The hot table: Healthy Eaters
Healthy Eaters has been a Brixton staple since 2003, a Jamaican takeaway on Electric Avenue with a few tables for those who want to dine in. Queues are frequent and understandably so: the jerk chicken, patties and soups are among the best in town, each a measure with which to transport oneself to sunnier climes. Now founders Stafford and Rosie Geohagen have launched a more traditional restaurant in Brixton Village, a place for those same good dishes, as well as cocktails made with generous pours of rum.
Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8PS, healthyeaters.co.uk
The drinking den: Atelier Coupette
Fans of Coupette in Bethnal Green will be familiar with one of London’s best and most innovative cocktail bars. A sister opening in Soho, Atelier Coupette, promises to be more experimental still, with small serve drinks at an alluringly affordable sub-£10. The Bichy HB is on draught but don’t let that put you off: Clynelish, pumpkin butter Hennessy VSOP and “LDN Fields” syrup is ready to go and pleasing; look out too for a cherry ice cream float with 12-year-old Red Breast, Talisker, vanilla miso and soda.
9 Moor Street, W1D 5ND, coupette.co.uk
The theatre fix: Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
Also in Soho, at the less chic but amply prolific Coach & Horses, aka Norman’s, is the old-time and well-loved play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell. Keith Waterhouse’s debauched classic, adapted here by James Hillier, is returning to the Greek Street boozer for four weeks throughout November, with Robert Bathurst (of Downton Abbey fame, among others) playing the part. A fine pub, a fine play, a fine way to while away a chilly evening.
Coach & Horses, 29 Greek Street, W1D 5DH, jeffreyplay.com
The party: Waltham Forest light show
There are innumerable fireworks-based happenings this Bonfire Night. Almost every London park has an event lined up (see here for more). Waltham Forest, in Fellowship Square, is doing something different for the Guy Fawkes weekend, serving a “light show spectacular” complete with lasers, projections, music and street performers, against the historic town hall. Artists in charge include Amelia Kosminsky and Zarah Hussain, food will come by way of KERB, and Big Penny Social will be behind the bar.
November 4&5, Waltham Forest Town Hall, E17 4JF, walthamforest.gov.uk
The wildcard: Whiskey and Seaweed
The three-Michelin star chef Clare Smyth has launched a new bar below her Notting Hill restaurant, Core, called Whiskey and Seaweed. Available amid a brooding colour palette of sea greens, deep purples and warm coppers are more than 300 varieties of fine whiskies, all sourced from across the British Isles, as well as a house lager, Core Bohemia, made by the independent craft brewery Two Tribes.
92 Kensington Park Road, W11 2PN, corebyclaresmyth.com
The ticket to book now, for later: 50 Cent
There are still a handful of tickets available for 50 Cent’s London dates of his Final Lap Tour, so anyone who grew up hoping to be taken to the candy shop might not get another chance to visit the club. The special guest? Busta Rhymes.
