Dean Edmonds is a man obsessed with tradition, preservation, utility, and, perhaps more than anything else – ritual. With his life and business partner Natsumi Sashida, whom he happily spends most of every day, Edmonds runs his eponymous furniture and product design brand, known for its idiosyncratic industrial metal work as well as more classical…
Cem K Altinsoy is not your typical baker. About 15 years ago, just as he was graduating with a degree in mathematics from Imperial College, Altinsoy had the London 2012 Olympics in his sights. “I was very much all about Olympic weightlifting,” he says. “Then I got badly injured.” After the global recession in the…
The journey of Mitshel Ibrahim’s Ombra – a small Italian trattoria on the corner of Vyner Street in east London – is unique, a restaurant which in 2023 is defined by its extraordinary dynamism and adaptability through the COVID-19 pandemic. Before March 2020, Ibrahim ran a successful neighbourhood Italian restaurant, whose most notable moment had come after…
During the course of the last three years, Adejoké – Joké – Bakare has emerged as one of London’s most important chefs. Her restaurant brand Chishuru, which came to life in Brixton Market in 2021, after the chef won a competition, has helped to deepen the city’s understand of Nigerian cuisine, specifically, and West African culinary culture…
Missy Flynn is the co-founder of London restaurant Rita’s – a brand which began life in residency at iconic Dalston nightclub Birthdays in the early 2010s, evolved to its first permanent premises on Mare Street in Hackney by late 2013, before moving through various iterations and evolutions, including as a sandwich shop in King’s Cross, and a…
There was a time, around seven or eight years ago, when I agreed with the old adage that pizza is like sex: that even when it’s bad, it is good. I’ve since matured and in my maturity, I’ve become a little more picky. My wife, as it happens, “doesn’t like pizza.” But for me, the…
Jonathan Alphandery is the wine-collector-turned-restaurateur behind lauded Modern European restaurant Planque which he opened with chef Seb Myers in Haggerston, east London in 2021. Alphandery was born and raised in Paris. In 2009, he moved to Sydney to be with an ex-girlfriend, who was studying in his hometown. “Pretty classic,” he says. For the majority…
The co-founder of cult favourite London restaurant Koya, Shuko Oda is one of the city’s most respected Japanese chefs. Since 2010, Oda’s cooking has always combined traditional Japanese culinary principles, British ingredients and Modern European flourishes with unique ability and style. Oda was born in Beckenham to Japanese parents and moved to Tokyo at the age…