The Time Out London blog team

Time to say bye bye to the barge. Caravel, a floating restaurant which has been on Regent’s Canal since 2022, has suddenly announced that it has had to shut its hatches, as well as its sister restaurant Studio Kitchen. In an eyebrow-raising Instagram post on April 7, the restaurant said: ‘Caravel and Studio Kitchen have been forced to close our doors with immediate effect. We will provide an update as soon as the details are allowed to be made public. Thank you and sorry.’ View this post on Instagram A post shared by Caravel Restaurant (@caravel_restaurant) No reason has been given for the closures, but there have been ripples below the surface at Caravel for a while. In November brothers Fin and Lorcan Spiteri, who ran the restaurant from the beginning, took to Insta to announce their abrupt departure.  The duo said: ‘Fin and I have left Caravel and Studio Kitchen this week after five years, due to circumstances out of our control. ‘Caravel was a restaurant we built from the ground/water up, and it’s unfortunate we have to step away. Thank you to all of our talented staff and loyal customers that dined with us over the years, it’s been the best! We will be taking a short break whilst we prepare for the launch of our new project opening early 2026.’ Billy McCartney, who co-owns aptly-named parent company The Armada Group, told Restaurant at the time that the siblings had given their notice unexpectedly on November 14, leaving their roles with immediate...

The arrival of spring means that there are loads of fabulous new art exhibitions on the horizon in London, with major shows on the likes of Francisco de Zurbarán, Henry Moore and James McNeil Whistler joining excellent recent openings including Hurvin Anderson at Tate Britain, Michaelina Wautier at the Royal Academy and Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A. But before all the shiny new openings, we must wave goodbye to the old ones.  Some excellent exhibitions are set to close this weekend, and there’s a good chance you’ve been too busy scoffing Easter eggs, frolicking among the spring flowers and generally making the most of the first rays of sunlight we’ve seen this year to spend your weekends gallivanting around the capital’s art galleries. But you’ve not got long left to see some of the winter season’s best openings. Here’s what to catch this weekend, just in the nick of time.  RECOMMENDED: The top 10 exhibitions in London. Four amazing London art exhibitions closing in April 2026 Turner & Constable: Rivals and Originals at Tate Britain The greatest of rivals – and two of Britain’s greatest painters – JMW Turner and John Constable are placed side by side in this starry exhibition. Although both had different paths to success, they each became recognised as stars of the art world and shared a connection to nature and recreating it in their landscape paintings. Explore the pair’s intertwined lives and legacies and get new insight into their creativity via...

Last September, the National Gallery launched an international competition to find a designer to conceptualise its new wing. A total of 65 firms threw their hat into the ring, and the museum whittled the submissions down to six finalists including New York-based Selldorf Architects, the designers behind the 2025 refurbishment of the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing. Now, the National Gallery has announced a winner and spoiler: Selldorf was snubbed for the job. Instead, the museum selected Japanese architect Kengo Kuma – who famously designed the Tokyo Olympic stadium – and his eponymous firm to take on the project. Plans for a new wing form part of the gallery’s wider Project Domani, the biggest transformation of the National Gallery in its 200 years of history, which is expected to cost a whopping £750 million.  The hefty sum will go towards expanding its collection to include art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Turns out, this move has the potential to cause some serious beef in the art scene. The gallery has traditionally only collected paintings made before 1900 because of an agreement with Tate, which itself has stuck to only collecting modern art. According to the Guardian, industry insiders have warned in the past that breaking the agreement could create ‘bad blood’ and risks the two organisations being ‘at each other’s throats’. Despite looming challenges, plans for the new wing are extensive and include some pretty exciting features. What can we expect from the National...