Hello Darling + Darling House Waterloo London

The Lost and Found Generation

Hello darlings. Hello Darling. Like a 21st century Dennis Severs’ House (the madcap period drama that lurks in Spitalfields), Hello Darling the brasserie and botanical bar and Darling House the mad party pad upstairs does eccentricity on tap. It’s out on a whim. The creative minds behind this immersive concept are Harriet Darling and Elise Edge. Presumably “Hello Edge” didn’t have quite the same ring to it. The interiors are a riot of paint effects and visual puns. A piece of art on the wall slides to the side. Is it a painting or window? It’s both. Below a handwritten “Lost Property” sign lies a discarded copy of Sarah Knight’s bestseller Get Your Sh!t Together sticking out from a Christmas bag. A note inside reads: “To Lulu, to help you stop losing your things wherever you go!” Is it an installation or the trail of a somewhat clueless guest? Not sure.

Gertrude Stein, champion of Cubist literature, on “Glazed glitter” in her 1914 Tender Buttons, “Nickel, what is nickel, it is originally rid of a cover. The change in that is that red weakens an hour. The change has come. There is no search. But there is, there is that hope and that interpretation and sometimes, surely any is unwelcome, sometime there is breath and there will be a sinecure and charming very charming is that clean and cleansing. Certainly glittering is handsome and convincing. There is no gratitude in mercy and in medicine. There can be breakages in Japanese. That is no programme. That is no colour chosen. It was chosen yesterday, that showed spitting and perhaps washing and polishing. It certainly showed no obligation and perhaps if borrowing is not natural there is some use in giving.” Goodbye Hello Darling. Goodbye darlings.