You know us, we don’t like to show off… but there are plenty of showing off opportunities available this week whether it’s a fancy dinner at The Aubrey, a new Izakaya in Knightsbridge, tickets to the artiest of music festivals or dinner at the restaurant Villanelle favours in King’s Cross.
Plus it’s Pie Week. Add opportunities to do your bit for the people of Ukraine and we think there’s the potential to be truly proud of ourselves this week.
Welcome to Japan
Do you have a special occasion or a have-to-impress date coming up? Then do we have the spot for you.
The Aubrey in the gorgeous Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge, right opposite Harvey Nicks, has been turning Japanese… in the most delicious way.
Their new Izakaya – it means Japanese pub but this is very much fancier than that sounds – is the sexiest, most sultry room we’ve been into recently (and we get about!) while the food and sake is sublime not to mention cocktails, which we have never tasted the likes of.
Packed with art – some of it Japanese – with low-level disco playing and staff so attentive we wanted them to come home with us, it’s our new happy place.
Mandarin Oriental, 66 Knightsbridge, SW1
Eat well, feel good
We were already big fans of chef José Pizarro – well, how could you not be?
Those restaurants in Bermondsey and Broadgate! – but we think we’re crushing on him even more now that he has turned two of those restaurants – the one in Bermondsey Street and The Swan in Esher – into Ukraine aid collection points, where you can drop off emergency supplies that they will organise to be shipped off to people in need.
And if you should feel like giving yourself a pat on the back by staying for lunch, then we don’t think anyone would think badly of you for it.
We certainly wouldn’t.
194 Bermondsey Street, SE1
Ready, steady, cook
Leave it to the hospitality industry to roll up their sleeves and get stuck into helping the people of Ukraine during these dark days.
A new campaign #CookForUkraine has been set up by the likes of Olia Hercules, Alissa Timonshkina and Clerkenwell Boy to raise funds for UNICEF, who will get them to embattled communities over there.
Whether it’s donating a portion of your bill to the charity or putting on a Ukrainian dish or cocktail, every little helps and you can do your bit by eating in participating restaurants, doing your own dinner party to raise funds or just by getting your purse out and dobbing in some dollars.
Get involved yourself at [email protected].
Donate with Just Giving
Caffeine hit
When it comes to National Days, National Espresso Martini Day (or Thursday through Sunday as we call it) is right up there – in bold! – on our calendars.
And what better way to celebrate than with Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur Mr Black, which was just made – literally! – to perk up your espresso martini.
You could do it the easy way by calling into bars such as Brigadiers, Swift, NoMad, even Balans and getting them to whisk you something up or you could invest in your own bottle or even an Espresso Martini Gift Box (to yourself!) where they include a branded martini coupe! Invented to keep you alert while taking you under, it has our lip marks all over it.
March 15
Let the good times UNFOLD
If you’re into your electronic music and your brutalist architecture and your cooler-than-an-ice-pop art, then you will want to be in the thick of the upcoming Re-Textured Festival coming later this month.
An audio-visual adventure, the festival takes place across the city and this year features Italian composer Caterina Barbieri performing live with the likes of Bendik Giske, Nkisi, MFO and Evelyn Saylor, which must mean something to you if you’re into this sort of thing, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank.
Then there’s stuff at the highly appropriate Printworks, including the already legendary Sunday party at UNFOLD, with everything curated by Krankbrother, who is focusing on drone, leftfield, electronics and techno.
Excited? You should be.
March 24-27, various venues
All about Eve
So you’re a Killing Eve fan and would like to celebrate the new (and final!) series with more than a takeaway in front of the telly?
How about getting the full KE experience down at Decimo, the restaurant up on the 10th floor at The Standard in London’s newly glittering Kings Cross, the venue that actually features in *checks notes* Killing Eve? Sounds peachy perfect to us.
Squeeze into your best Killing Eve outfit and gird your loins for Villanelle’s favourite mezcal cocktails and Hispanic food while you keep your beady assassin’s eye over the whole of London once you’ve gone in the private lift on the outside of the building!
10 Argyle Street, WC1
Easy as pie, and as tasty too
Yes, we love our fish ‘n’ chips and our Indian takeaways and our full English breakfasts but does anything ever touch the spot that a pie touches? We think not whether it’s rough puff, suet or whatever. And that’s why we’re narrowing down our options to celebrate National Pie Week this week. Should we go for the Kricket X Cubitt House lamb neck Nihari Pie? Or the Blacklock Covent Garden steak and Stilton pie? Or maybe even Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill fish pie. Don’t make us choose. Oh, hang on, it’s a National Week not Day… we’ll have the lot in that case.
Various locations
Shake it up
‘Can you mix a mojito blindfolded whilst throwing shapes to your favourite tunes?’ they want to know down at The Cocktail Club, where they are just launching their Shake-a-long Brunch masterclass.
Honey, we can limbo with our shoelaces tied together and not spill a drop! But it does sound fun, this concept.
With cocktails from some of the best mixologists in the world, hi-jinks with music and games and no doubt flirting and pizza from Pizza Pilgrims, what could possibly go awry?
A welcome cocktail, three hours of nuttiness, the chance to invent your own signature cocktail… and pizza! Just what’s called for at this moment in history.
Locations in Oxford Circus and Shoreditch
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