Chiharu Shiota: One Place

Modern art should be challenging in my opinion. It should be shocking, awe-inspiring and mind opening if it’s doing its job properly. Unless it’s particularly poignant, a flashing luminous one word sign that’s meant to represent some sort of life changing epiphany just won’t do it. Modern art also should be accessible and that’s one thing modern artists find hard to do. Treading the fine line between producing something that will bowl over and knock people’s socks off and something so obtuse it will just be met with blank faces is a difficult path. One artist who I think has managed this admirably though is Chiharu Shiota.

Shiota has her debut show at the Hayward Gallery last year and has now moved on to her first ever solo show at the rather wonderfully named Haunch of Venison gallery. Much of Shiota’s work revolves around themes of remembrance and oblivion, dreaming and sleeping, traces of the past and her childhood as well as dealing with anxieties. She has made a habit of ‘room-filling’ which are impenetrable installations made of black thread which are an attempt by Shiota to “draw in the air” and often end up entangling various objects in the dark web, including a burned baby grand piano.

One of the best bits of the exhibition as far as I’m concerned is a major installation made from 400 windows found by Shiota in her home city of East Berlin. These have been collected from a range of locations including deserted and dismantled buildings, construction sites, disused psychiatric hospitals and uninhabited apartments and are stacked ceiling-high, lit from the inside and layered to create another structure altogether that comes across a bit like a church or a temple. The exhibition runs until 27th March and is wonderful, spiritual, challenging modern art that will delight and inspire in the way all modern art should. Go see (www.haunchofvenison.com).

Haunch of Venison
6 Burlington Gardens
London
W1S 3ET
02074955050

The Metropolitan Hotel

There are some London establishments you just long to stay at.  Despite the fact that you may live in London and therefore have no need of a bed for the night in a hotel, this doesn’t stop the overwhelming desire to stay in certain hotels.  For me, the hotel is the Metropolitan on Old Park Lane.  Why?  Well I’ll tell you.

Obviously the hotel’s rooms are pretty impressive – sleek urban aesthetics and touches of luxury here and there as well as cool and collected combinations of style and function and, if you can afford to pay for them, some really rather fantastic views.  On top of this, the hotel has a wonderful spa with treatments including COMO Shambhala PURIFY Holistic Facial (£80 for 75 minutes) and deep tissue massage (60 minutes £85 90 minutes £125).  Next up there’s all the wonderful consumption to be done.  The Met has it’s own Nobu with all the usual specialities such as black cod with miso, sashimi salad with Matsuhisa soy sauce dressing, Hamachi sashimi with jalapenos, and squid ‘pasta’ with light garlic sauce.

If cake without the guilt is more your thing, the hotel has introduced ‘Afternoon De-Light’ – “sweet and savoury cupcakes, fruit scones, and ‘no-bread sandwiches’ made using healthful alternatives including flour substitutes, and low fat crème fraîche.
Fresh fruit purées replace unrefined sugars. Olive oil is instead of butter, as well as natural, organic and locally sourced produce wherever possible.”  Now that’s just genius.

And if all that wasn’t enough, the Metropolitan Hotel is of course the location for the famous Met Bar, perhaps not the celebrity magnet it once was but still a thoroughly iconic landmark if you’re in any way into celeb culture.

So, that’s a brief round up of the Metropolitan Hotel – I’m feeling quite breathless just writing it, there’s just so much to pack in.  If there’s one place in London that’s got everything you could possibly need for a one night stand with luxury, surely it’s this place.

Metropolitan London
Old Park Lane
London
W1K 1LB
020 7447 1000

Chez Gerard

I am a huge steak fan. I mean like massive – if I could, I would probably eat steak every day and night of the week, it never seems to lose its appeal for me. Obviously, I would change the accompaniment of the dish – perhaps only seasoned, steamed spinach one night to keep it healthy and then a béarnaise sauce and dauphinoise potatoes the next to make sure I got my butter and cream quota for the week. Perhaps the next day I’d have it with Cajun spices or with a fried egg on top like the Argentineans. Anyway, you get the picture – I love steak. Which also makes me a massive steak snob and sadly means I often find myself disappointed with my order if I’m brave enough to order it on the high street.

So I have to say that with Chez Gerard, given that it’s a chain and given my history and love affair with steak as detailed above, I was a little dubious. However, as the chain has expanded to include restaurants all over the city from Chancery Lane to The Southbank and Bishopsgate, I reasoned they must be doing something right. And in fact they are. From the bread and butter to the green peppercorn sauce that accompanied the steak, I enjoyed every single mouthful.

You can take your pick of steak cuts at Chez Gerard including 9oz Onglet (£13.95), 8oz Pave de Rumpsteak (£15.95), 16oz T Bone (£32.95) or a 12oz Faux Filet (£23.95). All come with chips, new potatoes or a side salad and a grilled Provencal tomato. For an extra £1.50 you can add a sauce, green peppercorn, béarnaise or butter.

In terms of other dishes on the menu there’s roast rump of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes and French beans (£18.95), grilled sea bass fillets (£16.95) or a traditional salad nicoise with egg, tuna, green beans and anchovies (£13.95). For sides I would highly recommend the epinards au beurre (wonderful buttered spinach (£4.50) or a plain green salad (£3.50) www.chezgerard.co.uk.

The Jazz Cafe

You don’t have to be a jazz fan to go to the Jazz Café.  For many people the word ‘jazz’ being included in evening plans is like a red rag to a bull. Sometimes, repeated insistence on going to jazz nights has ruined friendships and relationships.  It’s the marmite of music and, love it or hate it, has to be given credit for developing at least some of what we know as modern music today.  But as I said, if you’re put off by the ‘jazz’ in the name, don’t be because there’s more to this place than cool cats with sax appeal.  Of course the jazz café initially was all about exactly that particularly type of music, hence the name.  Opened in December 1990 after being converted from the Camden Town Barclays Bank branch, it originally ran along the lines of Ronnie Scott’s with seven nights a week live Jazz music.   After the original owner went bust the venue was bought by the Mean Fiddler group and became the venue it is today, serving up all sorts of musical treats including soul, funk, world, dance and hip hop.  The Jazz Café also expanded into edible treats and has a restaurant where you can chow down on starters like tomato, mozzarella and rocket salad with lime and chili salsa (£5.85), mains including lamb cutlet on roasted potatoes with demi glace sauce (£16.50) and puddings like lime mousse with passion fruit coulis (£5.85).

But of course the thing you’re really coming to this place for is the music and you can be exposed to a huge variety of sounds and nights penciling this place into your diary.  You can indulge in regular nights like I Love The 80s, the Saturday night 80s-fest with drinks promotions and killer tunes, There’s also one off appearances like ‘Botown’ – “Take a trip from Memphis to Mumbai with the groove makin’, booty shakin’, dhuk dhukin’, heart-stoppin’, kamar-lachkin’, dhol-rockin’, tabla shockin’, bass droppin’ funky drummin’’, history-makin, bolly lovin’, samosa eatin’ legendary BOTOWN BAND” as well as acts like Vonda Shephard and Levi Roots (www.jazzcafelive.com).

5 Parkway

Camden Town

London NW1 7 – 020 7916 6060

Irving Penn

There are some artists who are just ahead of their time, one of these is Irving Penn. The iconic American photographer, highly respected for his portraiture and fashion work, has been exhibited all over the world at some of the most prestigious destinations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is probably still best known though for his work for Vogue and for the portraits he shot in his own distinctive style.  This style was photographing still life objects and finding objects in unusual arrangements with great detail and clarity. The prints he produces are always clean and clear, even though the subjects varied widely and he was one of the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and used this simplicity more effectively than other photographers to produce some quite breathtaking shots.

In the early years of the beginning of his career, Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts).  He graduated from the school in 1938 and that was the beginning of a stellar career that was to see Penn’s drawings published by Harper’s Bazaar, his famous work for Vogue and the shots of post World War II feminine chic and glamour photography that made his name.

Although Irving Penn passed away in October of last year, his influence on the art world has no less resonance, something you can see for yourself at the National Portrait Gallery exhibition in London. His still life photography and portraits represent his clear love of capturing both the beauty and the oddities of life. His subjects included Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, W. H. Auden, Igor Stravinsky and Marlene Dietrich.  The National Portrait Galley has procured 120 portraits, and the result is a spectacular exhibit that shows off Irving Penn ability to capture a person’s essence. The exhibit will run until June 6, 2010 (www.npg.org.uk).

National Portrait Gallery

Trafalgar Square London WC2 – 020 7747 2885

Ping Pong

If there’s one perfect way to spend a Saturday it’s a morning of shopping followed by an afternoon of Dim Sum. If you are not familiar with Dim Sum, these are a wide range of light dishes served alongside Chinese tea. Yum cha (literally “drinking tea”) is the term used to describe the entire dining experience. The dim sum come in small, delicious portions of meat, seafood, and vegetables, as well as deserts and fruit, often served in a small steamer basket and if you’re the kind of person who likes to pick and choose, this is the cuisine for you. The idea is usually to order a range of dishes and share with whoever you’re dining companions are so you’ll never get food envy as you can just reach over and take whatever it is you’re lusting over from your neighbour’s plate.

Ping Pong is a modern take on dim sum and there are restaurants all across London. The decor is darkly stained wood tables and chairs, low lighting and dark wooden screens. I first discovered Ping Pong after Christmas one year when I was choc full of mince pies and turkey and desperately fighting the post Christmas urges to carry on filling my face with meat and pastry. The Ping Pong on Marylebone High Street was offering a special healthy meal deal for a very wallet friendly £13 I decided to try it thinking I’d probably have to get a pie on the way home but remained pleasingly full for several hours afterwards.

Ping Pong still have this menu – the Healthy Fix – which includes Coriander sour soup, one each of the steamed selection of coriander, golden vegetable, har gau and vegetarian sticky rice, a vegetable spring roll, a Vietnamese spring roll, a Gai lan and a Mango pudding. That may not sound like a ‘healthy fix’ but the whole lot comes in at 487 calories which as anyone who ha ever tried to diet will know, is a miracle for a restaurant meal. There’s a whole range of set menus to try or you can order everything individually for around £4 each (www.pingpongdimsum.com).

The Whitehouse Clapham

Clapham doesn’t really have much in the way of nightlife. I say that realising of course that on the face of it that statement is a complete lie – there are plenty of nightlife venues in the vicinity of Clapham – but I suppose what I really mean is that there aren’t many places you can go where you won’t be subjected to groups of girls in cheap hen night costumes and drunk rugby teams doing yards of ale and heaving on or touching up anyone in the near vicinity. So ‘nightlife’ in the enjoyable sense of the word is rather lacking in that part of the world. Which is not to say that The Whitehouse compares to

Plastic People or Herbal because it doesn’t – to keep the local Claphamites happy there must obviously be a thread of cheese running through the venue but it does have redeeming features. It also has a rather lovely terrace and barman who can make a killer cocktail, all of which adds significantly to its appeal for me.

This year is The Whitehouse’s 10th birthday and they are having a special calendar of celebrations in the second week of March with Maxi Jazz of Faithless, Basement Jaxx and The Freemasons on the bill, a fairly significant coup for a club outside of the main London circuit. On a more regular basis the club also has Ladies night on a Thursday with female djs, free entries for ladies and 2 for 1 on cocktails. There’s also ‘We Are London’ who aim to bring the best in underground house to this corner of southwest London. Like any London club there are the usual hassles – overcrowding, queues to get in, overly drunk people passing out on the posh leather sofas – but because you’re outside the main drag it’s a little less overwhelming and on the up side you may also get to hear some decent tunes too. So if Infernos and The Clapham Grand just don’t do it for you anymore, try the Whitehouse, it’s a cut above (www.thewhitehouselondon.co.uk).

The Whitehouse

65 Clapham Park Road

London SW 4 7EH

02074983388

Peter Andre

Peter Andre has the same birthday as me.  Not the same year I might add (he is of course much older) but the same day in the same month, which makes us the same star sign and according to that kind of thing, equipped with the same personality traits. I have to say that I have never had a six-pack or stood under a waterfall singing about it.  Neither have I ever dated someone even remotely like Katie Price aka Jordan or made a TV series about my life.  Oddly enough Andre was also born in the same place as me but other than these simple coincidences of time and place there’s no other link.  Despite the birthday similarities, I am not a massive fan of Andre but whether you like him or not its undeniable that he has become something of a media force, or at least a media puppet, ever since that fateful day he entered the jungle and set his eyes on Ms Price.

Since then, there has been the TV series, This Morning, reporting at this years BRIT Awards, ‘Katie and Peter’ show, the ‘Peter Andre: The Next Chapter’ show and guest slots on everything from The Friday Night Project to The One Show.  The media savvy alliance has also resurrected a previously rather flattened singing career with “Insania”, which reached number 3 in the United Kingdom in June 2004 followed by The Long Road Back which was the follow up album to his 90s releases.  Then of course there was the duet album with Katie – ‘A Whole New World’ – and frankly the less said about that the better.

His most recent album was released in September 2009 and it’s off the back of that that Andre is now embarking on yet another tour.  This tour is currently scheduled to reach London on 13 December this year with a gig at the O2.  All his previous tours have been sold out so if you want to hear ‘Mysterious Girl’ and ‘Insania’ from the man himself then you’d better get in there fast.

The O2

Greenwich Peninsular

London.

SE10 0BB

0870 600 7015

The Little Dog Laughed

I first heard about this play when one of my gay friends who I was breakfasting with at the time said ‘it’s laugh out loud funny, you have to go and see it, it’s the only piece of theatre I’ve seen in ten years that wasn’t a complete waste of time.’  This was quite a commendation.  Add to that the fact that this particular friend never gushes in this way about anything and I was sold on the idea.

The play is by Douglas Carter Beane and concerns four characters – an actor, Mitchell, his acerbic agent Diane, a hustler named Alex, and Alex’s girlfriend Ellen. When Mitchell and Alex become involved in a physical relationship, Diane is concerned that what she describes as Mitchell’s “slight recurring case of homosexuality” will derail his career before it gets started.

Interestingly, the title is a reference to the fictional short story written by Arturo Bandini in John Fante’s Ask The Dust, one of my favourite ever books, and the same title is also used for a fictional play that appears in Agatha Christie’s Three Act Tragedy.

The version currently showing at the Garrick Theatre is pitched as “Is he or isn’t he – and can an actor in the celluloid closet experience true love and career success?   Gossip and entanglements snare a rising Hollywood star and his agent in this satiric look at celebrity.”  The production has received some pretty rave reviews and not just from my breakfasting friend.  It also has a decent cast of relatively well known but not overly famous actors including Rupert Friend, beau of Keira Knightly as Mitchell, Tamsin Greig of Green Wing (yes and many others but I loved her in that) as his agent, Diane and bond girl Gemma Arterton as Ellen.  The show is running until 10th April (www.garrick-theatre.com).

Garrick Theatre

Charing Cross Road,

London,

WC2H 0HH

0870 890 1104

De Beauvoir Deli

What is it about a deli that makes you pay ridiculous sums of cash for objects you normally wouldn’t part with more than a coin for? What is it in the air that means you find you find yourself, down £30, trundling home with a loaf of spelt bread and little pots full sweet and sour aubergine and hand ground pesto? For some reason, walking into one of these places makes me think nothing of parting with the kind of money I would normally spend on a meal out for a loaf of rustic bread and two plastic tubs. Because of this strange power these kinds of shops seem to have over the public, I am always reluctant to recommend them. We are in the middle of a credit crisis after all and I would hate to be encouraging people to spend money they don’t have on sun dried tomatoes, no matter how tasty.  In the case of the Debeauvoir Deli though I will make an exception. Situated in lovely Islington, the deli sells a selection of charcuterie, traiteur, antipasti, cheese, smoked fish, fresh pasta, pestos dips and the like. You can also pick up wines, oils and vinegars and wines, quiches and salads so it’s a veritable goldmine of taste explosion. They also stock locally produced jam from Vanessa at DeBeauvoir Kitchen and cakes bakes by ‘local enthusiasts’ which all sounds rather WI.

The deli has the clean, wood- furnished air of a wonderfully quaint village shop with cakes on glass stands and bread displayed in wicker baskets. They offer an array of gifts as well as huge and expensive looking bouquets of flowers that you can have made up for any occasion. They are also developing the rather wonderful online grocery service which will allow you to have everything you could want, deli-wise, delivered to your doorstep but without the awful temptation to spend £40 on artichokes. It’s genius!

De Beauvoir Deli

98 Southgate Road

London

N1 3JD

02072494321

www.thesebeauvoirdeli.co.uk