Welcome back to One City Eats: blog reviews of some of our favourite meals in the City.
We love a bottomless brunch no less than the next person. There’s no magic like getting ready full glam at 11am for a 1pm start of 90mins bottomless booze, food, friends and good vibes in the City. Gaucho is no exception to that. From the moment we were whisked underground into the boujee, Argentinian forest-inspired eatery, we knew we were going to be treated like celebrities.
Firstly, I cannot praise the staff enough. Our waitress was impeccably attentive, welcoming and professional. No drinks request was too much (or too soon!), and that really stood out to me at Gaucho. Their courtesy really welcomes you in with open arms.
We started with an elder fizz and an apple fizz. Within seconds, two gorgeous drinks were served in front of me, and there’s nothing like the first sip! The elder fizz is bitter enough to send a refreshing wave of flora through your mouth, and the apple fizz is sweet enough to leave your tastebuds smiling. Gaucho’s variety of bottomless cocktails went down almost too easily as we sipped to classic nineties and noughties house tracks mixed by their resident DJ, (and trust me, who doesn’t love bottomless cocktails).
The intriguing and exciting menu of Argentinian/English tasting dishes is tempting enough to you convince you to try the entire selection. Did we mention that food is bottomless, too? An ultimate win-win situation. Vegetarians & vegans: don’t fear. For a traditional steak restaurant, there are a plethora of options for you to indulge in. I didn’t sacrifice taste or choice as a result of my meat-free palette. My favourite dish was the chilli mushrooms on toast (which was phenomenal), and my partner’s was the steak and eggs. Come on, it is an Argentinian steak house after all.
After being treated like royalty for 90 minutes straight, the manager was kind enough to say goodbye before we explored the delectable cocktails in the spectacular glass bar upstairs. Gaucho, we’ll be back!
The arrival of summer each year brings with it the promise of a season of incredible sporting action and where better to take it all in than the lively pubs of the City? We’ve already seen some amazing sport so far this summer, with Wimbledon providing its usual fare of drama and excitement. The rest of this summer sees the culmination of the Women’s Euros, while England’s Men’s cricket team are in action against South Africa before the 2022/23 football season kicks off in August. This means there’s still plenty of amazing sporting action for you to catch at the City’s best pubs and bars. Let’s take a look at our favourite spots.
This cricket-themed pub, sat just below the iconic dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, is the ideal place to catch England’s ‘Bazball’ revolution this summer with screens both set up in front of large tables and tucked away into cosy snugs. You can also catch the rest of the Women’s Euros or British horseracing events at the recently-refurbished Fuller’s pub while also filling up on some classic British pub grub!
Hidden just beneath Tower 42, you can find Broadleaf, a stylish City bar with modern interiors and a glasshouse-effect exterior. The menu is similarly sophisticated, with Broadleaf’s own selections sitting alongside additions from Long Arm Burgers and Brews, Chick Chick Crew and Greenwood Stonebaked Pizzas. Sports fans should make their way upstairs to the sports lounge where they will be able to watch everything from football and cricket to UFC and horseracing.
📍 Find it: Tower 42, 25 Old Broad St, London EC2N 1HN
The open and spacious Albion offers sports lovers a classic pub experience that provides a welcome respite from the rush of Fleet Street. With the usual selection of sports on offer, you can rest assured you’ll be covered for whatever you’re looking for. What’s more, with Premier League and World Cup 2022 screenings scheduled well into December, there should be no excuse for not getting your mates together and booking a table!
If it’s the selection of sports on offer that you’re looking for, then the City Bar and Grill in Aldgate is the spot for you. You can catch a whole range of sporting action at this central London bar, including but not limited to football, cricket, rugby, tennis, golf and horseracing! And with transport links to Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street, Bank, Aldgate, Aldgate East, and Tower Hill, it’s never been easier to follow an amazing summer of sport.
Just up the road from Liverpool Street Station, you can find Tank and Paddle, a beautiful wood-panelled bar that offers the best of this summer’s sport alongside some of the best pizza in the City. The drinks selection is equally high in quality, and what’s more, you can even check out what beers and ales they will be adding to their already extensive collection by heading over to their website.
📍 Find it: 3 Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7AA
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We chatted with multidisciplinary artist and designer Anna Lomax and Saff Williams, Curatorial Director at Brookfield Properties, about Parade!
Commissioned by Brookfield Properties, Parade! Is a new installation by Anna Lomax, on display until 30 September 2022 at Principal Place.
Principal Place has been transformed into an incredible adult playground, with bold steel sculptures inspired by the hidden gems and unexpected moments of London, for the local community to use. Whether you just want to sit, work, play, eating lunch or gathering with colleagues and friends for an after-work drink, make sure to head down to Principal Place to check out this truly immersive installation!
And what’s more, every Thursday evening there will be Summer Sounds – DJ sets and live music. Need we say more? Scroll down to find out more about Parade!.
Parade! by Anna Lomax at Principal Place
Your practice is informed by a fascination with colour, materials, forms and pop culture. Can you tell us about your creative process?
Anna Lomax: I experiment a lot in my studio and on studio lead projects. The outcomes often go on to inform larger commissioned work, quite often the mistakes and things that don’t quite work, or tiny details of a previous project produce the most interesting results and become a leaping off point for new work.
You have worked on a range of design and installation projects, including retail spaces and windows, for some of the biggest names in fashion, design and tech, including British Vogue, Selfridges, Chanel and Nike. Can you tell us how you got into set design?
Anna Lomax : While studying at University, I attended a talk from designer Ron Nordsworthy (who had been Hype Williams’ production designer throughout his career) and that talk opened up a whole world to me, where everything I had been making suddenly made sense.
I couldn’t believe I’d never put two and two together that someone physically made the stuff I’d been looking at for years. Fast forward 15 years and my practice is now very varied, stepping in and out of set design, working on lots of multidisciplinary projects, from directing stop frame and CGI to creating site specific work like ‘Parade!’ in Principle Place.
What are your favourite objects and materials to work with?
Anna Lomax: I get really obsessed with something and then want to crowbar it into every project. Right now, my favourite object is metal in all its forms and processes that go along with the material and inflatables in all their forms.
I love working with lots of different materials partly because of the people you meet while working out how to get something made. I love the hunt of finding the right places and people, learning about the material, and working with people who know their material and craft inside out and back to front. That really is part of the creative process for me.
Your exhibition ‘Parade’ at Principal Place runs until 30 September. Can you tell us about ‘Parade’ and the works on view there?
Anna Lomax: London is somewhere full of surprises – each time you venture out, new things are discovered and that’s what makes it so great; hidden gems, people, undiscovered places; new and old. Exploring and celebrating these unexpected interactions and moments were the inspiration for this installation.
Parade! by Anna Lomax at Principal Place
Why do you think Principal Place is a great place to exhibit at? What do you hope the public will experience through your work?
Anna Lomax: Parade! Is designed as somewhere to explore, reflect, relax and shelter; a place to remember why the city is such a great place to be. The oversized gloss colourful forms represent the gems of the city, juxtaposed with the brushed aluminium dominos reflecting the landscape of the city. The materials create unexpected reflections, visual trickery, and illusions that invite the viewer in to interact with the installation.
What do you like about the City?
Anna Lomax: London is home. I was born and bred in Deptford in South-East London, and I’ve lived in London my whole life. The whole project is dedicated to what I love the most about the City. It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the things that make it the place it is as it’s the combination that keeps me here.
Saff, can you tell us why Brookfield Arts decided to exhibit Anna Lomax at Principal Place?
Saff Williams: I have been a fan of Anna’s work for years! Her work is an exciting, sophisticated expression of ‘the London look’. She has a great talent for achieving incredible artworks from simple forms and beautiful palette combinations, making fresh contemporary site-specific installations that reflect their surroundings.
We were looking for the right artist who could continue our theme of creating ‘adult playgrounds’, someone who could create an installation for our community to use and incite imaginative play. A new space, an art relic where people could sit, work and reflect and for this brief, I knew Anna would be the perfect match.
What’s your favourite part of the exhibition?
Saff Williams: I am amazed by the precarious looking nature of Parade!, its large aluminium panels look as though they could simply topple over if pushed, held together by bright pops of colours and shapes that gently ‘hold’ the work together. Parade! is light touch and ephemeral yet bold, strong, and made from steel. The contradiction in form over materials, is a sight to see!
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Layered Reality jumps off the success of their immersive experience ‘The War of the Worlds’ to welcome visitors to their new experience in Tower Vaults: The Gunpowder Plot. It’s a creative retelling of one of the most famous moments in British history – the attempted attack on parliament by one infamous Guy Fawkes, commemorated (if not quite celebrated?!) every year on 5 November – and it brings to life a version of the story you might have never known.
A brief introduction gives you the context of the conflict – it’s 1605 and King James I is rounding up and persecuting Catholics. After that, you’re plunged into the action, huddling with the prisoners in the Tower before being embroiled in a plot – as spies, or spies for the spies? – to assasinate the King and destroy Parliament with an enormous gunpowder explosion. The two-hours-ish journey takes you across 17th Century London, making friends and following associates through a labyrinth of secret tunnels, priest-holes, cages and underground hide-outs, with the help of actors and Virtual Reality (VR) to transport you into the action.
For myself, it was a fascinating way to learn a historical context that was little-known for an event that is very much known. The plot and actors play off your loyalties, asking you to decide who to spy for – the group of rebels and Catholics keen to assassinate the King? Or will you protect the Crown itself and hand over Fawkes and his friends? As a small audience group you’re asked to decide, with a ‘choose your own adventure‘ aspect to the second half of the show, but of course, history dictates there’s only one way this will end. It’s difficult to know how much your decision actually affects how the rest of the show plays out – but it’s surprisingly easy to sympathise with the rebels, even when you know they’re doomed for failure.
VR adds a creative element to modern immersive experiences, and it’s used well here, aside for some glitching and occasional positioning errors. Fans who came for Tom Felton (pictured) will be disappointed not to see him in the flesh, but rather appearing via VR to guide you through a flying boat and later, a lurch through time (it makes sense when you’re there, I promise). The most impressive element of this immersive experience is the use of sensory detail, whether it be the temperature rapidly changing between the freezing cold Tower to the fire-warmed hideouts, or the rather unpleasant smell emanating up from the ‘Thames’ once you’re there (via VR). Overall, the action is well balanced; if you’re a fan of VR (like myself) you’ll find the zipwire over London absolutely thrilling, well interspersed between interactions with the live actors. Even an interval is cleverly disguised as a trip to a tavern, complete with tankards.
Overall, it’s a show that is creative and clever, if not always flawlessly executed. Time will hopefully iron out the teething errors with the tech, but fans of immersive shows will find it one of the most entertaining experiences in London right now.
Summer brings the blockbusters – but our favourite City cinemas tend to host the quieter, more independent films as well. We’ve no doubt the next round of Marvel movies will dominate the screens this summer (kicking off with Thor: Love and Thunder in July), but what can you catch this month? Take a look at our picks below.
The whole gang’s back together in the final instalment of the Jurassic saga, with Jurassic World: Dominion, playing at Curzon Aldgate. Chris Pratt returns to protect his friendly dinosaur Blue, but more is at stake when the human/dinosaur state of co-existence is threatened. Fans of the original set will be thrilled to see Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum reprise their famous Jurassic Park roles. I guess life really does find a way.
Over at Barbican Cinema, you’ll be less thrilled and more chilled by the much anticipated Men, starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear (who takes over almost every other role in the cast). Alex Garland (of Annihilation and Ex Machina) writes and directs this disturbing and surreal tale about a woman who heads alone to the English countryside, reeling from a recent tragedy. But what she finds there might not be the cathartic experience she was hoping for. Showing at Barbican until 16 June.
Everyman Broadgate are throwing an entire shindig to celebrate the opening of Elvis. Don your finest 50s gladrags and tuck into all-American corndogs at ‘It’s Now or Never: Elvis Opening Night‘ – a celebration of all things USA before watching the film itself. Austin Butler stars in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of one of the most famous singers who ever lived. Whatever happens, it’s bound to have a soundtrack you’ll be singing for weeks.
