1 | Get Ahead Of Trends: Black Roe
Note to self: poke (pronounced poke-ay) is the next big food trend that you need to know about. It is a Hawaiian raw fish salad – essentially, chopped up sashimi with a tad more flavour, served in a neat bowl atop a little mound of rice. New to Mayfair, this is Black Roe's speciality.
Go for their simple ahi poke, which comes with in a soy marinade and is daintily moreish. Mains are unfailingly light, but you will definitely be full by the end. You can't go too far wrong in your choices, but particularly worth a try are the chargrilled Cajun sea bass fillet, freshened by a delightful pineapple salsa, and the dark, charred, slightly smoky lamb rack that makes your taste buds do a little dance of joy (pictured). Puddings, weirdly, don't seem terribly Hawaiian, but that doesn't stop the apple tart Tatin being one of the finest things you'll taste in London.
4 Mill Street, London, W1S 2AX; blackroe.com
2 | Try New Wines: RAW Wine Fair Pop-Up
Biodynamic wines are ever so gradually merging into the mainstream and, rather than turning your nose up, get ready for May's Raw Wine Fair with an exclusive pop-up bar at The London EDITION hotel, put on by the festival's organizer, Isabelle Legeron.
The only female Master of Wine in France, Legeron is on a mission to get us drinking natural, organic, and biodynamic wines, dragging more than 150 of the best artisinal growers to London on 15-16th May. But first, she has teamed up with New York sommelier Severine Perru to provide a sampler in a pop-up basement bar at this swanky central hotel. A list of bar snacks are on offer (cheese, meats, scotch eggs and so forth) along with more than 200 wines all priced generously to allow people to peruse the list more easily.
Until 16th May, 5pm onwardsBasement at The London EDITION, 10 Berners Street, London, W1T 3NP;editionhotels.com/London; rawwine.com
3 | Dine Up High: Boundary Rooftop
If you'd rather not spend a sunny weekend in a basement, then get yourself up high at Boundary Rooftop in Shoreditch. The terrace has just taken on its summer incarnation, serving a Mediterranean menu teeming with fresh and lively flavours in the form of sweet tomatoes, burrata, buttery asparagus, ratatouille and so on. There are loads of sharing plates if you're just looking for something low key, or else plump for one of the mains that will trick you into a Riviera mindset, like the great big pile of chargrilled chicken skewers served with tzatziki, or the lemony tuna steak ideal alongside the green leaf salad. There are some rather glorious-looking lobsters on offer too. Start off with one of the special G&T cups, which are – the barstaff tell us gleefully, nice and strong.
2-4 Boundary Street, London, E2 7DD; boundary.london
4 | Drink Champagne In Deck Chairs: The Waterside Terrace, Rotunda
Up at Kings Place, next to the canal and just a minute down the road from the busy queues at every Granary Square restaurant, is the Rotunda bar and restaurant. It sits amid the impressive glassines of the surrounding building, and the terrace sticks out into a peaceful sort of marina. For the summer months, this has been turned into The Waterside Garden, with grass and deck chairs, wheelbarrows of beer, a floral walkway and absolutely plenty of Perrier-Jouët champagne. Try their take on a Negroni, which switches the gin for fizz to make for a slightly more refreshing (and even more easy to drink) beverage. There is both an à la carte menu and a more informal set of 'bites and nibbles', so whether you go for fancy caviar, or the pork sausages, this is a great place to bask in the sun.
12pm – 10pmKings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG; rotundabarandrestaurant.co.uk
