Insider: Brigita Stroda
Brigita Stroda is the Director of the Latvian Tourism Bureau in London. Born in Australia, trained as a set designer and worked most of her life in arts management, Brigita has lived in Germany, France and Latvia, and enjoys being a pundit on style, identity and the role of culture in nation branding.
"Now that you have done the "must see" sites in London, its time to move to riskier territory, the wild, wild, East! The wildness is notional as the steady process of gentrification has been going on for 10 years, resulting in a peppery frisson between designer food, cutting edge art and serious ethnic diversity! Arm yourself with a First Thursdays map (available at most East End galleries, which lists all the East End galleries that are open until 9 pm on the first Thursday of every month!) and follow the coloured dots!
I suggest you start with the White Cube Hoxton Square at 48 Hoxton Square, N1 (020 7930 5373; www.whitecube.com). Of all the new cafes at Hoxton Square, try Macondo at 8-9 Hoxton Square, N1 (020 7729 1119; www.macondo.co.uk) where the food on display will equal the artistry you will see during the rest of the day. The next stop is Store at 27 Hoxton Street, N1 (020 7729 8171; www.storegallery.co.uk) featuring emerging stars. The Bedwyr Williams installations I saw were terrific!
Go to Old Street and catch the 55 bus for Leyton outside the Shoreditch Magistrates' Court. It goes along Hackney Road, and when the bus turns left into Cambridge Heath Road, get off at the first stop and walk beside the Regent's canal along Andrews Road. You will come to Regent Studios at 8 Andrews Road, on your right. The Dog and Wardrobe on the ground floor sells quirky collectables (and the new Swedish must-have bicycle baskets!). You will find Jonathan Boast's Pigments and Pixels Gallery 52a, www.jonathanboast.com, MOT, Unit 54, (020 7923 9561; www.motinternational.org), a gallery and project space on the 5th floor, and Transition Gallery at Unit 25a, (020 7254 4202; www.transitiongallery.co.uk) on the second floor.
Leaving Regent Studios, keep walking along Andrews Road and you will reach Broadway Market. The galleries to visit are My Life in Art at nr. 4, Seven Seven, 77 Broadway Market, E8 (07808 166 215; www.sevenseven.org.uk), and Flaca, at 69 Broadway Market, E8 (020 7275 7473; www.flaca.co.uk), but some of the shops like Stella Blunt (with the most helpful staff) are equally good. The Ada Street Gallery at 2a Ada Street is under new management and the keen young artists did a sterling job of soliciting visitors! My favourite shop on Broadway Market is F. Cooke's "Pie and Mash" shop selling jellied eels in décor that hasn't changed in a 100 years - its wild! Eat well at The Dove, or The Cat & Mutton at 76 Broadway Market, E8 (020 7254 5599), which serves good, gastropub fare, or in the street, as the real work lies ahead!
Now, if you are here on a Saturday, the street is a teeming menagerie of mouth watering food (to rival The Borough Market), creations by design graduates and stalls with wares from books to boots! I ate a HUGE sandwich of 5 varieties of fresh mushrooms dripping in butter, followed by tiny handmade Portuguese Natas to rival anything found in Lisabon, and the artichoke and smoked aubergine dip (Arabica Foods, stall v15) is even better than the Florence equivalent!
Walk back to Cambridge Heath Road, cross the canal bridge, and turn left into Vyner Street. This is the East End art supermarket! Start at Alma Enterprises, 1 Vyner Street, E2 (07769 686 826; www.almaenterprises.com), and work your way along, pausing at Lorem Ipsum Gallery 12B Vyner Street, Ibid Projects at number 21 (020 8983 4355; www.ibidprojects.com), VINEspace at 25A Vyner Street, Nettie Horn at 25B Vyner Street, O Art at 30 Vyner Street. Number 45 is home to three galleries - Fred (020 8981 2987; www.fred-london.com), David Risley Gallery (020 8980 2202; www.davidrisleygallery.com), and One in the Other (020 8983 6240; www.oneintheother.com) looks directly over Regent's Canal. My personal favourite is Wilkinson at 50 -58 Vyner Street.
Bistrotheque at 23-27 Wadeson Street, E2 (020 8983 7900) is the place for a little rest. Now turn into Mowlem Street and carry straight on until you reach Bishop's Way. Turn left and take the first right, Russia Lane, then first left on to Robinson Road. At the end of the road on your right you'll see The Approach Tavern. The Approach Gallery at 47 Approach Road, E2 (020 8983 3878; www.theapproach.co.uk) is on the first floor. The bar downstairs is also an ideal place to take an afternoon break. Go back to Cambridge Heath Road, turn left and walk all the way to Three Colts Lane, where Between Bridges at 223 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 (www.betweenbridges.net) is run by Turner Prize-winner Wolfgang Tillmans, who I'm told has established a reputation for championing the unknown and overlooked.
Keep going and turn right into Three Colts Lane, then right again into Herald Street for the Herald Street Gallery at 2 Herald Street, E2 (020 7168 2566; www.heraldst.com), a relatively new space showing video artists like Oliver Payne and Nick Relph and a bookshop that feels like its been there for a decade! Further along, on the left, you'll find Maureen Paley at 21 Herald Street, E2 (020 7729 4112; www.maureenpaley.com).
This is where I ran out of steam before my last planned stop as it was too far to walk - the Tea Building - home to Hales at 7 Bethnal Green Road, E1 (020 7033 1938; www.halesgallery.com), where Adam Dant and Tomoko Takahashi frequently exhibit.
Annual arts events to look out for are - ARTfutures at Bloomberg SPACE (www.bloombergspace.com) in March (6 - 12 / 2008), and the Frieze (www.friezeartfair.com) and Zoo (www.zooartfair.com) shows in October.
If however, you are in this area on a Sunday, you are well placed to go to the Columbia Road Market. A flower market that draws stock brokers and celebrities pushing angelic children in prams through the crowds bearing armloads of fabulous flowers, it's the place where warehouse porcelain and designer decor somehow juggle an existence with the local residents from the council flats. If you miss Sunday, there is enough to enjoy any day, from the stainless steel bed maker, to the beautiful collection of vintage cuff links.
The East End is the place for hanging out in pubs. In addition to those mentioned above, I can also recommend The Talbot, on Englefield and Mortimer Roads at the De Beauvoir Square end, where the Saturday street market on Kingsland Road is a little more low key, featuring bicycles for ₤10 and a piano for ₤ 75!
At the southern end of Hackney, heading towards The Old Spitalfields Market and The Whitechapel Gallery (www.whitechapel.org), visit Fergus Henderson's St John Bread and Wine at 94-96 Commercial Street, E1 (020 7251 0848; www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk) and The Golden Heart pub at 110 Commercial Street, E1 (020 7247 2158).
If East for you is Islington, then think again. I walked from Angel to Highbury & Islington stations along Upper Street and in the space of 2 years since my last visit, the lovely creative boutiques had been replaced by at least 15 real estate agents! Only The Kings Head, The Almeida and Labour of Love at 193 Upper Street seem to have kept the spirit alive!
Hotels? The latest arrival (or rather, revival) in the East (covieniently situated at the Liverpool Street station transport hub) is the Andaz (www.andaz.com) who calls itself "casual luxury". The rates are definitely on the luxury end of the scale. If however, you are after a designer hotel on a casual budget, I would recommend wK - West (www.k-west.co.uk), but its at the extreme West end of London!"
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