Insider: Keita
Keita is a Latvian fashion designer; a graduate of St Martin's College of Art and Design, she recently founded 030470, her own brand, and has been living in London for ten years. Keita has just discovered Verde (40 Brushfield Street E1), a new café with only two tables. It's just opposite Spitalfields Market at Liverpool Street Station. "The last time I was there, one of the tiny tables was proudly displaying a huge orchid. The tables are really small: 40 x 70 cm. It's nice to sit there - noses almost touching - and feast on all sorts of treats. There is also a little shop where you can buy various edible and non-edible things, just to pamper yourself a bit - for instance, one of the best chocolates in the world, Marcolini (www.marcolini.be). I like that it's just like real life there: the service is not really perfect and they do run out of things.
Rivington Grill (28-30, Rivington Street) is also quite unlike all the rest of London restaurants with its complete indifference to appearances. There's no décor to speak of, the interior has been created with minimal effort - the focus is on the food, and it is truly fantastic. I'm not sure why but lately I seem to like this concept of interior design a lot - I like being in a room that doesn't make an issue of its own expensiveness or stuffiness. And, although Rivington Grill is not located in the city centre or any other posh part of the city, the cuisine makes it worthwhile to look this place up.
The Start fashion shop is a two minute walk from Rivington Grill; they sell natural cosmetic products among many other things: all sorts of creams and oils."
The list of Keita's favourite fashion shops includes Concrete (35 A Marshall Street, Soho) which stocks slightly off-the-wall women's and men's fashion collections by English designers. Margiela Shop (Burton Place, Mayfair), a store owned by the famous Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela, has been set up in converted stables. It is absolutely white. "Such convincingly conceptual and original shops are few, besides it's quite possible to find clothes there that are very much wearable." And then, of course, there's Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo's Dover Street Market (17-18 Dover Street, Mayfair) with the lovely view on London's rooftops from the top floor café.
A unique place for some shopping of the gastronomic sort is the Neals Yard Dairy cheese shop (17 Shorts Garden WC2). "It's all local produce. Giant mould-covered blocks of cheese, the whole place cold as a huge fridge, shop assistants wearing big caps and gloves - a total sense of existing out of time and space. And what a temptation of tastes and smells!"
The Ice Bar (29-33 Heddon Street, Mayfair), opened a year ago, is quite an experience as well. Everything is made of ice there, including glasses, and all guests are given special thermal capes at the entrance. Keita also likes Roller Disco (www.rollerdisco.com) at the Kings Cross Station; everyone wears roller skates there. There are three rooms, and different music is played in each one.
The best way of keeping up with events and happenings in London, places worth checking out and places best avoided, is visiting www.urbanpath.com, an Internet portal that offers a review of London's greatest hangouts; everyone is welcome to contribute their suggestions and opinions.
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