DEPARTURES CULTURE
DEPARTURES CULTURE NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH 46 in” – landscaped by Luciano Giubbilei, sometime winner of a gold medal and a best-in-show accolade at the Chelsea Flower Show, amid which there’ll be one of Jean Prouvé’s maisons démontables, the collapsible prefab houses to provide emergency shelter for those displaced or rendered homeless by World War Two and have become icons of mid-20th-century design. “We’re going to turn it into a private dining room,” says Le Gaillard because the project, which has cost a reported £30 million, obviously needs revenue streams. So there’ll be a hospitality element: a salon designed by the French- Swedish artist Ingrid Donat; a roof terrace “full of nature” and furnished by Robert Stadler; and a bar and lounge for its patrons, 2,000 of whom he hopes to recruit and whose support will help bankroll the events programming, both conceived by the French fashion legend and muse Michèle Lamy and her husband Rick Owens. “She wants it to serve only mescal,” says Le Gaillard, sounding not quite convinced. “But when these guys come to you with an idea, you just have to say: ‘Sure.’” The whole complex will be anchored by a soaring barrel-vaulted restaurant, lined in marble, furnished by Vincenzo de Cotiss, lit by the biggest chandelier Nacho Carbonell has made to date and hung with a series of murals commissioned from Christopher Le Brun, former president of the Royal Academy. “Like Rothko did for the Four Seasons”, he enthuses, meaning the restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building, and while the artist, in that case, refused to deliver (citing placement in the restaurant rather than the lobby) and they wound up in Tate Modern, Le Gaillard clearly loves the large-scale abstracts Le Brun has made and every indication is that they are on the same page. The chef is an award-winning Italian, Emanuele Pollini, with a handful of Michelin-starred restaurants on his CV, who will produce “simple but refined Italian Devouring Notting Hill It’s not just Ladbroke Hall bringing new life to the neighbourhood. A fresh set of restaurants is cooking the district back into the good graces of London’s discerning foodie crowd. by Bill Knott Chef Kemal Demirasal in his restaurant The Counter AFTER A DECADE or more in the culinary doldrums, the Notting Hill restaurant scene has finally rediscovered its mojo. A string of postpandemic openings has revitalised the local dining arena, giving Portobello’s denizens the sort of gastronomic buzz that they once had to travel to Soho or (heaven forbid) Shoreditch to experience. Nowhere is this truer than on the once-edgy, newly chic Golborne Road. Take Caia (caia.london), for instance: in the shadow of Trellick Tower, opposite neighbourhood stalwart Lisboa Patisserie – still the best pastéis de nata in town – chef food, nothing chichi, just delicious” rather in the style, I suspect, of London’s fabled River Café, itself proof that discerning diners are prepared to travel into the capital’s less than lovely western suburbs and pay £25 for a plate of (admittedly first-rate) pasta. And a programme of guestchef residencies is promised too. “We’ve been talking to Bruno Verjus [whose Paris restaurant has two Michelin stars] about taking over the kitchen for a week. Obviously, I am French, and without wanting to sound corny, food is a form of artistic expression for us.” Of course, it’s not in itself unusual for a gallery to open substantial premises the better to exhibit monumental work away from a city centre. Thaddaeus Ropac set the trend in 2012 when it opened a cavernous post-industrial exhibition space in a former ironworks just beyond the Périphérique in Pantin, the better to display monumental works of art by the likes of Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz, and added an eatery, Le Café Bleu, so that those who’d made the journey could reward themselves with lunch. It was followed by Gagosian’s Jean Nouvel-transformed warehouse near the airport at Le Bourget, which has been used for concerts featuring classical musicians of the calibre of Alina Ibragimova and Samson Tsoy. And Hauser & Wirth has just opened an outpost in another former car showroom in West Hollywood. But none has a programme as freeranging and eclectic as the one planned for Ladbroke Hall. And though it remains to be seen whether he can realise it, Le Gaillard’s enthusiasm and excitement are infectious, his ambition unbounded and his determination to make it accessible sincere. “I want this to be a joyful, generous space, where people will encounter things in ways they’ve never experienced before. I want people to be shocked by emotion. There’s no other agenda. It’s just about working with artists. A gallery’s job is to open hearts and minds.” ladbrokehall.com Jessica Donovan’s imaginative openfire cooking has a backbeat of vinyl grooves from the retro, bare-brick downstairs lounge for company. Just on the other side of the tracks, opposite Trellick (and Panella, a top-notch Sicilian trattoria), The Butter Club (thebutterclub.co) is a new collaboration between Amsterdam chefs Gabriël Verheij and Alexandre Scour, offering Asian-inflected comfort food alongside delicious drinks. Heading back towards Portobello Road, queues outside Straker’s (strakers.london) point to the popularity of famed TikTok chef SAM HARRIS
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TOM ASTERIADES, STEVEN JOYCE, © DORIAN, SAM HARRIS Thomas Straker: his confident, Italian-inspired cooking, however, has a calmer, more old-school feel. On the other side of the road is The Counter (thecounterlondon.com), featuring exceptional modern Turkish cuisine from a kitchen in which chef/patron Kemal Demirasal and his charcoal grill are the stars. He’s not the only Levantine chef fresh to the area. At Miznon (miznon. co.uk) on Elgin Crescent (there is a sister restaurant in Soho) Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani’s focus is on Tel Aviv-style street food, playfully described on the menu – “falafel blessed with beer blood”, anyone? – and served with mounds of fluffy pita bread, while at Akub (akubrestaurant.com), just behind Notting Hill Gate, chef and restaurateur Fadi Kattan has crafted a beautiful, precisely cooked menu rooted firmly in his native Palestine. A stone’s throw from Akub, popular local coffee spot Kuro (kuro-london. com) has expanded into a restaurant and a bakery, both in the same Japanese-Mediterranean minimalist style; over on Westbourne Grove, meanwhile, much-fêted Japanese sushi master Endo Kazutoshi’s Sumi (sushisumi.com) gives anyone who cannot snag a stool at Endo at the Rotunda the chance to try his peerless nigiri and robata grills. Gastropub aficionados, meanwhile, are no longer restricted to The Cow and The Westbourne: on Hereford Road, The Princess Royal (cubitthouse. co.uk) has been given a handsome Clockwise from left: chef Endo Kazutoshi mans the robata grill at Sumi; a giant backlit record stand is right at home in Caia’s retro ambience; the succulent lobster at Dorian; The Counter’s cosy dining room makeover and features an enticing Anglo-Italian menu from chef Ben Tish, while the hearty menu at The Pelican ( thepelicanw11.com), on All Saints Road, is decidedly British in flavour, with high-class bar snacks, steaks and pies on offer. For something a little different, drop into Empire Empire (16 All Saints Road) a few doors down, where Harneet Baweja, owner of the Gunpowder restaurant group is plotting a discothemed Indian restaurant. Nobody epitomises the brash, devil-may-care spirit of the new Notting Hill more than local entrepreneur Chris D’Sylva: having opened two decidedly upmarket food shops – the Supermarket of Dreams, on Holland Park Avenue, and Notting Hill Fish+Meat, on Westbourne Grove – during lockdown, he turned his attention to restaurants, first with Dorian (dorianrestaurant.com) on Talbot Road, which he describes as “a bistro for locals” (as long as their tastes, and wallets, run to lobster, wagyu and fine burgundy) and now with Izakaya Nights (@izakayaatdreams), a “rebellious izakaya” staged at a long communal table in the Supermarket of Dreams after the store closes. Expect caviar, langoustines, tuna and truffles: and, in the new-found spirit of the area, a side order of irreverence. 47 DEPARTURES
