Tag: duck + waffle

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Fenchurch Restaurant + Sky Garden Walkie Talkie Building London

My Fair Lady

20 Fenchurch Street Walkie Talkie Building London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Marvellous. We’re off to London’s most controversial building. Or at least the most talked (pun) about. Greedily grasping more airspace than footprint thanks to a bulbous form, 20 Fenchurch Street initially had a few ‘teething issues’. Quibbles over compliance with planning faded (taking a pun) when the building’s reflection melted a Jaguar parked on the street below. Rafael Viñoly simply added architecture’s answer to shades: a brise soleil. Easy as. Jaguar drivers can now park peacefully on Eastcheap, and the Walkie Talkie, as Number 20 is known to all and sundry (slight pun), can bask in its own reflected glory. Lavender’s Blue give it the thumbs up (even slighter pun: check out the building’s outline, smile and move on).

Walkie Talkie Roof © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Views. They’re what make London dining so exhilarating. The Leadenhall Building and Duck + Waffle are the Walkie Talkie’s sky high competing neighbours. But canny operators like The Culpeper know that even a judiciously placed third floor roof terrace can enjoy a panorama between the cloudscrapers. At a recent reception we graced in Church House, the view couldn’t have been more different: the centuries old Dean’s Yard dwarfed by Westminster Abbey. “This is the most progressive city in the world,” proclaimed then Mayor-in-Waiting Sadiq Khan. “We are the most diverse; we even have Yorkshire men and women living in London!” The capital’s progressiveness is on 360 display looking out of Fenchurch, the restaurant on the 37th storey of the Walkie Talkie. A 21st century layering of geometric prowess is in full view – a new and bold topography. First class bankers replace the east London world of penny dreadfuls. Hodiernal* over Hogarthian. Not every restaurant needs a view. Brasserie Zédel, a palatial piece of Paris under Piccadilly, otherwise known as our Friday lunchtime office (gorging on goujonettes one week; devouring vol-au-vent aux fruits de mer the next), is 37 – yes, 37 – steps below ground.

Walkie Talkie Sky Garden © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Splendid. A five course vegetarian tasting menu 37 floors above ground followed by a private view(ing) of Pretty Woman is our most anticipated event since the release of Daphne Guinness’s majestic music album Optimist in White. The heiress who put the muse into music. Daphne was last seen strutting across Mount Street Gardens, clad (antlers hatted) head to (armadillo shoed) toe in Alexander McQueen, like a reindeer on hind legs. Working zoomorphic zaniness. Ilk of elk. En route to Scott’s naturally. Optimist in White. A Gesamtkunstwerk of an album. Fenchurch. A Gesamtkunstwerk of an evening. Entering the Sky Garden is like drinking the potion that made Alice in Wonderful shrink. It swallows up the top three storeys of the Walkie Talkie. Horizontal planes of galleries and terraces merge and emerge between the foliage of this hangar-like space. A silvery mauve twilight is killed off by a violently red sunset drenching the Sky Garden and the capital all around in a bloody glow.

Fenchurch Restaurant View © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Restaurant © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Private Dining Room © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Politics. As ever armed with a cacoethes* of the camera, it helps that our lawyer hostess is also a whizz behind the lens. This may be a business dinner, but forget the pyrotic* company poor Julia Roberts’ looker hooker tart with a heart has to endure in Pretty Woman. Our meritocratic table comprises law’s finest. The female contingent is out in force. Either it’s the lure of our company or the film choice. Then again the day started over pre House breakfast with a leading female politician: Roberta Blackman-Woods. Now Shadow Housing and Planning Minister, Professor Blackman-Woods first introduced us to Parliament at a University of Ulster Alumni reception. “There has never been such a concentration on planning before,” she observed, noting the move towards an American style zonal system. But right now our heads in the clouds (we’re having lots of pun) as YBC (Young British Chef) Zac Whittle’s vegetarian tasting menu arrives. And yes, the last courselet is deconstructed banoffee:

Fenchurch Restaurant Pea Soup © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Restaurant Banoffee © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

*Country Life words of the week

Fenchurch Restaurant Sunset © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Luxury People Restaurants

The Leadenhall Building Bank + Heal’s Party Fitzrovia London

Lessons in Love 

If it’s good enough for Richard Rogers’ new office (Level 14) it’s good enough for the Lavender’s Blue wine and cheesegrater party (Level 42). Hurrah! With its head in the clouds, its body sandwiched between Lloyds and the Heron, and its feet formed of escalators between wonky pilotis, the good Lord’s wedge of glass pierces the horizon like an upturned diamond heel. Time to enjoy the high life up the The Leadenhall Building. Deep streets intertwine as fissures carved through the built form below. A turquoise tinged gold rimmed violet twilight consumes the sky all around. Later at Lavender’s Blue HQ, luxury caterer Purple Grape present vegetarian canapés to banish the blues forever: Griddled zucchini with artichoke and sun blush tomato; Kidderton Ash goats’ cheese on a ginger bread base ; Parmesan shortbread topped with gorgonzola and basil cress; and trio of naturally stained quail’s eggs with celery salt.

All served, obviously, on Lavender’s Blue and white plates. And a cheesegrater. Strategic Planning Manager Colin Wilson at the GLA is a fan of height. In a Lavender’s Blue exclusive he says, “We need to get away from objectification – our obsession, the media’s obsession, with tall buildings. Objectification misses the point of the city. The drama of the city is about totality. Appreciate the city for what it is. There are clusters of tall buildings but our capital is predominantly low rise. London isn’t Dubai. Its history and future are very different. Tall buildings aren’t the major issue; housing is.” Quite so. As always, Lavender’s Blue are on a high: uptown, upmarket, upscale, up our own.

Continuing to kick the heels up, Heal’s, for the well heeled, is the shop that likes to party. On three levels, as it turned out. To mark the finale of London Design Festival, in ascending order of floor, Prosecco, Aspall and Cointreau bars were installed while DJs serenaded guests. There was no time to lounge on Ligne Roset sofas or gossip across Kirsty Whyte designed Pinner tables with wooden spoon carving, ceramic painting, Sipsmith gin mixing and a vodka beetroot salmon gravadlax demonstration by Cambridge Cookery School (fortunately the latter required no audience participation save for the devouring bit) as distractions. Makers and Merchants’ chilli chocolate luscious lips stashed in the goody bag meant nobody left unkissed, if not quite level headed. No time for the flowers of Lavender’s Blue to wilt as Astrid Bray, London’s top hotelier, beckons in the direction of the single level Percy and Founders (the Fitzrovian restaurant with a chapel attached). Taking it to a whole new level, dinner awaits with the Park Lane ambassadress, the Green Park restaurateur and the Beverly Hills realtor – plus a certain Belgravia candle chandler who is a certain Gabhan O’Keeffe’s neighbour.

Categories
Luxury People Town Houses

Lavender’s Blue Opera + Selfridges London

Postcode Lottery 

Opera on the Terrace © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s our anniversary. Time to celebrate. Christmas – with a little help from Selfridges’ luxury handmade Celebration Crackers – came early to Lavender’s Blue. We’re looking fresh for our 100th and not worn out at all by 1,000,000 hits. After 99 articles from Serbian Royalty to British Royalty, Savannah to nirvana, Cristal to crystal, the falls to the Shankill, Royal Mint to polo minted, Edition to limited edition, Masterpiece to masterpieces, Duck + Waffle to our usual waffle, Knights at home to nights abroad, Clive Christian to Christ Church, Goodwood to New Forest, rural Darlings to society darlings, earls to pearls, supermodels to super models, Futurism to the past, we’ve left Home House for home. Party central at Lavender’s Blue.

Lavender's Blue Party Stuart Blakley

Classically trained soprano Sara Llewellyn serenaded us – and half the postcode – to a dream like performance on our courtyard terrace. After earning her Masters with Distinction from the San Fran Conservatory of Music, Sara’s many operatic lead roles include Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro at Berkeley. And yes, she has performed at the Royal Opera House. After jaw dropping renditions of Bach’s Ave Maria, O Mio Babbino Caro and Con Te Partirò, the tempo slowed down and the sun shone for an awe inspiring Summertime. Sara then proved her diversity while testing our moves with I Could Have Danced All Night. Tear jerkers followed with I Dreamed A Dream and You’ll Never Walk Alone. Finally, words and music at the ready, altogether now: the full Team Lavender Cupcake impromptu choir belted out That’s Amore. The whole postcode was entertained to our new take on Dean Martin’s classic. Glyndebourne SW4 had competition.

Morning Opera on the Terrace Lavender's Blue © Stuart Blakley