Country Life 1-Feb-2023

BAO LONDON is the latest in a long line of cult capital restaurants to announce that it is releasing a book. This one is simply titled BAO (Phaidon, £29.95) and will be available to purchase from March 2. The small chain, which has three restaurants (in Soho, Borough and King’s Cross) and a noodle shop (in Shoreditch)—quite the climb from humble market stall—is revered for its fluffy bao buns. The book promises to reveal the recipes behind the much-loved sticky-pork-belly buns, broths and noodles, all interspersed with personal stories from the chain’s co-founders. Other restaurants that have spilled their culinary secrets on paper include The River Cafe, with, for its 30th birthday, River Cafe 30 (Ebury, £20), Dishoom, Dishoom: the first ever cookbook from the much-loved Indian restaurant (Bloomsbury, £26) and,…

Wood you believe it THE first images of The Black & White Building, central London’s tallest mass timber office building, have been released. And, if construction stays on track, the 17.8m(58ft)-high, 38,315sq ft development will open as a 506-desk co-working space in Rivington Street, Shoreditch, EC2. The developer, The Office Group, has used a mixture of cross-laminated timber and laminate veneer lumber—both high-performance renewable, recyclable and durable materials—and claim that construction using them has resulted in 37% less carbon than a more typical concrete, iron, steel and cement building of the same size. Curtain up THE first full-scale production to tread the boards at The Southwark Playhouse Elephant when it opens on February 17 will be The Walworth Farce. The new space, part of The Southwark Playhouse, SE1, is a particularly apt venue…

AS dawn broke on September 5, 1866, two clippers raced up the Channel, sea foam dancing against their graceful hulls as the wind filled their sails and pushed them towards London at a jaw-dropping 15 knots. Fierce betting on what The Daily Telegraph called ‘the Derby of all our seaports’—a 16,000-mile contest for the crown of fastest ship to bring home the new season’s tea from China—favoured the mighty Ariel and there she was, the first to reach Deal, in Kent. But tide neither waits nor hurries for anyone: held back by the Thames itself outside the East India Docks, Ariel saw the lighter Taeping sail towards the London Docks and victory. The real winner, however, was London itself: once again, it had asserted its dominance as the world’s greatest…

Wapping, £1.25 million Set in a converted gunpowder warehouse, this 1,450sq ft apartment takes in glorious views of the Thames from its floor-to-ceiling windows. The living area is open plan and one of the two bedrooms has a concealed work-from-home area. Knight Frank (020–7480 4475; www.knightfrank.com) Greenwich, £3 million Built in 1791, this Grade II-listed townhouse has it all: more than 3,000sq ft of accommodation, original features and Juliet balconies offering views of Greenwich Park, plus a landscaped garden at the rear. Hamptons (020–3151 7294; www.hamptons.co.uk) Greenwich, £2 million This Grade II-listed house close to the Royal Park is perfect for someone in search of a project. With 3,281sq ft of accommodation, six bedrooms and a private garden, it has plenty of potential, but requires complete renovation. JLL (020–3763 4716; https://residential.jll.co.uk)…

Seasonal suggestions Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit at one of London’s many Chinese restaurants. Head to the Saatchi Gallery for the opening of ‘Bob Marley: One Love Experience’, a 10-week multi-sensory exhibition that will explore the singer’s lifestyle, influence and passions (www.saatchigallery.com/exhibition/bob_marley). This year, Chelsea Physic Garden turns 350 and, to celebrate, there’s myriad events taking place throughout 2023, including a compost clinic (February 24) and living-medicine workshop (March 5). The garden’s plant collection boasts a staggering 4,000 useful, medicinal and edible plants (www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/visit/whats-on). Lastly, you have until February 19 to catch the ‘Turner on Tour’ roving exhibition (below) at the National Gallery (www.nationalgallery.org.uk). Here’s looking at London cinema • The Regent Street Cinema, W1, considered to be ‘the birthplace of British cinema’, opened in 1848, originally as a lecture theatre. It…

IF you want to know what life was really like in Roman Londinium, head for the Mithraeum. It’s London’s best surviving Roman temple, buried 23ft underground, near Bank station. More than 14,000 Roman artefacts have been unearthed here since it was first discovered in 1954 during building work. The ground yielded even more treasures when the new Bloomberg headquarters was built on the site in 2017 and the temple was restored. The finds were particularly well preserved because they had been wrapped in mud on the banks of the River Walbrook, a tributary of the Thames that still feeds into the great river. As did the volcanic debris at Pompeii, the river mud kept the artefacts free from decay, so the everyday stuff of Roman life has emerged from the oozing…