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BLACKBOOK WHERE TO GO NEXT TRAVEL WHAT TO KNOW NOW From left: kid goat methi from Gymkhana; the elegant dining room of Joel Kissin’s Boulestin on location LONDON CALLING From Mayfair to Shoreditch, an eclectic bevy of new hotels, restaurants and shops adds to the capital’s many charms CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: JAMES FRENCH, © GYMKHANA (2) talk of the toques Chef-of-the-moment Florence Knight, still three years shy of 30, is at the helm of the newly reopened, 70-seat Polpetto (polpo.co.uk) in Soho’s Berwick Street, which features an aperitivo bar and an open kitchen where “seasonality and simplicity” are still the watchwords. Just around the corner, on Wardour Street, builder-turned-restaurateur Martyn Simpson and partner Felix Leuschner have transformed a 19th-century subterranean coal store – complete with five separate vaults – into Coal Vaults (coalvaults. com), one of the city’s edgiest new restaurants, where gutsy dishes include rabbit with smoked black beans and hay-cooked shoulder of lamb, each dish accompanied Gymkhana chef Karam Sethi by a cocktail suggestion. To complete the Soho hat-trick, smoked aubergine with scallion vinaigrette and lemongrass-steamed clams in sake are two of the original dishes at Bobby Chinn’s House of Ho (bobbychinn.com), now open on Old Compton Street. New Zealand-born wunderkind Chinn already has two hugely successful restaurants in Vietnam and interest surrounding his new London outpost is at fever pitch. Over at the Barbican, Searcy’s new restaurant, Gin Joint (searcys.co.uk), showcases the capital’s signature spirit with more than 40 London dry gins and a plethora of gin-based cocktails to complement a menu that pushes all the right buttons – beef or lobster on the Bertha grill are must-tries. CONTACT PLATINUM CARD SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS departures-international.com 21
