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Bread Winner: London’s best bakeries

https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/londons-best-bakeries/

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The range and quality of London’s bakeries is such that you could pick up a Filipino milk loaf in the morning, make a sandwich from gluten-free charcoal sourdough for lunch and have freshly-made salt beef sandwiches delivered to your door by dinner time. That is to say, whichever way your inclinations for something baked and delicious take you, you’re almost certain to indulge them here. Below, we’ve rounded up some of our most frequented spots, taking in everything from bakeries that moonlight as restaurants with ever-changing menus, to grab-and-go establishments for daily loaves.

 

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Your Country Needs You. 
To Drink Cocktails.

https://thenudge.com/london-things-to-do/london-cocktail-week-2021/

 

Ah, the magic of a great cocktail bar.

Can you remember what it feels like?  Getting dressed up, heading out and stepping inside that dimly-lit, quietly buzzing haven for the first time. Hearing the soft chatter of flirtatious patrons conversing in candlelit corners to a soundtrack of clinking glasses and rattling cocktail shakers.  Connecting with someone you care about over an expertly-created concoction inside a clandestine oasis where hours can pass in minutes. It’s a world that feels light years away from the stresses of normal life; a place where you can be irresponsible. And relaxed. And happy.

Yes, even you.

Now as you know, London contains many of the finest cocktail bars on the planet… and as you probably also know, the last year’s been impossible for them all, so each is now in a battle for survival.  The next few weeks and months are crucial, and will determine how many of them make it to Christmas – which is why you should pick one that you’d like to visit, choose a restaurant nearby that you’d like to go to before or after your cocktails, and have an amazing night out.  You’ll be supporting the best restaurants & bars in London – whom we’d all like to continue existing – while making yourself happy in the process. It’s easy.

But to make it even easier, the team behind London Cocktail Week – which this year is happening throughout the whole month of October – are running the London Cocktail Week Warm Up next week (5th July – 11th July) during which you can score discounted cocktails at some of the city’s finest bars.  To access these, you need to get a London Cocktail Week 2021 Wristband (which will be valid both for next week and for the main event in October, when you’ll get access to all the LCW events, masterclasses and £7 cocktails in 250 of the very best bars in London).

LCW’21 Wristbands cost £15 (available here), or, if you’re a Nudge Member £8 (see members’ box above this article for details), and allow you access to special £7 cocktails next week at these amazing bars.

Here are a few of our favourites taking part, including our favourite spots to eat nearby.

Coupette

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Coupette bears the coveted title of The Nudge’s Favourite Bar in East London, alongside a dozen less important awards such as No. 23 on the World’s Best Bars list; Best New International Cocktail bar at Tales of the Spirited; and Best Cocktail of the Year (two years running) at the CLASS Bar Awards. Basically, it’s good. And their exposed-brick walled Bethnal Green bolthole is everything a good cocktail bar should be – low-lit, intimate and soundtracked by a well-curated playlist of rock’n’roll and live piano singalongs. The thoroughly French accent can be seen in the decor – old tabac shop signs and a bar covered in Libertine coins – as well as the menu, which sings with calvados, the apple brandy made in Normandy. But for the warm-up week, the spotlight is on their Frozen Cosmo-Passion, which whizzes together Grey Goose vodka, cranberry, peach soda and passionfruit sorbet.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Pasta al fresco at Sager + Wilde
Details: 423 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 0AN | Open daily from 5pm (4pm Fri & Sat)

Bar Américain

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You’ll find the good-looking Bar Américain right beneath the trampling feet of the crowds of Piccadilly Circus, hidden away as part of Brasserie Zédel. Slip away from the thronging masses and ease into the warm, wood-panelled embrace of its original 1930s interiors, where murmured conversations are held to a backdrop of live jazz and swing emanating from the dining room next door. The place is luxury personified, and this week that luxury costs a little less: they’re offering not one but three cocktails as part of the Warm-Up Week, including a Dry Daiquiri with aged rum and mango purée (£7), a gin Martini with manzanilla sherry (£7) and a non-alcoholic number whipping together Seedlip with fresh watermelon juice (£5).

Where’s good to eat nearby? You’re conveniently right next door to Brasserie Zédel
Details: 20 Sherwood Street, London, W1F 7ED Open daily from 5pm (4pm Fri/Sun & 3pm Sat)

Satan’s Whiskers

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Satan’s Whiskers is an East End institution. From the outside… it almost looks closed down. But inside is a buzzy, eclectic mélange of subway tiles, vintage liquor posters and er, stuffed racoons, where a 90s hip-hop soundtrack lends a deceptively laid-back vibe to a bar team that take their drinks seriously. On their regularly-changing menu is a choice line-up of modern classics, from a Grapefruit Americano to a Champagne Paloma. Which means if anyone’s going to do a Tom Collins right, it’s these guys – and you can see for yourself this week when the Champagne-topped gin cooler is going for £7 a pop.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Treat yourself at The Water House Project
Details: 343 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9RA | Open daily 5pm-midnight

Laki Kane

Laki kane fun birthday bar

Laki Kane is a Polynesian paradise nestled on Upper Street, combining bamboo furnishings, Tiki statues and colourful flowers and foliage to create a bar that’s just really fun. Paying homage to America’s enthusiastic midcentury craze for tiki culture, the cocktails here are lavish concoctions made with artisan rums and garnished with towers of palm leaves, fruit and flowers. The bar’s ideal for bigger groups, and at the weekend they run rum-making workshops, tastings and cocktail masterclasses. And their Warm-Up Week cocktail is a masterclass in itself, combining ‘banana peel oleo saccharum’ (that’s a sustainable sugar oil made with banana peel), rum, and a CBD mixer.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Affordable indulgence at 12:51
Details: 144-145 Upper Street, London, N1 1QY Open daily from 5pm (Friday from 4pm, and weekends from 1.30pm)

Happiness Forgets

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Happiness may forget, but make sure you remember this place. Plum-coloured walls, candlelit booths and a polished wood bar provide the pleasing backdrop that’s both cosy and illicit, where award-winning cocktails are shaken up in a Hoxton basement. On the menu for wristband-bearers this week is a fine duet: the Diamond Gimlet, whose crisp edges comes from celery cordial and cumin eau de vie, and the Penicillin, a non-alcoholic take on the classic whose combination of smoked lapsang tea, ginger syrup and honey sounds like it could cure all ills…

Where’s good to eat nearby? Enjoy tapas at Brindisa, or go all out at The Clove Club
Details: 8-9 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6NU | Open daily 5-11pm

Covent Garden Social Club

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This opulent West End lounge is the home of the Good Time. Perched above the tiny Arts Theatre in Leicester Square, it’s a raucous den with nightly live acts including musicians, singers and cabaret stars, and some fine cocktails to boot. You’ll need to sign up for club membership in advance – it’s free, and will net you discounts to shows at the theatre too. Once you’re in, you’ll be loaded up with theatrical drinks, from the Old Fashioned with muscovado and raisin syrup, to the Mimosa Soufflé (a smooth, foamy take on the classic). On the menu this week? The Social Club Outlaw, blending bourbon with hibiscus and dry vermouth, and a bounty of £7 on its head.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Modern Iranian delights at Nutshell
Details: 6-7 Great Newport Street, London, WC2H 7JB | Open Mon-Sat, 4.30pm-late

Demon, Wise & Partners

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When in the City, follow the suits to The Arbitrager… then slip downstairs into this basement cocktail oasis. Offering seated service only, this retro lounge is the antidote to the street-level bars jostling with after work drinkers. The menu comprises well-made classics, signature serves and a duo – the Demon and the Wise – that are each made precisely 100 times before the recipe changes all over again. And both of which, incidentally, would make a good chaser to The Tropical Pal (coconut fat-washed bourbon, jasmine and Campari), the Kentucky Coffee Forest (exactly what it sounds like) and the booze-free Strawberry Peach Forever, their Warm-Up Week specials.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Hawksmoor Guildhall never fails to impress.
Details: 27 Throgmorton Street, London, EC2N 2AN Open Wed-Fri, 5pm-late

Opium

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Presenting the ultimate speakeasy: Opium is hidden behind an unmarked, jade green door down a set of steps leading from Gerrard Street, Chinatown. Find it, and you’re only halfway there. For what awaits you inside is a warren of bars-within-bars hidden in attics and behind little red curtains, each taking inspiration from 1920s Shanghai. The cocktails – assembled from apothecary bottles, house concoctions and high-end spirits – are absolute showstoppers, arriving in billowing clouds of smoke or elaborate vessels. And this week, you can cap off your night with a little Cherry Blossom Fizz, made with Japanese vodka, sake and homemade cherry wine.

Where’s good to eat nearby? Check out Soho’s new retro Korean pub, Hongdae Pocha.
Details: 15-16 Gerrard Street, London, W1D 6JE Open daily from 5pm till the wee hours

The Blind Pig

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A suave, prohibition-era drinking den perched above Jason Atherton’s critically lauded Social Eating House. To find it, look for the optician’s sign hanging, somewhat incongruously, at the end of Poland Street in Soho. Push open the door with the blindfolded pig’s head for a knocker, head upstairs, and sink into butter-soft leather booths as the world beyond melts away. The cocktail menu here changes regularly according to tongue-in-cheek themes – currently you can sip concoctions with ingredients hauled from far-off fantasy realms, from Springfield’s Nuclear Daiquiri to Saffron City’s Bulba-sour. And, of course, your discounted Pirate Pop, mingling bamboo milk with apricot brandy and, naturally, rum.

Where’s good to eat nearby? You can always head downstairs… or nip into Bao
Details: 58 Poland Street, London, W1F 7NR | Open Tues-Sat from noon till late


All this is genuinely only scratching the surface of the incredible line-up on offer. Joining this merry band of bars are other esteemed establishments including Crouch End’s vaunted Little Mercies; the multiple award-winning Callooh Callay (and their brand-new spot, the Duchess of Dalston); clandestine Soho drinking den Disrepute; and a whole lot more.

It’s the excuse you’ve been looking for to put on real shoes again; to rediscover this beautiful city; and to support all of the bar & restaurant owners and amazing hospitality staff who make London such a vibrant and fun place to live.

Also, to drink.

 

NOTE: London Cocktail Week’s Warm-Up Week runs 5th-11th July 2021 in bars across London. To take advantage of the offers, everyone in your party will need a wristband. They cost £15 (or £8 for Nudge members, see members’ box above this article) and can be purchased on the LCW website HERE – you’ll then receive a ticket from Design My Night, which you can exchange for your wristband at any of the participating bars.

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The Making Of Rodin

https://thenudge.com/london-things-to-do/making-of-rodin/

The Making Of Rodin

Rodin is generally considered the founder of modern sculpture.

And now it’s his turn to be put on the pedestal.

Whether you’re aware of it or not (hopefully you are) you’re likely familiar with many of his more famous pieces; The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, etc. They’re such classics, so deeply entrenched in the cultural consciousness, that it seems strange that the new show honouring the man is on at the Tate Modern. After all, their cut-off is (technically) 1900, which means that Rodin just barely scrapes under the bar, and arguably doesn’t. But the man was – as they contend in the central crux of this exhibition – so many light years ahead of his time that he more than deserves to be there, alongside Warhol, Kandinsky, and the like.

The making of Rodin

Thus for the first time we’re getting a show that revolves around Rodin’s work in plaster, one of the more cutting-edge sculptural materials at the time. It was so much quicker & easier to shape than bronze or marble, they aim to show how he broke rules with it, and pushed the medium into the 20th century through sheer force of will and imagination.

The curators have been lucky enough to go on a full-on borrowing spree at the Musée Rodin in Paris, snatching up some 200 works many of which have never been seen outside of France. They’re frequently odd – a disembodied foot here, a gigantic head there – but it all comes together with his finished masterpieces to evoke the sense that you’re in the artist’s studio itself, able to peer inside his mind and see the creative cogs as they turn.

The making of Rodin

Some of the highlights include his famed statue of the writer Balzac, which instead of giving him a literally statuesque body, doesn’t give him a body at all, just a dressing gown. It’s slightly surreal. Then there’s The Burghers of Calais, an extraordinary life-size monument to a group of elders who volunteered to sacrifice themselves in order to save their town during the 100 Years War. You’ll see the models, the false starts, the sketches, all of it. And, of course, you can see The Kiss. So get down there while you can…

…the show won’t stay still forever.

 

NOTE: The Making Of Rodin is on at The Tate Modern from 18th May until 21st November 2021. You can find out more, and book your tickets (£18) at the website right HERE.

Tate Modern | Bankside, SE1 9TG

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FTC x Nike SB Dunk Low is Inspired by Japanese Bathhouses

https://www.sneakerfreaker.com/news/official-pics-ftc-x-nike-sb-dunk-low-is-inspired-by-japanese-bathhouses

 

Joining the likes of the Bandai x Dunk High 'Gundam', the FTC x Nike SB Dunk Low collaboration has been officially revealed as part of a celebratory collection for the Tokyo Olympics. Hailing from San Francisco, skate stalwarts FTC look to Japanese bathhouses as the inspiration for this project, dressing the ever-popular SB silhouette in a summer-ready aesthetic accented by 'Speed Yellow' and 'Lagoon Blue' hues.

Following leaked on-foot imagery, we've had a wait a while for official shots, but they don't disappoint. Manufactured with blue suede uppers, this SB Dunk is rendered in white leather overlays that are given textural depth by grid-like patterns, which mimic the brick layering seen at Japanese baths. A metallic Swoosh is emblazoned on the side panel, the Swoosh extending out to meet the sunny borders on the sockliners and tongues. FTC branding appears on the heels and co-branded tongues, which have kanji on the rear. Down below, an icy blue outsole completes the collaboration.

Having fostered a strong history with Nike SB, FTC are responsible for one of the best Dunk Lows we've seen: the FTC x Nike SB Dunk Low 'Finally' from 2013, which was created to mark the 20th anniversary of the legendary skate tape of the same name.

Look for the FTC x Nike SB Dunk Low to release soon. Confirmation can't be too far away now.

feature imageftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-12.jpg?w=1140Nike-SB-Dunk-Low-FTC-Bathhouse-DH7687-400-Release-Date-1068x750.jpg?fm=webpftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-11.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-3.jpg?w=1140Nike-SB-Dunk-Low-FTC-Bathhouse-DH7687-400-Release-Date-2-1068x750.jpg?fm=webpftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-1.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-8.jpg?w=1140Nike-SB-Dunk-Low-FTC-Bathhouse-DH7687-400-Release-Date-1-1068x750.jpg?fm=webpftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-7.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-2.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-10.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-9.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-4.jpg?w=1140ftc-nike-sb-dunk-low-DH7687-400-release-date-5.jpg?w=1140

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Logo Artilleriet

Unique glassware from R+D.Lab Made in Italy

Shaped with traditional mouth blown techniques, expert artisans have translated a life-long tradition into a series of contemporary products for everyday use. The innovation of design comes from modern shapes inspired by aesthetics of rationalist and modernist architecture whilst respecting its functionality. The result gives each unique piece a simple elegance. Made entirely by artisan hands in Italy, curated with love by Artilleriet.

 

https://www.artilleriet.se/en/brands/r-d-lab

 

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London Wonderground
It Goes Up & Down, And Around.
 
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You may have noticed that it's cloudy and wet in London today.

But if you look reeeeally carefully you'll spot a few rays of sunshine breaking through those clouds...

Not actual rays of sunshine, of course - it's only the beginning of July and we're in the UK, that'd be ridiculous - but metaphorical rays of sunshine represented by both the promise of scorching weather to come later in the month, and by Boris announcing that hundreds of covid restrictions will be lifted on 19th July (opening the doors - and to keep you fully updated, we're speaking literally now - to thousands of hospitality, event & entertainment venues across London).

And what better way could there be to celebrate this rare combination of good weather and your impending liberation than by booking tickets to see something fun at an outdoor, two month long festival in Earl's Court featuring live music, fairground rides, two gigantic tents' worth of eye-widening shows, several alfresco bars, lots of street food, a lineup of DJs and a beach that's free to enter?

Well, maybe there isn't one.

Landing in mid-July, London Wonderground - which this year is relocating from its regular digs on The South Bank to sunny Earl's Court - is going to be sticking around until the end of September. It marks a sort of merger of both Wonderground itself and the Underbelly festival (which once again promises to bring you "the best in circus, comedy and family entertainment"), next to which you'll find - if you look really carefully - a gigantic, 1000 person-capacity Big Top hosting a diverse lineup of shows.

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You could be having this much fun.

So what's on the menu? Well too many shows to list, but here are five we've managed to settle our wandering eye on -

1. The Choir of Man - Fresh from playing the Sydney Opera House, this high-energy song-fest takes place in an onstage (working) pub, with actors foot-stomping their way through pub tunes, folk, Broadway, classic rock, and more. It's absolutely joyous.

2. Dead Ringers Live - A live version of the stone-cold-classic BBC Radio 4 impressionist comedy show, with Jon Culshaw, Debra Stephenson, and Duncan Wisbey.

3. Austentatious - An award-winning comedy act that will see the performers create "an improvised Jane Austen novel" right before your eyes.

4. Film Reads - Reenactments of your favourite movies (The Shawshank Redemption, The Lion King, etc.) only funnier.

5. A Night At The Musicals - An "all singing, all dancing, all jazz hands" journey through iconic musicals from Les Mis to The Greatest Showman, this show has a cast of eighty.

London Wonderground's also going to be channeling the energy of the Edinburgh Fringe by putting comedians like Al Murray, Rhod Gilbert, Stephen K Amos, Lucy Porter and Josh Berry in the spotlight, too. "But what's outside of the tents?" you likely weren't wondering, but now possibly are. Well a bandstand playing live music; old school fairground rides (helter skelter, swing rides etc.); lots to eat & drink from a variety of food stalls & trucks; and Earls Court City Beach, where you can finally get some sand between your toes...


This year, we'll take it.



NOTELondon Wonderground takes place from July 15th until September 26th in Earl’s Court. You can find out more, and book tickets to the various shows at the website right HERE.

London Wonderground | Empress Place, Earls Court, SW6 1TT

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