Cherries are one of my favourite fruits. As a child I loved picking the ripe, deep-red pearls from my grandparents’ garden as I continued to practice handstands on the same patch of fading green grass.
So when hearing of the new menu at Sake no Hana (part of the Hakkasan group) to celebrate the Japanese cherry blossom season, I was very much looking forward to the experience.
The evening promised a meal under sweet-smelling cherry blossom trees and behind the somewhat ordinary exterior, we were seated in the bar area, which was alight with blossoming pink flowers.
We would be dining from the new Sakura Gozen menu (£32) and to get our evening started, we sipped on the violet risshun two-part cocktail, with its fruity and sour blend that got the juices ready for the main.
It consisted of a carafe with jinzu gin, green chartreuse, grapefruit juice, shiso, burlesque bitters and in a miniature jug which accompanied the gin, there was belsazar rose vermouth, maraschino cherry, cranberry and lemon juice.
Oliver, the charismatic bar manager advised us to start with the jinzu gin before adding the vermouth and the combination stirred both a sweet and sour taste on the palette.
The white miso soup was steaming hot with slithers of spongy tofu and specks of spring onion. It was wholesome, with a hint of garlic and it was a pleasant starter to the evening.
Next, our waitress, Manon bought over the sesame spinach with cassava chips. The spinach was wonderfully slimy and the nutty sprinkle of sesame seeds contrasted with the texture of the wood flavours of the crispy cassava chips.
As it made its way to our table, I couldn’t help but wait in anticipation. The Sakura crystal box was simply beautiful. It consisted of kuro kampachi, salmon, seabream sashimi otoro, chu toro, akami nigiri, spicy tuna, salmon avocado and California maki.
The translation – succulent strips of prime, fresh fish encasing mouth-size nodules of rice, accompanied with strips of ginger and a green ball of hot wasabi.
The raw salmon and sea bream slithered on the tongue and both mine, and my fiancé’s favourite was the spicy tuna slice.
We thought the evening was over, until our waitress bought over the baked Sakura cotton cheesecake with fresh cherries, cream cheese and cherry sorbet (£8).
Just like the crystal box, the cheesecake was alluring with specks of sweet cherries, slices of crunchy pavlova and it was accompanied by the tangy cold taste of the cherry sorbet.
It cleansed the palette while the cherry blossom and vanilla macarons, with cherry blossom tea ganache, (£1.80 each or 5 for £8) was the perfect ending to a fine dining experience in the heart of Mayfair as each bite oozed a rich chocolate flavour in the mouth.
At the end of our meal, Oliver showed us around the Grade II listed restaurant just upstairs which boasts a £6 million renovation project.
Diners enter via a single escalator and as it’s considered bad luck to go back on yourself, the exit is via an escalator which loops around the other end of the restaurant.
I was impressed by the sheer number of customers on a Friday night and by the authentic Japanese decoration that included walls lined with bamboos.
The bar area where we dined was quieter and more intimate than the restaurant and we enjoyed a very fine meal in Mayfair (it’s also very reasonably priced), just around the corner from The Ritz.
By Margaret Graham with news of an exciting offer exclusive to Frost readers.
** A very special offer for Frost readers: sign up for the House Party Creative Writing Retreat in June at this great venue, and save £150. Just email Moira Martingale quoting the code: ‘Frost’. This is a rare opportunity to find time to finish that manuscript or short story in the company of others. A professional will be on hand to help when needed. There will be great food, wine, a swimming pool, sunshine… Read more to find out the where, what and why.
‘So,’ owner Moira Martingale ponders, ‘where did the idea of French House Party come from in the first place?’
One sultry August evening, sitting around the table in Carcassonne with friends, it turned out that all of us had read Yann Martel‘s Booker-winning ‘Life of Pi’ and everyone had a view about it. The book-talk went on for ages, punctuated only by the uncorking of further bottles of the lovely local wines from this region of southern France, which is Languedoc-Roussillon.
We were all arty folk: a successful ceramicist, an early-retired theatre director, teachers, artists and writers, one of the latter being myself. A journalist-turned-author, I also had a teaching qualification and a doctorate in English literature.
Suddenly it dawned on me: why not set up holiday courses for people to come and do precisely what we were doing: discussing books with each other during a holiday in the sun with lovely food and wine laid on.
At that time there were five en suite bedrooms in this 200-year-old farmhouse, so in theory there was room for ten people. My friends were all skilled and enthusiastic artists and within minutes I had my Ceramics, Arts and Creative Writing tutors with a planned Books and Drama course run jointly by myself and my theatre director friend, Chris. It was as easy as that.
Or was it? Marketing? Promotion? Advertising? Annual accounts? Business plans? What did I know about forecasts and profits and losses? I found I knew nothing the moment the website went up. Because NOTHING happened. The enquiries@frenchhouseparty mailbox was empty.
Slowly I learned, and things picked up. My break-even point was five people per course and at six I was in profit, although I was clearly in no danger of being named in the Sunday Times Rich List. Frequently we had three or four people booked onto a course and I still ran it. Ruthless businesswoman I was not.
Eventually I made all the arts courses groups-only, other than Sarah Hymas’s Creative Writing, which was regularly over-subscribed. In 2009 I extended the house to eight bedrooms. Things were cooking, literally, because French House Party offered additional courses which individuals could join – various cookery breaks tutored by first-class French chefs and our Summer Songwriting course run by the respected singer-songwriter and 1970s/80s chart-topper Dean Friedman.
Along with Creative Writing, these remain the most popular, and are effortlessly filled year after year. Other arts courses continue to operate and the demand is, in fact, increasing, but now these are on a groups-only or privately-booked tailor-made basis.
Dedicated writers have an additional option now. Sarah Hymas, who is a professional mentor at her publishing company, is for the first time, offering a Writing Retreat for authors whose work is either complete or in progress. There will be no formal lessons, but individual one-to-one sessions for manuscript inspection, advice, help and ideas-input from someone with a pedigree in such expertise and who is fearless when it comes to sharing it.
This course – ‘Pen & Think’ starts on 15 June and ends on 20 June. The all-inclusive price is £895. As with all our courses, we provide free airport transfers and include extras such as a couple of dinners, including wine, out at lovely restaurants. (See our French house Party offer above)
In the years since that first inspirational nudge from ‘Life of Pi’, French House Party has been named one of the top ten learning retreats in a National Geographic book ‘The 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life’ and we have a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor, reflecting customer satisfaction. This year the Daily Telegraph named us as one of the top ten cookery holidays in France.
You see, it might have taken eight years, but finally I’m starting to sound like a businesswoman, aren’t I?
Imagine this… stepping out of your suite on-board Royal Caribbean’s inaugural sailing of Anthem of the Seas two hours before curtain-up, closing the door and swinging around to be face-to-face with Brian May, snuggling lovingly into the
neck of his partner, Anita Dobson, as they walked along the corridor, only for her to turn and look me straight in the eye and say, in her Eastenders cock-er-ney accent…
“‘ello darlin’, you alright?”
At that point, I knew this performance was going to be special… the cast were playing, tonight, to the Master himself. This company had to nail it.
I sit in the front row, I always sit in the front row, perhaps too close but I need to feel the emotion and the effort put in by the cast. Months of rehearsal, careful application of costume and make-up cannot be wasted on a seat further back in the auditorium… just a general synopsis is not my style, I have to feel a production… cast vs me – game on.
Transferring a production from the West End to a cruise ship is no mean feat, the word ‘logistics’ is holy. Fact one – you’re in the middle of the ocean, if anything ‘kicks off’, evacuation is gradual and there’s nowhere to run. Fact two – the dressing rooms for the cast and the storage for the sets have to be compact and very bijou. Fact Three – your audience is multi-cultural upon each sailing – colloquial ad-libs and audience cognition of dialects and comedic one-liners differs, depending on your demographic. I could punctuate with more ‘facts’, but you get the gist… it’s difficult and this performance had to prove it was possible to bring one of the most successful productions from the West End to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines..
I sat with Brian May’s eyes searing deep into my neck, haunting Mercury tones in my ears, the curtain went up…
We Will Rock You (often abbreviated as WWRY) is a musical based on the songs of Queen with a book by Ben Elton, a storyline set 300 years in the future. The musical tells the story of a group of Bohemians who struggle to restore the free exchange of thought, fashion, and live music in a distant future where everyone dresses, thinks and does the same. Musical instruments and composers are forbidden, and rock music is all but unknown.
Although the musical was at first panned by critics, it has become an audience favourite, becoming the longest-running musical at the Dominion Theatre, celebrating its tenth anniversary on 14 May 2012. The London production closed on 31 May 2014 after a final performance in which Brian May and Roger Taylor both performed.
I have to open with the Royal Caribbean band, they had this sewn up, the cast were in capable hands and nurtured through every track. Impeccable to the point of perfect interpretation of the true heartbeat of Queen, difficult to acclaim highly enough.
Amanda Coutts played Scaramouche, a sarcastic, hard-bitten cynical girl and Galileo’s love interest. A rebel, deeply introverted and complex, a goth teenager, an awkward loner, a misfit. She uses her self-deprecating wit to cover her sensitivity and vulnerability, brittle, hard and bitter, headstrong and stubborn,defensive. Amanda’s Romford-esque delivery enthralled the audience, perfect timing, cutting script, all made sense, making the character charmingly sweet with a vicious edge.
Killer Queen (Allyson Kaye Daniel), the villain, an iconic figure, ruler of the world with an amazing rock/soul voice. She’s camp, sexy, voluptuous, feisty, funny, powerful and power crazy, ruthless, the BOSS. Every man’s dream of an older woman with a strong bi-slant. Allyson carried this character to the extreme, gorgeous and so 80’s-inspired… sexy!
Khashoggi (Preston Hammond), Killer Queen’s second-in-command, the head of Globalsoft’s police and carries out Killer Queen’s dirty work. A smooth operator, ruthless and heartless, attractive, sophisticated, intelligent, sinister, cruel, cold but charming. Preston’s interpretation of this character had me enthralled, secretly my favourite. Enticing with a ‘Las Vegas’ kind of spin. I wanted to know more about this character and doors were left open… very enticing.
‘Pop’ doubles as the Rebel Leader of the Bohemian movement, a rather pompous figure who has made himself an expert on the legend of rock and is perhaps a bit too pleased about it! An elderly librarian trying to figure out the exact date the music died. Bar man, ex-rebel, a hippie stand-up comic, a cross between George Carlin and Robin Williams. Pop is worldly with a natural curiosity and passion for life and music.
I met Kevin Kennedy back in January when he was appearing in Norwich Theatre Royal’s pantomime production of ‘Peter Pan’, playing the evil Captain Hook, and it was during our conversation that he enlightened me of the forthcoming production aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Anthem of the Seas, playing the part of Pop, following his highly successful run at the Dominion Theatre, London.
The words ‘Kevin Kennedy – Family Man’ run through the core of Kevin like a Blackpool stick of rock – his family values are never far away from his thoughts and the household of three giddy females rocks his world. A Mancunian, married to Clare, became infamous as the character ‘Curly Watts’ in ITV’s Coronation Street, falling in and out of skittish catastrophes, including the scatterbrain marriage to Raquel Watts (Sarah Lancashire). Kevin appeared for 20 years in the UK’s longest-running television soap as the UK’s favourite supermarket-worker. Kevin and Claire now live in Brighton with their two beautiful girls, and promoting their alcohol recovery charity Addiction Management UK Limited. As I disembarked, the family were due to join Kevin for a few days, and to say he was excited… an understatement. Life on the floating city makes you value your family and home, Kevin was certainly feeling the draw.
If the costumes didn’t give it away, then the music certainly did. So slash up your pussy bows and consign your neat little A-line skirt right to the back of the wardrobe… the 80’s aggro chic, cod mod, naughty fashion and punk frock – aggro chic, was played out with a vengeance. The costume design of the production thrived on schizophrenic tension and the ‘up yours’ style was the perfect Hyde to ladylike chic’s Jekyll. Inky black ‘goth’ lips, distressed suits and long silver chains, spiky hair and heavy black eyeliner… every street style from punk to goth to mod to rudeboy to biker was plundered with all the enthusiasm of Sid Vicious raiding the minibar at the Chelsea Hotel.
The supporting cast consolidated the production. Every conceivable angle, from the audience’s point of view, was covered. Enthusiasm, professionalism, vocal co-ordination and costume intricacy was accomplished to perfection.
Galileo (Alex DeLeo), a young man, a rebel and the central character. Attractive and sexy, vulneraable, sensitive and doesn’t really fit in, restless, headstrong and stubborn. Tense, living on his nerves, a dreamer. Alex vividly portrayed a young man, a dreamer, on a mission to accomplish something with his life, trying to find the right way to fulfil his dreams. This character required strength but with a thread of vulnerability which Alex completely radiated.
The production, produced by Alex Marchant, directed by Tony Edge with Tim Hammond as Musical Director, under the management of Nick Weir, Vice-President of Entertainment for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, achieved a challenging goal, to put a superior show on the high seas, achieved previously so successfully on the safe ground of blighty, without running adrift with logistical anomalies associated with cruise productions.
And what did Brian think?
He joined the cast on-stage at the end of the performance and was visibly moved … the new production of ‘We Will Rock You’ is in safe hands.
Royal Caribbean Productions creates, produces, and manages the largest premium entertainment operation at sea! From full Broadway musicals, to Las Vegas style production shows, and even ice and aqua spectaculars; no single production company provides more exciting opportunities to both entertainer and audience member. Our core team is always seeking the best talent from around the world as we constantly strive to create inspiring shows, events, and spectaculars onboard Royal Caribbean International and Azamara Club Cruises.
At Royal Caribbean Productions you will find so much more than a gathering place of unparalleled talent, but also a comfortable working environment created specifically to foster new talent alongside seasoned professionals from every background. The production staff consist of award-winning creative professionals from Broadway and West End Theaters, to Broadcast TV and Film, and even Themed Entertainment, they strongly believe that bringing together different points of view and challenging themselves everyday is the only way to consistently create the future of the Cruise Entertainment Industry.
Have you ever read a book where the plot was so dreadful, you couldn’t even bring yourself to finish it? As an avid book consumer, with over 700 books in my e-library, I can definitely say I have.
After reading over 80% of one particular book (which shall remain unnamed) and wishing a sudden explosion would kill off the entire dreary cast; I put the book down, never to be picked up again and decided to see if I could write my own.
The only problem was finding the time. With a small family and a full time job, writing a novel was challenging but, not one to be deterred, I found a solution. Instead of taking a walk, browsing the internet or picking up my latest fiction during my lunch breaks; I opened a word document and began typing, lifting my head occasionally to walk and admire the tranquillity of the countryside. Two years later and after many lunch breaks ignoring my colleagues, I had my first draft.
Proud of my accomplishment, I handed my manuscript to my family for their unbiased opinion but what family member would tell you something you had worked so hard on was terrible? Obviously they wouldn’t and to show their support, my dad entered and won a charity silent auction through the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil on behalf of Words for the Wounded which was for Margaret Graham to critique the first three chapters of my novel. Margaret, who is not only a best-selling author but an editor and tutor, gave knowledgeable and experienced advice and her suggestions were invaluable. I can safely say that that kind of assistance and commendation is priceless and I would recommend every new and hopeful writer finds a professional opinion for their works. With Margaret’s feedback and the mind-set to succeed I re-edited, reworked and pulled in a couple of contacts to get the cover designed. Finally Scarred Soul was complete and just waiting for my courage to put it out there for the world to see.
Deciding to go the route of self-publishing I took the plunge and in January 15 sent my book into the Ethernet and by March, although slow, was seeing my book sell with good feedback from people avidly awaiting the sequel.
And so I would like to thank the unnamed writer. Although your work was not to my taste I will be forever grateful to you for inspiring me to do as you did and put fingers to the keyboard. No matter how my book is received, I am proud of the accomplishment of completing it as I hope you are with yours and, as I plan to do, hope that you continue writing and enjoying the freedom and inspiration writing can give.
Save money in nappies: Nappy comparison site bumdeal.co.uk shows how Kate & Will (and everyone else) can save up to £500 over the first two years of nappy buying!
Shopping around and comparing the price of nappies can save parents a shed load of cash – even the Royals! Across the first two years of a baby’s life, it is estimated that you will use over 4,000 nappies. As some retailers can charge more than double the cheapest price for nappies it is wise to shop around.
The table below shows a breakdown of the cost of nappies across an average first 24 months:
Nappy
Cheapest Price
Most Expensive
Nappies per Day
Months
Total nappies
Min Cost
Max Cost
Difference
Size 1Pampers New Baby
9p/nappyAmazon family
17p/nappyOcado
10
2
600
£54
£102
£48
Size 2Pampers New Baby
11p/nappyTesco
19p/nappyBoots
8
2
480
£52.80
£91.20
£38.40
Size 3Pampers Baby Dry
9p/nappyAmazon family
20p/nappyTesco
6
4
720
£64.80
£144
£79.20
Size 4Pampers Baby Dry
10p/nappyAmazon family
24p/nappyOcado
5
16
2,400
£240
£576
£336
Totals:
4,140
£411.60
£913.20
£501.60
If you bought all of the most expensive nappies, you would spend over £900 across the two years. If you were savvy and bought from the cheapest retailer, you’d spend just shy of £400 – an incredible saving of over £500.
Some of the cheapest prices are via Amazon’s membership programme known as Amazon family. This offers a 20% discount off various nappies when you sign up to its subscribe and save service. A free 30 day trial is available which can be cancelled at any time.
For completeness, excluding the Amazon family programme the total cost of nappies rises by £37.20, but still gives savings of over £460 over the two year period.
BumDeal founder Adam Cable, says “Nappies are amongst the largest expenditure young families face. You can save by shopping around, but it’s not easy to take into consideration all the special offers and promotions. Luckily BumDeal takes away the time-consuming task of finding the best deal and provides results in a clear way. Plus, those with a smartphone can access the comparison on the go, which is great for when you’re already inside a supermarket.”
Frost Magazine and Margaret River’s (WA) Readers’ and Writers’ Festival Poetry Competition, Seasons, has been an absolute pleasure to judge. There has been a plethora of entries of extraordinarily high standard. Our decision, though, was unanimous and we are delighted to announce that Melanie O’Nions is the winner with Magic Winter.
Melanie O’Nions graduated from the University of Sydney in 2009 with a double degree in Education and Arts, before returning to complete a Master of Educational Management. She is a full time English teacher in a Catholic Secondary school in regional New South Wales, and lives with her husband and six young children. She writes often as a way of finding peace and sanctity in everyday life and to be a positive role model to the students that she teaches.
Magic Winter
Even now, after age has gnarled my veins and they have grown knotted,
As my eyes have grown heavy with cataracts and my hair looks like spun grey fairy-floss,
And I can barely remember the great love stories of my past, I can still recall that magic winter.
The frost dripped lazily each morning off the leaves of the fir-trees which lined the streets and our
Breaths smoked O-Rings of inquisitiveness in front of us as we walked to school, our mother’s Hand-Woven gloves soon discarded to eat pungent toffee apples and share a suck of lemon.
It was the winter of my first love, and I can still close my eyes and see him, clear as day
Waiting for me at the mailbox of his gate for me to walk past in the morning and the anticipation
In his eyes as he hungered, not for the tuck-shop sweets, but for me.
Of course it didn’t last. They never do. By the time that Spring was in the air, and the newborn foals
Frolicked by the fields once again, he had forgotten me. The bark we had studiously carved our names into grew over, and the burst of new life meant the death of our love.
Magic Winter stood out from all the wonderful poetry that Frost Magazine and the Margaret River Arts Festival received during the course of its competition.
This evocation of lost love, which warmed a winter many years ago – a magic winter – weaves subtle imagery, gentle pacing and empathetic imagining to create a particular season of youth. One which voyages through winter’s cold, never to be forgotten, though the bark ‘grew over, and the burst of new life meant the death of our love’.
It has such heart, such carefully worked rhythms, and worked at many levels to amply fulfil the brief of ‘Seasons’
Melanie will be sent free tickets for the Festival. Festival director, Helen Allan is looking forward to meeting her.
SEASONS is the theme for the seventh annual Readers and Writers Festival to be held in the beautiful Margaret River wine region in Western Australia over the May long weekend 29-31
Festival director Helen Allan said the annual festival has a huge line-up of famous authors to excite readers of all genres.
“We focus on the environment, nature and the seasons of our lives – the theme `Seasons’ encapsulates all of those things, and Autumn is such a beautiful time in Margaret River, we should celebrate that – when Keats wrote that Autumn was the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ it almost seems like he wrote it for our region.”
Mrs Allan said the festival committee had lined up around 20 authors and the festival would, once again run over three days.
“From Tomorrow When The War Began author John Marsdon to science fiction author Isobelle Carmody, comedian and authors Sami Shah, Justin Heazelwood and Luke Ryan to romance author Fiona Palmer, Michelle de Kretser and food/nature author Sophie Zalokar, we have something for everyone,” she said.
Aretha Franklin sang in ‘Sisters are doing it for themselves’, that behind every great man was a great women. She was right of course, so to celebrate the Blu-ray and DVD release of The Theory of Everything, out 11th May, we took a look at some of the inspirational and influential women that have been the driving force behind their male counterparts.
Jackie Kennedy & JFK
Jackie was the First Lady and wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. JFK was in power from 1960 until his assassination in 1963. Jackie was remembered as one of the most popular First ladies in American history, perhaps due to her skill at entertaining. Jackie proved quite popular among international dignitaries.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
Brad and Angelia didn’t start their relationship in the most admired fashion, Brad was married to America’s sweetheart Jennifer Aniston at the time of meeting Angelina. Angelina Jolie a successful actress and director, stole the heart of Brad on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith. Together they now have 6 children and have recently been married.
Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King
Coretta an activist and a key leader in the Civil Rights Movement in 1960, met Martin Luther King in college. Coretta’s support for her husband and the fight for racial equality continued after Martin’s tragic death in 1968. She honoured Martin’s legacy by founding the King Center and also succeeded in having Martin’s birthday become a National holiday in America.
Victoria Beckham and David Beckham
Victoria rose to fame in 1990 with her all-female pop group The Spice Girls. After meeting popular footballer David Beckham in 1997, Victoria quickly became the driving force in becoming one of the most loved couples and families in the world, originally dubbed Posh & Becks by the media. Both very successful in their own right, Victoria has not only managed her husband’s career she has started paving the path for the careers of her sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz to by securing endorsement deals and becoming successful models.
Kate Middleton and Prince William
Kate Middleton not only captured the heart of the very eligible Prince William, she won over the world with her kind nature and humble background. Kate Middleton has recently given birth to her and Will’s second child, Princess Charlotte.
Beyonce and Jay- Z
Beyonce and rapper Jay-Z started a relationship after collaborating on song, Bonnie & Clyde in 2002. To date the couple have sold over more than 300 million records together. A self-described “modern-day feminist“, Beyoncé writes and performs songs that are often characterized by themes of female sexuality and empowerment.
Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton
Hillary, was the first Lady of United States of America from 1993- 2001 supporting her husband Bill through thick and thin during his Presidency. She has since become the first women senator on the only ever First Lady to have run for public office. Leaving office at the end of Obama’s first term, she authored her fifth book and undertook speaking engagements before announcing her second run for the presidency in April 2015.
Jane Hawking & Stephen Hawking
Jane Wilde Hawking is the first wife of Professor Stephen Hawking. They met at college through mutual friends and later married in 1965, shortly after Stephen was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Jane supported and cared for Stephen during their marriage in dealing with his disease and still remain very close friends. In 2007 Jane wrote her memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, which was then adapted by Anthony McCarten and became the Academy Award winning film The Theory of Everything starring Felicity Jones & Eddie Redmayne.
Frost Magazine, left the sunshine of Heddon Street Food Quarter off Regent Street to step into an environment where the walls, bar, tables and even one’s own personal hand-carved glass is made of the purest ice. Best not to slip one into your handbag as a memento. But absolutely best to go.
So what’s it all about?
ICEBAR LONDON is the UK’s only permanent bar made of ice and is kept at -5°C all year round but if that sounds a bit close to the bone, it isn’t. There are warm cloaks you can wrap around you, whilst you see London’s equivalent of Tom Cruise (in Cocktail), doing his stuff behind the bar to produce perhaps a Lavender Margarita at £8.70 or maybe a Walk in the Green at £9.50.
40 mins is the optimum time allowed in the Icebar, after which you can slip out and warm up in the Lounge Bar, move on to the theatre or club, or try the newly opened Restaurant downstairs offering great cocktails, a light snack or sit-down meal with a wide selection of modern British dishes.
The menu looks interesting: spring lamb belly with Jerusalem artichoke puree, gordal olives, tomatoes and preserved lemon at £18 sounds just the job for warming the cockles.
ICEBAR LONDON, which celebrates it’s 10th anniversary this year, is designed by ice artist Jens Thoms Ivarsson and created by a team of skilled ice designers and sculptors, using fresh ice from the Torne River, Northern Sweden, a source highly regarded for its unique purity. It truly is extraordinarily clear. Within the ice are flowing lines which are artistic features in their own right. I assumed these lines were a reaction to the artists and craftsmen wielding their chainsaws and other glinting tools but no, they are natural contours.
A new theme is created annually, and each new design is built on the tradition of the ground- breaking innovation and style for which ICEBAR LONDON has become famous. This year’s theme is‘Frozen Food’.
Jens Thoms Ivarsson and his team are obsessed with using ice to transform everyday products into something extraordinary. As well as creating this amazing bar and the world’s largest ICEHOTEL, Jens has even worked with ICEHOTEL to create catwalks for Chanel.
Matthieu Bourgogne, General Manager of ICEBAR LONDON says, ‘10 years from first opening its doors and ICEBAR LONDON is now firmly established as a permanently frozen feature on any list of iconic London venues. During this time we’ve created 14 incredible themed bars with the talented team from ICEHOTEL, imported and displayed over 1000 tonnes of beautifully pure ice from the Torne River in Northern Sweden, and welcomed over 1.8 million guests through our doors for a -5 ̊C ice cocktail experience.
Our current Frozen Food theme is one of our most popular ever, with crystal clear cupcakes, frozen fruit sculptures and a full-sized hipster food truck bar all carved from ice, and our newly refurbished restaurant and team of expert mixologists behind the bar means that, whatever the temperature, we’re more than ready to offer a warm welcome to our next 1 million guests.’
Minors are welcome to join during our daytime sessions (last entry at 17:45) accompanied by an adult, after that the age limit is strictly 18 and older. Children five years and over will require a separate ticket. Valid ID may be required. Management reserves the right to refuse entrance if guests are intoxicated or underage.
The nearest underground stations are Piccadilly Circus (on the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines), Oxford Circus (on the Victoria, Central and Bakerloo lines) and Leicester Square (on the Northern and Piccadilly lines). The nearest rail station is Charing Cross.
Cherries are one of my favourite fruits. As a child I loved picking the ripe, deep-red pearls from my grandparents’ garden as I continued to practice handstands on the same patch of fading green grass.
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, out 11th May, we took a look at some of the inspirational and influential women that have been the driving force behind their male counterparts.
