Month: April 2021

Categories
Luxury Town Houses

Gail’s Bakery Afternoon Tea + St Mary’s Cemetery Battersea London

Quality Street

It’s the sorted postcode signifier, from St Alban’s to St John’s Wood; Blackheath to Blackfriars; Buckingham Palace Road to Queen’s Park; Putney to Pimlico; Southbank to South Kensington; Windsor to Wimbledon; West Dulwich to West Hampstead. And Northcote Road Battersea of course. You either live in a Gail’s ‘hood or you don’t. Now that Northcote Road is pedestrianised every weekend it’s like a carnival – an endless SW11 festival.

The vacated White Stuff drapers next to The Old Bank pub has been given a smashing sash windowed timber fronted paler shade of Fortnum and Mason’s green façade complete with encaustic tiled inset porch. It’s VE Kitchen, a vegan outlet. A few doors down, Anglo Asian restaurant East Street by Tampopo fills the unit that Byron Burgers once occupied and before that Anglo Italian restaurant Marzano. Across the road, Oddbins wine shop is now Orée French boulangerie. It’s not all change: The Old Bank’s other neighbour, family run Italian restaurant Osteria Antica Bologna, has been flying the tricolour since 1990. All spilling onto the pavement onto the road into the Saturday and Sunday ambience.

Unlike Belfast with an Ormeau Bakery shop on every street corner, London was sorely lacking on the bread front. That was, until baker Gail Mejia set up her first eponymous shop on Hampstead High Street in 2005. Now the bakery comes to you. Monday morning there’s a knock at the door of The House of Lavender’s Blue. Afternoon tea for four from Gail’s on Northcote Road. Nice start to the working week. Monday is the new Friday. Or at least that’s how it will seem later at Tropix on Clapham High Street, the Caribbean foodie hangout in the former Royal Oak pub. To misquote the Anglo Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen, every moment of your day and night has to be lived.

Afternoon tea is packed into a salmon pinkish red box, Gail’s trademark colour. “The best thing since…” is printed on the box but there’s more to afternoon tea than sliced bread. Jing Assam breakfast tea accompanies scones with Rodda’s clotted cream, organic strawberry jam and lemon curd. Savouries are smoked salmon and avocado yoghurt rolls plus avocado and egg sandwiches. Sweets are chocolate brownie fingers and honey cakes. The 7th Duchess of Bedford would approve.

In St Mary’s Cemetery, high above Northcote Road, a carpet of daffodils and crocuses layers seasonal colour among the statuary. Spring has sprung.

Categories
Architecture Luxury Restaurants

Royal Festival Hall + Skylon Restaurant Southbank London

The Cat That Got the Cream Among the Pigeons

Skylon isn’t just a hotel along the northern route into Dublin. It’s also a pop up restaurant along Southbank London which for now has popped out of its usual home on the third floor of Royal Festival Hall right onto the terrace along the embankment. The sharp lines and abstract planes of this mid 20th century Grade I Listed Corbu-on-Söderström building are strengthened by a cobalt blue sky. Part of the D+D restaurant group, alfresco Skylon is all about informal European plates, people watching and soaking up those Vitamin D rays.

Categories
People

Prince Philip + Newzroom Afrika

From Our Own Correspondent

Friday 5pm phone call from Trisha Pillay-Singh, Newzroom Afrika Producer. “You’re going live in Pretoria 7.30pm UK time.” We’re ready to capture the mood of the British nation as it mourns the passing of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh. Afterwards, John Barber, who acts as a Deputy Lieutenant for the Lord Lieutenant and Her Majesty The Queen, will call, “His Royal Highness was always fun. Just like Her Majesty who has a wonderful wit!”

Bongiwe Zwane, Newzroom Afrika’s Managing Editor and Anchor, introduces, “London based Features Writer and Reporter Stuart Blakley joins us now with more reaction on the passing of Prince Philip. Good evening and thank you so much for your time Stuart and I know it’s during the day where you are – certainly this is a huge loss to the Royal Family…” The distinguished journalist Bongiwe is well known for commenting, “I’m God’s daughter before anything else. My King’s Queen.”

Newzroom Afrika is the African Continent’s premier 24 hour digital satellite television news channel. It is broadcast from Pretoria in South Africa across southern, east and west Africa. It is 100 percent black owned and 50 percent female owned. The Z in its name is of significance. It’s the initial of ‘Zenith’: this channel reaches the height of broadcasting and the breadth geographically.

Eight days later, Saturday 6.15am phone call from South Africa’s leading television Producer. “You’re going live in Pretoria 8.15am UK time.” We’re ready to capture the mood of the nation as it celebrates the life of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh even as things get grittier and questions tougher. Ayanda Nyathi, Newzroom Afrika Anchor, introduces, “Tributes are still pouring in all over the world following the passing of Prince Philip last week. Many have described the Duke of Edinburgh as a reliable man… others have remembered him as a complicated individual… Let’s bring in Stuart Blakley as a Features Writer and Reporter…” And so the newsreel moves onto the next story.

Categories
Architecture Town Houses

Deal Town Kent + Townhouses

Resurrection Sunday

Bucolia should be a noun. Feet resting on the window shutter while reading a novel next to an open balcony. Champagne on the rocks on the beach. Strolling along meandering streets of quaint gaily painted cottages. Goat’s cheese soufflé from The Dining Club later. All on that most special of days. Deal is more than a verb and a noun. A proper noun for a proper place.

Categories
Art Design Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

The House of Lavender’s Blue + sketch Mayfair London Afternoon Tea

Class Art Class

It all started at a private party in Chelsea. What doesn’t? Many moons ago, back in the sway, we shimmied up to developer Orpheus’ latest townhouse feeling just a little bit on form. By midnight we’d hit the top terrace dancefloor and before we knew it, we were tearing it up with the gorgeous Clea Irving. She was of course Art Curator of sketch. We’ve always been drawn to fabulosity.

A fuchsia painted rollercoaster of engagement parties, afternoon teas with models and planners and model planners, breaking the midday rule (“More Champagne darlings… time… places… people…”) over Christmas fairies and fairy cakes, summer madness and some insanity, pre Masterpiece cocktails, post Masterpiece nightcaps and post post Masterpiece parties ensued down the years.

We mightn’t have three Michelin stars or boast egg shaped loos or own a dining room big enough to thrash out a game of badminton in but – hey! – at The House of Lavender Blue we reckon we’re sorta up there with the artistic antics of sketch. A dismembered mannequin posing as Surreal garden sculpture. Goddit. More dioramas than a Victorian playground. Goddem. Architectural sketches and artistic endeavours of varying substance. All watched over by the attendant eye of Art Curator Zelda Blakley. Godda get more. Godda get out more. What’s more, more’s more.Knock knock. “What’s there?” A reverse Pandora’s Box. A pink cuboid of delights decorated with drawings of the ceiling plasterwork of sketch dining room. A bureau style ensemble with an extending board for playing monopoly or chess or miniature croquet or Russian roulette. And a menu signed by Executive Head Chef Fred Don and Executive Pastry Chef Christophe Gasper in a watermarked envelope. Sealed with an S. Which stands for superlative.

Très bon appetit. Jing Yunnan gold black tea. Sandwiches: avocado and tomato, egg gougère, cucumber and asparagus, vegan coronation chicken. Truffle brioche bun. Scone with clotted cream and strawberry and poppy flower jam. Petits gâteaux: bergamot macaroon, cherry and pistachio Battenburg, chocolate and buckwheat cake, exotic tart (!), lemon and grapefruit marshmallows. The whole shebang.

It all ended with a private party in Battersea. What doesn’t? Well, when we say ended… a new day has just begun (“More Champagne darlings? Time! Places! People!”). sketch afternoon tea is like a decadent lifetime away. The carousel must continue. We’re drawn to the new dawn. The fabulous new dawn.

Categories
Art Design Developers Fashion Luxury Restaurants

Mary Martin London + Stuart Blakley

That Jacket

Some days you just got it. Lifestyles Magazine America is dedicating its latest issue to Mary Martin London. The renowned fashion and entertainment publication is distributed in 39 countries. Chief Operating Officer Anthony Alexander explains, “We just love Mary’s personality. And when we saw her clothes we were amazed! We’re bridging the gap between exposure in the US and the UK.” As Elizabeth Bowen wrote some 90 odd years ago in The Hotel, “Gratifying how one’s intimate world contracted itself, how one’s friends wove themselves in! Society was fascinating, so like a jigsaw puzzle!”