Your November Agenda

YOUR NOVEMBER AGENDA | Pop Up London 2019

No single month is perfect.
Only a few can even come close.
Very few – and they need to have it all.
Extraordinary events, stupidly fun parties, creative pop ups, you name it.
Most of which need to be ludicrously, laughably good.
But there is one month that just may manage it.
Eager to know which it is?
Rear the first letter of each sentence… then read the Agenda.

POP UP EVENTS (November 2019)

BBC Music Introducing Live 2019

BBC Music Introducing Live is for aspiring musicians, “whatever your stage in the music industry.” And assuming that stage isn’t the Pyramid at Glastonbury just yet, this three day festival at Tobacco Docks aims to help you get there. There’ll be talks, panels and masterclasses, from Jamie Cullum on the art of improvisation, to the people who choose the music for Love Island – as well as loads of industry advice on scoring gigs, marketing yourself or working as a manager. Plus, there’ll be appearances from Trevor Nelson and Jo Whiley, as well as late-night DJ sets courtesy of Annie Mac and Pete Tong.

Details: 31st October – 2nd November | Tobacco Docks, Wapping Lane, E1W 2SF | £11.50-£33
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Late at Pizhanger Manor

This Late gives you a chance to explore the mind-bending Memory Palace exhibition by Es Devlin after hours: it’s a single, gigantic 18m-wide sculpture that fills the entire gallery space, which itself is mirrored on the walls & ceiling, giving you the impression of standing in a space many times larger. On top of that, there’s the acoustic musical performances, the Gimlet cocktail bar, and the ‘scented trail’ throughout the gallery.

Details: 1st November | Pitzhanger Manor, Mattock Lane, W5 5EQ | £10
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Ultimate Power: Bat out of Helloween

Karaoke is fun. Karaoke with hundreds of other people simultaneously singing power ballads at the top of their lungs is closer to a religious experience. And this Ultimate Power event is going to have all the MeatLoaf, Bonnie Tyler, and Bon Jovi you can shake a cassette at. Bring your air instruments and throat sweets.

Details: 1st November | 02 Forum Kentish Town, 9-17 Highgate Road, NW5 1JY | £14.30
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Ally Pally Fireworks

Not content with merely being the biggest fireworks festival in the city, Ally Pally have thrown in a German Bier Festival, a little outdoor cinema, a funfair, a 30ft bonfire, and a casual ice skating just for good measure.

Details: 1st & 2nd November | Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, N22 7AY | £12.50
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Winterland

Winterland has all the things you’d usually expect of a cosy, alpine pop up – like fur-lined private chalets, heated igloos, a private hunting lodge full of hot cocktails and hot cheese – as well as a few things you wouldn’t expect, too.

Like a hot tub. With a mulled wine waiter. READ MORE

Details: 7th November until early 2020 |  Albert Wharf, Wandsworth Bridge Road, SW6 2TY | £5 entry
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B:RAVE

It’s time to get down to brass tracks.

Because everybody’s favourite modern 10-piece brass band – the Old Dirty Brassards, fresh from playing this year’s Glasto – are collaborating with another Glasto regular, Beyond Repair Dance, to hold a very special gig. In fact, something this rambunctiously psychedelic can only really be described as a brass rave. The world’s first, no doubt. READ MORE

Details: 8th November | 93 Feet East, 150 Brick Lane, Shoreditch, E1 6QL | £12.50
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Southbank Centre Winter Festival

If you’re looking for an excuse to drink mulled cider and wine around crackling firepits; eat festive street food from raclette to bratwurst; and buy festive wares from twinkling fairylit chalets, then look no further than the Southbank Centre.

Details: 8th November-5th January | Southbank Centre Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX | Free Entry
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Secret Cinema Presents: Stranger Things

We never thought we’d see the day that Secret Cinema adapted a TV show. But Stranger Things have happened. Yes, the immersive experience pioneers are back, and after a staggering 70 productions they’re taking on a whole new branch of entertainment. READ MORE

Details: 13th November-February 2020 | A Secret Location | £49
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Syon Park’s Enchanted Woodland

This winter, Syon Park Forest is going to be lit up like a Christmas tree.

It’s out in West London in the grounds surrounding a stately manor (Syon House), and this will be the 14th year that they’ve decided to enchant the 6-century-old woodlands using a spectrums-worth of lights, lasers, strobes, floodlights, and other such modern wizardry… READ MORE

Details: 15th November-1st December | Syon House, TW8 8JF | £10
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The Bloomsbury Winter Hootenanny

This hootenanny is going to be a colossal live music event taking place in a travelling big top in central London, with over 120 singers and musicians coming together to assault your senses with one of their unique ‘wall of sound’ gigs… READ MORE

Details: 16th November | The Bloomsbury Big Top, Coram’s Fields, WC1N 1DN | £12-£18
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Bach’n’Eggs

For their next event, Bach’n’Eggs are serving a weekend mimosa and some avocado toast while you listen to the stylings of Eleanor Janes (soprano) and Olivia Jageurs (harp) who’ll be rocking some Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Strauss and of course, a little bit of Bach. Just remember to compose yourself. READ MORE

Details: 16th November | Fidelio, Clekernwell, EC1R 5BX | £9.50
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Winterfest

If you don’t know what Winterfest is, that’s understandable, because this will be the first year it’s happened. It’s basically a huge outdoor light & sound show up in Wembley Park, and it’s set to hit town for six weeks from November 20th. It’s completely free, and it involves a 100ft installation from a pair of former Pixar animators…READ MORE

Details: 20th November-3rd January 2020 | Wembley Park, Wembley, HA9 | Free
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Rocketman at The Shard

Watch Elton John along with some other (very literal) stars at this evening screening of Rocketman on the 69th floor of The Shard. Right beneath the night sky, you’ll be able to take in the film with a welcome G&T in one hand, and some freshly popped popcorn in the other. Outlandish glasses very much encouraged.

Details: 20th November | The Shard, Joiner Street, SE1 9QU | £45
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Winter Wonderland

It’s a classic for a reason. Every year it seems to come back even bigger, and this year there’s London’s largest outdoor ice rink (with live music from the central bandstand); rollercoasters and rides; circus acts; street food; mulled wine; firepits and tipis; karaoke huts; and… a 70m observation wheel. 

Details: 21st November – 5th January, daily from 10am-10pm | Hyde Park, W2 2UH | From £9.50-£15.50
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WOW at the Japan Centre

When you call your visual design studio an all-caps, back-patting, rakishly confident name like WOW you had better deliver. And WOW certainly does. They’re a Japanese firm whose work has been stunning audiences in the Far East, and is now making its way to the UK for the first time. It’s in the Japan Centre, and you’ll find digital installations including Tokyo Lights Odyssey, a 360-degree immersive look at Tokyo at night, and Poppo, a chance to carve a traditional wooden doll and project your own face onto it.

Details: 21st November 2019 until 22nd March 2020 | Japan Centre, 101-111 Kensington High Street, W8 5SA | Free
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Flight 338

It’s an escape room, set on a plane. As in an actual plane, not just a narrow room with a drinks trolley. It’s a decommission jet they’ve parked in Greenwich, you’ll play a jailbird in a criminal gang aboard a prisoner transport, and you’ve got to find the tools smuggled abroad to help escape. The company behind the entire enterprise, The Riddle Within, haven’t done any escape rooms before, so yes – this is their pilot show. Hopefully it takes off.

Details: Starts 25th November | 338 Boord Street, Greenwich Peninsula SE10 0PF | £20-£87pp
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Wave

Set in Eccleston Yards, Wave is an experiment in chromotherapy, which we’re told is “the science of using the powers of light and colour to balance energy in the body and mind.”

So basically, it looks cool as f*ck.

It’s been set up by the people at SquidSoup, and it’ll have 500 individual lights that you can wander through while evolving harmonies play.

Details: 28th November to 11th January, 4pm-10pm | Eccleston Yards, SW1W 9AZ
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Three Women – Lisa Taddeo on Love, Sex and Desire

At this point, it seems that we can roughly divide the world up into two categories: those who admire Lisa Taddeo, and those who simply haven’t heard of her.

For anyone in the latter category, she’s an award-winning journalist, turned author, turned global phenom. And that last part is thanks to her latest non-fiction book, Three Women. In it, she details the lives & sex lives of a trio of American women from vastly different walks of life, in brutal, beautiful detail. And now she’s coming to London to talk about it… READ MORE

Details: 29th November | Emmanuel Centre, 9-23 Marsham Street, SW1P 3DW | £30-£40
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JARR Kombucha Brewery Tour + Masterclass

Handling boiling water whilst on a boat might not sound like a great idea. But rest assured this one – the majestic canal boat Alfred Le Roy, no less – will be completely stationary while you make your ‘booch, alongside the capable team at JARR. Kombucha cocktail in hand, they’ll then take you on a tour round their Hackney Wick brewery – the first time it’s ever been open to the public. We can only hope it’s filled with oompa loompas.

Details: 30th November | JARR Kombucha, Mick’s Garage, 8A Queens Yard, E9 5EN | £25
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Go Ice Skating

Just be warned, it can be a slippery slope. Check out the best rinks in London.
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Other Spaces

Laser art – it’s pretty cutting edge. And now a huge, free exhibition of the stuff is popping up in London. It showcases three works by the United Visual Artists collective, each of which are vast, walk-in installations. Inspired by Renaissance artists like Dürer and Da Vinci and their obsessions with mathematics, perspective and proportion, Vanishing Point plays with lasers and horizon lines to create a kind of walk-through blueprint; The Great Animal Orchestra combines over 50,000 hours of recorded animal sounds made by a bioacoustician with a visual laser landscape created by the frequencies of those sounds (reflected eerily beneath your feet); and Our Time is a kinetic light show first exhibited in the Barbican, now rebooted as a new site-specific installation with a specially commissioned soundtrack… READ MORE

Details: Until 8th December | The Store X 180 The Strand, London WC2R 1EA | Free Entry
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Red Palace

Head to the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Waterloo station this month, and you’ll happen upon a night of theatrical revelry full of dark, beguiling characters ripped out of a gothic fairy story. On your interactive journey through the palace, you’ll eat dishes by a Masterchef finalist, sip unusual cocktails, and watch performances by ballerinas, contortionists, and a very talented ghost orchestra… READ MORE

Details: Until 12th January | The Vaults, Leake Street, SE1 7NN | £15-70
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Journey To The Underworld

There’s a special place in hell for people who refuse to ask for directions.

Not that they’ll ever find it.

So to save you any hassle getting into Satan’s playground, the people at Funicular Productions are going to take you there by train. It’s the return of their second immersive, locomotive-based supper club experience (their other shows, the Murdér Express and The Jewel of The Empire, were also set on a steam engine), and they’ve recruited Masterchef: The Professionals finalist Louisa Ellis to feed you onboard… READ MORE

Details: Until 10th November | Arch 63 Pedley St, E1 5BW | £63
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The Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019

There’s only one acceptable context for shooting wild animals, and it’s the one practiced by the world’s wildlife photographers.

And now in its 55th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year is back to show off the very best amongst them. This year, they trawled through some 48k entries from 100+ countries before landing on the winning images, which are displayed on special lightboxes (alongside dozens of runner-up shots) throughout the Natural History Museum’s gallery. READ MORE

Details: until 31 May 2020 | The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD | £14
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Moving to Mars

You can now see what it would be like to live on Mars, thanks to the new exhibition from the Design Museum –  because they’re going to have a full-scale, completely liveable Mars home inside it… READ MORE

Details: Until 23rd February 2020 | The Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, W8 6AG | £16-£18
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Hit the Theatre

Ever since the dawn of time, human beings have gazed at the stars in awe and asked themselves “Where can I get a list of only the absolute best theatre shows playing in London right now – divided into musical, comedy, drama, and immersive categories – in which I can also discover a heap of nearby bars and restaurants to help me make a night of it?”

Well the answer is… right here: The Best of London Theatre right now.
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POP UP RESTAURANTS (November 2019)

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Kina Mama at Darjeeling Express

We can almost guarantee that you’ve never had Egyptian & Ugandan cuisine at the same meal before… but that’s only if you haven’t been to a Kina Mama event. They’re a group of women who espouse the virtues of supporting mothers, and they’re holding a supperclub at Darjeeling Express this month…

Details: 3rd November | Darjeeling Express, Kingly Court, W1B 5PW | £40
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Bonfire Night Supper at Garden Rooms

Sure, Garden Rooms has a lovely private room, perfect for supperclubs. And yes, you’ll get a special four-course menu cooked by a guest chef all kicked off by a hot toddy. But the real reason to go to this is to watch the bonfire night fireworks from a panoramic view on the 10th floor.

Details: 5th November | 10th Floor, Assembly Hotel, 27-31 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0LS | £45
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A Taste of Porto

Portugal has some delicious food & drink. Hell, its name even starts with a fortified wine. And the Disappearing Dining Club are bringing you some of the country’s tastiest dishes, all paired with some top-shelf Portuguese wines, in a series of weekly dinners every Thursday…

Details: 7th, 14th & 21st November | The Dartmouth Arms, 35 York Rise, NW5 1SP | £40
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Table & Candle

Table & Candle aim to take the vibrant & exciting restaurant scene usually reserved for Zone 1, and transport it to the outer-reaches of the city into suburban spots typically used to chains & greasy spoons. This month, they’ll be hosting pop ups in Notting Hill & Muswell Hill with Valentina Nigro (protogé to Theo Randall) who’ll be cooking up a seven-course Pugliese tasting menu…

Details: 8th & 9th November (Notting Hill) – 29th & 30th November (Muswell Hill) | £45
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Zoe Adjonyoh X Mortimer House

Zoe Adjonyoh – famed for her superlative dining experience Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen – is Ghana take the next spot in the ever-more-impressive guest chefs series at members’ club Mortimer House. As usual, it’s open to the public, and you can get her okra fries, her peanut butter stew, jollof rice, and whole baked tilapia among many others.

Details: Until 9th November | 37 Mortimer Street, Fitzrovia, W1T 3JH
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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: 9th November-29th December | A Secret Location | £50pp
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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: 13th November-March 2020 | 10 Heddon Street, Mayfair, W1B 4BX
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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: 22nd November 2019 – 4th January 2020 | 47-49 Tanner Street, SE1 3PL | £34-44 (non-dining) or £79-109 (dining)
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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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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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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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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 November | 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 November | 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 November | 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 November | 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 November | 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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Rande

Feeling a little Rande? You will be, because it’s a Mexican pop up restaurant that “explore life beyond tacos” in ever-changing, unusual venues, from laundromats, to warehouses, to distilleries. And this month, that means you’ll dine on tuna tartare tostados, sous vide hake with green mole, and Mexican flan with a liquid caramel top somewhere quite unique…

Details: 7th & 8th November | Secret location | £39.50
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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 November | The Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen, 40 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UD
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