Neil Sowerby has a capital time haunting galleries and chef’s counters
HARD to credit after the recent heatwave that London can also be a drenching experience and so it came to pass on our recent trip. Fortunately there was a wealth of things to do indoors. Here are my tips to feast on art and food in the city while dodging the rain. They are also a great excuse to get out of the sun!
Special exhibitions of artists ranging from the 17th century (Spain’s mighty Francisco de Zurbarán) to the early 21st (David Hockney), taking in 19th century bohemian James McNeill Whistler, 20th century Mexican icon Frida Kahlo and her very different UK contemporary, sculptor Barbara Hepworth.
- Masterpieces of a different sort at two of London’s best new restaurants – the much-hyped Impala and the gorgeous but more under the radar Ben Murphy at 74 Charlotte Street; separate counters in Mayfair for a bargain lunch at The Cocochine and a sandwich with gravy to die for at The Dover Street Counter; and, proving Chinese doesn’t have to mean Chinatown, a tasting menu at Michelin 2-starred A Wong in Victoria that remains one of the city’s culinary wonders.
And, when a break was needed – a very special place to stay almost in the shadow of Buckingham Palace (which we didn’t visit).
Ben Murphy at 74 Charlotte Street
Fitzrovia, west of Tottenham Court Road, is rich in favourite eating spots such as Norma, Cometa and 64 Goodge Street. Now it is home to Ben Murphy’s first eponymous venture, a relaxed 70-seater where the French classical technique that brought him plaudits at Launceston Place is married to a rare playfulness. The presence of one of London’s best mixologists, Nicola Pellegrinetti gets you in the mood. Do let him persuade you to try his signature Martini@74, ice cold, with a second serving in a freshly chilled glass.
Milk bread is almost a cliche, but don’t be deterred. Ben’s, served with pumpkin seed hummus and noisette butter, is benchmark. Pick of the starters? Has to be roasted squab pigeon, with a leg coated in toasted wild rice. Celeriac and pleasingly numbing Nepalese timur pepper also feature.
Fish is a strong point. My John Dory main was just pipped by poached Cornish cold loin, squid Bolognese and cauliflower in a bisque. Bold cooking. His original mentor, the great Pierre Kofmann, must be proud. The wine list too offers affordability. A Portuguese Arinto white at £40 was fine match for our fish.
Zurbarán at the National Gallery
A revelation. Velazquez does have a great rival among his Spanish contemporaries and this is the first major UK show of Francisco de Zurbarán from Baroque Seville, whose work encompasses everything from stunning altarpieces to intricate still-lives. Not just the religious painter of crucifixions, saints, strong light and deep shadow. Across his oeuvre there’s a vivid humanity at play.
Until August 23, 2026. Sainsbury Wing, gallery free/exhibition f£20-£22, under-18s go free
Larry Jayasekara is another masterly creator – of ultra sustainable haute cuisine, delicately infused with the spices of his native Sri Lanka. The former chef of Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus in Belgravia is now very much his own man in the art-filled setting of a four storey Georgian town house in Bruton Street (owner Tim’s Warhols are in the top floor private dining room).
It is a joy to watch Larry at work from the seven-seater upstairs counter as he and his team serve up arguably London’s best lunch bargain – three courses for just £39. Just keep an eye on the add-ons such as a tenner for the Cocochine chips (I couldn’t resist).
Choose from starters of raviolo of Scottish lobster in a lime and lemongrass sauce or French onion soup with a truffle cheese toastie. Your main might be roasted line-caught wild sea trout, seaweed, bisque or slow cooked farm beef pie in a perfect pastry casing. Much of the produce comes from one backer’s regenerative 1,000 farm in Northamptonshire or his private Hebridean island.
James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain
Whistler’s Mother in the flesh, so to speak. Or as her son titled it ‘Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1’. Borrowed from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, this universally recognisable painting from 1871 joins 150 other exquisite works for the largest retrospective of the American-born artist in three decades. Bohemian, dandy, precursor of Impressionism in his ethereal evocations of the Thames, its docks and pleasure grounds, you are in the presence of genius throughout.
This spellbinding exhibition hosts the largest ever assembly of Whistler’s Nocturne landscapes from the first, painted in Chile, to the last, of St Mark's, Venice. It explores his mastery of etching and Japanese influences and his increasingly abstract experiments that led to his bankruptcy and exile.
Until September 27, 2026. Gallery free, exhibition £24 /12-18s £4.37.
It’s a 10 minute walk from Tate Britain to Andrew Wong’s temple to his culinary heritage – the only Chinese restaurant outside Asia to hold two Michelin stars. The ‘A’ pays homage to the chef patron’s parents, Albert and Annie who ran its as Kym’s a traditional Cantonese in the shadow of Victoria Station. It has altered dramatically since it was renamed and reborn in 2012, but the welcome is as warm as ever … and the dumplings alone are sensational. For your first time I’d recommend the daytime Dom Perignon Dim Sum Tasting Menu, £220 per person including a wine flight kicking off with aforesaid Champagne and finishing with top Sauternes, Chateau Rieussec.
Wong is an anthropologist by trade and the menu feeds on his investigations of many cultures within China, while making use of the UK’s finest provenance. Think Isle of Mull seared scallop and honey-glazed iberico pork cheung fun or, influenced by Hong Kong, Bamboo Pole Noodles with king crab and spring onion oil. And, when red wine enters the equation, there’s a construct-your-own Shanxi ‘lamb burger’, a take on the street food of China’s far north west.
Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern
The Tate’s South Bank space is celebrating female artists this summer. First up was a Tracey Emin retrospective, now Frida Kahlo joins her. Expect plenty of retail action in the gallery shop, for was there ever an artist so exploited as a brand, hence the show’s title? It does showcase 30 of her most celebrated works but there are also over 200 works by her contemporaries and later artists she inspired. It features more than 200 commercial objects that encompass her style as she came to terms with the exoticism and life-changing disability that defined her.
Until January 3, 2027. Gallery free, exhibition £25/12-18s £4.37.
Back into Mayfair, this is the more casual off-shoot of Martin Kuczmarki’s The Dover, a few doors down, whose schtick these past couple of years has been old school Italian New York. In the narrow space there are a few compact tables but the counter is the place to be and the plate to order is a £19 sandwich – the ‘French Dip’, their version of the ‘London Dip’. The sourdough base cradles smoky steak shards and pulled beef with oozing Taleggio and pickles, accompanied by a generous boat of gravy. An Old-Fashioned feels an appropriate match.
David Hockney at the Serpentine North, Kensington Gardens
What a huge outpouring of affection for Hockney after his recent death. I expect it has added to the queues for this London showcase for his later work, including the panoramic frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, A Year In Normandie, which I remember from its debut at Salt’s Mill, Saltaire outside his native Bradford. The works entitled Some Other Thoughts about Painting extend his lifelong fascination with the act of looking, affirming his belief that simple beauty is worth celebrating.
Until August 23, 2026. Free.
From the ‘Super 8’ stable that brought us Brat, Mountain, Smoking Goat and Kiln comes this fire-driven restaurant homage to chef Meedu Saad (once of Kiln), recently named Chef to Watch at the 2026 National Restaurant Awards. Impala, in Dean Street, also entered the Top 50 after being open just six weeks. Does it live up to the hype? Definitely. Order, to share, the duck roasted in molasses with fig sauce after the whole grain house bread Aish Baladi, to mop up pounded white beans with wild herbs and bottarga. Meedu grew up in Tottenham but summer holidays were spent back in the family’s native Egypt, the main influence on a menu that also sources brilliant UK produce. Molokhia greens with Cornish cull yaw mutton, anyone?
Hepworth In Colour at the Courtauld Gallery, The Strand
The importance of Yorkshire in 20th century art. Discuss. We may just have lost David Hockney; amazingly it is half a century since Wakefield-born Barbara Hepworth perished in a fire at her St Ives studio. The abstract sculpture garden there remains the most numinous reminder of her talent. Now it’s good to see the Courtauld exploring a less familiar aspect of her work, her lifelong fascination with colour. At the heart of the exhibition is a group of wood and stone carvings created in the 1940s, with vivid blues and yellows painted into hollows and onto curves. Don’t neglect the rest of the Somerset House-based Courtauld. Its permanent collection is particularly strong on Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, with such iconic paintings as Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
Hepworth in Colour until September 6, 2006. £18.
A PLACE TO STAY – LUXURY ON PARADE
I chuckled at The Sun headline on King Charles’ vow not to take up residence in Buckingham Palace when its £369 million renovation is finally compete: ‘The Buck Stops Here!’
Just a five minute walk away, where Buckingham Gate meets Petty France, our own luxurious lodging is never going to hog any Royal limelight. Guardsman may be its name, but ‘discreet boutique’ best sums up its hospitality ethos. Despite its five star status, it boasts no elaborate entrance and you sign in, a glass of fizz at your elbow, in the art deco drawing room. Deep sofas to sink into and a chandelier to twinkle above.
Take the spiral staircase down to the cocktail bar with its gold bar stools and portrait-stacked dining room, where we breakfasted (though we could have ordered it all as room service). They also offer one of London’s finest afternoon teas.
A personalised private member’s club experience is the aim. The adjacent library teems with very readable tomes and there was a well-stocked bookshelf in our sixth floor suite, the Wintringham, one of six Residences all named after female Parliamentarians. The three-bedroom Nancy Astor occupies the entire top floor.
We had been upgraded, our case already stowed in a wonderfully luxurious two bedroom, two bathroom bolthole, complete with its own kitchenette and balcony beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. It would have been no hardship to occupy any of the Guardsman’s 53 guest rooms.
- The Guardsman Hotel and Residences, 1 Vandon Street, Westminster, London SW1H 0AH. Rooms are from £449 a night, Residences are more than twice that price with a minimum two night stay. Conveniently St James’s Park Underground Station is less than a 10 minute walk away.
- For those on a tighter budget I’d recommend the Z Hotels scatted around central London; the latest, Z Leicester Square rubs shoulders with the national Portrait Gallery.
