Arts & Culture
Originally published on Tuesday, 5th October 2010
The Culturist - OCTOBER
Some folk balk at the prospect of October. The sun is setting barely after lunch. LFW is spent. Ibiza’s all wrapped. Christmas is a-looming… My, it’s a tough life (s0b). But here at UJ, we prefer to look on the upside wherever possible… I mean, when else beyond humble October can one squeeze in entire weeks dedicated to our bellies (London Restaurant Festival), our eyes (Frieze and all its various art-related brethren) and our kidneys (the first London Cocktail Week)? Plus it’s Halloween too! Suck it in, kids. It’s going to be beautiful.
BOOK AHEAD: FOOD
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
Launches Dec – Reservations open Oct 15
Mandarin Oriental, 66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA
www.mandarinoriental.com
We’ve been waiting patiently (if with the odd tummy-grumble) for Heston’s latest culinary creation since we first heard it whispered on the old grapevine. Although not launching until December, if His Royal Blumenthalness’s spanking new menu inspired by five centuries of gastro-history tickles your fancy (expect Scallops with Cucumber Ketchup, Bergamot-cured Mackerel Salad, etc.) then start your engines and get a-booking as soon as the books open – because we all know it’s going to fill up fast.
FOOD
London Restaurant Festival
Oct 4-18
Throughout London
www.londonrestaurantfestival.com
Food, glorious food, hot sausage and mustard… Or Whole Roasted Fois Gras with Cox’s Orange Apple and Black Truffle as the case may be over at the Montagu Cloudy Bay chef’s table? There’s also the seasonal five-course dinner at the £65-per-head Savoy Truffle Supperclub. And a dinner for ten with Gordon Ramsay on the London Eye up for auction (currently sitting at a reasonable £7.5k). Or the Street Kitchen’s awesome vintage Airstream that’s doing the rounds… Ah, our beloved London Restaurant Festival: so much food – so little time.
DRINK
London Cocktail Week
Oct 11-16
Throughout London
www.londoncocktailweek.com
Cultural consumption comes in many wondrous forms… but the sheer mass of London’s creativity can sometimes be enough to drive a man to drink.Which is handy as the first ever London Cocktail Week is also coming to town! And just as the London Restaurant Festival aims to woo our palates with awesome chow, LCW is out to rock the city with a week long spectacle of beautiful booze and kidney-bruising cocktails. Expect talks, parties and events from your favourite brands alongside a genius slew of free buses to whisk you between participating neighbourhoods.
THEATRE
Terror 2010: Death and Resurrection
Oct 12-31
Southwark Playhouse, Shipwright Yard, Tooley Street, SE1 2TF
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Back after last year’s sell-out run, four dark theatrical shorts get roped together beneath the railway arches into a singularly devilish little package of shocking entertainment. A widow’s dead husband stirs in the Country; real-life horror stalks a young couple into The Exclusion Zone; romping Lovecraftian horror unfurls in 20th Century America in Reanimator; and then there’s the sheer childhood terror of The Unimaginable. It’s all strictly 16+, so maybe not one for the trick or treating sprogs…
ART
Moniker Art Fair
Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, EC2A 3PQ
Oct 14-17
Various galleries throughout London
www.monikerartfair.com
Whether you view it as a balancing partner or an edgier alternative to this month’s standard fairs, if street art is even remotely your thing then Shoreditch’s inaugural Moniker fair should be right up your street. Focusing on far more than the usual dozen rent-a-stencils, this new fair has on its books some of the world’s leading urban artists and galleries, featuring everything from Black Rat Press to Galleria Patricia Armocida and artists including Polly Morgan, Heracut, Ben Eine and, naturally, his Royal Banksiness.
FASHION
Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion
Oct 15-Feb 6
Barbican, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Since the 1980s, the Japanese fashion scene has produced some fabulously game-changing designers – playful, precise, inspired. The fact that this highly-anticipated comprehensive retrospective at the Barbican is apparently the first of its calibre in Europe is kind of crazy. Especially when you think that the roll-call of fashion designers includes electrifying names like Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Junya Watanabe, Jun Takahashi…
CLUB
The Nest Launch Weekend
Oct 15-17
36 Stoke Newington Road, N16 7XJ
www.ilovethenest.com
Opening with a full-pelt weekend line-up, Dalston’s newest venue is The Nest. Billing itself as ‘a response to mainstream generic commercial clubbing’ and championing future DJs rather than their better known, over-billed, over-paid brethren. It’s set on the site of the infamous old Bardens Boudoir and is the product of the two brains behind the Fabric and Old Queen’s Head groups respectively, promising an inspired (and no doubt occasionally messy) mix-up of art, live music and stellar club nights.
ART
Hauser & Wirth
Oct 15-Dec 18
23 Savile Row, W1S 2ET
www.hauserwirth.com
Launching just in time for this year’s Frieze, the latest gallery from the Hauser & Wirth set is finally here, bringing with is a little visual distraction to Savile Row with an aptly cloth-based first offering. With H&W already one of our firm favourites within London’s gallery scene, the inaugural exhibition at their brand new Mayfair space is a collection of over 70 fabric drawings by the late, great Louise Bourgeois alongside four of those marvelous large-scale sculptures for which she was so well known.
ART
Map Marathon: Maps for the 21st Century
Oct 16-17
Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, SW7 2RA
www.serpentinegallery.org
Another Frieze-tied artistic event, the fifth in the Serpentine’s annual Marathon series this year brings together seminal artists, architects, poets, scientists, musicians and philosophers to explore the potential for mapping in the changing world of the 21st century. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, it’s a non-stop two day event delving into maps for everything from data to space and time, language and the human body to multiple dimensions. It will also feature contributions from the likes of David Adjaye, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and the ever-marvellous Gilbert and George.
FOOD
Eat Your Own Heart Out & The Pretox Potion
Oct 28-31
Maiden, 188 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6HU
www.evilcakes.wordpress.com
Let’s face it: life would be a poorer experience without a little cake in the mix. But if like us you’re feeling a little bit jaded by the ubiquitous bright-cupcakes-with-pretty-flowers malarkey, try this 18+ temporary shop (from the Mad Artist Tea Party) which promises a very different take on the trad bakery. From Russian Roulette cookies to ‘road kill’ garnish, think extreme, deliciously horrific and downright bizarre… With some of the strangest, most creative minds in the edible world on board, dessert will never be the same again.
