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London: Buzzy Bars, Restaurants, Exhibitions and More

Eat, drink, shop, see — new hot spots to check out off-hours during London Fashion Week.

September 17, 2015, 4:01am

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Africa Meets London: South Africa-based designer Hanneli Rupert is giving Londoners a glimpse of her accessories line Okapi, with a new store on London’s Eaton Terrace. The 398-square-foot space, which opened this summer, is outfitted with wooden floors and palm tree-print wallpaper, with the label’s Cape Town-made handbags displayed on the walls.

The seasonless collections are all crafted with materials sourced from Africa; current designs include the structured Aziri bag in crocodile or blesbok antelope leather, and the Ayesha cross-body bag in blesbok or ostrich. Rupert, who originally trained as a painter before launching the line in 2011, described her collection as “inspired by the organic, primordial beauty of Africa.” “My intention is to allow the raw materials to speak simply and elegantly for themselves,” said Rupert. “The ethos behind Okapi is to source the best natural materials that will age organically over time, growing in character and interest.” Prices for the collection run from 95 pounds, or $147 for a blesbok card holder through to 8,000 pounds, or $12,386 for a crocodile Aziri bag. Alongside the new London store, the collection is sold at Net-a-porter.com and at stockists in South Africa, including Merchants on Long, the Cape Town concept store that Rupert opened in 2010. Indeed, the designer has something of a pedigree in the luxury goods game, given that her father is Johann Rupert, the founder and shareholder of reference at the luxury goods group Compagnie Financière Richemont.

—Lorelei Marfil

New York Minute: Already a hit in New York, restaurant and bar Hotel Chantelle has opened an outpost in London. Set on Orchard Street, nearby to London’s Selfridges, the restaurant takes its cues from its home city. The space — which offers indoor and outdoor dining — is decked out with murals by New York street artist Bradley Theodore. Meanwhile, the kitchen is run by executive chef Seth Levine, and the menu works in U.S. and French influences — among the dishes are chicken and waffles and a tuna tartare “cigar” served in a vintage glass ashtray. And as in New York, brunch will also be a feature at the restaurant, with dishes including lobster benedict; steak and eggs and truffle grilled cheese. To add to the New York vibe, there will be jazz performances at weekends, with the lineup curated by New York jazz musician Dandy Wellington.

—Lorelei Marfil

Hotel Chantelle

23 Orchard Street, W1H 6HL

Tel.: +44-207-299-2522

Web: hotelchantelle.com

Shore to City: Kurt Zdesar, who founded London restaurants Chotto Matte and Ping Pong and launched Nobu’s first London location, has turned to seafood for his latest project, Bouillabaisse, which has opened in London’s Mayfair. The concept centers on sustainable fish, with the menu inspired by Zdesar and his team’s meetings with fishing communities around the world. Dishes include the Athenian-inspired black cuttlefish with oregano and orange; Scottish lobster ravioli with snow crab and Morecambe Bay prawns, and Hebridean langoustines. The restaurant’s decor also takes a nautical turn, with whitewashed wood floors and panelled walls, shiny steel tables and leather banquettes, while lobster tanks line the walls of the restaurant’s private dining room.

—Lorelei Marfil

Bouillabaisse

4 Mill Street London, W1S 2 AX

Tel.: +44 20 3794 8448

Web: bouillabaisse.co.uk

Drawing Fashion: The work of Irwin Crosthwait, the late Canadian war artist and fashion illustrator, is set to go on display during London Fashion Week at the city’s Gallery 8. The exhibition, presented by dealers Gray Modern and Contemporary Art, will showcase some 60 pieces of Crosthwait’s fashion illustrations, from sketches for designer Mark Vaughn to illustrations for Christian Dior. While Crosthwait studied at New York’s Pratt Institute in the late Thirties, and went on to work as an advertising artist for Montreal department store Morgan & Co., he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1944. He served as a naval war artist until 1947, after which he set up in Paris as a fashion illustrator. There, he went on to contribute to titles including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Femina, Vogue, L’Art et la Mode, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, alongside sketching for designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Hubert de Givenchy. The exhibition, called “Drawing on Style,” will run at the gallery from Sept. 17 through 22. Connie Gray, curator at Gray MCA, noted that fashion illustration “is becoming increasingly collectable, as so few original examples of the work remain,” adding that the selling exhibition of Crosthwait’s work spans “preparatory sketches to stunning fashion illustrations from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.”

—Lorelei Marfil

Gallery 8

8 Duke Street, St James’s, SW1Y 6BN

Web site: graymca.co.uk

Get Him to the Greek: Greek restaurateur Costas Spiliadis has turned to London for his latest venture, Estiatorio Milos, on Regent Street. The venue — which adds to Spiliadis’ restaurants in Athens, Las Vegas, Miami and New York — specializes in fish that’s sourced daily from the British Isles and the Mediterranean, and a resident fisherman will advise diners about the daily catch. Among the dishes are the Milos Special — lightly fried courgette and aubergine with tzatziki and kefalograviera cheese; Mediterranean octopus, and the Lavraki, a sea bass from Greece, which is oven-baked in a salt crust. There’s also a raw seafood bar, and wines are all exclusive to the restaurant and sourced from Greek vineyards.

—Lorelei Marfil

Estiatorio Milos

1 Regent Street, St. James, SW1Y 4NR

Tel.: +44-207-839-2080

Web: milos.ca

Sweet Illustrations: Messum’s gallery Mayfair is putting the work of the late Anthony Gilbert — known for his advertising illustrations — under the spotlight to coincide with London Fashion Week.

The showcase will highlight a small selection of Gilbert’s finest works, including illustrations that were featured in Vogue and House & Garden.

At ad agency J. Walter Thompson, Gilbert designed a range of campaigns and his portfolio included ads for Rowntree candy, Horlicks malt milk drink and Rose’s Lime Juice. One of the artist’s most notable illustrations, the mantel clock on the After Eight mint box, is still used by Nestlé today.

The exhibition will also focus on the key role played by Gilbert’s wife, Ann, as his muse and support throughout his career.
“What sets Gilbert’s work apart is his eye for design combined with an obvious delight in technique,” said Andrea Gates, director and curator at Messum’s. “I think this is why he survived as an illustrator long after photography took over.”

The artist Willie Landels, the designer and former editor of Harpers & Queen, said Gilbert was not, however, easy to know. “Always immaculately dressed, the epitome of the English gentleman, he was also shy and reserved and not easily taken in conversation…but his work held so much appeal.”

An array of freelance illustrations for various magazines including Radio Times and The Strand showcase many of Gilbert’s techniques. “He stylized forms to their most basic and then transformed them with complex patterns and surfaces,” said Gates. “He could draw a portrait of an apple or weave a tapestry from a single figure.”

The show will run until Sept. 25 at Messum’s in Mayfair. The family-run gallery, which has been handling Gilbert’s estate since 1996, will be selling many of the artist’s original designs.

Prices range from 1,250 pounds, or $1,921, for a cartoonlike drawing, to 3,650 pounds, or $5,610, for still-life and abstract items.

— Joanna Taylor

Messum’s Gallery
8 Cork Street, W1S 3LJ
Tel.: +44-207-437-5545
Pop Goes London: Never mind London’s gray fall weather, the city will get at least one injection of vibrant color this season, thanks to the Tate Modern’s upcoming show, “The World Goes Pop.”

The show will explore how the Pop Art movement wasn’t just a U.K. and U.S. phenomenon, but demonstrates how artists across Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East worked with its ideas. The show will spotlight around 160 works from the Sixties and Seventies, and among the artists represented are Brazil’s Anna Maria Maiolino, Japan’s Ushio Shinohara and the late Austrian artist Kiki Kogelnik.

The exhibition is opening at Tate Modern in partnership with one of the gallery’s corporate sponsors, professional services firm EY. Martin Cook, managing partner at EY, commented that the show illustrates that artists of the movement were “more diverse than the Anglo-American white males who are typically taken to represent the [Pop Art] canon.” Flavia Frigeri, curator of the show and of international art at Tate Modern, added presentation will “seek to rethink what Pop Art is and how it developed contemporaneously in different parts of the world. As part of this, we are showing how Pop is put to use by artists globally for social and political subversion.”

— Joanna Taylor

“The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop”

Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG

Web: Tate.org.uk.

Exhibition runs from Sept. 17 through Jan. 24, 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. daily and 10 a.m. through 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

For more London Scene, see:

All About Audrey Hepburn at National Portrait Gallery

Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon

The National Portrait Gallery

St Martin’s Place, WC2H 0HE

Tel: +44-20-7306-0055

Web: npg.org.uk