Serpentine Galleries marked the official start of summer with its annual party last night (24 June 2025), bringing a plethora of guests together in a celebration of 25 years of the Serpentine Pavilion.

Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum and her Dhaka-based firm, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), designers of the 25th Anniversary Serpentine Architecture Pavilion, titled A Capsule in Time, were guests of honour at the event hosted by Michael R Bloomberg, chairman of Serpentine’s Board of Trustees; Bettina Korek, Serpentine CEO; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine artistic director; and actor, producer and humanitarian Cate Blanchett.

Guests, who were able to browse Giuseppe Penone’s exhibition ‘Thoughts in the Roots’ at Serpentine South and enjoy Sir Peter Cook’s Play Pavilion, dined in style on dishes including traditional dum pot biryanis, topped with pastry, layered marinated meats and vegetables with basmati rice. Members-only platform Dorsia was on hand with a tempting food trolley, offering chicken tenders and caviar.

Chef Skye Gyngell, of Spring, stepped in for desserts. Bangladesh’s seven-layered tea was the inspiration, resulting in infusions of lychee and saffron, as well as coconut, mango and sesame cakes.

‘From our loyal patrons to our inspired partners, we are deeply grateful to all who made this year’s Serpentine Summer Party a success,’ said Korek and Obrist. ‘Last night was a celebration of the artists whose projects extended from inside the galleries and beyond their walls into the surrounding park, of Serpentine supporters everywhere, and of the Serpentine Pavilion’s 25th anniversary. In the words of our very first Pavilion architect, Zaha Hadid, “There should be no end to experimentation.” Thanks to the generosity of the global Serpentine community, and especially our inaugural Summer Party Host Committee, the Serpentine spirit of experimentation will continue throughout the summer and all year round.’

Nothing screams a British summer more than a friendly neighbourhood fete, and London’s Mount Street Neighbourhood Festival has ticked all the requirements, and more. Taking place in the heart of Mayfair, the festival celebrates the area’s expansive outdoor spaces with an array of fashion, food and art.

Over three days from 12 to 14 June 2025, Mount Street’s stores will embrace the local community, opening new storefront seating areas for alfresco dining and tea experiences. These include a traditional Milanese aperitivo by historic pastry shop Marchesi, and the Mount Street Neighbourhood’s collaboration with Ladurée, in the form of soft-serve ice cream topped with personalised macarons. Other sweet delights include a popsicle stand by Métier, two exclusive ice cream flavours by Farm Shop, and more frozen desserts available from a cute cart by The Connaught hotel.

In true British fashion, an array of afternoon teas is available from various establishments, including a traditional option at Jean-Georges at The Connaught. To help visitors navigate between refreshment spots, artist Sainte Maria has illustrated a map of the area, marking the abundance of tea options.

But it's not all about food and drink. The festival organisers have also collaborated with local galleries, artists and other creatives – a partnership that will run throughout the summer season. Alfie Nickerson, a grower of biodynamically cultivated flowers, will run a flower stall, while Phillips Auction House will be launching a Modern & Contemporary Art sale. Hamilton's Gallery will host a screening of Isaac Mizrahi’s fashion documentary, Unzipped, and Lucy Sparrow will show her felt artworks of British fish at Lindsey Ingram.

With a cool drink in hand on a (hopefully) glorious summer’s day, what better way to explore this neighbourhood rooted in British heritage?

The Mount Street Neighbourhood Festival runs from 12 to 14 June 2025, mountstreetneighbourhood.com

Eurostar announces a reinvention of its onboard culinary offering led by two-Michelin-starred British chef Jérémy Chan, French pâtissière Jessica Préalpato and British wine connoisseur Honey Spencer, who take over the 10-year-long tenure of French chef Raymond Blanc. The catering offer is linked to the introduction of the company’s new service classes: Eurostar Standard, Eurostar Plus and Eurostar Premier.

Eurostar introduces Premier Dining

From fine wines to bold flavours, the new menu features four distinct courses: amuse-bouches, a main course, a cheese plate and dessert. The first two were developed by Chan, best known for his West African-inspired restaurant Ikoyi on London’s Strand, who recalls writing down the recipes in just six days.

When asked to encapsulate the dishes in three words, he tells Wallpaper*: ‘seasonal, deep and complex.’ As such, for the amuse-bouche, guests can savour a curried cauliflower mousseline paired with a smacked kohlrabi drizzled with pine nut milk. The main course options include baked salmon served with coconut rice and zesty potatoes, roasted pumpkin drizzled with honey and cashew miso or confit lamb shoulder accompanied by pearl barley and carrots.

The meal may be enhanced by a rich Montgomery cheddar with quince chutney or a decadent Colston Bassett Stilton, accompanied by burnt honey and apple. Préalpato, recognised as the Best Pastry Chef by the World’s 50 Best in 2019, offers a delightful finale with a yoghurt, lemon verbena and granola dessert or a honey and hemp financier.

Naturally, no fine dining experience would be complete without an exquisite selection of champagne and wine – here curated by Spencer. The sommelier has ensured her advocacy towards organic and sustainable wines through a range made by small producers ‘who work with the utmost respect for their soils and terroirs.’

Gwendoline Cazenave, CEO of Eurostar, shares: ‘Our new gastronomic offer aims to transform each journey into a unique experience, where the indulgence begins as soon as you board, making the new Eurostar a reality for our customers. Eurostar is more than just a train: it promises new discoveries and unique moments. Our new chefs bring this vision to life, and we’re delighted to work with them on this journey.’

Eurostar’s Premier Dining will be available from 4 November 2024, eurostar.com

Autumn is the season for slow-cooked, comforting meals, making the most of the bountiful harvest of succulent root vegetables and wild garlic in season. There is something in the days before the winter chill sets in which evokes community gatherings and a spirit of sharing, which is exactly what Fortnum & Mason has drawn upon with an inaugural programme of events in its new Food & Drink Studio. Kicking-off this year, it encourages guests to explore the world of fungi, mushrooms and microorganisms through a series of masterclasses, panel discussions, and supper clubs.

Fortnum & Mason goes mad for mushrooms

As avid foragers prepare to scout out flourishing mushrooms and tucked away truffles, Fortnum & Mason ushers in guests to learn about the benefits of fungi. Sharing more DNA with a human than with plants, mushrooms are a pivotal part in the world's ecosystem. The Food & Drink Studio is bringing together scientists and chefs to share expert knowledge and their adoration of the humble mushroom and its impact on food, health and the environment.

Key events to jot down in your diary would be ‘Cooking for Gut Health’ with specialist in hepatology and gastroenterology, Dr Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed, who made history as the first ever doctor to win MasterChef in 2017. A ‘Truffle Evening’ will tickle the taste buds with Fortnum’s very own 45 Jermyn Street restaurant pop-up at the Food & Drink Studio. Fortnum & Mason also welcome Kew Gardens to host a panel discussion where guest speakers will be looking at the importance of fungi in supporting the environment to packaging solutions. For any guests who are not mushroom-lovers do not fret, the events programme also includes informative events on other focus ingredients including plenty of cheese and wine.

The Food & Drink Studio has become a platform to explore agricultural and scientific developments that are igniting conversations in the food and drink industry. What better way to expand your knowledge than over a curated supper club or getting hands-on through an array of masterclasses. From conversations with Kew Gardens to a foraged foods supper club with The Wild Room, the seasonal programme leaves a delightful taste.

For the full list of events, please visit fortnumandmason.com

In a three-sided tent backstage at a music festival in woodland on the eastern outskirts of Paris, a pair of radio DJs are gassing up, live on air across France, one of the headliners.

It’s not We Love Green’s opening night top draw, Nigerian Afrobeats superstar Burna Boy. Nor the Saturday night bill-toppers, returning French dance legends Justice. And it’s not Sunday’s main-stage closer, American R&B heavyweight SZA, warming up for her show in the same slot at Glastonbury later this month.

Non, c’est un chef.

‘We’d like to introduce Alain Ducasse,’ begin Marie Misset and Marine Baousson, French-speaking hosts of a daily drivetime show on France Inter, a BBC Radio 1-like station that is ‘left wing and very cultural and [for] young people’, according to one of the team overseeing this outside broadcast.

Then, turning to address their 67-year-old guest, a man shod in festival-unfriendly white Armani trainers and topped with a designer baseball cap that says ‘Capitaine’: ‘You own 34 restaurants in nine countries and have 19 Michelin stars. You have fed numerous presidents, kings and queens. And [now] you are co-president of the We Love Green food committee. It’s very classy to have a food committee with Alain Ducasse. What are you doing here at a music festival where it’s more usual to eat merguez [sausage] than Michelin-starred food?’

What indeed. Music festivals, certainly in the UK, historically offer both kinds of food: fried and greasy. With booze on their brains and (not unusually) mud on their feet, that’s what gig-goers want and that’s what they get. For all the culinary revolution catalysed by the spread of ‘street-food’ culture and the concomitant wider provision of alternative cuisines at Glastonbury et al, their grubby grub backbone remains the same: murder-burgers, sloppy noodles, all-dough pizzas, slug-like chips.

Chef Ducasse, chair of a jury of French food experts who have chosen some 50 ‘proper’ restaurants and pop-ups to cater We Love Green, is here to change that mindset and that reality.

‘I’m trying to bring my vision of food diversity, accessible to everyone,’ he tells the DJs. ‘Simple and efficient food that is going to satisfy every palate… I think the public has to taste everything, and you have to be flexible [in your tastes]. You can’t be an idiot [sic] when you eat – when you eat, you have to know and be interested in what you eat. Every dish is telling a story of the man and woman who prepared it. There should be a lot of patience, because when you have patience, you have pleasure [in what you’re eating].’

We Love Green is a three-day, five-stages event in Bois de Vincennes that is built, from its name upwards, on principles of sustainability. True to that ethos, it’s also intent on revolutionising festival food, one Bao bun and rice-patty aubergine burger at a time. As Time Out Paris wrote last year, on the occasion of the event entirely forswearing meat onsite: ‘Végé dream à We Love Green! Révolution! Pour ses stands food, le festival bascule en 100% végétarien. Une première en France.’

Explaining that bascule – shift or pivot – Thomas Grünberg, We Love Green’s Head of Food Selection and Curation, says that ‘we’ve been thinking about this for years now. But we were a bit scared. Maybe we thought we were not ready, the public were not ready, the restaurants we’re working with were not ready. But last year we thought: OK, this is the right time.’

Grünberg is talking to me at the end of a tour we’ve taken with Ducasse of some of stallholders chosen by the superchef’s jury: the African Street Food of BMK, the artistan baguettes of Les Pimpains, the plant-based kebabs of Sezondo (‘pour les viandardes’ – meat-lovers – ‘aussi’).

‘The main thing was, we didn’t want to use fake meat or fake cheese, and still have burgers and hotdogs [using those products],’ continues Grünberg. ‘That is fake vegetarian food. The trick was: how do we do an original, proper, French vegetarian food at the festival using local, seasonal produce? And still have sexy food – the food you want at a festival, not little salads with blah blah blah,’ he says witheringly. ‘So it was complex.’

Part of that ‘trick’ for We Love Green 2024 was collaborating with Chef Ducasse.

‘J’adore Wallpaper*,’ begins the possessor of the most Michelin stars in the world (beating Gordon Ramsay into second place) when we meet at lunchtime, three days before the festival. We’re talking in Le Dalí, one of two suitably fabulous restaurants Ducasse operates in the historic, five-star Le Meurice, part of the Dorchester Collection of hotels. Having had the privilege during my visit of eating in both of those temples of gastronomy, I can wholeheartedly say that Wallpaper* reciprocates that adoration.

I ask what this culinary icon knew, 50 years into his gastronomic career, of music festival food prior to his involvement with We Love Green.

‘I knew it was greasy, fried, with a lot of sugar,’ he tells me in English before switching to French, via a translator. ‘So we wanted to go another way. We wanted to change perceptions about this kind of proposal – more seeds, more grains, more greens, more vegetables. More health. Not too many additives, or fat, or salt.’

As he will say on-air to the France Inter team, diversity was equally important. ‘The festival food is a chilled but serious and modern proposition. It’s about freedom, and here in 2024 we want to represent how people eat all different things. We have food from Asia, Greece, South Africa – a real mix, representing society now.’

For the successful kitchen teams, culinary skills had to be backed by logistical capability. With the festival attracting some 100,000 music-lovers over three days, approximately 150,000 dishes would have to be served – and quickly. As puts it: ‘It’s difficult [for the chefs] to participate: you can talk all the talk, but you have to deliver the food and be good at what you do and satisfy the public. But I am very happy that We Love Green is going on this path. It’s a real evolution I want to be part of.’

And that’s evolution, not revolution. Ducasse, Grünberg and the festival team understand that their food offerings have to be mindful of their audience’s tastes – particularly when, as is often the case, the elements are against us and comfort food is in order. So, on a woodland site not spared the soggy, boggy start to the British summer festival season, I’m pleased to report that, yes, chips were available. Albeit chips purveyed by Friterie 3000, a Champion du Monde de la Frite Arras 2023. These, then, are nationally-renowned, prize-winning chips.

Alain Ducasse, though, wasn’t having any of those. After his tour of the stalls and before the live music kicked in, he headed for the exit, hopped on the back of a motorbike taxi and roared off to his next appointment: at Roland-Garros, where local hero Corentin Moutet was playing in the third round of the French Open (he won, making him the last Frenchman standing in the tennis tournament).

Back at Le Dalí, I’d asked what message he’d like British audiences to understand from his mission at We Love Green, about how he was hoping to change the way music festivals present food.

‘We have to immerse ourselves in new experiences,’ Ducasse replied. ‘It’s time to open your minds and take a risk.’

Yes, Chef.

From a vintage Italian egg basket to a meringue disguised as a fried egg, if omnipresent tinselly towers of chocolate eggs give you that sickly sweet feeling, there are plenty of other ways to celebrate the humble egg this week. Here are some of our favourite alternative Easter eggs.

No-chocolate, alternative Easter eggs

The egg canteen

The arrival of Easter means that picnics, al-fresco dining, and tennis tournaments are due to start peppering schedules. Roland-Garros, the first European major tennis competition is limbering up to open its doors on 20 May 2024 (tickets here), and French silversmith and purveyor of fine tableware Christofle is marking its partnership with the event in what it terms ‘a match of manners’. ‘MOOD Roland-Garros’, is a celebratory version of Christofle’s noted egg-shaped table-top canteen in three terracotta versions, reflecting the rich, russet Roland-Garros clay courts. Containing cutlery for six people (24 pieces), the special edition is due to arrive at Christofle’s rue St Honoré Paris flagship and international boutiques in April, just in time for spring picnics. It will also be launched in party and coffee versions. 

MOOD Roland Garros available in April, from christofle.com (other ‘MOOD Christofle’ versions are available now)

The ‘egg’ dessert

Trust Albert Adrià, the man commonly known as the 'the world’s best pastry chef', to come up with this too-good-to-eat delicacy. Adrià’s carrot cake recipes are legendary and, as part of his Easter menu at Cake & Bubbles, his restaurant at the Hotel Café Royal in Piccadilly, London, he is offering one in a celebratory guise: an orange and carrot concoction of foam, frosting, ginger and biscuit, topped with a perfect ‘egg yolk’ of lime mousse with an orange glaze. However, if you're on the hop or looking for a gift, pop in for a takeaway delight, such as a spiced meringue and mandarin marmalade Hot Cross Bun or a Cake & Bubbles Easter egg, one of which contains a golden ticket offering a prize of an overnight stay for two at the hotel. 

hotelcaferoyal.com

The egg basket

An egg basket is generally made for everyday use, presumably to sit on a kitchen counter. So why are so many contemporary designs so unattractive, chintzy or all-round aesthetically unpleasing? The point is this: a good egg basket is hard to find, and so it’s off to the past we must go. This abtract brass and aluminium Italian modernist chicken, with yellow and red accents in all the right places, is, we think, an egg basket you could live with, day in, day out. 

£1,313, at 1st Dibs

The egg cup

Jochen Gerner, the artist, illustrator and member of comic art experimentalist group OuBaPo, imagined these way-too-charming motifs for the Saut Hermès egg cup and saucer. Inspired by the French maison’s annual showjumping event, traditionally held inside the Grand Palais in Paris, his drawings have been transferred to porcelain using a hand-laid screenprinting method. Whether you are a horse-lover or not, the Saut Hermès egg cup and saucer make a delightful case for boiled eggs for breakfast on Easter Sunday and every other day besides. 

£190, at Hermès

The egg on toast

For an oh-so-cute Easter breakfast treat, this fun-sized recipe from our October 2015 edition of Smallpaper* by Wallpaper* entertaining director Melina Keays never fails to raise a smile.

Egg flowers on toast

Ingredients

1 thick slice of bread
butter, at room temperature
1 egg
2 frankfurter sausages
baby tomatoes and baby corn, to serve

Method

Butter the bread generously on both sides. Press out a cavity in the centre of the slice using an 8cm flower-shaped biscuit cutter. Reserve the bread flower.

Break the egg into a small bowl.

Heat a non-stick pan over a medium fame and place the bread and the cut-out flower in the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes until golden, then flip over.

Tip the egg into the cavity. Press lightly at the edges of the flower, until the white begins to set, to prevent the white from spreading outside the toast. Cook until the egg is just set.

To make the frankfurter flowers, bring a small pan of water to a simmer. Slice one sausage lengthways, and make a series of cuts halfway across the width, about 1/2 cm apart, on the whole length of each half-sausage.

Cut the other sausage into 3cm lengths and this time make vertical cuts, halfway down the length of each piece, to form the ‘flower petals’.

Place the sausage pieces in the simmering water for 2 minutes until they have curled into flowers.

Assemble the plate, surrounding the egg toast and cut-out flower toast with sausage flowers using halved tomatoes at their centres, and baby corn as leaves.

The Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD) is partnering with The Africa Center to present ‘African/American: Making the Nation’s Table' at The Africa Center, Aliko Dangote Hall in New York City. The landmark New York exhibition explores the foundational role that African American food and drink producers, from chefs to farmers, have played in American food culture, emphasising that ‘African American food is American food’.

The show is curated by celebrated author and culinary historian Jessica B Harris, alongside an advisory board of 30 visionaries currently working within the African American culinary landscape, including the musician and author Questlove; former Ebony food editors Charlotte Lyons and Charla Draper; author of The Up South Cookbook Nicole Taylor; and Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery.

‘African American food is American food’

‘I have spent more than four decades writing about African American food culture,’ says Harris. ‘Why? Because our history is on the plate. For this reason, we need to tell our story and tell it well. The exhibition “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” is the first of its kind to reveal the depth and breadth of the contributions of African Americans to our nation’s food culture. Now is the time to celebrate, savour, and remember that African American food is American food.’ 

The Legacy Quilt

The centrepiece of the exhibition is The Legacy Quilt, an astounding 14ft tall by nearly 28ft wide work that stitches together hundreds of portraits of African American culinary figures, such as James Hemings (1765 – 1801), the first American trained as a French chef, who introduced the US to copper cookware, European-style macaroni and cheese, and French fries; Nearest Green (c.1820 – unknown), the first African American master distiller on record, who taught Jack Daniel how to make whisky and, in 1856, as an enslaved man, refined Tennessee’s signature charcoal filtration method; and many other remarkable innovators who have been overlooked or under-acknowledged by history.

The Legacy Quilt features illustrations by artist Adrian Franks, blurbs by writer Osayi Endolyn, and is sewn together by the quilting collective Harlem Needle Arts. It also includes a virtual companion piece that allows visitors to submit stories of their own African American culinary heroes, emphasising that documenting history should be a collaborative and ever-expanding effort.  

Alongside The Legacy Quilt, visitors will also be able to immerse themselves in the Ebony magazine test kitchen where Ebony editors developed the iconic ‘Date With A Dish’ column. Accessible to the public for the first time, the test kitchen serves as the stage for video interviews with former Ebony food editors and a soundtrack curated by musician, farmer, and chef Kelis. Visitors will also be able to interact with a dinner table replica that reveals stories of migration, touch points of culinary culture, and memories of sharing meals with loved ones. 

Visitors to the ‘African/American: Making the Nation’s Table’ exhibition can also purchase ‘shoebox lunches’ inspired by the meals that African American train travellers packed in shoeboxes during the Great Migration. 

Says MOFAD president Nazli Parviz: ‘MOFAD produces exhibitions and other public programmes that help people to better access their own history and the histories of the people around them as manifested through food and drink. We are committed to collaborating with fellow New York City cultural institutions to give exposure to stories that may have been under-appreciated, untold, or erased in the sweep of history and the narrow narratives that dominate it – and to sharing these vital legacies in new and profound ways.

‘This large-scale, first-of-its-kind exhibition delves into the many ways African Americans have shaped the American culinary experience. So much of what we grow and how we grow it, and what we eat and how we eat it, derives from these invaluable contributions.’

INFORMATION

mofad.org; theafricacenter.org

A new London exhibition and event series is exploring the meaning of ‘home’ as it relates to the city’s African and Caribbean diaspora communities. The show is a collaborative effort between the founders of Saint Ogun rum and Home, a multifunctional creative space established by photographer and fashion designer Ronan McKenzie. 

The exhibition runs 2 – 5 December 2021, at Home’s north London space, and features a range of locally based artists including Latoya Okuneye, Sean Adeyemi, Antoinette Yetunde Oni, Cherif Douamba, and Liz Naomi, all of whom were selected as part of an open call. 

The events calendar includes a flag-making workshop with designer Halina Edwards that explores the history and symbolism behind flags; an open mic afternoon exploring the idea of ‘home’ through the spoken word and poetry; and a family portrait session with Ronan McKenzie. 

The exhibition and corresponding events encourage people to come together under one roof, to engage in dialogue with each other, to celebrate their communities, and to give ear to exciting creative voices. It is these very tenets that gave rise to Home in the first place.

As McKenzie said upon Home’s opening last year: ‘A new art space concept is desperately needed, not only because the representation within most gallery spaces is still not diverse enough to respond to and appreciate the incredibly vast talent that is currently working, but no spaces are able to offer programming that has community and artistic development at the heart of its practice.’

For this reason, the collaboration between Home and Saint Ogun’s founders, Nic Akinnibosun and Rico Oyejobi, seemed like a natural one. ‘Home is a space championing a community of voices and stories that typically aren’t always front and centre, in really artful and insightful ways,’ say the pair. ‘From our inception, we’ve had a similar standpoint in wanting to flip the conventional in an expressive way that highlights grassroots talent.’ 

Saint Ogun launched in 2020 and quickly garnered acclaim for its rum, crafted from five celebrated distilleries across Jamaica, Guyana and Barbados, including Demerara and Foursquare. The brand’s distinctive bottle design and name (Ogun is a Nigerian spirit known for craft, invention, and rum) hark back to Akinnibosun and Oyejobi's Caribbean and African heritage, as well as their London roots. 

That blend of cultures is what inspired the duo and McKenzie to make this exhibition focus on the meaning of ‘home’. 

‘“Home”, as a concept, is usually something that offers familiarity and comfort,’ Akinnibosun and Oyejobi say.

‘That said, a lot of us have a duality or multiplicity to reckon with and that sense of “home”, or connections with elsewhere, aren’t always static, singular or even overly familiar. Through this exhibition and programme, we wanted to show the various sides of the word and how it connects to identity, potentially having a different meaning for each of us.’ 

When asked what ‘home’ means to them, the pair respond: ‘It’s always personal, it’s a place you sometimes feel you need to be in and close to, but equally, distance from it offers a perspective that helps you understand it even better.’

INFORMATION
‘Home X Saint Ogun One Year Anniversary Exhibition’, 2 – 5 December 2021

homebyrm.space

saintogun.com

Brussels-based gallery Maniera is bringing good design and good company together under one roof with a new series of pop-up evenings at its art bar, hosted by artists, architects, designers and curators. 

The evenings will take place in a space within the gallery entitled ‘1b’, which has been designed by the Belgian artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer. Dedobbeleer is best known for creating sculptural installations out of everyday objects such as chairs, tables, brooms and water bottles, in order to offer new perceptions of the things we so often take for granted. 

 ‘1b’ is a continuation of that work with Maniera transformed into an almost surrealist landscape filled with modular chairs, twisting candlesticks, and table lamps shaped like soft-serve ice cream. 

Until mid-January, this unique bar space will play host to a series of evenings organised by creatives such as American artist and sculptor Rita McBride, who experiments with design and architectural objects; ‘protean’ artist Pierre Leguillon, known for reworking images from mass media; and experimental glassware designer Marta Armengol. 

The series of events is the 21st century equivalent to the ‘Happenings’ of 1960s New York, with each evening’s artist-host dictating the music, food, performance, and all around atmosphere of the night. Guests are invited to hang out and engage with both the art and people that surround them. It is a place for jovial conversations amongst old and new friends, as much as it is a place for challenging, intellectual discussions amongst fellow art-enthusiasts.

‘A good bar is a space for sharing pleasurable moments in the company of friends or acquaintances,’ says architect Asli Çiçek about the project. ‘Where easy chit-chats and deeper conversations fuse amid good drinks… As an interior typology, the bar is one of the most enjoyable spaces to be designed and experienced.’ 

 ‘1b’ is certainly a bar that promises to be enjoyable by offering up a bouquet of life’s most immediate pleasures – art, music, drinks and good company. The event series will happen once a week at the Maniera gallery until 14 January 2022. 

INFORMATION

maniera.be

‘Pâté for the Cat’. ‘Caviar with the Shar'. ‘Tuna Fish Disaster’. Just some of the intriguingly (if not invitingly) titled dishes gracing Tate Modern's menu from March 2020. Created by head chef of Level 9 restaurant Jon Atashroo, ‘Flavours from "The Factory"' is inspired by American artist Andy Warhol, whose life and work is the focus of this year's blockbuster Tate Modern exhibition. It's the first time the institution has exhibited Warhol in depth in two decades.

The artist had a curious relationship with food. ‘I was particularly interested in the social pressures Warhol felt when eating out, along with food as a recurring motif in his work and life,' Atashroo explains. ‘My menu is based around this whilst incorporating a number of culinary anecdotes I uncovered during my research.'

It's widely known, for example, that Warhol had an insatiable sweet tooth. He was a fan of fruit (he particularly cherished cherries), opulent desserts, and little else. Atashroo's menu features four sweets, designed for sharing, including the artist's favoured breakfast Kellogg's Corn Flakes (which he is known to have eaten when he woke up in the early afternoon, and immortalised in his 1964 installation piece of the same name). In his signature style – pairing delicious ingredients with unconventional techniques – Atashroo has infused the milky cereal into a light pana cotta.

The chef keeps things light with a witty savoury menu that captures Warhol's indifference to conventional eating. ‘Tuna Fish Disaster' – inspired by the artist's 1963 silkscreen print depicting the story of two ladies who died from a tainted can of tuna; while the Edie Beale-esque ‘Pâté for the Cat’ – a reference to a quote stating that Warhol's ‘hairdresser's cat ate his leftover pâté at least twice per week.'

You can dine like Warhol (and his hairdresser's cat) during the exhibition's season-long run in the museum's Level 9 restaurant. But if ‘Tuna Fish Disaster' doesn't take your fancy, perhaps Warhol's Favourite Frozen Hot Chocolate will, also available throughout Tate Modern's cafés.

INFORMATION

tate.org.uk

In the slim corridor between studios in the Sarabande Foundation, creative minds bump into one another like paint onto canvas. A taxidermist works next to a silversmith, who is shoulder to shoulder with a designer of artificial limbs. This riotously creative environment was established by the late Lee Alexander McQueen before his death in 2007 as a charitable trust that provides residencies and studio spaces for exceptional artists, designers and makers. It's here that the two Ketel One Artists in Residence help each other navigate through a tricky commission, to create work based on the premium Dutch vodka brand, Ketel One.

What a vodka brand has in common with the London art foundation might seem tenuous at first glance, but the two institutions share a founding partnership with roots that go deeper than most, as the recent, progressive Ketel One Artist Commission collaboration between the two institutions attests.

Setting out to strengthen and build the partnership with Sarabande, Ketel One asked two Sarabande artists to create new series of works based on a trip the artists took to Ketel One's Nolet Distillery in Schiedam (near Rotterdam), earlier this year. German-born fine artist Jasmin Reif (who goes by Judas Companion) has a strong leaning towards the creative politics of fashion, and handcrafts all the props and masks used in the self-portrait photography that lines the walls of her Sarabande studio. From the Netherlands, Hendrickje Schimmel, (better known by her moniker Tenant of Culture) builds multi-layered textile installations from once-worn items of clothing. Both artists' work is invested in Sarabande and Ketel One's shared principles of creativity, sustainability, community and craft.

The Nolet Distillery, with its adjoining history museum, canal-side art gallery and rooftop bar, is a burgeoning creative hub as well as a commercial one, that, at least in spirit, channels the art-covered walls of London's Sarabande studios. In addition, its emphasis on handcraft mixed with high tech production aligns with Sarabande's broad and contemporary vision. Hand-fired, copper pot stills (including the eponymous Pot Still Number 1) are used harmoniously alongside state-of-the-art bottling and packaging machinery, all in the shadow of a historic-looking windmill, authentic in every detail, but built by the Nolet family in 2005.

The windmill is an example of Dutch engineering re-imagined by the Nolets to generate green energy – modern and progressive thinking emerging from tradition and heritage. This is typical of the way Ketel One Vodka operates. With ten generations of Nolet family distilling expertise, the brand was built on one-to-one conversations with the bartending community.

In response to what she discovered at the distillery complex, Reif created a series of knitted masks. Through humour and surrealism, the resulting series ‘A Face in Me’ makes use of various disposable pieces of fabric, wool, fur, leather, plastic and paper; materials which are mostly donated, found or collected. Making this project Ketel One-specific, she used traditional copper jugs from the Nolet Distillery, crafting them into haunting, armor-like helmets that the artist wears, and photographs as portraits. She worked without heating and lit by candlelight to emulate the environments of ‘Old Masters’ paintings, and with her recycled materials, tackles issues surrounding waste.

For her Ketel One Artist Commission, Tenant Of Culture was drawn to a vital garment used every day at the Nolet family distillery – the glove. The artist acquired a pre-worn glove used by the distillery workers daily to stoke the fires of Distilleerketel #1 (the original Ketel One). Worn and stained, the gloves were spliced and preserved in a painting before being displayed on a metal frame – a nod to the vast working structures found within the distillery. To most, these tired gloves may have seemed ready to be discarded, but to Tenant Of Culture, they presented the opportunity to communicate the ‘craftsmanship and passion’ it takes to create the vodka.

This new collaboration follows a string of successful projects between the vodka brand and Sarabande, including the Ketel One-commissioned Tord Boontje copper bar installation, housed in the Foundation's east London headquarters. By commissioning two Sarabande residents directly, for the first time, Ketel One is providing more intimate and creative support than ever before – a fitting tribute to Lee Alexander McQueen's commitment to absorbing diverse creative influences and applying them in new and exciting ways.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Ketel One website and the Sarabande Foundation website

Each spring, the House of Peroni residency hits London, offering an immersive drinking experience that promises to both bend the mind and excite the palate. To do this, Peroni team up with boundary-pushing artistic talent. Recall last year's edition, where The Boiler Room on Brick Lane was transformed into a wacky dreamscape. This year's theme: virtual reality.

VR-mania has swept the art world since London's 2016 edition of Frieze, wherein Jon Rafman of Seventeen gallery created an enormous virtual snake eating its own tail (which doubled as a rather unsettling visitor seating arrangement). Since then, even traditional institutions like the Royal Academy have championed the medium, concluding its 2016 programming with a 'Virtually Real' exhibition.

'Designing a virtual reality world is therapeutic. It's escapism,' explains Fabio Giampietro, one of the artists involved in creating this year's installation. Stepping off a painfully busy Soho street into the calming, blue-tinted bar, an ethereal world begins to unfold even before you've seen a VR headset.

A beautifully designed aperitivo and cocktail menu, courtesy of master mixologist Simone Caporale, aids the relaxation process. The Peony Peroni Bellini is a particular treat. Puréed peach is merged with Prosecco, a thimble-full of Peroni Nastro Azzuro (an unusual but successful addition) and a floral peony solution.

Once filled with a dash of dutch courage, it's time to brave the VR experience, where things amp-up somewhat. The artists and technicians involved in designing each experience have created worlds of wonder. Friends disappear, the floor vanishes beneath your feet, and the sky turns into your own private light show. Google's 'Tilt Brush' is available should visitors feel the urge to create their own 3D artwork.

Prepare to look foolish. On press night, one particularly animated journalist was seen enthusiastically walking into an unsuspecting barman. To prevent the otherwise inevitable smashing of cocktail glasses, an army of VR experts are on standby to hold the hands of headset-wearing guests, should they struggle to find their virtual feet.

Time will tell if VR is in danger of becoming overused and gimmicky, but for now it remains a novel experience – especially after a Peony Peroni Bellini or three.

INFORMATION

House of Peroni’s London residency continues until 18 March before touring the UK. For more information, visit the House of Peroni website

ADDRESS

147 Wardour Street
London W1F 8WD

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'I needed to understand what had taken us to where we were. I wanted to find out what was the real DNA of elBulli,' explains renowned Catalan chef Ferran Adrià. It is this theme that he seeks to explore with a new exhibition, 'Ferran Adrià: Auditing the Creative Process', which opens today at the Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Madrid.

The exhibition charts 25 years of elBulli's storied history, mapping out 'the peculiarities and evolution' of the restaurant's creative process. 'All I have done is look back analyse and every step we took,' explains Adrià. 'Once I thought I had the answers to my questions, I realised that they might be useful to others so it was time to share them.'

Over 1,000 pieces of ephemera such as photographs, drawings, models and workbooks are on display, alongside an impressive audiovisual piece showcasing all 1,846 dishes that Adrià created during his tenure at the restaurant.

'We got to a point where we were actually fighting against elBulli,' he says, recalling the moment when, almost three a years ago, he announced the closure of his internationally influential restaurant. 'The restaurant was no longer a real challenge. It was time to stop.'

The announcement came during the 2010 edition of Madrid Fusión – the world’s most important gastronomy event – to an astonished audience gathered at a press conference. But the man hailed as the greatest living chef - who redefined the limits of cooking - had a well-thought-out plan.

Adrià soon immersed himself in a mammoth research project that would eventually cumulate in this expansive show. He explains, 'It was all about creativity and innovation. That is what made us different. We cooked to surprise [guests], to shock them and to make them doubt.' To the show's visitors, however, there's no doubt that Adrià reimagined the language of cuisine.

ADDRESS

Espacio Fundación Telefónica
Gran Via, 28
Fuencarral street entrance, 3
28004, Madrid

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