Homes & Gardens UK - 09.2019

MY LONDON

TOP,FROM LEFTThe bakery at St John Restaurant in Smithfield; a selection of salvaged and
FE ATURE reclaimed offerings at Retrouvius; the magnificent Art Deco Senate House in Bloomsbury

PATRICK HAMILTON COURTNEY

PHOTOGRAPH

(ST JOHN RESTAURANT) STEFAN JOHNSON/ALAMY

Polpo restaurateur Russell Norman on the capital’s hotspots

SecretAddress?

Retrouvius in Kensal Green. It’s an

architectural salvage and reclamation

warehouse – an Aladdin’s cave of Art Deco

light fittings, mid-20th-century furniture

and industrial ephemera. I often come away

with a taxi full of objects I didn’t know I

needed until precisely 45 minutes before.

Favourite London building?

Senate House on Malet Street is Charles

Holden’s masterpiece and gets more gorgeous

with each passing year. The interiors are

just as impressive as the Portland stone,

pyramid-like exterior. I spent many long

hours there as a postgrad at UCL in the late

Nineties. It’s an architectural icon.

Culinary spiritual home?

When Richard Beatty and I were plotting

ideas for our first Polpo restaurant, we’d

break at 4pm for tea and a slice of Dijon

mustard tart at Maison Bertaux on Greek

Street. We would chat with Michele and

Tania, the sisters behind the counter, and

hear all the latest Soho gossip. We still meet

there regularly. And I have the Dijon slice.

Interior that inspires?

I’ve always admired Hazlitt’s on Frith Street.

The Georgian features seem barely touched

in 300 years but this is as much art as it is

accident, the architect having worked

sympathetically with the 1718 townhouse.

Favourite autumn hangout?

When the days get that orange crepuscular

glow, I love the walk from Blackheath Village

to Greenwich Observatory. The reward at the

end is the view of the Thames snaking east

and west and every landmark in the city and

the West End looking so clear and so close.

The shops you wouldn’t be without?

Lina Stores on Brewer Street for pasta and

Italian dry goods; Margaret Howell on

Wigmore Street for shirts and jumpers;

Choosing Keeping on Tower Street for

Blackwing 602 pencils and other stationery.

Last supper?

St John Restaurant in Smithfield has been

a constant in my adult culinary life. I’d choose

a rather modest supper of devilled kidneys

and a negroni. That would be all I need.