Marcus Brown

Have one final 2021 feast to say so long, farewell and good riddance to the last 365 days. From swanky sky-high destination Duck & Waffle to everyone’s favourite Indian, Dishoom, London is heaving with restaurants pulling out the stops for New Year’s Eve. There may even be dancing involved, if you can move after you’ve stuffed yourself with excellent food. And if you really can’t face going out, let the festivities come to you in the form of a Dishpatch NYE meal kit. Still no plans for NYE? See off the year at one of these ace London parties.

Chef Daniel Watkins will be taming the open fires at St Leonards in Shoreditch this December, with a festive menu that looks sure to warm your cockles. One half of ACME Fire Cult, Watkins will be showcasing his knowledge of all things flaming, charring and smoking to bring a coal-roasted spin to St Leonard’s winter menu. Having previously taken the ACME Fire Cult on tour to Hackney’s Dark Arts Coffee and Madiera, Watkins will be settling down for winter at the contemporary European restaurant. Photograph: Mona Eendra Dishes will change regularly, with an emphasis on minimal waste, fire-cooking and seasonal produce. Menu highlights include coal-roasted beetroot with whipped cheese, blackcurrant and macadamia nuts, mayonnaise and hispi cabbage with smoked chilli and hazelnut, grilled leeks with winter truffle, almonds and koji, monkfish with crab mojo rojo, aged sirloin of beef with ancho and chilli butter, and herb-fed chicken with miso and hen-of-the-woods. So, a plethora of hearty fire-roasted plates for you to get stuck in to. Watkins’s residency is happening now.  St Leonards, 70 Leonard St, EC2A 4QX. Bun House’s festive offering looks predictably adorable and also delicious. Gunpowder’s mince-pie doughnuts have returned.

Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes will be opening his new restaurant Lisboeta on Charlotte Street in the spring of 2022. Quite literally translated, Lisboeta means ‘a person from Lisbon’, which Mendes hopes to achieve with his latest restaurant. Mimicking the relaxed Lisbon attitude to dining, the menu will feature small sharing plates that can be eaten casually with a glass of Portuguese wine alongside family and friends. Situated in a townhouse with a cellar that houses a kitchen, complete with a seated bar built from repurposed tram wood and topped with limestone sourced from Lisbon and a dining area that boasts a huge wine catalogue. Lisboeta's wine offering will showcase some of Lisbon's most iconic and longstanding producers alongside some fresh-faced wine rebels.  ‘The restaurant showcases the young, vibrant food culture, produce, wine, and gastronomic heritage of my home,’ says Mendes. Though little has been revealed about the menu, there is a clear emphasis on dining like a local, taking inspiration from Portuguese bars known as ‘tascas’ that are often family-run and serve large sharing plates. Through design food and wine, you can escape the elbow nudging streets of London and kick back in true Lisbon style for an hour or two.  The best cookbooks from London restaurants and supper clubs Rumour has it that a ‘MegaGreggs’ is coming to Leicester Square

If you're familiar with James Acaster and Ed Gamble’s Off Menu podcast, you'll know they’re absolutely besotted with Yard Sale pizza's cheesy marmite garlic bread. Luckily for them, Yard Sale will be returning the pizza in all its 18" glory with £1 from each pizza sold being donated to Fare Share. Not only that, Yard Sale have been daft enough to let these two loose in their kitchen. Throwing dough about, mastering 500 degree flames and getting marinara sauce all over the gaff. As you can probably imagine, this won't be your average collab pizza. In the spirit of Off Menu's ‘dream restaurant’ concept where guests are asked to choose their favourite starter, side dish, main, dessert and drink, the pair will be creating their dream pizza. There will be a serious helping of Christmas spirit in this pizza as it's topped generously with pigs in blankets, brussels sprouts, crispy sage and cranberry & chilli jam, if that doesn't make you pass out on the sofa in front of the Royle Family, we don't know what will. The pizza will be available from 1st December to 4th January at all Yard Sale Pizza sites. London’s best Christmas sandwiches 2021 The best pizzas in London to get delivered

Founded by Jojo Sureh in 2020, Cook To Care began as a knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic. Initially set up to support her vulnerable neighbours, the initiative has since grown into a team of 200 volunteer cooks and couriers that provide nutritious meals for 500 households a week. Through their work Cook To Care hopes to unite and enrich their local community, giving a voice to members of the local community in Streatham. There is a strong focus on providing meals that are high quality and nutritious for guests who otherwise would not have the resources.  Cook To Care is always on the lookout for volunteers to join its team of cooks and delivery riders, as well as donations to support upcoming projects. £5 can provide fresh herbs daily, £8 covers meals for an individual one week, £22 buys a 10kg bag of rice and £60 covers kitchen fees weekly. The project also provides safe and therapeutic spaces for young people and prison leavers, reviving disused green spaces and giving them the skills to grow and cook their own food. ‘I think it's important to break the barriers and divide that dining experiences usually have,’ says Jojo. Over the next few months Cook To Care will be hosting a series fundraising supper clubs at the Remakery in Loughborough Junction, serving seasonal plant-based food with Greek/Persian influences. For every two tickets purchased a member of the Loughborough Junction, Brixton community will be invited as a guest of honour to have their voices heard. Tickets

Back in September, as Londoners emerged from their lockdown nests, piled back on to the Underground, the Overground and buses, a silent bug that we’d all forgotten about reared its ugly face. The common cold had lived in the shadow of a much bigger ‘C’ virus for the past two years, but as masks were pushed out of the ‘phone, wallet, keys’ trio, the cold began to make an unwelcome return. Now we all know about ‘the worst cold ever’. If you haven’t had it, you’ll have at least read a Twitter thread about it. It’s like a normal cold but amplified about a million times: sore throat, headache and runny nose. Many people are claiming that this is the worst cold they’ve ever had. Now there are reports that the cold – which kicked off down south – is spreading north, leaving a load of snotty people in its wake. But why is it so bad and how can you tell if you have Covid or the WCE (worst cold ever)?  London GP Dr Philippa Kaye says the cold is hitting so hard because of all the time we spent social distancing during the pandemic. ‘During those first lockdowns, we saw numbers of other [non-Covid] infections fall,’ says Dr Kaye. ‘We think that that was primarily due to the restrictions on meeting up. We've actually been seeing a rise in the number of coughs and colds and viral infections.’ She says there’s no way to tell the difference between the cold or Covid without getting a proper PCR test. Even if it isn’t Covid, it might be best to work from home. No one wants your virus, sunshi

‘You are position number 50,925 in the queue,’ is the message we received when trying to purchase tickets to Tate’s Yayoi Kusama: ‘Infinity Rooms’ exhibition this morning. Hyped, is an understatement. Since it was announced, the exhibition has been booked up three months in advance. The 92-year-old Japanese contemporary artist is capable of drawing gargantuan crowds with her immersive polka-dot repetition, paintings, sculptures and photographs. Kusama’s latest installation utilises mirrors to create a boundless universe of rotating crystal chandeliers – but you probably didn’t need us to tell you that. It’s impossible to open Instagram without seeing photographs of the exhibit plastered all over your mates’ stories. So how does one actually go about getting tickets? Tate announced this morning that they would be releasing more tickets to the ‘Infinity Rooms’ exhibition. ‘To give everyone a chance to visit, we are releasing tickets in batches’ said Tate in its post, which inevitably didn’t stop disgruntled Kusama enthusiasts sounding off in the comments. Rest assured, Tate has confirmed ‘the exhibition will run until June 2022 and we will release more tickets in December 2021’. Pro tip: besides queuing up with the hordes of punters, you can also try calling the ticket desk on the day you want to visit, in the hope that someone has cancelled their booking for that day (as opposed to a future date). We’ve heard more than a few success stories of people securing tickets this way.

Siblings Emeka and Ifeyinwa Frederick opened their Nigerian tapas restaurant Chuku's in Tottenham last year and have quickly amassed a cult following. Their menu features inspired takes on Nigerian classics like caramel kuli kuli chicken wings, honey suya prawns and jollof quinoa. This October, Honest Burger will be partnering with the duo to create what they're calling the Nigeria burger. The burger will combine the Honest beef patty with Fanta-candied bacon, cheddar, jollof sauce, plantain crisps, Chuku’s spicy mayo, red onion, spinach and pickles in a marriage of Nigerian cuisine and the classic components of an Honest burger. Why Fanta you ask? It's one of Nigeria’s most popular soft drinks, which has a special recipe local to Nigeria. Ask around about Nigerian Fanta. The burger also contains a spicy mayo with ata din din, a Nigerian hot pepper sauce made from red bell peppers and scotch bonnet chillies. There's also a side of plantain crisps, giving it a Chuku spin on the well loved crisp sandwich. Chuku’s You can also pair your burger with an Eko Gold lager from British-Nigerian husband and wife brewers Anthony and Helena Adedipe of Eko Brewery. ‘Our recipe sessions for this collab have been more like feasts. I’d tried all of Chuku’s recipe kit dishes over lockdown so I asked them to bring everything. Chuku’s always turned up with a big hamper of ingredients (with extra plantain crisps for snacking) and it was a real deep dive into Nigerian cooking. We’ve come up wit

Dirty Bones is back in Soho! The NYC-inspired burger joint has valiantly returned, once again gracing Kingly Court with their chicken and waffles and signature burgers. The new restaurant - in the same location, will be bigger and dirtier than the last. Classics like the Mac Daddy - double brisket & dry aged steak burger topped and the Vegan Classic Burger - plant-based burger with vegan cheese, red onion, gherkin and veganaise on a soft seeded bun will remain firm fixtures on the menu. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dirty Bones (@dirtyboneslondon) Among all the old favourites, Dirty Bones will be debuting their brand new Reverse Truffle Burger, which is as outrageous as it sounds. The foundations of the burger will be the same makeup as their Classic Burger (double brisket and dry-aged steak burger with American cheese, red onion, gherkins and dijonnaise on seeded brioche) except this time you'll be trusted with a pot of truffled hot cheese sauce to drown your burger in table side. No amount of napkins will be able to contain this volcanic-esque eruption of cheese sauce.  There will also be some new boozy additions to the cocktail roster with lager-based cocktails (served in a signature ‘lager can’) sitting comfortably amongst their existing cocktail options. 8 Kingly Ct, London W1B 5PP What’s a Michelin Green Star and who has one? Get £1 reuben sandwiches this Thursday for one day only

The beer bandits, lager lovers and purveyors of pints at Beavertown are giving away 8,000 pints across 100 venues in London and Manchester this weekend. In celebration of its new lager Bones, a crisp beer designed to be easily drinkable. It sits at a comfortable 4.4 percent and extra-pale malt makes it the perfect pint for a Thursday after-work knees-up. It’s also vegan, as long as you don’t wash it down with some pork scratchings.      If you want to get your hands on a free pint of the golden stuff, you can find it at The Princess of Wales (Clapton), The Devonshire (Balham), Garratt Tavern (Wandsworth, The Castle (Walthamstow) on Friday; The Kenton (Hackney) and The Royal Inn on the Park (Hackney) on Saturday; and The Faltering Fullback (Finsbury Park), The Red Lion (Stoke Newington), The Northcote (Clapham Junction) and Howl at The Moon (Hoxton) on Sunday. A lager is a welcome addition to the Beavertown roster and sits nicely alongside the Gamma Ray and Neck Oil options we’re already used to. And with most pints soaring past the £6 mark in London, you can’t exactly say no to a free one. These are the best bars in London. London is officially the most expensive place to find love – and beer – in the UK.

Polish your best conker, bake them in the oven, cover them in vinegar and paint them in nail polish, anything goes at the Peckham Conker Championships. This is no playground escapade, some of the countries (literally) most hardened conker champions will be lacing up their toughest and most seasoned conkers for the event. The competition will be taking place at the Brick Brewery Tap Room next to Peckham Rye train station. Of course, anyone is welcome to take part in the battle royale but only one of you can secure the Golden Nut – a 23-carat golden conker aka The Nugget. The competition is split into two categories, junior (four- to 15-year-olds) and senior (16+) and Peckham Conker Club have even provided their own rulebook that explains everything you need to know about conker battling. The guide includes some special moves, so that you can master the way of the conker including the Super Chopper ‘a rabid helicopter-style conker move. All limbs flailing x3 – in a controlled way – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, BANG’, or the Gravity Strike ‘for maximum power, get gravity on your side. Leap as high as you can and come down on your opponent’s conker like they’d just made a pass at your mum/dad’. Peckham Conker Club even offers a range of pro merch, which is either exactly the kind of technical battle kit you need or two bootlaces in a tin. Can’t do any harm, though, eh? Brick Brewery Tap Room, Sat Oct 9, 3pm-6pm. Register here. 21 brilliant community sports clubs to join in London.

I know no one wants to talk about Christmas, but for Lightopia we can make an exception. The award-winning light festival will run in Crystal Palace Park from November 19 to January 2 2022, giving you plenty of time to take in the spectacle. The festival will feature lanterns that were handmade and hand-painted using ancient Chinese methods that date back to the Tang dynasty, multi-sensory interactive lights and installations that tell a story of wonder and rebirth and a never-before-seen illuminated trail. Crystal Palace Park has hosted a number of festivals over the years, including Wireless and South Facing, as well as live performances from rock legend Jimi Hendrix. Lightopia hopes to bring a touch of festivity to the iconic park. Book your tickets soon, because they won’t stick around, and make sure you bring an extra pair of gloves and a woolly hat – you know what winter in the UK gets like. Thicket Rd, London SE19 2GA Christmas has already landed at Fortnum & Mason. London’s best nightlife this weekend.

Ten years after the singer's death, the soulful, contralto voice of Amy Winehouse still resonates. The Design Museum will be honouring the icon with its Amy: Beyond the Stage exhibition, documenting her songwriting process, personal life and style. The exhibition will also display her personal items including teenage notebooks, photographs, and handwritten lyrics, not only this fans will get a look into her personal style with the singers outfits and fashion accessories being displayed. Metropolis Studios, where part of her 2006 album ‘Back to Black’ was recorded has also been recreated giving fans an immersive insight into the life of Amy Winehouse. Amy Winehouse's family will be working personally with the exhibition curators to ensure it is as factual as possible. ‘Often the portrayal of Amy is focused on the negative aspects of her life, while this exhibition will take visitors through all that she achieved and highlight the incredible mark that she left on the lives of her fans all around the world,’ says close friend Naomi Parry. Amy: Beyond the Stage will open at the Design Museum on November 26th. Book here. 224-238 Kensington High St, London W8 6AG Things to do in London this weekend Amy Winehouse's London: nine places connected to the star