Clockwise from top: red leather seats at La Dame de Pic; salmon at Coya; The Curtain’s overflowing bar; City Social chef Paul Walsh; facing page: the bright shopfronts of Cheshire Street This summer it was announced that one of London’s most notable icons, Big Ben, will spend the next four years in silence as it is dismantled and cleaned. That the procedure comes during a particularly changeable period in the nation’s history, and that the costs associated with repairing the Victorian tower have already doubled, is something of an apt metaphor for the challenges the UK currently faces. But the regenerative project also offers occasion to reconsider the metropolis as a whole – what it is and what it wants to be. The answers, at least in part, can found by looking east, where the capital’s centre of gravity has been shifting in recent years. It is a hip, dynamic and remarkably urban cityscape, a place that brings together London’s collection of villages into a genuinely cosmopolitan melting pot of offices, restaurants, hotels, bars, shops, galleries and museums. A generation ago, that would have been absurd: the City (with a capital “C”, the banking district that sits upon old Roman Londinium) was defined by stodge, both culturally and gastronomically, while the eastern fringes of the City – Shoreditch and Spitalfields – were so decrepit that in the 1970s, an acquaintance was told he could not buy merely one Georgian-era town house in Spitalfields, he had to buy multiple at absurdly low prices to prevent the street from falling into squalor. He did buy them, and now the properties are worth millions of pounds each, surrounded by a neighbourhood that has flourished in kind. Take Andina, which sits just up the street, one of Lima-native Martin Morales’s four Peruvian restaurants. He opened the first in Soho in 2012, followed by two out east in 2013 and 2015. “Shoreditch is now the second city centre of London,” Morales explains. “It is no longer a microcosm of creativity; it’s the heart of the creative industries.” Other London restaurateurs agree: Yotam Ottolenghi, whose Mediterranean-infused cookery has achieved cult status, recently opened his largest restaurant to date in Spitalfields in part, he says, because “we were hoping to attract a real mix of customers … the atmosphere is always really buzzing.” And Robin Hancock, whose Wright Brothers seafood restaurants across the capital have become the go-to spot for oysters, was attracted to the revitalised Spitalfields Market itself: “Having previously lost its way, there has been a really ambitious and exciting vision for the market,” he says. What started life as a fruit and vegetable market in the 19th century “is now really vibrant and I feel has regained its mojo”. The sense of reclaiming the past can be seen inside the City, too, where the two most significant hotel openings this year have revitalised exceptionally handsome heritage buildings: The Ned in the former Midland Bank, an Art Deco jewel, and Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square in the heavily ornamented Port Authority 86 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM READ LORD FOSTER‘S VIEWS ON THE CITY‘S ARCHITECTURE AT: CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
STAYING LOCAL Move over Mayfair: the most talked-about openings in London this year centre on the City. Right at its heart, next to the Bank crossroads that dates to Roman times, The Ned (thened.com) is a 252-bed hotel-cum-club set in a former bank by the Soho House group with a roster of all-star restaurants and a members’ club that sold out subscriptions before opening. Not to be outdone, The Curtain (thecurtain.com), backed by the NYC-based team behind the Gansevoort hotels, also opened this year on a smaller scale, combining hospitality and a members’ club with two standout eateries, the rooftop Lido and Red Rooster, the second incarnation of the Harlem hotspot by chef Marcus Samuelsson. A stone’s throw away, both Shoreditch House (shoreditchhouse.com) and Boundary (boundary. london) have upped their games in response, largely cosmetically, while the brand new Nobu Hotel (nobuhotelshoreditch.com) has introduced a stripped-back Japanese flair to the district in its 148 rooms, alongside the capital’s third iteration of its namesake restaurant. Just north of the Tower of London, Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square ( fourseasons.com/tentrinity) is still trying to hit its stride in what might be the grandest hotel premises in all London – the former Port Authority building – while one of the restaurants inside, La Dame de Pic, is already right at home: Anne-Sophie Pic’s first venture beyond Continental Europe has just earned the French chef her seventh Michelin star. In 2018, the City is also primed to welcome Vintry & Mercer (vintryandmercer.com), a 92-key hotel that gives a nod to the guilds that have dominated the Square Mile for centuries, pairing au fait decor with a trio of eateries.
