Two weeks ago I went to the opening party for Bar Etna, the latest entrant in London’s seemingly never-ending regional American pizza boom, helmed by a Philadelphia chef. It was absolutely rammed on opening night, though post-launch reviews since have been a bit more lukewarm.

While there, I was told that more than 30 businesses applied to take over the old Lizzy’s on the Green site, the community-focused kiosk café in the middle of the Green. We still don’t know who won the tender from Islington Council, but I’d put money on a softly branded “community-led” press release appearing in Broadsheet any day now.

The neighbourhood, which sits between Hackney and Islington, was once relatively under the radar and mainly known for Newington Green Fruit & Veg, which still stocks some of the best produce in the city. Then came Primeur (2014), Perilla (2016), and Jolene (2018) — all now approaching a decade in business.

Stella’s (the Hill & Szrok outpost that reads more art gallery than butchers) may have recently abandoned its transformation into a nighttime listening bar, but The Mildmay Club (a working men’s club established in 1888 as the “Mildmay Radical Club”) is now a hotspot too, with Friday bingo night apparently becoming a surprisingly reliable place to spot DJs, PRs, and journos. Taylor Swift also filmed the “End Game” music video there.

There’s also Cadet (natural wine and charcuterie), Lot 103 (a Scandi-flecked seasonal café), Jumi (artisanal cheese), Oeno Maris (high-end fishmonger-slash-sashimi-and-natural-wine bar), and inNEOSS (a perfectly curated womenswear and lifestyle boutique).

But is this really the new London Fields? Last year, LOTI described it as “like London Fields, only without the cunts” but when you zoom out and look at the hotspots orbiting this micro-neighbourhood, they all lean towards the same “middle-class creative natural wine foodie” aesthetic — a Real Housewives of Clapton meme if ever I saw one.

As a London Fields resident, I’m admittedly biased, but I still don’t think Newington Green has the size, amenities, chaos, diversity, or transport links to truly take the crown.

Nice try though (fight me in the comments section)

For further reading:

HEADLINES FOR YOUR PERUSAL:

→ The menu for White Hot Forever (an evening of dreamy ice creams and wine from La Grotta Ices x Adriann Ramirez of Fink's) next week looks INSANE

☆ BAY & CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM SANDWICH
☆ STRAWB & RHUBARB À LA MODE W/ CARDAMOM ICE CREAM
☆ BANANA SPLIT W/ RED BANANA, ALPHONSO MANGO & GREEN PEPPERCORN ICE CREAM
☆ AMALFI LEMON CREAM & NOUGAT CHOC ICE
☆ FROMAGE BLANC & GARIGUETTE STRAWBERRY CASSATA

find me there/in Heaven

In further ice cream news:

→ Leyton gelato shop Chunk Provisions is hiring a mobile scooper

Looks like they’re taking their treats on the road via a converted cargo bike, in the vein of the “East London Lemon Ice Man”. Love to see it.

And also:

→ Tandoh is working on a new London Ice Cream Guide for

The follow-up to her seminal 2023 London Ice Cream guide series.

Vittles

Beyond Gelato: A guide to London ice cream

Good morning, and welcome to Vittles Ice Cream Week, a four-part celebration of ice cream in London written by Ruby Tandoh…

Read more

3 years ago · 105 likes · 11 comments · Vittles

→ David Ellis wrote his final review for The Standard yesterday

Le Gavroche received a heartfelt three-star review. Ellis was appointed restaurant critic in 2024, taking over the role previously held by , who had been in post since 2021.

Who do we think is next up for the column?

→ Dame Joan Collins has declared rosé season officially open

Loved this Marks & Spencer campaign — has anyone tried their viral organic cloudy (aka unfiltered) rosé?

→ Legendary London bookshop Claire de Rouen just opened a new Shoreditch space

Claire de Rouen was a groundbreaking art bookshop that opened above a Soho sex shop in 2006 and quietly reconfigured London’s cultural landscape, providing inspiration for art directors and “art directors” across the city.

Places like IDEA, Climax Books, and Studio Nocturne exist in the world it helped create: spaces to find inspiration beyond the algorithm and keep print culture alive.

Also nice to see Shoreditch returning to its OG creative roots.

→ Meet Iris Owen, the UK’s biggest Juicy Couture collector

The 27 year old Londoner that’s been dubbed the First Lady of Juicy Couture has amassed close to 200 items from the brand. Y2K is forever.

→ Charli XCX is now both global ambassador and shareholder in Nothing

Late last year I wrote that Nothing had hit unicorn status (a $1B valuation) and had poached longtime Loewe CMO Charlie Smith as Chief Brand Officer. Looks like that hire is already paying off.

Nothing was launched in London in 2020 when founder and CEO Carl Pei decided to build a brand that could challenge Apple in the eyes of Gen Z. “Today, perhaps for the youth, Apple feels more like Microsoft when I was younger, like this big corporation,” he told Vogue a few months ago.

Excited to see where Nothing goes next. End Cupertino supremacy.

I can’t promise how long I can keep this cadence up, but for now — chat soon with more hyperlocal headlines xx

A few weeks ago, on a hot Friday before a long weekend, I went to a lunch on the terrace at Brunswick House, Jackson Boxer’s restaurant in Vauxhall.

I sat beside and his partner Lowena, and we chatted about a wide range of important matters, from Francis Bourgeois’s new car (a 1998 Mercedes SLK30 convertible) and pop-punk themed spin classes (at Psycle), to the London food scene and Jago’s recent appearance on How Long Gone.

Jackson served a generous family-style lunch that showed off his sharp, modern cooking style and the star of the show was a tangy Brazilian-coded Suffolk chicken and Dorset cockle dish with a moqueca broth and jalapeño pesto, which we all gleefully dragged perfect french fries through.

I always feel like I’m banging on about this, but the restaurant industry’s obsession with endless newness means we rarely celebrate longevity in the way we should. Now in its 16th year, Brunswick House deserves far more attention, if not just for the food, then for the fact that a crumbling yet glamorous 17th-century Georgian mansion sitting beside the busy Vauxhall roundabout, housing both an antique showroom and an excellent restaurant, is about as London as it gets.

→ In other Jackson Boxer news: his new restaurant Vesper will open on Exmouth Market early next month

Reservations for a discounted preview week, running from Tuesday May 26 to Saturday May 30, are now open.

→ In other Boxer family news: Frank's Cafe on the Bold Tendencies rooftop in Peckham opens for the summer season tomorrow.

Let’s hope the weather forecast gets the memo

→ Lydia Pang is on a PR speedrun right now

In the past week alone, the co-founder of London-based creative strategy studio MØRNING has appeared in Financial Times’s HTSI, British Vogue, The Times, Service95, Into The Gloss, and on , , and ’s Threads of Conversation to promote her new book, Eat Bitter.

Phew — girl, who’s doing your PR?

→ wants us all to be buying stemware from Zara Home

“Specifically their ultralight crystalline range, which has zero business being this good”

→ Ruka just raised $4.5M in a new funding round

The London-based ethically sourced hair extension brand has now raised more than $10 million to date. The latest round was co-led by Henkel Ventures and Freedom Trail Capital, alongside several other firms and angel investors, including Dina Asher-Smith.

The funding will support research and development for Ruka’s alternative hair extensions. “We want Ruka fibres to essentially eradicate the need for human hair on the extensions market,” co-founder Tendai Moyo told Business of Fashion.

→ The transatlantic restaurant “special relationship” continues

While our friends in New York City enjoy a wave of aggressively British-coded new openings, Buvette has confirmed a June 4 opening date for its new Neal’s Yard outpost, while Claridge's has announced that Dante — the Manhattan bar and restaurant that’s been in residence at the Mayfair hotel since last June — is going permanent this summer.

→ Last weekend there was a rave in the abandoned Argos in Dalston

Music could be heard two streets away. This feels very 2010

→ Ellie’s wants to stay open until 2am on Wednesdays and Thursdays

The Dalston bar, famous for its £8 martinis and for hosting Charli XCX’s wedding party, has applied to Hackney Council to extend its opening hours.

Kingsland Road is back, baby!

and on the subject of Hackney Licensing Applications:

→ Is Miga moving to Shoreditch?

It looks like the critically acclaimed, family-run Korean restaurant, currently tucked beside Forno on Mare Street, has applied for a premises licence on Holywell Lane, a stone’s throw from Singburi in Shoreditch.

→ Giles Coren, after 30 years as a food critic, used his The Times column this week to waste 362 words complaining about a petrol station worker denying him ketchup for his Greggs sausage roll.

Bro, shut UPPPPPP.

→ After resigning from e.l.f. Cosmetics in 2021, its co-founder is becoming a Catholic priest

Scott-Vincent Borba, co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics, is giving up his luxurious life (and millions) for a higher calling: the Catholic Church.

He founded the affordable cruelty-free beauty brand in 2004. Last year, e.l.f. acquired (Hailey Bieber’s) Rhode in a $1 billion deal.

In a recent interview, Borba said: “I have never been happier in my life. Once I started to reorient myself, recalibrate myself with God’s help and focus on Him, the joy started coming.”

and on the subject of the Catholic Church:

→ Vogue celebrates ‘A Year of Pope Leo XIV, a Year of Pope-Fits’

It’s been one year since the election of Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pope, and (dare I say) the swaggiest papal of all time. After all, he did make it onto Vogue’s Best Dressed 2025 list.

→ Londoners spend £10M a month on Lime bikes (and scooters)

Per the company’s latest SEC filing — flagged earlier today by — Lime is now pushing for a $2B IPO on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, saying it needs the cash to pay down debt and bankroll expansion.

Which means their neon-green pavement detritus probably isn’t disappearing anytime soon, brev.

→ Kitri is shutting down.

The London-based womenswear brand is closing after nine years in business. KITRI was stocked in Liberty, Marks & Spencer, and Anthropologie.

Cool girls who suddenly need a wedding guest dress are crying across the country. There’s still time to grab a few pieces in the goodbye sale.

→ Sporty & Rich’s Emily Oberg is going HAM on British activewear brand Adanola.

In a Substack post yesterday titled Why I Would Never Launch a Brand Today, Emily Oberg wrote:

“But when they copy our overall identity, our casting, our styling, our photographers, locations, references etc — it starts to feel weird. Yes I’m talking about Adanola, the lamest fucking brand on the planet. I could throw up just thinking about that ‘brand’. When I realize it’s these types of brands we’re competing with, I wanna just quit and be done with the industry forever.”

MIAOW.

→ A Nobu resort is coming to the East Midlands

For the first time within their portfolio, Nobu will open a 185-acre luxury countryside retreat in Rutland, in partnership with Woolfox.

While Nobu already has an extensive portfolio of restaurants and hotels globally, this will be their first true countryside resort. The move reflects a broader industry shift toward destination-led hospitality projects in the British countryside, where “wellness,” privacy, and controlled access have become the product, pitch, and price justification all at once.

Construction is already underway, but there’s no official opening date yet. Watch this space. I’m waiting patiently for ’s take.

→ A Scottish boarding school heats its classrooms by mining Bitcoin

Lomond School in Helensburgh has become the first school in the UK to accept Bitcoin for tuition fees, with parents beginning payments last autumn. The school is now also building a small crypto treasury alongside its traditional finances.

Since launching the initiative, the school has introduced Bitcoin mining units which are being used to generate heat for classrooms as a by-product of computation.

Based.

Aight, bye.

I just used the SUBSTACK AUDIO FUNCTION for the first time, so you can hear me read this newsletter in one take. No redos. Hopefully it feels more like a WhatsApp voice note than an AI article readout.

Let me know what you think.

→ Kith’s London restaurant already appears to be closed

In late November, Kith — the hypebeast brand du jour — opened a 19,000 sq ft European flagship at the north end of Regent Street. This included a standalone restaurant housed on the ground floor of the development, Ronnie’s — a “Mediterranean-inspired New York bistro” which opened in mid-December.

Founded in NYC in 2011 by Ronnie Fieg, Kith built its reputation on exclusive drops and luxury streetwear before gradually expanding into hospitality.

Back in January I wondered who exactly was signing off on the pricing at Ronnie’s, the in-store restaurant where cocktails started at £22, a pastrami sandwich cost £32, and scrambled eggs on toast — admittedly with a caviar bump — set you back £42.

The tables at Ronnie’s always looked empty and now it appears to be closed.

The booking system is offline, Google hours have been slashed, and the Instagram account has been wiped of any London content and replaced with posts about Ronnie’s Pronto in LA. A rare L for Ronnie Fieg.

Relatedly: I do wonder how Carbone is doing.

→ Deliveroo is launching an in-app restaurant booking service for London diners.

The move beyond takeaways follows the company’s £2.9B acquisition by US-based DoorDash last year. Soon, users will be able to reserve tables at Dishoom, Dove, Hide, Kricket, Barrafina, and Kolae directly through the app.

The backend integrates technology from SevenRooms, the hospitality software company that DoorDash also acquired in a deal reportedly worth around £900M.

Restaurant booking apps are already big business in the US. A few months ago I wrote about rumours of NYC restaurants being offered anywhere between $50K and $1M to switch reservation platforms. And per Chris Crowley at — who’s currently reporting on the reservations wars — SevenRooms allegedly paid millions to poach The Corner Store.

The question is what this means for the UK restaurant scene, where bookings still feel relatively fragmented. The only person whose opinion I really need on this is , who’s worked across both The Infatuation and Resy and probably has the deepest insight into the whole thing.

→ Willy’s Pies is raising £1M to move away from their London Fields home into a new site that will allow them to quintuple production

The pandemic-era project, founded by ex-St. John and Brat chef Will Lewis, currently produces around 10,000 pies a week from East London — supplying neighbourhood delis, football stadiums, and Ocado.

But they’ve hit the classic London food-business ceiling: there’s simply no more room.

A new 5,000 sq ft production site would eventually allow them to scale output 5x — a proper London food manufacturing success story in the making. Love to see it.

→ Pophams has been locked out of its London Fields bakery

Pophams has reportedly been locked out of its London Fields site for the past month following a dispute with its landlord over service charges.

Although the Islington and Victoria Park shops remain open, all of the bakery’s pastries are produced in London Fields— leaving the hoardes of North London girlies temporarily deprived of laminated carbohydrates.

They’ve since secured a temporary prep kitchen nearby, so pastries should return soon. Still, it’s a useful reminder that restaurant closures aren’t always about profitability or demand. Sometimes it’s just landlords.

→ Finally, a Subway Take I can get behind: “Tracking your protein is an eating disorder for boys”

Thoughts?

___________

Until next time — this may not be the last you hear from me this week.

The sun is shining and i’m drinking an iced black filter while avoiding some pretty big work tasks. May I present to you the headlines:

→ The Schreiber House has been on the market for ten months now, with no takers.

The Grade II–listed, 5,700 sq ft modernist masterpiece overlooks Hampstead Heath, and it’s kind of wild to think about who’ll end up living there. Will they blink at the £9.5M asking price?

Have a gawk via the listing on The Modern House.

→ Kerrygold was dishing out crisp sandwiches at The Auld Shillelagh in N16 yesterday to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

A perfect activation IMHO

→ Also yesterday, on St Patrick’s Day, Gerry Adams denied being a member of the IRA during an appearance at the High Court in London.

A civil case against Adams opened on Monday, marking the first time a court has been asked to rule on his alleged senior role in the IRA. During proceedings, he told the court yesterday, “Being in Sinn Féin is not the same as being in the IRA.” Critics are already calling it a show trial — even a farce.

→ Margot Robbie has a gin — and London bars are reportedly refusing to stock it over allergy concerns.

Papa Salt Coastal Gin launched in 2024 and is filtered through oyster shells, therefore requires an allergen declaration on pack. Restaurant managers and bar owners said they don’t have time to train their staff on how to properly serve the drink. Seems lazy.

→ Have you tried the viral M&S Speckled Egg Cornflake Cookies?

They (and I don’t say this lightly) absolutely slap. Although they only launched at the end of January, M&S are already experiencing supply issues due to unprecedented demand, and it’s unclear whether they’ll be back before Easter.

This is how we’re all feeling:

→ On the subject of viral cookies, a little baking news for you:

— will be taking over the pastry counter at Fink's across the Easter weekend to promote her new book Obsessed With the Best

— Tanya Bush will be signing copies of her new book Will This Make You Happy? at Bake Street on 29 March — my friend Chloe-Rose Crabtree (of ) is head baker there, so expect specials on the counter.

→ Also on the subject of dream girls hopping the pond: Brooke Callahan is in town for a pop-up of her eponymous, effortless cool-girl cotton line at House of Hai.

The Hai x Brooke Callahan collection launches in-store at their Boundary Street shop today, and online from tomorrow. Callahan designs and makes everything in Los Angeles, and until now has only been stocked in London at Turn Shop — hopefully the start of a proper UK–West Coast pipeline.

→ And in the reverse: Camille chef Elliot Hashtroudi headed to NYC earlier this week for a “Tale of Two Cities” dinner at Lords in Greenwich Village.

Interestingly, Resy was the sponsor behind the collab, with American Express cardholders getting early access to bookings. Resy exited the UK market in 2024, and before that we saw far more of this kind of thing — international chef swaps that actually felt fun.

I saw a note on Substack a few weeks ago from claiming smaller restaurants are being offered around $50K to switch from Resy to competing platforms. has suggested the biggest names in New York and LA are being offered closer to $1M.

There’s clearly serious money sloshing around in restaurant booking platforms — just not, it seems, being spent on anything particularly fun on this side of the Atlantic. It’s hard to imagine SevenRooms or OpenTable putting their budgets behind something like this in the UK, which feels like a missed trick.

This morning at 7am I visited the Premier Lounge at St Pancras after years of wondering what wonders awaited business travellers behind those fancy sliding doors.

Answer: a sorry-looking continental breakfast, but an abundant selection of magazines that would give Shreeji News a run for its money.

I boarded the train with £60 worth of periodicals. Worth the upgrade, imho.

On the subject of magazines, last night had a launch party for their second issue in my neighbourhood, and I arrived at Wonton Charlie’s / Cafe Kowloon uncharacteristically early. Good move. By 7:30pm it was absolutely heaving (on a Tuesday!), but in a way that still felt fun.

The back room of Cafe Kowloon is gorgeous and vibey, with circular banquettes around red perspex lazy Susans and low lighting. I can see why it’s still a certified hot table.

I know Newington Green is coming for London Fields’ crown as the “hottest area in Hackney,” but for the sake of my five-minute walk home, please — more events in E8.

In today’s newsletter: Aesop lands in Costco, Ruthie Rodgers appears on How Long Gone, Barbie has her own Erewhon smoothie, hedge funds are banning GLP-1s, and Whole Foods goes on an opening spree in London.

→ Whole Foods Market is on an opening spree in London right now

Parent company Amazon is converting six of its long-shuttered Amazon Fresh sites (that was a weird time) in Angel, Canary Wharf, Broadgate, Liverpool Street, Victoria and Notting Hill Gate into Whole Foods stores — a move that will double its London footprint to 12 locations.

Last September, Forbes declared that after two decades of trying to crack Britain, Whole Foods couldn’t make its UK business work. It now looks like the company might be proving that assessment wrong.

In the past few years, upscale grocery has taken off in London, and Whole Foods is well placed to capitalise on the trend. Plus, their rotisserie chickens are elite.

→ Barbie is celebrating her birthday with a smoothie collaboration at Erewhon.

At this point, who hasn’t done a tonic bar collab?

The “Birthday Wish Smoothie by Barbie” is inspired by vanilla cake batter and includes MALK Organics oat milk, Harmless Harvest coconut water, organic banana, pitaya, goji berries and maple syrup, plus gluten-free oats and Erewhon’s Regenerative Organic Certified A2 whey protein. The drink is topped with coconut whip and sprinkles from Good Dee’s.

No mention of the total sugar content, though. I’m guessing it’s… substantial.

→ The River Cafe’s Ruthie Rodgers will appear on How Long Gone this week

More evidence for my long-held theory that Bicoastal Americans underpin The River Cafe’s P&L.

→ A viral tweet claims hedge funds are trying to ban GLP-1 use among traders because it “blunts their gut instincts”

→ Forza Wine served platters of cigarettes individually stamped with their branding at the opening party for their new Soho location.

Have we gone too far with this trend? Are the 90’s back, or are we just straight-up glorifying nicotine now?

→ Honey Spencer is so fucking sick of expensive wine

Wine importers, sommeliers, and online oenophiles are duking it out in the comments.

→ Julie Lin, the nicest girl in food, has a new BBC show: World’s Ultimate Adventures.

They’re calling her (well, i’m calling her) the Scottish, female, Anthony Bourdain.

→ At the other end of the spectrum, the Rene Redzepi / Noma abuse allegations I previously reported on have gone mainstream.

The New York Times article from earlier this week details some harrowing scenes: Punching, Slamming, Screaming: A Chef’s Past Abuse Haunts Noma, the World’s Top-Rated Restaurant.

Yesterday it was reported that American Express has dropped its sponsorship of the Noma LA pop-up. Proud to be a cardholder.

→ A pickle festival is coming to London in September

→ And on the subject of pickles, these flower garnishes from Sabato in Amsterdam are beyond cute.

→ Costco is now selling Aesop products at some of its US warehouses

As an ex-Aesop employee (pre-conglomerate buyout), I can confirm: this is insane. L’Oréal has a lot to explain.

→And finally, Filipino Thai Friendship is popping up at Bruno this weekend.

There’ll be wild garlic potstickers. Go.

Until next time!

A return visit to The Park last week confirmed two important things: the 25% discount after 9pm is still alive and well, and despite the online discourse, you can still snap a quick selfie in those bathroom mirrors as long as you’re not a dick about it.

Meanwhile, Jeremy King’s new spot, Simpsons on the Strand, has just opened bookings ahead of a 30th March opening date. As a certified JK-ophile, it’s already in the diary.

Today’s newsletter centres around launches and raises with the occasional silly little brand stunt thrown in for good measure.

→ Poppi is launching in the UK, with production set for Warwickshire.

In case you’re not a subscriber — or don’t religiously scan the “silly little VC-backed canned bev” aisle while on holiday in the US — here’s the quick primer:

Poppi is an American prebiotic soda brand that launched in 2020 and has carved out a cult-ish spot in the better-for-you beverage world. With Gen Z–friendly packaging and a recent Super Bowl commercial starring Charli XCX and Rachel Sennott, the modern soda brand hit $500M in revenue in 2024.

It was acquired by PepsiCo for $1.95B in March 2025 — though not without a little turbulence. Poppi also agreed to an $8.9M class-action settlement over claims its “gut healthy” marketing may have been somewhat… aspirational.

The brand has since pivoted to a “soda’s back, but better” message and will launch in the UK on 5 March, initially in Tesco and Pret A Manger.

As per to The Grocer, the UK functional drinks market is growing fast, up more than 34% annually to around £178M. Homegrown players in the gut-adjacent soda space include XOXOSoda, Living Things, and Hip Pop. Sales figures are scarce, but they’ll likely be watching closely as a heavyweight lands on their turf.

Personally, prebiotic sodas still feel a bit scam-adjacent, and Poppi’s court-mandated retreat from explicit gut-health claims is probably a good thing. Maybe others should follow suit. If nothing else, here’s hoping Poppi’s UK debut clears the path for La Croix to finally make a proper entrance — my own silly little canned bev of choice.

→ Blok is back on the crowdfunding circuit with its eighth raise.

The London boutique fitness brand, which operates studios in Clapton and Shoreditch alongside an online platform, pulled in £889K on Crowdcube just seven months ago at a £11.9M pre-money valuation. Now it’s back, targeting an additional £305K at a £13.65M pre-money valuation. If successful, total funding to date will exceed £8.4M, including £3.3M from the crowd.

The new capital is earmarked for expanding existing sites and opening four new locations, starting with Elephant and Castle.

Investor perks are clearly aimed at the brand’s most committed regulars. The rewards skew less toward dividends and more toward dopamine:

• £1,000 gets you 3 months of unlimited classes (value £780)

• £10,000 gets you 2 years of unlimited sessions (Approximate value £6,420)

• £20,000 gets you 5 years of unlimited sessions (Approximate value £15,600)

• £50,000 gets you a “Lifetime Unlimited” membership (you do the maths)

Crowdfunding remains relatively rare in boutique fitness, where most operators tend to rely on debt or private equity. Blok’s continued return to the crowd suggests there’s still appetite for sweat-as-asset investing, and those perks are notably generous for superfans.

Full disclosure: I’m a member, so I’ll be watching their next chapter closely.

→ Also raising: Salt Salon.

The hairdressing group, with sites in Dalston and Borough Market, is completing a second raise of £100K to build and launch its own app and booking platform. The ambition is for the Salt app to act as a springboard into product, using first-party data and the preferences of its 15,000-strong client base.

The brand last raised £300K in 2025 via an equity sale to launch its second site, and has longer-term plans to expand into Soho (2028), as well as New York City and Los Angeles.

CEO Iona Mathieson — who previously co-founded Sage Flowers — is a friend of mine and a total force of nature. I’m expecting big things from this one.

→ Selfridges and Torres have launched a salty crisp chocolate Easter egg

And it sounds…….. great?

→ Can gun culture help streetwear find its edge again?

GQ makes a case for tactical streetwear

→ As per , C.O. Bigelow sales are booming thanks to a resurged interest in Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

Is anyone else watching Love Story on FX? I’m absolutely obsessed.

Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy famously bought her signature minimalist tortoiseshell headbands from the legendary Greenwich Village apothecary, and renewed CBK fascination has translated into real-world retail impact. Last Saturday was reportedly C.O. Bigelow’s biggest ever sales day (excluding holidays).

Which raises an important question: are L.L.Bean Boat and Totes enjoying the same halo effect?

→ On the subject of L.L. Bean, I can’t stop thinking about these images of the Bootmobile.

The 13-foot-high, 20-foot-long rolling L.L.Bean ambassador was built in 2012 from aluminium and fibreglass around a GMC Sierra chassis. There are three Bootmobiles in existence and, along with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, it’s now a personal life goal to see one in the flesh. Giant anthropomorphic objects feel distinctly American — and I love it.

Share everything's toasted

Two nights ago I went to a birthday dinner at Tayaabs with 15 graffiti writers. The atmosphere was reassuringly raucous, the lamb chops were circulating at speed, and I somehow woke up yesterday with only a 3/10 hangover — which felt like a small miracle.

Tonight I’m glamming up and heading into Soho for the preview of Osteria Vibrato, a vibey trattoria on Greek Street from Charlie Mellor of The Laughing Heart and sommelier-about-town Cameron Dewar (both old friends). Haters will say there are too many Italian trattorias opening right now — to which I say: shut up.

Did anyone read the Life on Peptides Feels Amazing article in New York Magazine a few weeks ago? I’m getting a bit fatigued by the relentless GLP-1/peptides/supplement stacking/seed oil/always self-optimising discourse. It’s feeling like wellness has become a competitive endurance sport, and we’re all losing.

So thank God the algorithm served me this video instead. For the foreseeable future, I need all of my information delivered in this format:

OK, it’s been a while — so let’s get straight to the headlines in this edition of The Monty Times aka Everything’s Toasted.

→ Milan now has one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the world.

Italy is attracting a new wave of ultra-wealthy arrivals looking to take advantage of its investor-friendly environment, thriving real estate market and low-tax regime. The “flat tax” scheme allows new, high-income foreign residents to cap taxes on foreign income at €100–€300K per year, driving an influx of the global elite.

explores what this means for the luxury hotel market in The Stanza’s excellent piece last week:

The Stanza

The phrase "luxury hospitality" is meaningless today

Hello everyone, happy Friday…

Read more

3 months ago · 49 likes · 1 comment · Nadine @ The Stanza

→ The UK Supreme Court has just ruled that oat milk can no longer be called “milk.”

Oatly lost a long-running legal battle with the dairy lobby over its use of the word in marketing. The dispute centred on trademark rules restricting the term “milk” to animal-derived products only.

Bad news for alt-milk producers, who after years of explosive growth are now seeing a shift as some consumers eschew veganism and return to dairy.

→ On the subject of milk, The Estate Dairy turned over £26M last year

Launched by Shaun and Rebecca Young in 2016 to supply premium milk to London’s best speciality coffee shops, the company now provides cultured butter, milk and yoghurt to The Ritz London, The Savoy and Claridge’s, as well as Qatar Airways and supermarket chains including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Ocado and Waitrose.

In a piece in The Times last week, the married founders said they wanted to sell milk in the most natural way possible: unhomogenised and as close to raw as safely possible, while still pasteurised. It feels more on trend than ever right now — and given that Thomas Straker has recently pivoted his All Things brand to include more dairy items, there’s clearly money in the milk stand!

→ There’s a rumour that Gabriella Khalil is about to be pushed out of Palm Heights

Ken Dart, the billionaire ex-pat heir to the Solo cup fortune, was the financial backer behind your favourite Instagrammer’s favourite boutique beach hotel and already owns much of Grand Cayman. More as it comes, but here’s a primer to get up to speed on Ken Dart.

→ A British food invasion is happening in Los Angeles right now

According to Eater, three new St. John–influenced restaurants have opened recently: Wildes in Los Feliz, Tomat in Westchester, and Café 2001 in the Arts District.

I’m curious if the St. John Los Angeles expansion via Culver City’s Platform shopping mall — first floated in 2019 — will resurface. Here’s hoping the never-ending “the war is over” slander of British food across the pond finally comes to an end.

→ Ex-Noma staff allege abuse online

Jason Ignacio White, former director of fermentation at Noma, has taken to Instagram to allege a pattern of physical and mental abuse at the restaurant.

He’s been sharing anonymous accounts from ex-staff describing a “toxic” and sometimes extremely violent working environment — from serious burns to physical confrontations — and says he’s organising a protest outside Noma’s Los Angeles residency in March. The allegations are currently circulating online on Instragam and Reddit but haven’t been independently verified by major outlets.

→ Beavers were introduced to Ealing in 2023 and they’re helping with urban flood prevention

1831, an embroidery studio in Deptford made a hoodie to commemorate.

It’s perfect.

____________________

Ok happy valentines day! It’s my wedding anniversary and I don’t have a reservation anywhere, pray for me.

The martinis (on the rocks) were flowing and piled high trays of their menu’s heaviest of hitters were coming out of the kitchen in a constant stream.

To celebrate their milestone the restaurant is currently offering their original menu at original prices (which has a touch of St John) but is fun.

Maybe it’s because my own business turns ten this year, or that instagram is plastered with 2016 throwback photos, but I’m reminded that there seem to have been quite a lot of 10th birthdays recently — 2015/16 was seemingly a good time to start a business in London. Revolut, Monzo, Octopus Energy and Huel all started in 2015, and OnlyFans and Starling in 2016. On the F&B side of things, Jikoni, Padella, Kiln, Luca and Bao all opened in these years too. It was pre-Brexit, pre-pandemic, and pre-everything feeling quite so heavy. Today, starting something in London often feels like doing it on hard mode from day one. Back then, you could afford to be a little wrong before you had to be perfect.

When a giant birthday cake covered in hundreds and thousands and sparklers was wheeled out at Gunpowder on Thursday night, co-founder Harneet Baweja said in a speech that they had definitely made a lot of mistakes over the last decade. Which felt like the most honest — and reassuring — way to mark ten years in business.

Today’s newsletter includes: billionaire problems, Malin + Goetz’s abrupt closure, the NYT staying ahead of the London curve, and a new time-share table concept that might ruin dining out forever.

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→ Malin + Goetz abruptly closes all UK stores and collapses into administration

On Wednesday, the US beauty brand closed all seven London stores and its UK head office, resulting in 72 layoffs. Its online shop is currently unable to accept new orders, though Malin + Goetz’s range of body care, skincare and fragrance will continue to be available in the UK via third-party retailers.

Malin + Goetz was acquired in 2015 by Manzanita Capital, the Brooklyn-based family office whose portfolio includes Diptyque, DS&Durga, Space NK and Susanne Kaufmann, and which previously backed Byredo. Co-founders Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz departed the brand in December 2023.

The speed of the closure suggests this was less a surprise and more a line finally being drawn. UK retail has become brutally unforgiving for mid-sized “cult” brands stuck between mass and luxury, where the aesthetics travel better than the economics. High rents, soft footfall and permanently higher staffing costs have turned single-brand stores into an expensive vanity.

Continuing via third parties keeps Malin + Goetz visible in the UK without the overheads — a quiet retreat that’s starting to look less like a failure and more like the sensible option.

→ St Barths is allegedly experiencing an outbreak of “super chlamydia”

Claims of a sexually transmitted infection circulating among St Barths’ ultra-wealthy visitors have gone viral this week, fuelled by a mix of social media posts and reality-TV commentary.

Bethenny Frankel — RHONY reality star and Skinnygirl Margarita mogul — told her followers that she “went to St Barths and got a bacterial infection,” posting a close-up video of her face showing what she described as a rash of “pus-y bumps” from hairline to chin. She did not specify the infection or link it directly to an STI.

Separately, a TikToker whose posts have since gone viral claims he works on a yacht in St Barths and alleges that multiple guests have contracted chlamydia. “Almost all of the billionaires have been infected,” he says in one video, adding: “Please do not hook up with these billionaires.”

There is currently no official confirmation of an outbreak, but the rumours alone have been enough to set the internet alight — a reminder that even the world’s most exclusive playgrounds are not immune to viral gossip, or viral anything else.

→ Larry Ellison realised one of his yachts spelled “I’m a Nazi” when read in a mirror

The billionaire Oracle co-founder reportedly discovered that his newly christened, German-built yacht Izanami read as “I’m a Nazi” when reflected — prompting a swift rename to Ronin.

This feels straight out of Succession.

→ How WhatsApp Took Over the Global Conversation

A few weeks ago, I wrote about competing WhatsApp group chats, each racing to log a million pints. I assumed WhatsApp was the de facto way people texted across the globe — but this New Yorker article reminded me that in the U.S., its reach has historically been limited.

WhatsApp delivers a hundred billion messages a day, around the same number as there are stars in the Milky Way.

One reason that WhatsApp has traditionally lagged in the U.S. is because of the unusual dominance of iPhones. But that is changing. Last year, the U.S. was one of the app’s fastest-growing markets, with the number of monthly users exceeding a hundred million for the first time.

→ The New York Times covered Dara Klein’s Tiella the very day that it opened.

T Magazine was quick off the bat — proof they’re watching London closely. And credit to Alice Grier, Tiella’s PR, who is clearly working very hard.

→ And also (quite rightly) wants us all to become restaurant regulars

Which feels revolutionary in an industry built on newness, hype and “hot tables”

→ Rumour has it Los Angeles restaurateurs are working on a time-share system for tables.

’s reports that Mark Birnbaum (co-founder of Catch Hospitality Group) and Will Makris (Makris Hospitality, Prince Street Hospitality) are quietly conceptualizing a new restaurant: a Rao’s-style table ownership model, where tables function like time-shares for celebrities and ultra-wealthy VIPs. No open reservations — the only way in is to know someone who already “owns” a table and is willing to give up their slot.

Interesting.

Rich People Shit

The Invite-Only Superfake Birkin Economy of the Upper East Side

Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you (genuinely) for the welcome. I launched Rich People Shit on Saturday morning the way I do most things: quietly, without much ceremony, and assuming we’d see what happened. What’s happened has been better than I expected…

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4 months ago · 93 likes · 22 comments · Carson Griffith

→ Graza is moving into mayonnaise

How long before the “me-too” Delli‑coded British squeezy‑bottle olive oil brands follow suit?

_______________________

Until next time!

email me with tips talktomonta@gmail.com

On Friday night I went to the private viewing of Mary Stephenson’s new show Hue at Maureen Paley. Her paintings have been springing up all over the world at both boutique and blue chip galleries, and she’s been collaborating with JW Anderson. Bias disclosed: Mary’s a friend from my university days, but she’s very much one to watch. Follow her now.

Today’s newsletter includes: high-art jello shots, Richard Hart’s next move, Dream Baby Press, saunas, noodle bars and what the hell is going on with DELLI.

→ What’s going on with DELLI?

Last summer I wrote about DELLI’s late-2024 seed extension, which brought their total funding raised to $16.4M. The cash was earmarked for expansion: taking the online food marketplace beyond London into major UK cities (Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester), a push into the US, and scaling the B2B side of the business to take on incumbents like Faire and Mahalo.

Earlier this month, DELLI announced a significant shift. They’ll stop holding stock and dispatching orders themselves. Instead, the platform will now link customers directly to brand websites, with fulfilment handled by the brands.

D2C customers are understandably aghast in the comments. But from a B2B perspective, the move makes sense. This brings DELLI’s model much closer to Faire’s and allows them to facilitate higher-volume transactions without the cost and operational drag of warehousing, packing, and shipping physical stock.

My read: the D2C side was operationally painful and low-margin. By pivoting away from it — and leaning into a commission-based marketplace model — DELLI is moving into its next phase, and more directly into competition with Faire.

In 2023 wrote about the rise of the Shoppy Shop and why every independent/boutique grocer stocked the same brands and looked the same. The answer was Faire.

I’m not convinced DELLI adds anything meaningfully new to that mix. At best, it introduces a fresh cohort of smaller brands; at worst, it accelerates the same process — another layer of curation that inevitably homogenises the shoppy-shop landscape all over again.

→ Just in time for Burn’s Night: Tablet finally gets yassified

Aberdeen-based Tabrifics launched last year. It’s wild that no one had properly branded Tablet before. And yes — of course — they have their own tartan.

→ Why are so many Irish people moving to Marseille?

Guys, I know this is deeply uncool to admit, but I didn’t like Marseille. Everyone says it’s “just like Glasgow,” which — as a Glaswegian — I find deeply offensive. Just me?

→ Dream Baby Press is coming to London

I’m EXCITED.

→ Neko Health is expanding to the US

The company plans to open its seventh — and largest — clinic in New York this spring. According to Neko, it now has 300k customers signed up globally. I tried their AI-powered full-body scan last summer, and let’s just say: this will go down very well in the US.

→ Claridge’s Bakery opens today.

Richard Hart of Copenhagen’s acclaimed Hart Bagari — and fresh off a semi-cancellation in Mexico — will be serving iced buns, fondant fancies, jammy dodgers and, of course, loaves of his famous bread from the Mayfair shop.

The obvious (and unavoidable) question, though, is: who is this actually for? Is anyone really schlepping to a backstreet in Mayfair for their daily loaf, or is this purely for tourists?

→ The sauna trend is full steam ahead — and yes, it comes with a merch shelf

After the Wall Street Journal declared in September that the “hottest place to network is the sauna,” I wrote about NYC’s established scene and London’s early equivalents. Now London has clearly tipped.

On my walk to work this morning, I passed two new saunas — Sauna Mamas and Waking Dreams — between London Fields and Bethnal Green, an already saturated stretch. A helpful map circulating online suggests a full South East London wave is underway.

As ever, the boom isn’t just about the spaces. It’s arriving alongside bathhouse beauty: products designed for communal bathing and sauna rituals. In November wrote in Vogue about how bathtime has quietly become big business for beauty brands. Less “everything shower,” more eucalyptus scrubs, birch whisks and post-steam body oils.

Brands like Vieve, whose 2023 Bathleisure set outperformed expectations with 45% of sales coming from full kits, and 39BC, whose range revolves entirely around bathing, are successfully leveraging the shift.

First comes the sauna, then the social signalling, then the retail layer. Every ritual now has a price tag.

→ Also picking up steam: noodle bars.

Old heads can still get their fix at Wong Kei or Reindeer Cafe, but a new crop of spots is springing up.

Wonton Charlie’s opened in London Fields last month — and I still haven’t made it despite living around the corner, because the queues haven’t subsided. (Only opening for three lunch services a week isn’t helping)

Covent Garden’s Kung Fu Mama — from Ottolenghi’s co-founder — is set to open a second site in Canary Wharf.

Brick Lane’s beloved HK diner Hoko will launch a wonton noodle bar in Seven Dials. And Cantonese roast-meat specialist Mama Li will open a third Canary Wharf location, this time with a greatly expanded noodle-soup menu.

→ Finally - a useful London restaurant list

Last week, Meera Sodha asked her Instagram followers to recommend a London restaurant for a friend’s 50th birthday lunch — and uploaded a bar chart of the results. Sample size unknown, but honestly, this is one of the most useful restaurant lists I’ve seen in a while.

Best of all: most of them currently offer a set lunch deal, including The River Café, whose £80 winter set remains legendary.

→ I’m obsessed with these high-art jello shots

Solid Wiggles was founded in 2020 in Brooklyn by pastry chef Jena Derman and mixologist Jack Schramm.

The team sells direct to consumer, ships nationally, and pops up (and disappears) on the menus of around 20 bars and restaurants across the US. This summer, they’ll also release a recipe book via Penguin Random House — perfect if you want to make your own boozy art at home.

I want to try and recreate these at home.

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I’ve got New York on my mind. I’m meant to be heading over next week, but unless the gods of dynamic flight pricing smile favourably on me in the next few days, this trip will be quietly binned. Which is whatever, but means that this newsletter is littered with Big Apple news.

Share everything's toasted

And now, to the headlines, in this first 2026 edition of The Monty News:

→ Who is responsible for the bonkers pricing at Kith’s Regent Street restaurant, Ronnie’s?

A few months ago, I wrote about the opening of Kith’s new 19,000-square-foot flagship on Regent Street, including the brand’s serious foray into restaurants: Ronnie’s, a Mediterranean inspired New York bistro. With Kith’s near-religious brand loyalty and London’s ongoing fixation on NYC-coded dining, the pivot into hospitality felt worth paying attention to.

Conveniently, my favourite spin studio is just around the corner, allowing for some truly blue-chip, boots-on-the-ground reporting. The restaurant looks the part — but it is consistently dead.

This only becomes less baffling once you read the menu: cocktails start at £22, a pastrami sandwich is £32, matzoh ball soup clocks in at £20, and scrambled eggs on toast (albeit with a caviar bump) will set you back £42.

I’m not entirely sure who these more-expensive-than-The-Dover prices are meant to be for, but — judging by the empty tables — no one’s biting. NYC prices in a hypebeast Disneyland don’t seem to be what London wants. Maybe they’ll pivot. Or maybe we’re all just here for the aesthetic.

→ Teddy Santis is writing a book about the creation and growth of Aimé Leon Dore.

It’ll be released by Assouline, the luxury coffee-table publisher of record.

On a personal note, Café Leon Dore in Soho might have the best service in town. For a chill, friendly vibe, go on a weekday when the streetwear-teens are at school. The freddo cappuccinos and the greek mountain tea are excellent.

Good news for Los Angeles readers too: ALD is hiring for an upcoming LA flagship. Where do we think it opens. West Hollywood? Beverly Grove? Silver Lake if they’re feeling annoying?

→ wore Miista boots to her husband Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration.

The $630 price tag caused a stir online, but I’m more curious about how this will rebuild the London-born brand’s reputation. A few months ago, TikTok was full of videos of girls showing their Miista shoes falling apart after just a few wears. This is quite the turnaround moment.

→ says that everyone in New York will be drinking Pornstar Martinis in 2026.

Esquire included it on their list of best drinks to ring in 2026, Wine Enthusiast put it “on the menu for 2026,” and Food52 called it the “cocktail of 2026.

Baffling. On this side of the pond, this drink feels peak cringe: invented in London in 2002, now mostly resigned to M&S train tinnies. Think Essex mum, crushed velvet grey sofa territory, yet somehow, across the Atlantic, it’s gone full glamour. Wild!

→ The devil works hard, but Diageo’s Guinness marketing team works harder.

After decades of American shrugging, The Times reports that Guinness is “finally conquering America”. The New York Times goes full hype mode: splitting the G has reached NYC, and apparently everybody is drinking Guinness.

As if to prove it, buzzy SoHo bistro King is opening a British-inspired seafood spot next door (complete with an AGA) called Deans, which will, naturally, feature a “proper draft Guinness program.”

It’s nice for London to be a year or two ahead of the trends for once.

→ But this hasn’t solved Diageo’s financial woes

The London-based multinational, owner of Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Tanqueray, Casamigos, and Baileys, once dominated the FTSE-100. Its share price fell 37 percent in 2025 amid tariffs, the cost-of-living crisis, the rise of weight-loss drugs, and Gen Z’s avoidance of heavy drinking.

Success in Lower Manhattan bars is one thing. Stabilising a global portfolio against some brutal market conditions is another.

→ Multiple WhatsApp groups dedicated to drinking one million pints have sprung up.

The first, One Million Beers Please, was formed in August 2024 by Charlie Cooke, a 31-year-old Londoner. Since then, thanks to WhatsApp’s 1,024-person group limit, rival splinter groups have multiplied. Among them are 1MB (1 Million Beers), also London-based, and a US offshoot called Bahamas.

The rules are simple. Every time a member drinks a pint (beer only, cider permitted only for coeliacs) it must be logged in the chat as a number, a photo, or both. Conversation is banned. Interaction is limited to emojis. Photos with incorrect numbering are deleted by a team of admins. Non-active members are removed.

Enforcement is strict. The Standard’s Josh Barrie reports that a member who logged a glass of milk was promptly ejected.

At the current pace, no group will hit one million pints for another 12 years. Long may this good, clean, honest fun continue. Male loneliness epidemic? Never heard of it.

→ The New York Times just released its dining trend predictions for 2026.

Valuemaxxing, texturemaxxing, Grandmacore, Vinegar, Celery, Japanese-style Breakfasts and more on the list.

→ @Jonathan Nunn just released his best and worst of 2025 list.

His influencer of the year was NYC’s very own Nicolas Nuvan. Meanwhile, it emerged that annoying food blogger duo Bite Twice were mistakenly DMed by James Dimitri saying he “can’t stand them.” Absolute chaos.

→ Another day, another luxury deli opens

Arthur’s Market on The King’s Road in Chelsea is the latest in London’s wave of upscale grocers. The familiar format sees the space combine a deli, grocery store, butcher, fishmonger, sushi counter, and tapas bar. It feels like we’ve seen it all before. Anyone been?

→ The rise of weight-loss jabs among City workers has been a boon for tailors

→ I’ve been trawling my neighbour Helen Graham’s Instagram for veggie inspo.

Greg (my husband) made her roast celeriac with preserved lemon tartare and walnut oil dish for his picky vegetarian parents on Christmas Day and they loved it. Total win.

Helen was executive chef at Bubala for five years and is an Ottolenghi test kitchen alum and I love her fun and bold recipes that give vegetables main-character energy without fuss. Her book, CENTERPIECE, comes out in April.

→ James Beard–winning baker Richard Hart, co-founder of the beloved bakery Hart Bagari and a favourite of chefs (he even featured in The Bear), is being cancelled in Mexico.

Hart, who opened Green Rhino in Mexico City last June, sparked outrage after a podcast appearance last month. He said Mexico “didn’t have much of a bread culture,” called the country’s wheat “not good … completely highly processed, full of additives,” and described tortas as “these white ugly rolls that are pretty cheap and industrially made.” He’s been accused of gentrifying and colonising, and has since issued an apology.

Meanwhile, it’s just been announced that he’ll open Claridge’s Bakery at the Mayfair hotel at the end of this month — good timing, if nothing else.

_________________________

OK, Happy New Year — lets get this bread.

I’m typing this on the afternoon of Christmas Eve while my husband deep cleans our fridge in preparation for his parents arrival. Maybe you’ll enjoy reading some headlines from The Monty Times aka Everything’s Toasted while you wait for your turkey to cook!

And now, the headlines:

→ The richest woman in the UK paid herself £260M last year

Denise Coates — billionaire co-CEO of Bet365 and the UK’s highest-paid woman — took home at least £260M in pay and dividends in 2025, even as the online gambling giant reported a slump in pre-tax profits.

I’m a huge fan of Denise. She founded Bet365 in 2000 from a portacabin in a Stoke-on-Trent car park, aged 33, and built it into a £4B-a-year online betting behemoth alongside her brother John.

What really sets the Coates family apart (beyond the commas) is how they get paid. They take a chunky proportion of remuneration via PAYE and reliably sit in the top three UK taxpayers on The Times Tax List — coughing up eye-watering sums like £482M (2022), £375.9M (2024), and £265M (2025).

She’s also famously media-shy: no splashy profiles, no Davos panels, no gala-hopping. Coates rarely gives interviews, almost never attends industry events, and seems actively uninterested in the billionaire publicity circuit. Build a £4B business, pay the tax bill, go home. Love it.

→ NYC Finance Bros are dressing like 80’s Sloane Rangers

As per Chris Black via

→ Bloomberg Terminals feature an exclusive classifieds section called POSH — essentially an ultra-luxe Craigslist

A Bloomberg Terminal is already Wall Street’s magic box: a sleek, glowing black screen that somehow knows everything about money, markets, and everyone who trades them. But buried inside it is POSH (Platform for Over-the-Counter Sales & Hiring), accessible only to the ~325,000 subscribers who pay $20K+ a year for the privilege.

POSH is where the financial elite list and browse high-end goods in a vetted, private playground. Recent listings include medieval Italian castles, original Picassos, $40K dressage horses, a Jeep once owned by President Eisenhower, and enough Rolexes to make a Bond villain blush.

Anyone with a Bloomberg Terminal reading this?

→ Candace Owens converted to Catholicism last year in SW7

The American political commentator-slash-professional provocateur converted at Brompton Oratory (The Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) in London in April 2024.

Air Mail reports that the church — just minutes from Harrods — has become an unexpected bridge between American nativism and a newly radicalised English right:

“It’s a meeting point where aristocracy and old-world grandeur mix with culture-war invective and anti-elite rhetoric to create a powerful force roiling both countries’ politics.”

Owens’ English husband, George Farmer, has long attended Mass at the Oratory, making it a quietly influential crossroads of faith, privilege, and politics.

→ Sadiq Khan appeared on Subway Takes

Someone at City Hall’s social team is clearly putting the hours in. Earlier this summer he also dropped his top three London bakeries — Jolene, Toad and The Dusty Knuckle — a list so impeccably chosen it felt Vittles-coded. Mayors, they’re just like us! Serious politics, light cultural touch — and proof that someone in that office knows exactly what they’re doing.

→ The Aesop store on Broadway Market has been causing a literal stink for its craft-shop neighbour.

Fabrications, Broadway Market veteran of 25+ years, is in a sticky situation with its neighbour, the L’Oréal-owned Aesop. Hand-balm testers placed between the shops have customers slicking up their hands and then fondling Fabrications’ fabrics, leaving artisanal garments a little too polished for comfort.

A sign outside Fabrications explains the complaint. Hackney Council asked Aesop to remove the testers (which was ignored), but after this story hit The Standard, it seems the skincare company has finally caved and removed the testers.

A victory for the small guys!

→ Why does the US Military run a yearly Santa Tracker website?

For 69 years, NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command — has been tracking Santa’s global gift-giving spree every Christmas Eve.

It all started with a typo. In 1955, a Sears ad in Colorado Springs accidentally printed the secret number for the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) — now NORAD — instead of Santa’s hotline. Kids flooded the base with calls, and Col. Harry Shoup, the commander on duty, decided to play along. That happy accident has since snowballed into an annual tradition, complete with radar, satellites, and a website that lets the world follow Santa’s journey.

That $901B US Military budget ain’t all bad!

→ This is what the lounge at Heathrow Terminal 2 looked like in the ’70s — and not an UGG boot or pyjama pant in sight.

Yum.

Merry Christmas one and all!

On Thursday night I went to The Barbican to hear the London Symphony Orchestra tackle classics from the Golden Age of Hollywood and beyond: think Vertigo, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Star Wars. Heaven.

The LSO offers £12 wildcard tickets for all performances — seats assigned on the night, so you might land a front-row throne or a balcony afterthought. Love to spin the dice.

Earlier in the week I headed across town in a navy leather Jil Sander skirt to a photo shoot for a very small — but exciting — part in a magazine next year.

Let me be clear: I’m not making Jil Sander money. I found this skirt a few years ago rummaging at one of Matches’ legendary Fitzrovia sample sales, elbow-to-elbow with fellow Scot Kirsty Wark, who saw me pull it off the rack (70% off, still not cheap) and declared I had to buy it. When Kirsty Wark tells you to do something, you do it. It made me think of Matches again — RIP… or so I thought.

On Wednesday it was announced that Matches will return under new ownership next year, less than two years after it went into administration. Very curious to see how this new business model pans out, especially with Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, and Ssense all feeling the pinch lately. Fingers crossed for the sample sale’s glorious return.

And now, to the headlines:

→ Beloved East London ice cream project Soft + Swirly are crowdfunding for a permanent Hackney Road home

Founded by a duo who met back in 2018 while working at 40 Maltby Street, Soft + Swirly have been quietly everywhere since: popping up at Leila’s Shop, Rambutan, Quince Bakery, E5 Bakehouse, Deli Downstairs, plus a brief but memorable summer stint at Netil Market. They’re now raising £35k to lock in a permanent site on Hackney Road.

→ Also on Hackney Road: Nigella Lawson was spotted at the recent opening of Perfect Lives, a record, book and ephemera shop

Which her son Bruno co-owns, and which also happens to be on the same block as Dom’s Subs.

Certified friend of this newsletter, aka Mister Caffs Not Cafes wrote a solid deep dive on the shop a few months back in his own newsletter which is worth a read.

Wooden City

Perfect Lives

Hello and welcome to Wooden City, a newsletter about London…

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8 months ago · 64 likes · 13 comments · Isaac Rangaswami

→ Adjacent to Hackney Road, over on Columbia Road: Klein is working on Tiella, her take on an Italian trattoria, which is due to open next month

Very exciting, genuinely something to look forward to — but also got me thinking:

→ Is the Compton Arms the ultimate London restaurant incubator?

The over-200-year-old pub in Islington has hosted some heavy hitter residencies over the past few years:

• Schmaltz by Chris D’Sylva → now Dorian

• Four Legs by Ed McIlroy and Jamie Allan → now The Plimsoll and Tollington’s

• Dara Klein’s Tiella → graduating to a permanent site next month

• Rake by Jay Claus and Syrus Pickhaver, serving critically acclaimed, classic British cookery at the pub for the past year — where do we think they’ll land next?

→ Paul Mescal and Gracie Abrams were spotted playing cards at The Canonbury Tavern this week.

Look: we all know by now that if you want to see Paul Mescal, you just have to hang around N1 long enough.

→ A growing swathe of London venues are stickering cameras and locking away phones to prioritise experience over content

Based. And I say that as someone fully addicted to their phone.

→ Jikoni will open Karam’s, a fast-casual vegetarian restaurant, in the Brunswick Centre next year

In an interview with British Vogue, Jikoni founder Ravinder Bhogal said to expect a daily-changing menu of thalis and curries built around heritage grains, beans, legumes and pulses.

Next year also marks a milestone for Bhogal: her flagship Jikoni in Marylebone turns 10, while a more casual outpost is set to open this spring at the newly launched V&A East.

→ Extremely late to the party, but the Michelob Ultra product placements in Taylor Sheridan’s neo-western Landman are hilarious and cringe

Loved this Vinepair deep dive on this important matter. The idea that a gang of roughnecks and rogues in the Permian Basin would reach for a beer famous for low calories and a high price is… hard to buy.

→ What’s up with West End ticket prices?

Prices are up across the board, but dynamic pricing is sending tickets for the hottest shows into insane territory. Another day, another sticker shock. I can feel myself turning into my mum.

→ The art market is struggling, so auction houses are leaning on luxury goods to lure millennials

As older collectors fade and younger buyers show less appetite for pricey fine art, Christie’s and Sotheby’s are doubling down on watches, handbags, and jewellery to reel in a new generation — and prop up a multi-year art market slump.

This year, Sotheby’s sold a Patek Philippe four-piece watch set in Abu Dhabi for $11.9M and Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin bag in Paris for $10.1M. Luxury as the new art.

→ London-based tech company Nothing hit unicorn status (a $1B valuation) in September and has since poached Charlie Smith, longtime CMO at Loewe.

My husband uses a Nothing smartphone: it looks good, isn’t £1000, and he really likes it. Excited to see where the brand goes next.

→ Fragrance is set to enter a ‘swavoury’ gourmand era in 2026, according to Cosmetics Business

“Grown-up gourmands” will gain traction as savory notes blend with sweet, signaling a new, elevated approach to comfort scents. Expect sesame, sticky rice, and salt to feature prominently. Sounds delicious, thank God we’re moving on from cloying vanillas — looking at you, Thierry Mugler.

→ The Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank was decorated as a giant cake in 1984 by the Greater London Council (GLC) to celebrate 95 years of London governance

Until next time!

Last night I met a friend from (high) school at The Ned.

She was visiting from Atlanta and spending time at her company’s London office in the City, so it made sense geographically — but really, this is my stealth pick for festive drinks.

The former banking hall lobby feels grand and timeless, with a Home Alone: Lost in New York-scale tree, a steady hum of people that never quite tips into chaos, and live music every night, which in December means Christmas standards on a loop. The drinks are fine and the food is nothing to write home about, but at this time of year The Ned reliably does the work of putting you in the festive spirit. Anyone else secretly Ned-pilled?

Where else is a great festive pick?

→ Alpen Rose,a Philadelphia steakhouse, is serving the perfect ice cream sundae.

Tick-your-own menus are over. This is the ultimate sundae serve. London restauranteurs, start stocking these serving dishes!

→ Broadsheet wants to turn the tables on takedown culture

Which feels radical after half a decade of mean-spirited food reviewers being algorithmically shoved down our throats. Let’s see if they can actually pull it off.

→ Bad news for rotisserie chicken retailers.

Rotisserie chickens are the new hyperregional pizzas, and hyperregional pizzas are the new smashburgers. With a wave of luxe rotisserie spots popping up across town (Norberts, Knave of Clubs, Twirly Bird, Bebe Bob, etc) HMRC has just delivered a blow:

Supermarket giant Morrisons has lost a £17M, 13-year VAT fight, after the High Court ruled last week that rotisserie chickens count as hot food and are therefore subject to the standard 20% VAT rate.

→ Ireland develops and manufactures around 80% of the world’s Botox

Westport, Co. Mayo — a town with a population of around 7,000 — is the ‘Botox capital of the world’. Wow!

→ Rowan’s Tenpin Bowl is printing money

Everyone’s currently losing their minds over Haringey Council’s draft local plan, which suggests that the site Rowan’s sits on could be redeveloped into a mixed-use scheme with 190 homes. Cue panic. But, as ever, the voice of reason comes courtesy of local-news savant at (who truly does the Lord’s work), reminding everyone that producing a draft local plan is a legal requirement for the council—not a secret plot twist or a done deal. This is not the scoop people think it is. Rowan’s, for now, is safe.

But the spotlight on Rowan’s accounts shows that running a slightly grotty bowling alley with floors perpetually sticky from spilled vodka slushies, and an iconic late night dancefloor with a school disco vibe, is a surprisingly very profitable business

Turnover for the bowling alley hit £6.8M in the 2023/24 financial year, resulting in a very healthy profit that allowed a combined £3.65M in salaries and dividends to be paid to members of the Nagle family, who own the business.

→ London’s private members’ club scene is growing. Just don’t call them clubs.

London’s private members’ scene is expanding with ultra-luxe, wellness-focused, AI-assisted spaces like The Leconfield and Town Hall, offering curated exclusivity and networking opportunities for the wealthy under the increasingly elastic definition of “club.”

Build it and they will come? Let’s see — some have a £500K founders fee.

→ Billboard now produces a monthly Atlanta strip club chart

Billboard launched the first strip club chart in August and will continue tracking the top songs played each month at three prominent Atlanta clubs for the foreseeable future.

Why? Because Atlanta strip clubs have long been unofficial hit factories for rap, breaking tracks before they hit the mainstream. Even in the streaming era, heavy rotation in these clubs can make or break a song’s trajectory.

For further reading, see GQ’s 2015 article: ‘Make it Reign: How an Atlanta Strip Club Runs the Music Industry’.

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Tonight I’m heading to a Thanksgiving feast at The Hoxton in Holborn with some friends — a three-way collab between their on-site restaurant Rondo, Dom’s Subs, and Rasputin’s Bar. My husband owns two of the three, so while I am legally obliged to type about this, I’m also genuinely looking forward to it!

Carbs, cocktails, and marital nepotism: the holy trinity.

Today’s newletter has celeb gossip, glazing, a Michelin heist, and more Mayfair-coded dining news.

→ writes about The Revenge of Central London: The Mayfair-coding of the London restaurant scene in his column for Broadsheet this week.

→ Big news for hypebeasts: Kith’s new 19,000-square-foot flagship on Regent Street opens tomorrow.

Hot off the heels of bringing Erewhon to NYC (kind of) Ronnie Fieg shows no sign of slowing down. What really piqued my interest though is the standalone restaurant housed on the ground floor of the developemnt: Ronnie’s, a New York inspired bistro which will open later this year.

Alright, alright — another NYC-coded, hyper-glossy import in central London? Yes. But i’m still intrigued. Kith has significant brand loyalty, does spectacle better than most actual museums, and their pivot to hospitality feels… worth watching.

→ Big news for my fellow Dover heads.

The Dover is still very much a red-hot table. Alison Roman ate there a few weeks ago while in town for her book launch. Jennifer Aniston and Emrata both dined there last month (separately). On my last visit, I found myself sitting facing Bobbi Brown. And Jonathan Nunn reports that on a recent Monday night, Rishi Sunak was dithering over his order at the next table.

Last week I appeared on the illustrious podcast, where (among other things) I professed my deep love for The Dover in Mayfair. So it feels only right to share two Dover-adjacent updates:

1. Martino’s, the all-day Italian trattoria and follow-up to The Dover from restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski, is now open on Sloane Square.

2. Dover Street Counter, inspired by ’50s LA counter-style dining and billed as the late-night party sibling to The Dover, opens a few doors down from the OG on 1st December. I like that you can explore their 90’s R&B playlist on their website already.

→ Taylor Swift fired up the jet last weekend to take a trip to….. Croydon

Yes, Croydon. She was filming at Whitgift Shopping Centre for the music video of Opalite from her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, with a rumoured £1 million budget. The much-beloved Mildmay Club in Newington Green is also rumoured to have made a cameo — wonder if she’s a member.

→ Michelin-starred Elystan Street in Chelsea suffered an unexpected heist on Tuesday morning, when their £200 delivery of langoustines — left briefly on the pavement outside — was pinched by a “woman in slippers and jeans.”

The crime was caught on CCTV and the footage promptly hit the internet, where things took a turn: Galvin La Chapelle in Spitalfields (also Michelin-starred) now claims this is the same porch pirate who recently made off with £800 worth of sirloin from their doorstep. Met Police are currently investigating.

This is our Louvre heist. This is our Bling Ring. More information as it comes.

→ A spin studio in Holborn that generates its own electricity from participants’ pedalling has opened

Greenwashing or genius?

→ The FT jumps on the glazing trend with their ‘How flattery became a big, beautiful industry’ piece.

I still can’t stop saying the brainworm slogan “Don’t be glazing me here, Zohran.”

→ Really enjoyed ‘The Airport-Lounge Wars’ in The New Yorker this week

Especially the breakdown of the credit card/mileage program deals and the revelation that in most years, the programs account for much of the airlines’ profits.

Since the airline business is largely a credit-card-loyalty business, and since the credit-card-loyalty business is largely a lounge business, it’s only a minor stretch to think of Delta or United as lounge companies that also fly planes.

I’ve only managed to book a rewards flight once with points, but I continue to live in the delusion that tapping my BA Amex will one day get me in First to LAX. Lounge gods please take notice.

→ Love these chocolate cigarettes by culinary artists/fancy caterers Presto

Rumour has it, they’ll be available online for purchase soon

please email me with gossip! talktomonta@gmail.com

I’ve just resurfaced from a week in Texas, where I ate a lot of BBQ and Tex-Mex, drank a thousand beers, visited countless honky-tonks and learned how to dance the Texas two-step. It was 28 degrees and we drove around in a giant RAM1500 pick up truck, ending up most days at Barton Springs Pool for an outdoor dip in the natural spring-fed waters. On one surreal day, I even bumped into a friend visiting from New York in the pool. It was heaven.

Now i’m back in E8 and need to tell you about a hyper-local phenomenon that i’ve been watching slowly unfurl over the past few months (and I hope you’re sitting down):

LONDON FIELDS IS BACK, BABY.

Speaking as both a local resident and a committed local hater, the open secret about the London Borough of Hackney is this: for all its years as the global epicentre of small plates, natty wine, the satirical meme accounts documenting the micro-trends of its oat-flat-white swigging middle classes, the PR-hyped new openings and bakeries with queues that tourists read about in international glossy mags, life here is quite banal and it often feels…… a bit clapped.

But something strange and wonderful has been brewing around Mentmore Terrace recently — a zone i’m now christening the East Side of London Fields (estate agents, thank me later). After years of feeling like the forgotten flank of London Fields with Broadway Market, Brat and E5 bakehouse doing all of the heavy lifting, it’s suddenly experiencing a full-blown glow-up and businesses are springing up in quick succession.

You’ve still got the stalwarts — Secret Smokehouse (don’t sleep on the smoked trout), Brat at Climpson’s Arch, and E5 Bakehouse, now blessed with a Soft & Swirly ice cream hatch. And the newer-but-still-buzzy darlings like Michelin-starred Behind restaurant, Facing Heaven (the vegan/Sichuanese concept), Papi (great oyster happy hour) and Pockets (whose queue still snakes around the block)

But now, I’d like to formally direct your attention to the latest openings joining the ecosystem:

• Wonton Charlie’s — a lunchtime wonton noodle soup spot from the team behind South London’s Daddy Bao/Mr Bao.

• YUGU — a Korean concept store selling clothes, brunch plates, matcha lattes, and mugwort drinks (a combo that shouldn’t work but absolutely does).

• Awaykin — ostensibly the storefront of a London/Paris based fashion showroom, but they’ve been hosting a slew of great events recently: launch parties, Malik Acid mango-centric fundraisers, and an assortment of archive sales.

• East London Liquor Co — who have just opened a ‘brand home’ on the strip (read: bar)

• Story MFG — relocated their HQ from Brighton to Mentmore Terrace after a long saga on the strip involving squatters. (that’s Hackney, baby!)

• The Fine Cider Company — a shop/bar for fancy English ciders and perry (that you’ve seen on cool restaurant menus)

• Bun Bun Bun opening soon, joining Rosa’s Thai on the strip as a genuinely solid fast-casual option.

• The team behind Goodbye Horses and The Dreamery — launching an as-yet-untitled fish-focused restaurant and natural wine bar early next year. Rumour has it there will be fish and chips, but not like we know it.

• Field Notes by Native’s Ivan Tisdall-Downes — now open in the former Whyte’s Restaurant site.

• Paper Tiger — a tiny handmade dim sum and cocktail bar on Mare Street, courtesy of a young, arty crew.

On the fringes of East Side London Fields: the block of Mare Street currently housing The Dolphin, Helgi’s, Rasputin’s and Easy 8 (four separate interpretations of a dive bar) feels like old Hackney in the purest sense.

So yeah, London Fields is back, baby!

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→ Happy (belated) Beaujolais Nouveau Day to those who observe.

Did anyone celebrate? Every year i’m reminded of the weird and wonderful grip that Beaujolais Nouveau Day has on the good people of Swansea — powering salons, bars, and the local economy.

→ Tesco is working with a Brat sommelier on wine content now.

A collaboration I did not have on my 2025 bingo card, but… I’m into it.

→ People are waiting up to five hours for a table at the new Crisp Pizza in Mayfair

Insane. Would anything taste good after a five hour wait? Do these people not have anything better to do?

→ Borough Market is cracking down on influencers

The Bite Twice duo were escorted off the premises mid–Humble Crumble review. Honestly? I respect it. Bounce them from my algorithm next.

Speaking of Bite Twice: the first thing my phone served me when I took it off airplane mode on the Heathrow tarmac was the follow-up episode in their “Can You Actually Get a Decent Banh Mi in London” series on Instagram reels. In it, they confidently identified the shredded daikon—one of the most standard components of a banh mi—as “some kind of noodle.”

This is, apparently, only the second banh mi that the food blogging pair has ever eaten. You truly could not script it. And yet 219K followers are eating it up. I despair.

→ Tory MP warns that the full English breakfast is at risk under Labour

Which sounds like a gammon call to arms, but it’s thankfully it’s not culture war related. He’s talking rising costs: ingredients, rent, business rates, electricity. Basically: the humble caff might not survive the economics of 2025.

Somebody should tell the New York Times, who recently hired Instagram favourite Sam Youkilis to document the scenes at East London stalwart E. Pelicci. News seems to travels slowly across the pond: just ask their “no shit, Sherlock” reporting on the popularity of Trader Joe’s bags in the City… a full year too late.

Send my newsletter to your favourite Failing NYT reporter. You can do better, guys.

→ A new wellness trend sweeps The Capital: literally screaming into the void

Gen Z’ers are gathering at Primrose Hill, Battersea, and Hyde Park to collectively scream with something called London Scream Club. As one TikToker put it: “It’s cheaper than therapy.” Hard to argue.

@bbcnews“I’m so confused”. #Screaming #Scream #ScreamClub #London #BBCNews

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→ Line of Duty is returning for a seventh series

The kind of good news the BBC desperately needs right now.

→ The Spectator just opened a New York office and will double its US output

I read this in yesterday and it piqued my interest because I don’t know a single person who reads The Spectator (too conservative, too Eurosceptic) but it’s interesting that they’re finding a fanbase in the US.

→Buzzballs are now sold at Wetherspoon pubs across the UK

Is Tim Martin trying to court a younger demographic? I haven’t had a chance to do a scene report recently since my local Hackney Central Spoons has closed down (RIP Baxters Court)

→ Papos Bagels in Dalston has the most ordered Deliveroo item in the world

Although Papos is my favourite bagel in London, I was surprised by this as I never see a lot of Deliveroo activity when i’m there — they must be moving serious units throughout the week, good for them!

I somehow scammed my way into the VIP preview of Frieze last week. People-watching was divine — a seriously moneyed crowd — and I was genuinely shocked that, despite a highly curated food spread from some of London’s best restaurants, everyone (and I mean everyone) was queuing at Gail’s. It must be different later in the week when it’s open to the public, or later in the day, but the much-derided coffee shop’s seating area was where all the meetings seemed to be happening.

Gagosian’s booth was the first to announce a complete sell-out by noon on opening day. I don’t know much about the art world, but I loved this 2023 New Yorker profile of Larry Gagosian, the billionaire American art dealer — now I kind of get why he’s untouchable.

Today’s newsletter is filled with food, glorious food news:

→ Hugh Corcoran is rumoured to be on the pans at Peter Doig’s relaunched version of the celebrated pub, McGlynn’s.

As reported by . Please no more Yellow Bittern discourse. Please.

Side note: when I googled the Yellow Bittern earlier, I was surprised to see 1) a website, and 2) that they’re now offering a £50, four-course set menu. I wonder if Hugh regrets his tirade online last year.

→ The Devonshire team are on a M&A spree

Hot on the heels of announcing that they’re opening a pub in Mayfair called The Marlborough in conjunction with the team at Crisp Pizza, Westminster Council have just approved a licensing application for the team to open a pub in the historic magazine offices of The Lady in Covent Garden. The 12,700 sq ft, six-floor Georgian space is a pretty big flex, but hey, go big or go home, right? Don’t expect this one to open until at least Q1 2027, though, so the crowds of Guinness drinkers outside The Devonshire won’t be thinning out any time soon. Keep an eye on these guys — this M&A spree could be just the beginning.

→ Next year is shaping up to be the year of the luxury carving trolley.

Last week I wrote about Jeremy King’s revamp of Simpsons in the Strand, where they’re bringing back that old-school charm of roast meat carved tableside from silver-domed trolleys. Now, Major Food Group, fresh off launching Carbone in London, is bringing NYC’s iconic The Grill to Piccadilly under the name “Major’s Grill.” And, you guessed it, they’re including tableside theatre in the mix. A perfect combo of nostalgia and spectacle that’s set to dominate the dining scene. The carving trolley is back, baby!

→ Nick Jones is opening a hotel above his Corner Shop 180 deli

The 90-room, 15-apartment St. Clement Hotel will open next year in the 180 the Thames building — his first hotel project since stepping down as Soho House CEO three years ago. The bathroom products will be custom scented by Lyn Harris, Cowshed be gone! (Full disclosure: I worked on their Product Development Team — the Grumpy Cow range still haunts my dreams.)

Meanwhile, the 180 project itself is wild: Alex Eagle has gone full SimCity. She and her property developer husband, Mark Wadhwa, are quietly building a mini-neighbourhood along the Thames. 180 The Strand kicked things off, and now 180 the Thames adds 115 apartments, a bathhouse, gym, pool, Eagle’s 7,000 sq ft boutique, and Florence Knight’s new restaurant, Lunette.

The scale is bonkers!

→ Alex Eagle has also just launched a 33-piece capsule collection with J. Crew

Girl, slow down. I’m tired just typing this.

→ Guys, is St. John a chain?

They’ve just reopened their Neal’s Yard site as a bakery/wine bar, less than a month after launching a new bakery/café in collaboration with the London Review of Books in Bloomsbury. All I’m saying: seven sites across three restaurants and four bakeries might technically count as a chain. Fight me in the comments.

→ Charlie Bigham launches a premium brasserie range of ready meals, including a £30 beef wellington

The Telegraph calls it a “distasteful cash grab” and one commentator on X refers to the range that now includes Venison Bourguignon, Duck Confit and Coq au Vin as “Tory slop”. But here’s the thing: sales rose 8.8% to £144.3M last year, pre-tax profits jumped over a third to £7.7M, and 2025 is already up 14%. Silence, haters! Slop or not, people love Bigham’s wood-packaged dinners — all made by hand in commercial kitchens in Somerset and Park Royal, NW London.

→ Thomas Straker is doubling down in CPG, expanding from butter into olive oil

Next up: Donna Franca, a Puglian extra-virgin olive oil, dropping soon.

→ None of the jewellery “of inestimable heritage and historical value” stolen from the Louvre last weekend was insured.

WTAF

→ I’m still unpacking this INSANE story about snail farming in Marylebone as a tax aviodance scheme via

London Centric

The snail farmer of London, his mafia friends, and a £20m vendetta against the taxman

It is a drizzly October afternoon and I am sitting in a rural Lancashire pub drinking pints of Moretti with London’s leading snail farmer and a convicted member of the Naples mafia. We’re discussing the best way to stop a mollusc orgy…

Read more

7 months ago · 234 likes · 49 comments · Jim Waterson

e-mail me via talktomonta@gmail.com with gossip!

Getting this one out just before the end of lunchtime today. Phew!

→ The Girlbosses are back, baby! Is anyone surprised?

The girlboss rose, and the girlboss fell. She died, she was autopsied in every major publication, her estate was settled, and her board members changed out of mourning wear and found love again.

So how is the girlboss standing before us today, like Jesus on Easter Sunday? How is her smile of bleached veneers blinding us from page 4 of the style section of the same newspaper that gleefully reported her demise?

Loved this piece by in Air Mail

→ New York’s legendary Polo Bar is opening in London at the old Vogue offices

London is so bullish on New York style dining right now — this makes sense. 1 Hanover Square, the storied Vogue House building is a great fit too. It’ll be a while until we can chow down on Ralph’s Corned Beef Sandwiches though. The outpost isn’t set to open until 2028.

→ Jeremy King’s Simpson’s in the Strand in taking shape

After knocking it out of the park with The Park and Arlington last year, Jeremy King is now tackling the revival of Simpson’s in the Strand — one of London’s last true Grande Dame restaurants.

Housed in the Savoy building, Simpson’s was best known for its old-school ritual of roast meat carved tableside from silver-domed trolleys. The reimagining is set to open in early 2026, and the CGI renders released in Air Mail this week look gorge — oak panelling, gilt mirrors, the sort of room that smells faintly of port and power.

→ E5 Bakehouse employees are unionising

After a year of worker-led organisation across all departments, on Monday E5 Bakehouse staff achieved a landmark union recognition agreement with their employer, a first for an independent artisan bakery in London. Based.

→ The company formerly known as Haeckels is rebranding again.

People Care Planet Care — which used to go by Haeckels — is becoming Dulcie. The only thing I’ll say on the matter is that five rebrands in six years doesn’t feel that planet-friendly.

→ A West Kensington pub rebranded to The Trump Arms last month.

This isn’t the first time that Biddy Mulligan’s in Olympia has temporarily rebranded to honour a state visit from President Trump. The MAGA overhaul by the US-loving landlord of the Irish pub features a permanent ‘Charlie Kirk debate room’. Interesting.

→ The guys behind Goodbye Horses and The Dreamery are opening a fish restaurant in London Fields. Maybe.

They’ve applied to Hackney Council for a change of license on one of the railway arches on Mentmore Terrace under the name “A Plaice for Lost Soles”. More as it comes.

→ London School of Economics students at Bankside House halls are having some good, honest fun :-)

Campus culture check: mattress domino edition.

Love to see it!

@floorsevenbanksidewhen the mattress dominos makes it out the floor gc #lse #bankside #freshers2025 #fyp #freshers

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Until next time!

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Today’s newsletter is a mix of fundraising news and hype food launches. What a treat!

→ Thomas Straker’s butter brand just raised another £2M (total raised £4.7M)

All Things Butter, just scooped up another £2 million, bringing its total funding to £4.7 million. The latest round, led by Rose Street Capital, will fuel international expansion and new product development.

Earlier rounds included a £2.2 million seed in 2024 (led by Access Industries and Active Partners) and a £530k pre-seed in 2023, backed by the co-founders of the Hollywood studio behind Barbie and Saltburn.

The company plans to rebrand as All Things Dairy by the end of 2025 as it moves beyond butter and into new categories next year.

Say what you want about his workforce, the guy is capitalising on those buttery lockdown TikToks big time.

→ Zoe is crowdfunding

Gut health startup Zoe has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to fund its plan to sequence the gut profiles of a million people.

The raise hasn’t kicked off yet, so no target amount or equity details — but a similar 2022 round pulled in £7.4M from 13,000 investors.

I remain deeply skeptical of Zoe as a brand, but it’s an interesting fundraising play. Also, is anyone still wearing those in-arm blood sugar monitors?

→ Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt urged British entrepreneurs to ‘forget $100M and aim for $100B’ this week

Speaking at the Sifted Summit he urged UK entrepreneurs to be more like their Silicon Valley counterparts and stop selling their startups too early. Based.

→ One of the reasons that baby milk formula is stolen from supermarket shelves isn’t due to the cost of living crisis but because criminal gangs using it to cut drugs.

The FT claims in its State of Britain newsletter.

Yes, apparently Aptamil is the new baking soda.

→ Professor Green is launching a fast food brand in Glasgow

PG FAST FOOD will open on Byres Road in the West End (my old stomping grounds).

More details to come, but I’m intrigued — anyone else remember his pandemic-era pizza collab Giz’n’Green with Gizzi Erskine? (She’s about to return to Mare Street Market as creative director, btw.)

→ A banana pudding spot just opened in Covent Garden

Eating With Tod says that if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference between Vnilla (14 Endell Street, WC2H 9BB) and Magnolia Bakery’s. If that means anything to you.

But can we talk about what the HELLY is going on in Covent Garden right now? There’s a gourmet chocolate bar shop, a shop selling only popcorn, and now an entire piece of prime retail estate dedicated to £5.50 pots of banana pudding?

The maths ain’t mathing. Someone at Shaftesbury Capital (who own most of Covent Garden) has clearly fallen down a TikTok hype wormhole. What do you think will open next?

→ On the subject of hype — the FT just published a Big Read on how Japan is buckling under matcha mania.

Japan’s exports of powdered green teas have trebled since 2019. Booming demand is straining a supply chain that prioritises quality and cannot expand quickly enough.

People saying that hojicha is the new matcha, let’s be serious: get real.

→ And finally, on the subject of matcha….. There’s a new alt-milk in town (sort of)

Táche Pistachio Milk — the aesthetically pleasing, $10-a-carton, Erewhon favourite — has finally made it across the pond, thanks to a new salted pistachio iced matcha on the Blank Street menu.

Right now, that drink is the only way UK consumers can try Táche, which honestly feels like the most on-brand soft launch imaginable.

Revealing myself here as a Blank Street apologist, but the drink honestly slaps. Try one this weekend and tell me I’m wrong.

Until next time!

Making great use of my FT subscription today in today’s letter:

→ Delli Market has raised $16.4M to date.

In case you’ve somehow missed it - maybe you’ve been living under a rock or in an area untouched by their Studio Hato-designed billboards and wheatpastes - Delli is an online food marketplace co-founded by Simon Beckerman (Depop founder) and Marie Petrovicka (a former Depop exec). It beta-launched in East London (where else?) in 2022, with a mission to “fill the hole between independent food makers selling products on street markets and getting their wares on the shelves of supermarkets.”

This week, I learned that Delli finished a seed-extension round in late 2024 to bring their total raised to $16.4M to date (!) Funding will be used to fuel expansion to major UK cities (Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester to start with) and then to the US, and also a B2B arm of the business where Delli’s curated selection of products will fill the shelves of shoppy shops (a role currently filled by the likes of Faire and Mahalo)

I have mixed-feelings about marketplaces like this - sure, it’s cute to support cottage industries, but there’s often a whiff of need to monetise every corner of your existence before the planet implodes energy.

When Delli launched, most of the product catalog came from home kitchen-based operations, but in recent years small-but-slick FMCG brands that know exactly what they’re doing have joined the mix. Whichever way you look at it — a $16.4M raise is BIG.

Speaking as a brand owner, listing on Delli feels like a win/win. They lure in the customers, handle the marketing and do the dispatching (on a sale or return basis) in return for taking around 20% in commission (peanuts!).

But here’s what I wonder:

Who is actually buying regularly on Delli?
What’s their average order value?
Do they come back, or was it just a one-time artisanal mustard emergency?I’m dying to see their customer profile deck!

Last year, Business Insider reported that groceries have become a new “splurge” item for Gen Z and millennials and Petrovicka stated in an interview with the FT’s Sifted recently that “We see food as the new fashion — a form of self expression”. This is…. a little cringe, but not wrong.

Given that Depop was acquired by Etsy in 2021 for $1.6B - i’m watching Delli’s next move closely.

→ Blank Street gets a $500M valuation

The Wall Street journal reported this week that in just five years, Blank Street (founded as a Brooklyn coffee-cart in 2020, now with locations across the Eastern US and UK) has built a $500M empire with half of that coming from sales of sugary, colourful and photogenic matcha drinks.

For context: this isn’t Starbucks (currently valued at $105 billion). This is the little guy making serious noise and propelling himself to serious cultural relevancy.

Two years ago, their London team created their blueberry matcha (it honestly slapped) which quickly gained virality amongst Gen-Zs. SInce then they’ve been doubling down on new matcha beverages with matcha now accounting for roughkly 50% of the business according to co-founder Vinay Menda.

Old heads/drink snobs might balk at the chain’s automated espresso machines and pre-mixed matcha blends, but there’s no denying their popularity.

Blank Street’s global creative director told the WSJ that their team creates fake personas with character-building mood boards around each to new matcha drink “to market it in a hyper-specific way”

A new cookies and cream matcha drink is a “Lower East Side Dimes Square boy” and their strawberry shortcake matcha persona is “an East London Girl who listens to K-pop”

Starter packs as a marketing strategy - honestly love it, Socks House Meeting and Real Housewives of Clapton should do some side work for some of those brands on Delli, eh?

→ The FT publishes the P&L of a 157 ranked tennis player

The winners of Wimbledon this year will walk away with £3M each but what about everyone else? The FT gets granular with Japanese player Taro Daniel who is currently ranked 157 in singles and it’s eye-opening

Until next time!