My favourite London view is from Chelsea Bridge, which I cross when I travel back from Heathrow airport to south London, where I live. It’s an iconic London view and you can see all the familiar landmarks. I travel a lot for work. When I see the bridge, I always heave a big sigh of relief that I’m nearly home.
My favourite work in a London permanent collection is the Kaufmann Office by Frank Lloyd Wright at the V&A Storehouse in east London. It’s a classic piece of 1930s art deco architecture that Wright designed for the Pittsburgh office of department store owner Edgar J Kaufmann. It’s like a slice of Pittsburgh in London.
If I could travel back in time, I’d go to London in the early 2000s. That’s when I arrived in this country, and those were my formative years. London back then was a lot of fun. I was in my early twenties and the city felt really diverse and open to the world, like a global gathering — this was before Brexit.
There was a real sense of building things that were breaking boundaries, and some incredible art shows, like an Artangel commission by Roger Hiorns where he turned a council flat behind Elephant & Castle into blue crystal, and “Africa Remix” at the Hayward Gallery, which was major in terms of bringing artists from Africa and the African diaspora together in London. The nightlife was also really fun. I won’t say which clubs I went to, but I had a lively time.
I would take a collector for lunch at Maison François on Duke Street in Mayfair. They do all the classic French dishes really well, and a raw tuna with lemon verbena with the right amount of zing. I also love the Sessions Arts Club in Farringdon. It’s a gorgeous restaurant co-founded by Jonny Gent, who is himself an artist, in an 18th-century former courthouse with arched windows, high ceilings, worn-out walls and a rooftop terrasse in the summer. They are restaurants I love — that’s why they are also at Frieze London.
I would take an artist for lunch at Toklas, which is under our office at 180 on The Strand. It has a great menu and atmosphere, being right by the Thames in this very simple but beautiful room. The other one is Rochelle Canteen in east London, which has this really gorgeous courtyard garden vibe.
The restaurant I go to just to stare at the art on the walls is Tramps Bar in Islington, which is owned by the gallerist Parinaz Mogadassi and her partner, the painter Peter Doig. It’s located in a room that used to be Doig’s studio near Victoria Miro. It only has a handful of tables and a very unassuming entrance by a McDonald’s. Inside they have gorgeous paintings by Behrang Karimi and by Denzil Forrester and they do DJ sets. Sound is an important part of Doig’s practice as an artist, so it’s important to the space, too.
The best museum gift shop is at Camden Art Centre. It has an amazing selection of books and homewares. It also has limited-edition prints by artists, such as an abstract photograph taken at a scrap metal facility in Italy by Nat Faulkner, who won the CAC Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze in 2024. I also like House of Voltaire, which is the shop at Studio Voltaire in south London.
The best interior in London is the Cosmic House. It’s a piece of postmodern architecture in Holland Park that belonged to the American architectural historian Charles Jencks. It’s very eclectic and there’s a room that’s filled with mirrors. They do amazing work with contemporary artists there too. Another place I love is Leighton House in Holland Park, the home and studio of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton. It’s an incredible example of Victorian design but also inspired by the Arab world. It has this gorgeous hall with a golden dome and tiles in beautiful colours.
The artist that made me understand Britain is Mark Leckey. He’s done a lot of work on subculture, youth culture and urban landscapes. There was a show of his work at Tate Britain a few years ago where he recreated a motorway bridge, setting the entire exhibition within a really bleak urban landscape. There’s something so distinct about how he sees British culture and how he talks about class.
An artist who made me understand London is Steve McQueen. His television series Small Axe is particularly beautiful. It explores the Caribbean experience in London over the course of several decades from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The most underrated museum in London is the Dulwich Picture Gallery. They had a knockout exhibition of paintings by Rachel Jones last year — the first contemporary solo show ever in the neoclassical galleries. Her works are so exuberant and colour-drenched, it was different from anything else I’ve seen in that space. The South London Gallery also deserves a mention — they do incredible work with the wider community and educational projects with young people.
The best gallery café is Café Jikoni at V&A East. I love the restaurant in Marylebone and they’ve done an amazing job bringing it to the V&A. On a sunny day, you can sit there by the water, and it’s truly lovely. We need museums to be places where people also socialise — it’s a crucial part of the experience.
An emerging London gallery that everyone should know about is Ginny on Frederick opposite Smithfield Market, Farringdon. I love many of the artists that they work with, like Alex Margo Arden, who is a wonderful graduate of the RA and won the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize at Frieze last year.
When I’m looking for ideas, I visit student shows. I go to all of them, from the RA and the RCA to Slade and Goldsmiths, in late spring and summer to find out what the younger minds of the art world are thinking about. I also love going to the ICA for its mix of cinema, talks and exhibitions. That juxtaposition of a concert or electronic music with art and performance is really conducive to thinking about what might be interesting in visual arts.
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