly during the Flower Show in spring, and now he’s back for something longer-term. You can expect light, cafe-style fare including black truffle Croque Monsieurs; Ibaiama sauscisson; and buckwheat pain au chocolats.
Details: Throughout December | Chelsea Barracks, Garrison Square, SW1W 8BG
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Jimmy’s Lodge
The igloos are back. Jimmy Garcia, prince of pop ups, tycoon of temporary restaurants, has put his domes back on the banks of the Thames, and is serving up fondues, sharing steaks, and mulled wine in them.
Details: Throughout December | Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
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Prairie Fire at London Fields Brewery
Having been at the vanguard of the craft beer renaissance, London Fields Brewery are unveiling a renovated taproom overlooking their brand new railway arch brewery. And they’re not only filling it with dozens of brews fresh out of the tanks, they’ve drafted in Midwestern BBQ specialists Prairie Fire to take care of the grub. You’ll find Kansas City classics like applewood-smoked pork buns; brisket and pulled pork platters; hickory smoked chicken wings… and veggie options.
Details: Throughout December | London Fields Brewery, 365-366 Warburton Street, E8 3RR
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Luardos at The Gipsy Queen
Mexican street food afficionados Luardos have taken over the pans at Kentish Town’s Gipsy Queen, a cosy 1920s pub with a suntrap of a back garden. They’re serving burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas and sides like cassava chips, fried plantain and elotes – and on Tuesdays their tacos (baja fish, chicken thigh and carne asada) are £2 a pop.
Details: Mon-Sat throughout December | The Gipsy Queen, 166 Malden Road, London NW5 4BS
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Flank OG at The Print House
Chef Tom Griffiths is bringing his mouthwatering BBQ grub to the Print House bar in Stratford for a whole year. You might have spotted him at Market Hall Victoria and Spitalfields Market, but now that he’s got a bigger kitchen to play with, the results are, frankly, outrageous. Expect huge Sunday lunches; confit potatoes with bone marrow butter; pig’s head and trotter buns; aged beef burgers; slow-cooked cider vinegar short ribs and beef fat-brushed naans served with burnt ends.
Details: Until Summer 2020 | 133 High Street, Stratford, E15 2RB
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The Allotment at Counter Culture
Counter Culture, the little sister to The Dairy in Clapham, has launched “The Allotment”: a residency by chef Sam Ashton-Booth, who’s created a menu from the food he’s pulling out of the ground at his buddy’s, well, allotment. The menus will entirely be shaped by the harvest, and will be thus very vegetable-driven.
Details: Throughout December | 16 The Pavement, Clapham Old Town, SW4 0HY
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Studio Olafur Eliasson Kitchen
To pair with his mind-bending new show, Olafur Eliasson has opened a pop up restaurant in the Tate Modern’s Terrace Bar, which has been transformed with Eliasson’s artworks & light fittings. There, the chefs are cooking up organic, vegetarian meals served family style, exactly as they are at Eliasson’s studio in Berlin, where the restaurant originated.
Details: Until 5th January 2020 | The Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG
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Flat Earth Pizzas
Flat Earth have probably had to deal with a lot of non-believers in their time. But if you head to The Hive in Cambridge Heath, you can see for yourself how good their pizzas are. Their ethos is built around low-waste cooking and using local and foraged ingredients – which translates into toppings like house kimchi, egg and five cheeses; foraged plum compote with sesame and soy aubergine; samphire and seaweed salt; and courgette ribbons with toasted walnuts.
Details: Thurs-Sat evenings until the end of the year | The Hive, 288 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9DA
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Chambers_
Gingerline are back with another experience so secret, we’ll have to ask that you kindly read this paragraph in a whispered internal monologue. It’s got a secret menu, it’s at a secret location, and the experience is a secret, too. It’s called Chambers_, and it’s a culmination of their various Chambers of Flavour immersive supperclubs, which has gone through three ever-more-impressive iterations over the past couple of years.
This fourth time around, you’ll get “a palate twisting interactive multi-dimensional dining adventure”, which includes “5 flavoursome courses, a palate cleanser, a welcome drink plus 120 minutes of playful explorations through 5 dining dimensions”. Precisely what all of that means isn’t entirely clear, but then, that’s the point.
Now don’t go blabbing about it.
Details: Until 21st Decmber | Somewhere Secret | £55-£75
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Chinese Laundry @ 10 Coulgate St
After their restaurant almost burned down and its charred husk was then occupied by squatters, the seemingly irrepressible ladies behind The Chinese Laundry are back at last with a long term residency in Brockley’s 10 Coulgate Street. And unseated of a fixed menu, there’ll be a table of dishes to choose freely from, all inspired by their recent trip across China… READ MORE
Details: Weds-Sun until Feb 2020 | No.10 Coulgate Street, SE4 2RS | £35 (including corkage, if you want to BYOB)
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Liu Xiaomian at The Jackalope
It takes a seasoned chef to get the level of spices right in a dish. Luckily, Liu Xiaomian has two. The duo behind the noodle outfit have won themselves queues round the block for their ‘spicy, numbing, addictive’ Chongqing cooking. And they’re settled into the kitchens at Marylebone pub The Jackalope for the near future, serving delicious, freshly made wonton, spicy noodles and slow-cooked pork with Chinese vegetables.
Details: Tues-Fri, 12-2.30pm & 6-9pm | The Jackalope, 43 Weymouth Mews, W1G 7EQ
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Supa Ya Ramen
Ramen is getting souped up.
Because ex-Nopi, Patty & Bun and Hand & Flowers chef Luke Findlay is running his own underground ramen restaurant. It only takes place on Saturday nights, with four sittings and six people at a time. To make sure you’re one of them, DM him on instagram and he’ll reply with a booking and directions to find it…
Details: Saturday nights | Secret N16 Location
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Donnelly’s
James Donnelly may have climbed the culinary ladder the old-fashioned way (with a CV listing The River Café, The Palmerston and Tom Aikens)… but his food’s anything but. After winning critical acclaim for a series of pop ups, he’s landed in Bermondsey for a long-term residency serving up his Modern British ‘tapas’ – which here means the likes of salted chocolate tart with port-poached blackberries and roasted plaice with pickled mushrooms. READ MORE
Details: Throughout December | The Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen, 40 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UD
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Main image: Chambers_