What To Do This Weekend 05.09.20

ENJOY A TASTE OF AL FRESCO DINING HERE: Dalloway Terrace

Like many, London restaurant Dalloway Terrace is extending its ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ offer for guests visiting during September. Between Mondays and Wednesdays, guests will receive 50% off their bill (up to £10 per person) when they order a main course. Located in Bloomsbury, the restaurant’s indoor/outdoor concept will allow diners the chance to enjoy the summer menu, whatever the weather. The heated terrace has also been transformed into a whimsical overgrown greenhouse, complete with cascading roses, sweet peas and tulips entwined around terracotta pots to create a serene English garden feel, courtesy of McQueens Flowers.  The all-day menu includes dishes such as chicken milanese; grilled organic Scottish salmon with soft herb butter and lemon; and grilled tiger prawns with green mango and chilli. Dalloway Terrace’s summer afternoon tea is also available daily. 

16-22 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, WC1B 3NN 

Visit DallowayTerrace.com

HEAD BACK TO THE CINEMA TO CELEBRATE A CLASSIC: Dirty Dancing 30th Anniversary

If you find yourself without plans this week, cinemas up and down the country are hosting one-off showings of the 30th anniversary edition of classic film Dirty Dancing. Set in 1963, Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman (Jennifer Grey) wants to enjoy one last listless summer before joining the Peace Corps. Hoping to enjoy her youth while it lasts, she's disappointed when her summer plans deposit her at a sleepy resort in the Catskills with her parents. Her luck turns around, however, when the resort's dance instructor, Johnny (Patrick Swayze), enlists Baby as his new partner, and the two fall in love. Despite Baby's father’s attempts to forbid her from seeing Johnny, she's determined to help him perform the last big dance of the summer. 

Various locations across the UK

BOOK IN FOR A SPECIAL CHEF TAKEOVER HERE: Crispin

On Thursday 10th September, Crispin in Spitalfields will present a one-night only guest chef takeover by Suhyung Lee, currently senior sous chef at Taiwanese hot spots Bao and Xu. South Korean-born Lee will present a one-off six-course dinner menu that evening, curated in collaboration with Crispin’s head chef, Naz Hassan. Inspired by Lee’s home country – where he worked at Boksoondoga F1963 in Busan – the creative menu aims to reinterpret classical French and European dishes, using seasonal produce and his self-proclaimed secret weapon – a potent, 20-year fermented soy sauce. While final dishes are being kept firmly under wraps, guests can expect dishes akin to his black cod fritters and signature pork katsu, kimchi, jjigae and icheon rice. Tickets are available now, priced at £50 per person, and are available via the Crispin website.

White's Row, Spitalfields, E1 7NF; 10th September

Visit CrispinStores.com

HUNKER DOWN WITH THIS NEW FILM: I’m Thinking Of Ending Things

Already earning rave reviews from some of the country’s top film critics, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things lands on Netflix this Friday. Starring Jessie Buckley (Taboo, War & Peace, Wild Rose), Jessie Plemmons (Fargo), Toni Collette (About A Boy, Knives Out) and David Thewlis (the Harry Potter franchise), the psychological horror follows a young woman (Buckley) as she takes a road trip with her new boyfriend to his family farm, despite having second thoughts about their relationship. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake's mother and father, she begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world.

Available on Netflix from Friday 4th September. 

Visit Netflix.com

ENJOY A MEDITTERANEAN-STYLE BRUNCH HERE: Ampéli

Ampéli in Fitzrovia has now launched its weekend brunch, inspired by the laid-back mornings of the Eastern Mediterranean. With a menu built around a selection of weekend favourites from across Greece and the Med, diners can choose from hortopita, a filo pastry parcel filled with spinach and parsley, topped with coconut yoghurt; pulled beef brisket with feta and pickled jalapeño on fricassee bread; and socca, a courgette fritter with poached egg, tomato chutney and lambs lettuce. No brunch is complete without a towering stack of fluffy pancakes, so Ampeli will be serving its take on the dish, the traditional Greek tiganites, with blackcurrant compote, tahini yoghurt and spiced nut granola.

18 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, W1T 2LZ

Visit Ampeli.London

PRE-ORDER THIS NEW ESSAY COLLECTION HERE: Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

Fans of Hilary Mantel should pre-order this new essay collection from the Booker Prize winning author ahead of its release next month. Covering everything from Tudor biography to the Virgin Mary with precision, Mantel Pieces includes all of Mantel’s essays and reviews for the London Review of Books from the last 30 years. Suffice to say the subjects range far and wide: Robespierre and Danton, the Hite report, Saudi Arabia where she lived for four years in the 1980s, the Bulger case, John Osborne, as well as the pop icon Madonna, and an examination of Helen Duncan, Britain’s last witch. There are essays about Jane Boleyn, Christopher Marlowe and Margaret Pole – all of which offer astonishing insight Mantel’s bestselling Wolf Hall trilogy. Illuminating and often funny, the book also includes letters and other material gathered from Mantel’s archive.

Available here 

GO OUT FOR ART & BREAKFAST HERE: Townsend 

Townsend’s breakfast menu features seasonally inspired takes on English classics. Continuing the restaurant’s focus on creatively constructed dishes, made using the best British seasonal produce, there are only five dishes to choose from – all of which have been created by head chef, Joe Fox. Taking pride of place is the Townsend breakfast bun, which includes a Paddock Farm sausage patty, hash brown, fried duck egg topped with Townsend’s house-made brown sauce and served on a soft white roll. Also on the menu is treacle-cured salmon, soft boiled egg and sour cream on soda bread; potato cake, fried hen’s egg with buttered girolles, chili and sage; and eggy bread with potted brown shrimp and spinach. On the lighter end, there’s poached summer berries, yoghurt and toasted oats. Visitors to the restaurant can also add in a side of culture to really make a day of it, as the restaurant is part of the Whitechapel Gallery in London’s East End. 

77-82 Whitechapel High Street, Shadwell, E1 7QX

Visit WhitechapelGallery.org

RE-BOOK FOR THIS LIMITED THEATRE SHOW: Three Kings

When Patrick is eight years old, his absent father returns unexpectedly and in a brief but memorable encounter, sets him the challenge of ‘The Three Kings’. Years later – recalling that meeting, and the revelations that followed – Patrick traces the events of his father’s life and takes the audience on a journey of aching disappointments and audacious self-delusion. At once hilarious and heart-breaking, Three Kings – which has been written by Stephen Beresford especially for the Old Vic’s In Camera series – is about fathers and sons, the gifts and burdens of inheritance, and the unfathomable puzzle of human relationships. Andrew Scott’s emergency operation delayed the original run earlier in the summer, with five new dates scheduled to take place this weekend. Performances will be streamed live directly from the Old Vic stage, with the empty auditorium as a backdrop.

Visit OldVicTheatre.com

REVEL IN A FINE DINING EXPERIENCE HERE: Sabor

Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Sabor re-opens to the public this Friday, serving up its celebrated regional Spanish cuisine at its ground-floor Counter restaurant, bar and its newly refurbished upstairs El Asador space. Having closed in March, Nieves Barragan Mohacho and Jose Etura have kept busy by launching Sabor en Casa which will continue to deliver restaurant-quality dishes right to your door.  Counter will open with a handful of new dishes, including seared tuna, ajoblanco and almond; cauliflower steak, romesco sauce and black garlic aioli; and orzo, crisp fry lamb sweetbreads with loval oil. Upstairs has seen some more major changes, with the space redesigned to encourage long lunches and dinners. Guests can dine as a group, with set feasting menus for the table, or choose from the a la carte, all while overlooking the open kitchen and chefs at work. If you’re still not up for going out, Sabor’s concept of carefully curated meals to be finished and plated at home, now includes a new Barbacoa Box, as well as the opportunity to design your own tapas menu including favourites  such as arroz negro, Iberian pig’s cheeks and Basque cheesecake. 

35 Heddon Street, Mayfair, W1B 4BP

Visit SaborRestaurants.co.uk

DOWNLOAD A NEW PODCAST HERE: Staying Home With Whit

If you’re anything like us, your teenage years were probably defined by the advent of reality TV. Now, one of the stars of LA-based The Hills and NY-based The City, Whitney Port, has re-invented her already-popular podcast for a series of at-home conversations. In Staying Home With Whit, Port explores modern-day topics affecting women today, including relationship advice, holistic beauty and politics – which involved a hard-hitting look at the Black Lives Matter movement. Fashion fans will love the interview with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Rent The Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman, while those looking for healthy quarantine hacks should tune into the episodes featuring sleep expert Alanna McGinn and trained chef Gaby Dalkin. Easy listening at its best. 

Listen here