The London Traveler

One of the things I most miss in London is Alfredo’s. I may have blogged it before – it was a real love affair for me, perhaps my first big love affair in London, and whenever I visit Islington, I miss it all over again.
It was a lovely caff, all chrome and wood, very 1950s, just at the corner of Essex Road, near an auction house full of interesting old furniture. In those days this was where the smart bit of Islington ended and the rather down at heel, more working class streets began – washing machine shops, …read more

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Greenwich will be celebrating May Day with a special Fayre on Monday, May 5th. The grounds of the Old Royal Naval College will host morris dancing, a stiltwalking Green Man, and numerous other activities. And if you’re a carnivore there’s a hog roast, which should be tasty.
(Actually, as an occasional medieval re-enactor, I end up eating quite a lot of hog roast. For some reason, wherever you reenact, there is going to be either a ham, or a hog roast. There’s never any beef, never any lamb, and rarely chicken… as for vegetables, it appears the medieval mind probably found …read more

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 St Pancras Station has been rescued. It’s a glorious architectural work – a huge glass and cast iron roof, with a stunning Victorian Gothic entrance and an amazing undercroft (now only accessible to Eurostar passengers).
When William Henry Barlow set up the train shed, it was the largest single span structure ever built. The lovely pale eggshell blue of the painted ironwork  and the fine curves of the roof are still one of London’s great sights.
In front of the station, the Midland Grand Hotel by Giles Gilbert Scott looks like a mixture of Addams family haunted house and fairy tale castle.  …read more

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This amazing statue stands in the courtyard of the British Library, near St Pancras station. It’s bulky, powerful, a brooding presence, the bronze contrasting with the red brick of the library buildings. You couldn’t miss it – as you so often can with London statues.
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was commissioned to make this statue of Newton for the site, and I think he’s come up trumps. The image derives from a picture by William Blake, the eighteenth century artist and writer, in which Blake sees Newton almost as a divine creator (God was often shown with a pair of compasses, as …read more

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The 1978 Rock against Racism event in Victoria Park was a defining moment of the 1970s. Rock bands got together to march from Trafalgar Square and protest against the increasingly active National Front.
Now, the anniversary of this event is being celebrated with another massive music festival in Victoria Park – Love Music, Hate Racism. With two outdoor stages and a big dance marquee, it will  see some of the original participants coming back to perform, as well as a truly multicultural mix of acts including bhangra and r&b as well as hip-hop, indie, reggae and funky house.
For the more serious, …read more

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Sunrise and sunset on the Thames always make it special. Once or twice I’ve got up early so I can go and stand on Waterloo Bridge as the sun rises, tinting the grey river with pink and orange, softening the brutal lines of the South Bank and making the Shell Building look like a romantic fairy castle.
You can see Tower Bridge in a new light if you take one of Thames River Adventures’ canoe cruises.  Start off at five or six in the morning and canoe underneath the bridge as the sun rises.
At £70 per person, it’s not cheap – …read more

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Most of us think of Turkish food as the doner kebab. Fast, cheap, and far too often not very good.
But Turkey created a great empire. In the seventeenth century the Turks even laid siege to Vienna. And the sultan’s court enjoyed marvellous food, with recipes of great refinement and delicacy.
Kazan devotes itself to this Ottoman tradition. While some of the dishes, like the smoked aubergine puree and borek, are recognisable to anyone who knows their Turkish oooking , others add a little spin to the recipe – melon with feta cheese, for instance, or squid cooked in vodka.You’re definitely …read more

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Take a tour of Southwark today to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.
Southwark was never part of the City of London. It was run by the Bishop of Winchester – and successive bishops seem to have decided to create an anarchic free-enterprise zone opposite the tightly regulated City. This paid them dividends – pleasure houses, theatres, bath houses (meaning roughly the same thing in Elizabethan London as in today’s San Francisco), bear baiting rings, and hundreds of taverns all paid rent to the enterprising bishops.
I must admit to a vested interest here – I’ve been researching Shakespeare’s Southwark for my own company, Podtours, …read more

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Officially, this is the Swiss Re building or 30 St Mary Axe. But naturally, everyone calls it the Gherkin. It caused a great deal of controversy when it was built – I seem to remember it was Prince Charles who referred to it as an “erotic gherkin” and it had other, ruder names – but now it seems to have settled in and Londoners have taken it to their hearts. It may be brash, oddball, modernist, but one thing it’s not is boring.
It’s a Norman Foster design, full of rather subtle touches. For instance, despite the wonderful curves of the …read more

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Meantime Brewery, based in Greenwich, has already attracted drinkers’ attention with its adventurous range of beers.
Now it’s setting forth on another great adventure together with the Royal Naval College. It will be restoring the College’s brewery, which dates from 1717. And it will be brewing a London Porter modelled on the beers being produced in the eighteenth century, as well as running a bar and brasserie.
Porter is a fascinating style, a strong, dark, smoky beer with more than a hint of sourness. It’s part of our London heritage – and fortunately, after a rocky patch in the 70s and 80s, …read more

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