Marylebone Journal issue 109

MARYLEBONE JOURNAL P.46 KATIA BARROS OF FARM RIO ON CAPTURING THE COLOURS AND DIVERSITY OF BRAZIL

P.14 HAIRSTYLIST LARRY KING ON COMMUNITY, FAMILY AND HIS NAN’S BLOW DRIES P.24 DEEP CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS AT VERANDA BOOKS

ISSUE NO.109 BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE HOWARD DE WALDEN ESTATE AND THE PORTMAN ESTATE

TIME TO LIVE LATER LIFE TO THE FULL.

Your own beautiful apartment. Your own front door. Your own pick of a wide range of activities, clubs and interest groups – all you need to make later life, the time of your life.

Luxury independent living in Marylebone for over 65s, with your wellbeing at its heart. Search Wallacea Living.

Cover: Katia Barros of FARM Rio,

by Leandro Fonseca

MARYLEBONE JOURNAL ISSUE NO.109 BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE HOWARD DE WALDEN ESTATE AND THE PORTMAN ESTATE Published April 2025

Marylebone Journal marylebonejournal.com Marylebone Village marylebonevillage.com Instagram: @marylebonevillage Twitter: @MaryleboneVllge Portman Marylebone portmanmarylebone.com Instagram: @portmanmarylebone Publisher LSC Publishing lscpublishing.com Editor Mark Riddaway mark@lscpublishing.com Advertising sales Donna Earrey 020 7401 2772 donna@lscpublishing.com Contributors Jean-Paul Aubin-Parvu Ellie Costigan Clare Finney Orlando Gili Viel Richardson Design and art direction Em-Project Limited mike@em-project.com Owned and supported by The Howard de Walden Estate 23 Queen Anne Street, W1G 9DL 020 7580 3163 hdwe.co.uk annette.shiel@hdwe.co.uk The Portman Estate 4th Floor, One Great Cumberland Place, W1H 7AL 020 7563 1400 portmanestate.co.uk rebecca.eckles@portmanestate.co.uk

3 HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

36 A CLOSER LOOK

8 Q&A: EDGAR LAGUINIA

36 Q&A: LUKE AHEARNE

Events, exhibitions, film, music, shopping, talks, theatre and walks

The director of The Brown Collection on pairing Glenn Brown’s works with those of the artists who inspired him

14 IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

The influential hairstylist on his new salon, why community is everything, and how his grandma’s blow dries inspired his product line

24 READING THE ROOM

A visit to Veranda Books, a haven of translated fiction, spontaneous conversation and very personal book recommendations

33 THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS

Charlotte Locks-Moro, director of fundraising at St John’s Hospice

1 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Food, style, home, wellbeing and healthcare

The head chef of Lita on pairing exceptional food with a buzzing atmosphere, and gaining a Michelin star within months of opening

46 Q&A: KATIA BARROS

The founder of FARM Rio on the colours of Brazil, the creative power of collaboration, and the journey from market stall to global brand

56 ANATOMY OF A DESIGN

José Antonio Santos of eba on creating an elegant solution to a perennial kitchen storage problem

CATRIONA WOOD DREAMSCAPES

67 YORK STREET GALLERY 23 April - 6 May 2025 Open 10am - 7pm or by appointment Private View 23 April 6pm 67a York St, Marylebone, London, W1H 1QB www.67yorkstreetgallery.com www.catrionawood.co.uk

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE EVENTS EXHIBITIONS FILM MUSIC SHOPPING TALKS THEATRE WALKS 1. Wigmore Soloists, Wigmore Hall 2. T he Silent Dress by Lo Cheuk Yiu, Pareidolia, Mandy Zhang Art

1.

EXHIBITION UNTIL 17 APRIL PAREIDOLIA Mandy Zhang Art 16 Seymour Place, W1H 7NG mandyzhang.art This group show, featuring works by Margarita Galandina, Lo Cheuk Yiu and Mengmeng Zhang, presents a diverse series of paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs, all of which respond in their own way to the artists’ personal experiences of migration and memory.

MUSIC

Wigmore Soloists, a flexible ensemble led by Michael Collins, unlocks the devilish drama of The Soldier’s Tale, Stravinsky’s groundbreaking theatrical work of 1918, a cautionary parable about the dangers of selling one’s soul for the promise of untold riches.

21 APRIL, 7.30pm WIGMORE SOLOISTS: CASELLA, PROKOFIEV & STRAVINSKY Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

EVENT 19 APRIL, 11am – 4pm 108 EASTER EGG HUNT 108 Brasserie 108 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2QE 108brasserie.com 108 Brasserie’s Easter Egg Hunt challenges participants to seek out 108 eggs hidden in Marylebone’s shops, streets and green spaces. Each egg unlocks a prize, including a night in The Marylebone Hotel’s Terrace Suite. Tickets cost £5, with proceeds going to the Elephant Family charity.

3 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

EXHIBITION UNTIL 21 APRIL MARINA ABRAMOVIC: HEALING FREQUENCY Moco London 1-4 Marble Arch, W1H 7EJ mocomuseum.com

2.

Moco London’s first temporary exhibition brings together 12 works from Marina Abramovic’s long-running series Transitory Objects for Human. Chairs, beds and benches adorned with the artist’s signature crystals invite public interaction.

THEATRE 24 – 26 APRIL THE TEMPEST: THIS ISLAND The Cockpit Gateforth Street, NW8 8EH thecockpit.org.uk Brave Mirror, a theatre and production company that helps emerging creatives develop their craft, presents a brand-new adaptation of Shakespeare’s final masterpiece, developed collaboratively, in part via workshops with students and young people.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

1. Untitled #207, 1998

by Richard Caldicott, Atlas Gallery 2. Apartment House, Wigmore Hall 3. La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall 4. T he Big Egg Hunt 5. Citrus Season by Catriona Wood, 67 York Street Gallery

1.

EXHIBITION

PUBLIC ART

This year, The Portman Estate and The Howard de Walden Estate are participating in The Big Egg Hunt, an event run by the Elephant Family charity. Over 100 large‑scale egg sculptures created by some of the country’s foremost artists and designers are being scattered around London, including several in Marylebone.

Use the free app to follow the trail of artworks and win amazing prizes along the way.

24 MARCH – 27 APRIL THE BIG EGG HUNT elephant-family.org

Featuring well-known pieces and dynamic new work, this exhibition surveys the photographic art of Richard Caldicott, who achieved recognition in the 1990s for his highly abstracted, heavily manipulated images of household products.

UNTIL 26 APRIL RICHARD CALDICOTT:TABLE OF CONTENTS Atlas Gallery 49 Dorset Street, W1U 7NF atlasgallery.com MUSIC 26 APRIL, 1pm BOB CHILCOTT: COME AND SING St Marylebone Parish Church 17 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LT stmarylebone.org

MUSIC 28 APRIL, 7.30pm APARTMENT HOUSE: 30TH ANNIVERSARY Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

MUSIC 29 APRIL, 7.30pm LA SERENISSIMA: LA ROSSA Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

Bob Chilcott, one of Britain’s leading choral composers and conductors, leads a workshop for keen amateur singers: an afternoon learning some of his music, followed by a 4pm performance for friends and family alongside professional soloists.

Apartment House, a shapeshifting London-based ensemble synonymous with experimental and contemporary music, celebrates 30 years of performances with a programme of minimalist works by Philip Glass and Erik Satie.

La Serenissima brings the energy and brio of the Italian Baroque artform to life with a scintillating programme for two trumpets and strings, featuring Torelli’s music for trumpet, some evergreen Vivaldi and a Bononcini showstopper.

4 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

2.

3.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

4.

5.

5 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

MUSIC 29 APRIL – 2 MAY MUSIC BY NUMBERS Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT ram.ac.uk

THEATRE 1 – 3 MAY, 7.30pm POETRY PLAYS The Cockpit Gateforth Street, NW8 8EH thecockpit.org.uk

EXHIBITION 24 APRIL – 5 MAY CATRIONA WOOD 67 York Street Gallery 67a York Street, W1H 1QB 67yorkstreetgallery.com

The Academy composition department presents a four-day festival inspired by the fascinating, complex and playful relationships between numbers and music. Improvisation and virtuosity converge through a wide range of experimental new pieces.

Presented by The Pomegranate London, a biannual art and literature magazine, this three-day festival returns to The Cockpit for a second year, bringing together original, interdisciplinary shows all of which feature or are inspired by poetry.

Catriona Wood is a Londonbased contemporary artist who draws her inspiration from the natural world. This collection of her latest works, including new paintings fresh from the studio, depicts seas, oceans, flowers and foliage in an energetic, playful and often impressionistic style.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

1. Brick House, Difficult Sites, RIBA 2. T he Burning Fiery Furnace, Royal Academy of Music 3. Angela Hewitt, Trasimeno Music Festival concert, Wigmore Hall 4. Untitled (Morphological), 2014

by Tunga, Lisson Gallery 5. Pyramids, an Alexander Calder tapestry, Gallery of Everything

OPERA 14 & 16 MAY, 7pm ROYAL ACADEMY OPERA: THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT ram.ac.uk Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into a fiery furnace by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship his golden idol. Can they withstand the flames?

Academy opera students perform Britten’s Parable for Church Performance.

EXHIBITION 4 APRIL – 17 MAY OLIVER LEE JACKSON: INTIMACIES Lisson Gallery 27 Bell Street, NW1 5BY lissongallery.com

1.

EXHIBITION

Architects often produce their finest work when confronted with the challenge of designing for a difficult site. This free exhibition explores remarkable feats of architectural achievement in the face of tricky terrain, awkward urban plots and other challenging briefs, from the 1900s to today.

UNTIL 31 MAY DIFFICULT SITES RIBA 66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD architecture.com

6 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

For his first ever solo show in London, Californian artist Oliver Lee Jackson presents new paintings produced over the past year, notable for the energetic fields of abstract marks that occasionally coalesce into floating forms approaching figuration.

EXHIBITION UNTIL 18 MAY MADE IN GUATEMALA Gallery of Everything 4 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PS gallevery.com This exhibition brings together a series of stunning maguey tapestries, fabricated by Guatemalan craftspeople in the 1970s from designs by the American artist Alexander Calder, whose signature loops and swirls were transformed into hand-dyed, curled and braided fibres.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

PERFORMANCE 29 MAY THE RING The Hellenic Centre 16-18 Paddington Street, W1U 5AS helleniccentre.org

2.

5.

Performance storyteller Anna Conomos-Wedlock presents her new work, The Ring – a tale of bravery, sacrifice and the unbreakable spirit of a child messenger who risked everything for freedom during the Cretan Resistance against Nazi forces.

MUSIC 20 MAY, 7.30pm TRASIMENO MUSIC FESTIVAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk Founded in Perugia by pianist Angela Hewitt, the Trasimeno Music Festival brings together like-minded artists every summer for a week-long banquet of chamber concerts and solo recitals. This 20th anniversary celebration offers a taste of its compelling programming.

3.

4.

MUSIC 29 MAY, 6pm WIGMORE SESSIONS: GABRIEL ADÉDÈJÌ Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

EXHIBITION

Wigmore Sessions, which offer a platform for early career musicians, are informal, intimate performances. Acclaimed Nigerian composer and pianist Gabriel Adédèjì draws inspiration from the rich heritage of Yorùbá folklore.

7 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

The work of multidisciplinary artist Tunga, one of the most important Brazilian artists of his generation, appears at Lisson Gallery for the first time: 10 precisely constructed sculptures from 2004-2014, the late stages of his evolution as an artist before his death in 2016.

4 APRIL – 17 MAY TUNGA Lisson Gallery 67 Lisson Street, NW1 5DA lissongallery.com

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

Q&A: EDGAR LAGUINIA

The director of The Brown Collection and husband of the painter and sculptor Glenn Brown on an exhibition that pairs Glenn’s works with those of the artists who inspired him Interview: Mark Riddaway

1.

2.

Q: What will people find in your current exhibition, The Laughing Stock of the Heartless Stars?

A: This is an old term, but Glenn is what you might call an ‘appropriation artist’. That means he takes other people’s work, mixes other artists and other influences into the mix, plays with colour, form, distortion or scale, and then creates something quite extraordinarily different from the starting point, something distinctly his own. The exhibition brings together works that we’ve collected that have informed Glenn’s own, plus some of Glenn’s paintings and sculptures in culmination, juxtaposing the things that have been made with the things that directly inspired them. There are about 60 works in total, 14 of which are Glenn’s.

The others cover 500 years of history, from earlier etchings to contemporary works by artists like Phoebe Cummings.

8 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Q: How is the exhibition organised?

A: We wanted to set it out in a way that’s accessible to lots of people and addresses what they already know of art. So, you get a basement of sculptures, a ground floor for still life, a first floor of portraits, and a second floor of landscapes. Within those very generic categories of art, you can see the subtleties of our curation. Still life is about beauty, but also putridness and the smell of decay. Portraiture can be happy or sad, or mysterious and abstract.

The landscapes explore the world as we know it, but also the otherworldly fantasies of artists.

We want to make it easy for people to come in, but at the same time we’re challenging their idea of what these simple categories mean.

Q: Are there any common threads that run through the different works that inspire Glenn?

A: I’m a graphic designer and product designer, so to me it’s always

3.

4.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

important how attractive things are.

But in Glenn’s mind, good artists try to find a bit of imbalance, a bit of grotesqueness. If you stay solely on the beautiful, it all becomes rather easy. This is the duality of his work: the push and the pull, the attractiveness and the repellency.

He loves art that has that. There are also particular works he openly rejects – things created from what he calls “the hand of God”, where an artist has let colours flow in their own gravity. He wants the artist to have full control. He wants to see a very definite intentionality of line and colour and composition.

Q: Is he drawn to the lives of the artists and their place in art history as well as to their work?

A: Absolutely. He likes discovering artists that aren’t so popular – he gets obsessed with them and won’t let go. His current obsession is Stanley William Hayter, a British artist who Glenn admires, especially for his print making.

Hayter went to America, where it’s estimated that about 200 American artists made their prints in his shop, with him guiding them through the production. Sadly, he didn’t have a great archive, so we don’t know who all these artists were. Glenn’s researching his work and who he influenced, and we’re going to buy more prints – but that’s all for the future.

Q: Glenn is also known for appropriating the titles of his works from other sources.

Where did the exhibition’s name come from?

A: From Marcel Duchamp quoting a poet, as Glenn remembers it.

Duchamp had a hard time finding the name of the poet who he quoted, and now Glenn is having a hard time finding where he found the quotation about Marcel Duchamp.

So, it’s probably not exactly as it was written, but Glenn likes that! It’s also the title of one of the works on the 9 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

first floor: a painting of two faces, based on Tiepolo. At the time he made it, the world was going through chaos – we didn’t think it could get any worse, but it somehow has! That quote suddenly jumped out at him.

We want the world to be predictable and beautiful, but it isn’t, because there’s a darkness in destiny that muddles things and makes them complicated for us.

Q: You’ve started running events at the gallery. Tell us about that.

A: We always wanted to have some form of outreach – a way of inviting people in. We now have a life drawing class every month. We’ve had two already, and they were so successful that we might have to run them over two floors to have enough space. We’re also putting on talks and discussions. We showed the Gillian Wearing film, and we had a great discussion afterwards about it. We have an artist, Philip Ackermann, coming from the Netherlands to talk about his work.

There’s lots in the pipeline.

Q: You’re clearly people who see value in conversations about art.

A: A lot of artists and curators shy away from discussions about the meaning of an artwork. We don’t.

These are just our impressions, it’s not a full truth, but we think it’s good to explore what an artist intended.

Art is there for a discussion. When we have time, we often bring visitors around the gallery, show them the works and discuss what they’ve seen.

What does it mean? What does it look like? How does it make you feel?

It’s quite intensive. Some people are initially sceptical of the intimacy we provide, but by the end of it, I think they’re amazed that they’ve experienced something new.

UNTIL 2 AUGUST THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE HEARTLESS STARS The Brown Collection 1 Bentinck Mews, W1U 2AF glenn-brown.co.uk

1. The Brown Collection 2. The Brown Collection 3. E dgar Laguinia leading a tour of The Brown Collection 4. A life drawing class at The Brown Collection 5. D ido & Aeneas, The Cockpit

5.

THEATRE 30 APRIL – 31 MAY FAYGELE Marylebone Theatre 35 Park Road, NW1 6XT marylebonetheatre.com At the age of 13, at his Bar Mitzvah celebration, Ari Freed’s father strikes him down with a single word: ‘faygele’, a Yiddish slang word for a homosexual man.

Shimmy Braun’s new play, directed by Will Nunziata, explores the devastating aftermath of this moment.

OPERA 30 – 31 MAY DIDO & AENEAS | ACIS & GALATEA The Cockpit Gateforth Street, NW8 8EH thecockpit.org.uk Ensemble OrQuesta presents a double bill of Baroque opera, featuring an adaptation of Marcio da Silva’s 2016 minimalist interpretation of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas and his similarly intimate 2018 production of Handel’s Acis & Galatea.

>

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

MUSIC 5 JUNE, 7.30pm FRETWORK: GIBBONS & NICO MUHLY Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

MUSIC 7 JUNE THE MUSIC OF ASIA MINOR The Hellenic Centre 16-18 Paddington Street, W1U 5AS helleniccentre.org

MUSIC 7 JUNE, 5pm BACH BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS St Marylebone Parish Church 17 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LT stmarylebone.org

The Fretwork viol consort celebrates the inventive genius of Orlando Gibbons, who died on this day 400 years ago, supported by soprano Anna Dennis, alto Alexander Chance, tenors Simon Wall and Samuel Boden and bass Jimmy Holliday.

In this year’s Rebetiko Carnival, violinist Kyriakos Gouventas and a group of brilliant musicians present the works of Dimitris Semsis (Salonikios) and Ioannis Dragatsis (Ogdontakis), masters of the early rebetiko music of Asia Minor.

Performed on period instruments by some of the UK’s most exciting early music performers, this is a rare chance to hear three of Bach’s iconic Brandenburg Concertos, together with sumptuous works by Muffat and Lalande.

1.

10 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

2.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

MUSIC 11 – 13 JUNE SUMMER PIANO FESTIVAL Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT ram.ac.uk

3.

5.

1. The Messengers

by Morag Muir, Thompson’s Gallery 2. Fretwork, Wigmore Hall 3. Wedding, 2006 by Tomoko Yoneda, courtesy the artist and ShugoArts, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation 4. Mixed Roses by Mhairi McGregor, Thompson’s Gallery 5. Nine, Royal Academy of Music

The 11th annual Summer Piano Festival, curated by Joanna MacGregor and performed by the Academy’s piano students, includes Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, the second edition of Schumann’s complete piano music, film music improvisation and multimedia.

MUSICAL THEATRE 10 MAY – 14 JUNE SHUCKED Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park, NW1 4NU openairtheatre.com In Tony Award-winning musical comedy Shucked, the happiness of engaged couple Maizy and Beau is threatened by the sudden death of the corn that protects their small, insular community and the arrival in their lives of a malign actor from the big city.

MUSICAL THEATRE 12 – 15 JUNE ROYAL ACADEMY MUSICAL THEATRE: NINE Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT ram.ac.uk

4.

EXHIBITION

This exhibition brings together two of Scotland’s most accomplished painters: Mhairi McGregor, creator of highly abstracted, contemporary Colourist landscape and still life works, and Morag Muir, whose paintings are often inspired by the characterful environment of her Tayside studio.

21 MAY – 6 JUNE MHAIRI MCGREGOR & MORAG MUIR Thompson’s Gallery 3 Seymour Place, W1H 5AZ thompsonsgallery.co.uk

11 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Postgraduate musical theatre students perform Maury Yeston’s 1982 musical, based on Federico Fellini’s 8½, which tells the story of filmmaker Guido Contini’s grapples with writer’s block, a looming mid‑life crisis and the women who have defined his life.

EXHIBITION UNTIL 16 JUNE TOMOKO YONEDA: FAULTLINES Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation 13/14 Cornwall Terrace, NW1 4QP dajf.org.uk This exhibition of photography

by Tomoko Yoneda includes her series Scene, which revisits sites of historic conflict and trauma, and DMZ, in which she captures the quiet beauty of Korea’s demilitarised zone.

HAPPENINGS IN MARYLEBONE

1. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Dream Ballets: A Triple Bill, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre 2. Edward Gardner, Royal Academy of Music 3. Untitled, from a selection of drawings

by Shirley Smith, 2022-24 by Grayson Perry, courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro, The Wallace Collection

1.

2.

3.

THEATRE

MUSIC 19 – 22 JUNE MARYLEBONE MUSIC FESTIVAL Manchester Square Gardens, W1U 3PL marylebonemusicfestival.com

EXHIBITION 25 APRIL – 24 OCTOBER ROBBIE WILLIAMS: RADICAL HONESTY Moco London 1-4 Marble Arch, W1H 7EJ mocomuseum.com

Set in Manchester Square Gardens and inspired by Marylebone’s rich history as a home of pleasure gardens and musical performance, this annual four-day festival – returning for its 10th year – features an eclectic programme of music.

Musician, performer and borderline national treasure Robbie Williams has been reinventing himself as a visual artist. This solo exhibition brings together new artworks exploring themes of anxiety, self-love and introversion with typical candour and humour.

THEATRE 28 JUNE – 26 JULY NOUGHTS & CROSSES Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park, NW1 4NU openairtheatre.com

EXHIBITION UNTIL 26 OCTOBER GRAYSON PERRY: DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR The Wallace Collection Manchester Square, W1U 3BN wallacecollection.org

Malorie Blackman’s best‑selling novel Noughts & Crosses, a bittersweet love story about life-long friends living on separate sides of a strictly divided world, is adapted for the stage in this brand-new production directed by Tinuke Craig.

For this highly ambitious exhibition, Grayson Perry tells the imagined story of Shirley Smith, a working-class woman who, after a seizure, wakes up believing herself to be the heir to The Wallace Collection and starts to make art based on her visions.

Three of the UK’s leading musical theatre choreographers re-imagine magical dream ballets from a trio of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals – Oklahoma!, Carousel and Allegro – accompanied by the Sinfonia Smith Square orchestra.

19 – 22 JUNE RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S DREAM BALLETS: A TRIPLE BILL Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park, NW1 4NU openairtheatre.com MUSIC 20 JUNE, 7.30pm EDWARD GARDNER CONDUCTS THE ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT ram.ac.uk Edward Gardner, principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, leads a performance of Mark‑Anthony Turnage’s Refugee – extraordinary poetry set to powerful music – alongside Nielsen’s Symphony No 4.

12 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

OPERA 21 – 22 JUNE HANDEL: TESEO The Cockpit Gateforth Street, NW8 8EH thecockpit.org.uk In this new minimalist production, Ensemble OrQuesta performs Handel’s operatic retelling of the story of Athenian hero Teseo (Theseus) and the dramatic consequences of his relationships with a king, a princess and the vengeful sorceress Medea.

AWARD WINNING CLINIC Smart Dental & Aesthetics Marylebone

On offer is an amazing range of services for adults and children including general dentistry, hygienist services, cosmetic dentistry, composite bonding, veneers, implants, orthodontics, invisalign, dermal fillers & anti-wrinkle treatment.

Dr. Shaadi Manouchehri CLINIC FOUNDER

Our clinical director, Dr. Shaadi Manouchehri, has dedicated her career to creating beautiful and healthy transformations for her clients. With her exceptional skills, passion for aesthetics and commitment to excellence, Dr. Manouchehri has become a trusted name in the field of cosmetic dentistry and facial aesthetics.

To find out more, visit our website and book a consultation today and take the first step towards achieving that dream smile. We look forward to welcoming you to our modern state of the art dental and aesthetics clinic in the heart of Marylebone.

Implants - Veneers - Invisalign - Dermal fillers Hollywood facial - Anti wrinkle injections Book your appointment Scan the QR code and get 10% Discount on your first visit.

info@smartdentalclinic.co.uk www.smartdentalclinic.co.uk 81 York St, London W1H 1QH

13 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

+44 7306 887318 +44 2035 762581 @smartdentalandaesthetics

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

IN PROFILE

LARRY KING

The influential hairstylist on his new Marylebone salon, why community is everything, and how his grandma’s glamorous blow dries inspired his product line Words: Viel Richardson

14 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

> 15 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

16 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

I took to it like a duck to water. In no time at all I was living and breathing hair. I knew from very early on that I wanted this to be my life.

17 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

2017 was a big year for mums.

Queen Elizabeth II – the nation’s mother – celebrated her Sapphire Jubilee, marking 65 years on the throne. Stormzy released his debut album Gang Signs & Prayer, the first grime album to reach number one in the UK, with his mum’s own voice providing the prayer that kicks off one of its central tracks.

Jodie Whittaker got to prove that it’s possible to both be a mum and play Doctor Who. And in South Kensington, Larry King opened the doors to his first hair salon – a significant moment in a career that might never have got started without the direct intervention of his mother.

“I wasn’t particularly academic at school and wasn’t much interested in further education.

I had tried a couple of different jobs that had not worked out when my mum suggested I try hairdressing,” Larry explains.

“I was 17 at the time and she helped get me an apprenticeship at Toni & Guy in Cambridge, as she had a friend who worked there.” What he found at the salon changed his life. “It was an instant connection.

I took to it like a duck to water.

I absolutely loved the training, the atmosphere. In no time at all I was living and breathing hair. I knew from very early on that I wanted this to be my life.”

Luckily, it also soon became clear that Larry had a genuine talent for the craft, and his popularity at the Cambridge salon quickly grew as he worked hard honing his skills. One of the things that has set Larry apart from the opposition (hairdressing can be an extremely competitive field!) was his technical prowess. After that first flush of success in Cambridge, he decided it was time to move to London to further his career, still with Toni & Guy but working in a global fashion capital. London offered the young hairstylist a dizzying array of opportunities which he did his best to grasp with both hands. “I just worked really hard, saying yes to every opportunity,” he recalls. “My wife Laura and I had children quite young, and they really gave us the drive to steam ahead. We were doing whatever we needed to in order to give them a better life.”

It was during these years working in different salons around the capital and picking up session work as a freelance stylist that his ideas really began to crystallise. Larry’s approach to hairdressing centred on creating natural, lived-in looks rather than the overly styled or ‘done’ hair that was very popular at the time. He began to champion effortless-looking styles that

>

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

I’ve had so many wonderful experiences in my career but the best thing about what I do is definitely the people.

18 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

> 19 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

enhanced the client’s natural looks and personality. This philosophy – one of enhancing rather than changing – became his signature in an industry that was, and still is, often most excited by dramatic transformations. At its core his is a client-centric philosophy – the stylist has to understand the person before they can even begin to envisage the haircut.

When someone steps into a salon, they’re placing themselves in a vulnerable position, with a great deal of trust in the hands – quite literally – of the hairdresser. For so many people, but especially women, hair is closely tied to a sense of self.

It can determine how we feel about ourselves and the image we’re projecting to the world at large.

A bad or unsuitable haircut can have a crushing impact that goes far beyond not liking the look. For Larry, technical skills are secondary to understanding this responsibility and nurturing the relationships that make it easier to fulfil.

“Our salons are friendly and not intimidating,” he says. “Clients feel welcome. The salons are deliberately designed to be like old-fashioned barber’s shops but moved into a hair salon environment – welcoming places where you turn up and are greeted by familiar faces.” Also hugely important is the camaraderie among the staff. “The fact that 20 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

they’re friends as well as colleagues and engage with each other as such, helps generate that welcoming atmosphere. High-end salons can be really intimidating and we just want everyone to feel at home and like they’re part of a community.”

While launching his own salon in 2017 paid off, it was a real risk, with entry into such a competitive field in no way guaranteed to succeed.

Building the confidence to move from freelancing and into salon ownership was helped hugely when Larry met and became friends with David Gandy, widely regarded as the most successful male model of all time and now creative director of his own fashion brand.

“I had built a real community around me in London, but when I started to work with David on his shoots it really snowballed,” Larry explains. “Through Select Model Management, the agency that represented him, I got asked to do loads of editorial work and my session career really took off.

After a conversation with my wife, who at the time was working as a branding designer, we decided to try working together, as our skills complemented each other.”

The couple managed to raise the necessary investment and took the plunge. The success of the South Kensington salon soon led to

My Nanna’s Mousse was inspired by the big glamorous blow dries I used to give my nan Dolly.

She was amazing, flying around on the back of motorcycles and jumping out of planes.

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

> 21 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

IN PROFILE: LARRY KING

I was asked to join Cara Delevingne and David Yarrow deep in the Namibian desert, shooting in close with a cheetah! That will stay in my heart forever.

another in Notting Hill and now their new and biggest project yet – the site in Marylebone, which opened last year. While it’s Larry’s name above the door, the business is a genuine partnership.

“We run it together,” Larry explains. “Laura has an incredible eye for detail. She does everything from branding to interiors, she designs all the packaging for the products. But she also runs the background of the business with me. We have a team of over 60 and it’s incredibly fast paced. People ask what’s it like working with your wife, but we have very different jobs within the business and really trust each other, so arguments are actually few and far between.”

The success of the business has led to experiences that the 17-year-old Larry could never have dreamed of on his first day at Toni & Guy. “I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career in that it’s taken me all around the world, meeting the most incredible people and being privilege to the most wonderful opportunities,” he says.

“I was recently asked to join Cara Delevingne and David Yarrow deep in the Namibian desert, shooting in close with a cheetah! That was probably one of the most insane places I’ve ever been and will stay in my heart forever.”

22 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

With the salons now well established, Larry and Laura have sought to bring their ethos to a product line. “We wanted to do something a bit different, to create products that really work and make you better at doing your own hair at home,” Larry explains. “Like everything we do, it’s important that our products are not intimidating, but also are beautifully packaged.”

The brand’s natural warmth is projected through product names such as My Nanna’s Mousse, Spoilt For Choice and A Social Life For Your Hair, many of which have their own personal stories to tell.

“My Nanna’s Mousse was inspired by the big glamorous blow dries I used to give my lovely nan Dolly when I was training. She was the most fun, amazing nan, flying around on the back of motorcycles in her seventies and jumping out of planes. She was incredibly fun and glamorous, so we named our mousse after her,” Larry says.

“Liquid Hairbrush was inspired by our youngest daughter, Nancy.

When she was little, she was a real outdoors girl, always climbing trees and running around in the garden.

She’d always come in with crazy knotty hair with bits of tree twig and leaves in it, so it was always a nightmare to brush. We were trying new formulations and when my

wife applied one to Nancy’s hair she literally said: ‘Wow this isn’t conditioner it’s a liquid hairbrush.’

That’s how that was born.”

The sense of being cared for that Nancy will have felt as the bits of twig were being carefully extracted from her thatch is clearly something that Larry wants clients to feel when they sit in a chair at one of his salons. In Marylebone, he’s serving a local community that seems to him to fit perfectly with what he, Laura and their team want to achieve. “Marylebone is such a lovely place. This is our biggest space yet and we’ve worked incredibly hard to make the space feel beautiful, intimate and, most importantly, not intimidating.

We have a bar serving drinks and a photo booth to grab a fun picture with your friends, family or even your dog!” Larry says. “I’ve had so many wonderful experiences in my career but the best thing about what I do is definitely the people.

Every day I’m either meeting someone new or get chatting to friends while I cut their hair and doing my best to make them feel great about themselves. It’s a wonderful way to spend my days.”

LARRY KING 55 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2NT larrykinghair.com

London's boutique nursing home

With 40 years of experience and set adjacent to beautiful Battersea Park, Albert Suites offers bespoke types of care:

Respite

Couples

Residential

Post-operative

Palliative

Albert Suites is also proud to be the first nursing home to offer Aquatic Assisted Rehabilitation in London.

To book a viewing at Albert Suites contact 0207 183 4896 www.albertsuites.co.uk | 73 Albert Bridge Rd, London SW11 4DS

READING THE ROOM

READING A visit to Veranda Books, a haven of translated fiction, spontaneous conversation and very personal book recommendations Words: Mark Riddaway Images: Orlando Gili

24 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

THE ROOM

READING THE ROOM

> 25 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

READING THE ROOM

26 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

READING THE ROOM

About half an hour. That’s how long this should take if handled efficiently. A quick look around the most bijou of bookshops, a tight 20-minute chat with the owners, then back home to a big pile of work that isn’t going to do itself.

Thirty minutes, in and out.

By the time I finally drag myself away, I’m deep into the second hour and a third is ambling jauntily round the corner.

It’s an uncanny thing, the lip‑loosening power of an independent bookshop.

There aren’t many places where Londoners talk willingly to strangers – this isn’t some Lancashire village – but in here, a sunny room staffed by contagiously enthusiastic bibliophiles, it’s hard to keep those usual barriers up.

“There really is something about the conversations a bookshop elicits,” says Leo Lucas, the shop’s co-owner. “I don’t know if it’s because people feel it’s a safe space or because there are all these ideas and thoughts contained within books which somehow seep out, but people come in and sort of bare their souls, don’t they?”

His friend and business partner, Alison Henry, nods vigorously, even though she, like me, clearly has work to be getting on with.

“We’re very open to that,” she says.

“We love talking to our customers.

It’s actually the best thing about this job.”

I never quite get to the soul‑baring stage, but we do spend a long time gassing away about books. We talk about how the novels we read in our youth became anchored in our minds to the time and place we consumed them. We identify the best football autobiography of all time (Tony Cascarino’s, obviously). We debate whether Martin Amis was one of the great novelists (Leo’s view) or a bit of a prick (mine, although I’m open to the idea that he may have been both). Mostly, though, I get hit by a hail of recommendations while a small stack of suggested reads builds up beside me on the window seat.

Those reading tips are how most conversations here start. And they are, in a way, the whole point of Veranda Books. Books are not a scarce or hard-to-find commodity.

Quite the opposite, in fact; the problem comes with parsing the almost infinite possibilities. There are currently about 40 million books available on Amazon (most, but not all, of which weren’t written

by AI). But unlike the digital

world’s dead‑eyed algorithms, a good bookshop will take your hand and guide you through that forest of options. An algorithm knows what you’ve read recently, but it doesn’t know how you’re feeling today. It knows what you liked in the past, but it can’t know the surprising things you’re destined to love in the future. It knows what’s big and popular and of the moment, but it won’t dig deep enough to dredge up any long-lost gems. A small, thoughtfully stocked bookshop run by passionate, knowledgeable people can do all that and more.

“I’m making a number up, but 70 or 80 percent of what we sell is based on serendipity, on that sense of discovery you get from browsing or chatting,” says Leo. “And if you’re a regular reader, or even if you’re not a regular reader, I think the idea of being introduced to something that feels a bit surprising and different is really attractive.”

Here, every available book has been chosen for a reason, either because one of the team loves it or because, knowing their customers, they’re pretty sure that someone else will.

As a result, the stock is essentially a distillation of their own personal pleasures and fascinations. The diversity comes from Alison,

Left to right: Emily Jefferson, Leo Lucas, Alison Henry

There’s something about the conversations a bookshop elicits. I don’t know if it’s because there are all these ideas and thoughts contained within books which somehow seep out, but people come in and bare their souls.

> 27 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

READING THE ROOM

Leo and Emily Jefferson, the shop’s manager, being rapacious readers (“Emily and I have been competitive about how many books we’ve read this year,” says Leo) and each having a distinct set of inclinations. “Sometimes we overlap, but yes, we all have quite specific tastes, I think,” says Alison.

“Emily has quite different tastes to me. Quite dark.” (This is, Emily insists, a result of her life being mercifully free of darkness.)

There are plenty of customers who share Emily’s taste for the bleak and twisted, but most people come in seeking sanctuary from the twisted bleakness of the real world. “I think the world is not in a great place at the moment, and collectively we’re looking for an escape from that,” says Alison. To help (and I love this idea deeply), the non-fiction section downstairs is organised by psychic weight – grim subjects to the left, light and fluffy to the right.

That’s not the shop’s only notable quirk. Other than a few recent releases, the fiction is almost entirely paperback, and even the week’s most popular books are laid out in very small quantities. “Neither of us really likes going into those shops that feel crowded, where everything is piled up,” explains Alison. “We

28 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

wanted it to be clean and inviting, and for that reason we don’t buy in bulk. We don’t have a stack of 30 of the new Sally Rooney – we’ll have a couple, and if they sell, we’ll get a few more.”

Translated fiction – an obsession of both owners and a significant point of difference for the shop – takes up an entire wall. “One of the great things about translated books is that they’re almost self-selecting in terms of quality,” explains Alison. “It’s a huge mission to get a book translated and then sell it into a completely different market, so it will only happen if you’re a prize winner or your book is very well regarded in your own country.

I also love that it transports you to a different place, a different country, a different culture.”

From Seymour Place to Sierra Leone in the turn of a page.

Like the famous bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the story of Veranda Books played out in two ways: gradually and then suddenly. It began in 1996 with two young employees at an advertising agency discussing one of the decade’s era‑defining novels. “Alison and I met almost 30 years ago working at an agency in Paddington,” says Leo. “I was

reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt – still one of my alltime favourites – and I remember that being the subject of one of our very first conversations. We were always chatting about books.”

The pair bonded over a shared love of reading, languages, travel and – as an extension of all three – translated fiction. At first, their pipedream was to abandon their jobs and become independent publishers. “I came across a small publisher called Pushkin Press and I really liked the idea,” says Alison. “We thought about setting something similar up. But it seemed like a lot of hard work for two people in their twenties with a big social life and no clue between them, so we shelved that and just carried on being friends.”

Alison left the advertising industry, had children, retrained as a teacher, migrated to and returned from Hong Kong, experienced the soul-searching and ennui of the Covid lockdowns, then found herself pining for something different. Leo, whose first taste of bookselling had been an 18-month stint at Waterstones straight after university, had meanwhile rekindled his affection for the trade by taking a job at House of Hodge, a famous second‑hand

READING THE ROOM

One of the great things about translated books is that they’re almost self-selecting in terms of quality. It’s a huge mission to get a book translated, so it will only happen if you’re a prize winner or your book is very well regarded.

bookshop in north London. “Leo was telling me about his day, and it just sounded like such a happy, interesting life,” says Alison. “I said: ‘You know, we really should open a bookshop of our own.’ And he said: ‘Yeah, sure.’ A week later, I was taking a course on how to open a bookshop. And that was it really.”

Alison’s tutor, in the kind of coincidence without which fiction couldn’t function, was Leo’s mid1990s store manager at the Watford branch of Waterstones.

Veranda Books’ presence in Marylebone comes from the sense of serendipitous discovery that informs so many of the purchases in their shop. “I think this place found us,” says Alison. “We were looking around Golborne Road for a long time. I had my heart set on being up there, but it just wasn’t happening. We decided to come for a day out around here.” Leo is friends with Suzannah Crabb, the fashion designer whose lovely New Quebec Street boutique is part of the local landscape, and she helped introduce them to the neighbourhood. They knew they’d found their perfect home as soon as they were shown the vacant shop.

“The space, the setting: this was always the place for us.”

Whether right now is a propitious moment to open an independent bookshop is an open question. A positive sign is that sales of physical books have remained buoyant despite – and perhaps in reaction to – the technological developments that are rapidly reshaping our world.

“There’s a huge disillusionment with digital media and a return towards analogue in general, as a broader societal trend,” says Leo. “When you read a book, it’s a different experience for your brain. When we’re online, we’re constantly on autopilot, constantly scrolling, never fully engaged.

Whereas with a book, you have to slow down.”

And yet, despite this healthy demand, high street booksellers are closing at an alarming rate, choked out by the Vulcan death grip of online retail. The good news is that people who love bookshops tend to love them deeply. “It’s quite sensory. Lots of people who come in here, the first thing they say is: ‘It smells amazing – it smells of books.’ There’s just something about the smell and feel that really appeals to some people.” So, in the right location, with the right offering, independents are still able to thrive.

> 29 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

READING THE ROOM

Thankfully, they’re not reliant solely on old duffers like me.

“What’s interesting is that a lot of the renaissance in books is driven by younger readers, particularly young women,” says Leo. “It’s become quite buzzy and fashionable.” There is, adds Alison, real substance behind the buzz: “They really are reading and engaging, and I think it’s amazing.” She cites the example of Rachel Cusk, a serious literary novelist and exceptional prose stylist, who has developed a huge following among young women on TikTok, “even though her books are about women of a certain age whose marriages are falling apart”.

Alison uses youthful online communities as a reservoir of ideas, pairing them with more traditional sources such as newspaper reviews and the promptings of industry reps. “Dua Lipa has an amazing blog called Service95 which has a book club within it. She’s very into translated fiction – probably partly because she’s Kosovan and she likes to promote books from there, but she’s also just a very welltravelled, very intelligent woman.

Kaia Gerber, the daughter of Cindy Crawford, also has an amazing book club called Library Science, where she recommends great books. We’re not huge on TikTok

30 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

or Instagram but we do use them to see what’s being talked about.”

So, like the shop’s non-fiction section, there’s a bit of fear on one side and plenty of hope lined up on the other. What’s clear is that if we don’t visit the bookshops we have, they’ll one day all be gone – and that would be a tragedy.

Leo sums it up perfectly: “If you have a library in your local area and you find out it’s closing, even if you don’t use it yourself you should still sign that petition. Because do we want to live in a society that doesn’t have libraries? Personally, I don’t. If we start losing those common cultural touchpoints, that’s the first sign of a society in terminal decline, in my opinion.

I think people feel the same way about bookshops. The comment we continuously had from locals for the first month we were open was: ‘I’m so glad it’s not just another cafe.’ Don’t get me wrong: I love cafes, I love coffee and croissants, but as a society we don’t have a fundamental need for more cafes, do we? But we do need bookshops.

We really do.”

VERANDA BOOKS 7 Seymour Place, W1H 5BA verandabooks.com

READING LIST Here are today’s book suggestions from the Veranda Books team.

Tomorrow’s will no doubt be different. In fact, today’s has probably already changed.

READING THE ROOM

ALISON’S CHOICES Engagement

by Gun‑Britt Sundström A turbulent relationship in a turbulent time – a 1970s Norwegian classic.

LEO’S CHOICES Bonjour Tristesse

by Françoise Sagan A long, sultry summer on the Riveria, from the pen of an 18-year-old prodigy.

Perfection

by Vincenzo Latronico A new Italian novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, longlisted for the International Booker Prize.

The Secret History

by Donna Tartt One of the defining novels of the 1990s: friendship, murder and betrayal at an elite American college.

Dream Count

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The interlocking stories of four women told by the author of Half of a Yellow Sun. EMILY’S CHOICES The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong Beautifully written, very lyrical. A new take on the great American novel.

Love Me Tender

by Constance Debre Sparse, stripped back writing about a woman living her life unapologetically and trying to maintain a relationship with her son.

All Fours

by Miranda July One woman’s brilliantly mad odyssey of sexual exploration.

31 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Flesh

by David Szalay A compelling tale of sex, money and the search for love.

Chiltern Street SPRING SPRING SHOPPING SHOPPING EVENING EVENING 5-8pm 5-8pm Thursday Thursday 22 22 May May

MUSIC | DRINKS | OFFERS | EXPERIENCES MUSIC | DRINKS | OFFERS | EXPERIENCES portmanmarylebone.com/events | @portmanmarylebone portmanmarylebone.com/events | @portmanmarylebone

THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS

THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS Introducing the people behind central London’s vital charities and community organisations: Charlotte Locks-Moro, director of fundraising at St John’s Hospice Interview: Jean-Paul Aubin-Parvu Images: Orlando Gili

33 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

St John’s Hospice is part of the charitable hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, which was set up 167 years ago by the Sisters of Mercy, an international community of Catholic women. Although there were always beds available for people at the end of their lives, it grew to the point where a decision was made to create an area specifically for palliative care. The hospice, as everyone knows it today, was created in 1984 with a 10-bed inpatient unit and now supports more than 4,000 people each year.

St John’s is a wonderful place. People often think that hospices must be sad, cold and miserable settings, but that couldn’t be further from the reality. St John’s is a warm and peaceful place to be, full of joy and laughter.

You only need to visit our wellbeing centre once and your perceptions of hospice settings will be changed. That’s definitely a place of joy. They’re always doing art sessions, having movement classes, enjoying a good game of bingo.

The atmosphere is amazing. In the inpatient unit you can often hear families having a laugh and a joke in one of the bedrooms or see them doing a jigsaw puzzle together out in the communal area. It’s a happy place – it really is.

Our services have grown significantly over the years.

We opened our first daycare unit in 1987, looking after predominantly HIV and cancer patients who were still well enough to live at home. That same year we also launched our specialist palliative care nursing team, who go out into the community and look after patients and their families in their own homes. We began our Hospice@Home services in 1994, providing 24-hour wraparound care for those at the end of life, driven by the belief that patients and their families shouldn’t have to be left alone.

In 1999 our inpatient unit expanded to 19 beds as the need grew. In 2011 we introduced our free lymphoedema care service and a year later launched a palliative care ambulance service, meaning that our patients don’t have to endure the long wait for NHS ambulances – we’re still the only London hospice to offer this. In 2018 we set up bereavement services for adults and children – some of our families are with our bereavement and counselling services for several years after the end of life.

The hospital was closed during Covid. This allowed us to create a temporary inpatient unit within >

THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS

People often think that hospices must be sad, miserable settings, but St John’s is a warm and peaceful place to be, full of joy and laughter.

34 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS

the hospital while we renovated the existing space, thereby keeping services going. We also established a new children’s hub – a special area where children can relax or speak to our counsellors but still be close to their loved ones. Then last year we opened a brand-new wellbeing centre. We focus quite strongly on complementary therapies. Many of our patients can’t increase their drug load for pain relief, because they’ve reached the limits of what they can take, so complementary therapies offer an important way of providing pain relief and relaxation. During our refit we added a multi-sensory room, which helps calm patients with neurological conditions and allows us to treat them much more effectively. We also offer both occupational therapy and physiotherapy. It’s vital to keep patients mobile and agile for as long as possible, especially those with onset dementia. We do cognitive exercises with them while also trying to keep them mobile enough to remain in their own homes for as long as possible.

At the hospice we really do focus on a holistic approach to care. For example, having a relationship with nature and the outdoors is very important.

Both of our gardens have been renovated recently.

We’re now able to get beds out into the middle of our inpatient unit garden. And our wellbeing garden is now completely accessible, which is amazing when you consider that many patients don’t have any access to outside space unless they come in to see us.

The challenge for our staff is that our approach demands that each patient and their family be dealt with completely individually. Our community nurse specialists are vitally important to us, because it’s they who will assess both the patient and their family group to work out which services they might need. It’s vital that we work with patients around their preferred point of care – we’re all about allowing patients to live the way they want to live for as long as they physically can. When it gets to the point of talking to them about end of life, it’s about giving them all the support they need to be in the place that they want to be, rather than forcing them into hospital.

Our clinical team is second to none, a real family, and we also create that family environment for our patients and their families. We’re helped by hundreds of volunteers. The care team are just so dedicated – they’re always going above and beyond what’s expected of them and getting them to occasionally say no is probably the hardest thing! We’ve had ambulance drivers take a family down to the seaside for the day so that they could have fish and chips on the beach. We’ve had our inpatient unit team help a patient get ready for a wedding that we held on site. We’ve hosted 90th birthday parties for patients who couldn’t celebrate at home. Our staff help create all these little moments of joy. It really is phenomenal to see.

I’m the director of fundraising. There are 12 of us in the team and we raise money from various sources.

We get donations from trusts and foundations, from 35 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

individuals and from incredible community groups that do all sorts of wonderful things – from tea parties to bake sales to marathons and skydiving. We also have a very strong corporate group that have been donating to us for a long time. The Howard de Walden Estate is a great example. They’ve been supporting us for over 10 years now through sponsoring one of our Hospice@Home nurses. This service is vital for those patients who wish to remain at home at the end of their lives – they allow families to actually be families, creating memories and resolidifying their relationships, rather than being the primary carers.

When you become a carer you almost stop being a son, a daughter, a wife or a husband, so it’s really important that we give them support and the feeling of security.

We’re indebted to Howard de Walden, and it’s always a brilliant feeling for me to be able to tell my team that we’ve got their support for another year.

One of the reasons that companies love supporting us is that they can actually get involved with the hospice – it’s not at arm’s length at all. We get corporate volunteer groups helping to rotavate and plant seeds in the garden. We’ve had them coming in to run IT awareness days, assisting patients with their phones and tablets to help keep them connected in the community.

We’ve had others in doing arts and crafts, running reading groups, all sorts of projects. My role is to coordinate the team that makes all of this happen.

My family and I did an abseil to raise money for St John’s Hospice. My mother had received outreach support from her local hospice during Covid, so when I started talking about jumping off the side of a building, she said: “Oh, I’d like to do that too.”

Bearing in mind she was 81 at the time, I was slightly concerned. But then my daughters and my nieces decided that they’d also like to get involved, so seven of us abseiled off The Orbit in the Olympic Park.

We managed to choose an incredibly windy day, which was slightly hair raising, but it resulted in an amazing sense of achievement. It was a lovely thing to do together as a family group, and knowing how close the cause is to our hearts made it that much more special.

I think our donors who get involved in our crazy stunts and events feel the same way. We always have cheer squads there. We always look after our participants very well, so that they stay close to the cause they’re fundraising for. Go to the London Marathon or the Royal Parks Half Marathon and we’ll be there with our pompoms cheering everyone on. Taking part in that abseil was a good way to show that, yes, I can go and ask people for money, but I’m also willing to get out of my comfort zone and do what we ask of our supporters.

ST JOHN’S HOSPICE zoltan.abbott@hje.org.uk stjohnshospice.org.uk

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD » 36 STYLE » 46 HOME » 56 WELLBEING » 58 HEALTHCARE » 60

STYLE »46

Q&A

Katia Barros of FARM Rio on the colours of Brazil and the creative power of collaboration STYLE »48

STYLE PHILOSOPHY

Mats Klingberg of Trunk Clothiers on timeless design, team chemistry and the slow revival of the tie HOME »56

ANATOMY OF A DESIGN

José Antonio Santos of eba on creating an elegant solution to a perennial kitchen storage problem

36 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

Q&A: LUKE AHEARNE The head chef of Lita on learning the ropes at his dad’s cafe, pairing exceptional food with a buzzing atmosphere, and gaining a Michelin star within months of opening Interview: Clare Finney

Q: You’ve gone from running your dad’s cafe in Clonmel, Ireland to running a Michelin-starred restaurant in Marylebone – without any formal training, aged just 32. Is that precocious talent innate or inherited?

A: I’ve been genuinely interested in food and cooking from a young age.

While everyone else was watching cartoons, I was watching cooking programmes; when we were on family holidays, I’d never order from the kid’s menu, I’d be ordering swordfish with the adults. By the time I was 11 I was cooking roast dinners. I did my first Christmas dinner aged 12. When I was 16, Neven Maguire, a celebrity chef in Ireland, visited my school, and I somehow managed to get a week’s work experience at his restaurant during the school holidays. I finished the week, and he said: “Stay for the summer” – so I did.

Q: How was that experience?

A: The restaurant was the opposite end of the country, so I had to stay in staff accommodation – and I was straight in. It really cemented what I wanted to do with my life. I loved the pace, the buzz. It was always about the food, of course, but I got sucked into the working life of a restaurant.

I hated going back to school. I had a place at cooking college, and I was all ready to go, aged 17 – but then they called me and said I had too much experience, and they were giving my place away. That was when dad asked me to come and work with him in his cafe in town, and a year later I was running the place: coming up with new menus, pushing the boundaries, changing the concept from cafe to day bistro.

It was an amazing chance to develop leadership skills at a young age.

Q: Do you think there is less emphasis on formal training these days than there has been previously?

A: I would never discourage anyone going for formal training, but I

37 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

>

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

think working in a good restaurant, taking everything in, storing it in your memory and always pushing to be better is what takes you forward.

There are some things you can’t teach, and that’s particularly true in the hospitality industry: there’s a lot that just comes from common sense, being genuinely interested and striving for perfection. If you don’t have that within you, you can only go so far.

Q: Though you’ve since worked with two titans of the London food scene, Richard Corrigan and Isaac McHale, you credit Garrett

Byrne – a Michelin-starred chef in Ireland – with being your greatest mentor. Why was your time with him so formative?

A: I was 20 when I went to have a trial at his restaurant, Campagne.

I loved working with my dad, but I was ambitious and had a lot to learn.

Garrett was doing great stuff, he had a Michelin star, it was classic French cooking with Irish ingredients.

When he took me on, he said: “It’ll be hard – but if you want to learn, you’ll learn here.” He’s been my biggest mentor and remains my biggest inspiration. Everything he knew, he put into me. He was like a FOOD PHILOSOPHY

DURRANTS HOTEL Rumel Pinnock, executive chef at Durrants Hotel on the joys of seasonality, the importance of feedback, and the benefits of a family-run hotel Interview: Ellie Costigan

I’ve had a passion for food from a young age. I was born in Jamaica and grew up in the countryside, so I always had lots of produce around me.

I was always interested to see what my mum or grandma were doing in the kitchen and would try to contribute anywhere I could.

After culinary school, my first work experience was at a fish restaurant in Waterloo, serving really fresh seafood – whatever the catch of the day was. From there, my love of cooking grew and grew.

I never looked back.

I’ve worked in a lot of high‑end, modern British and European restaurants, including the Guardsman Hotel in St James, where we won an award for our afternoon tea, and Lost 38 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

father figure. I was there when he won his first star, and he was there when I won mine. He wouldn’t let anyone else sit beside me at the ceremony. He was the one who gave me the belief that I could achieve what I wanted. And when the time came for me to leave, he wasn’t upset; he said: “You need to go, because you need to grow.” We drew up a list of places I wanted to go to, and London was the only one.

Q: What drew you to London?

A: London is a different pace and a different lifestyle, and it’s a pace that suits me. I was always going

back and forth, because I was born here and still had family here. I’d set my sights on the Clove Club. I’d eaten there and was two courses into their 10-course tasting menu when I said to myself: I’m going to work here. It was one of the World’s 50 Best at the time, and I was totally out of my comfort zone at first. After that, I moved to Luca [Isaac McHale’s second venture].

I left as the senior sous chef. My goal was to reach head chef by the age of 30 – so I was delighted when Richard Corrigan asked me to be head chef of Corrigan’s Mayfair. It the first time I was solely in charge,

but Richard was great. Needing a new lunch menu every two weeks meant I always had a new platform to go off, and he pretty much let me do my thing.

Q: You’re now heading up Lita, which has been praised not just for its food but its convivial atmosphere – not something always associated with Michelin stars. How have you created this?

A: I focus on Mediterranean food because it’s food I love cooking and eating – and it’s fun. Who doesn’t want to eat Mediterranean food on a terrace in the sunshine? There’s

Rumel Pinnock

Property, which is part of the Hilton, in an amazing spot in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. I’m grateful now to have been given a chance to improve myself and contribute to the history of this beautiful, historic hotel.

Our menu is a representation of the British seasons. I do my best to source local suppliers offering fresh, sustainable produce. The menu changes every three months, give or take – depending on the British weather! Come April and May, we should have wild garlic, rhubarb and the first of the green peas. My favourite season is summer, though, especially when it comes to the afternoon tea. There’s much more produce available, with big summer fruit flavours you can play around and get creative with.

39 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

and I’ve never had the creative freedom that I’ve got here. The owner and I talk to each other regularly and we’re always working together to make things better.

Being in a hotel, we get a lot of worldwide travellers and customers from a wide range of backgrounds, who have experienced palettes and understand quality food.

Their feedback comes from a place of knowledge, so I always appreciate their comments, positive or negative. We get local residents who just come for a meal, too. The hotel has been around such a long time, it’s really well-known.

We relaunched our Sunday roast menu and we’ve had a lot of positive feedback. The highlight is the beef sirloin, which we carve in front of the table, so there’s a bit of ceremony to it. It’s a nice touch.

There are several different spaces to eat or have a drink in the hotel, each of which

has its own personality. Many customers have their favourite rooms. The Wallace Room has just had a redesign, giving it a modern touch – it’s a beautiful setting for afternoon tea – while the Armfield Room has a fireplace and is a cosy place for intimate drinks. That’s very popular.

If I have time, I will go into the restaurant and speak to the guests – they really love that.

Someone once asked why there isn’t fish and chips on the menu and I said if you like, I’ll arrange it for you tomorrow. They came the next day and I served them fish and chips. It made them very happy! If you’ve got an allergy or there’s something you want that’s not on the menu, we’ll always do our best to cater to that request.

If you’re going to try one thing on the menu, I’d say order the duck breast – that’s what a lot of regulars go for.

We make almost everything in house, including our pastries, which we also make gluten free or vegan. We want everything to taste great but also look amazing. A lot of the time the first thing people do is post a picture to social media, showcasing how lovely our afternoon tea is.

When you come to the hotel, you will be made to feel at home. Our staff will always give a genuinely warm welcome to all our guests and if you’re a regular, we’ll greet you by name. We want all our guests to feel valued and appreciated.

When you show your dedication to the job and your passion, that’s what wins people over and keeps them coming back.

Durrants is family owned, which makes a massive difference to how it’s run. I’ve opened three hotels since 2017

DURRANTS HOTEL George Street, W1H 5BJ durrantshotel.co.uk

>

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

so much scope, from the south of France to the north of Africa, and it’s all big, bold, punchy food you want to get stuck into. You aren’t going to leave Lita hungry or looking for more flavour. The restaurant is warm and comforting, and the whole menu is designed for sharing, so the guests have to interact with each other. I look around the restaurant and no one’s on their phones. People talk about the menu, then they just talk, which makes the restaurant buzzy, which makes everyone talk more – and I’m there at the pass turning the music up to make it even more buzzy. There aren’t airs and graces; it’s just the best produce, treated simply, with passion, served in a space where people feel comfortable.

Q: Together with AngloThai, Lita was one of two Marylebone restaurants to get its first Michelin star within a year of opening. How did you hit that milestone so quickly – and how did it feel?

A: Having worked in Michelin‑starred restaurants all my life, it’s always been a goal of mine to achieve my own. But to do that in less than a year – that was special. Even more special is that we do such big covers: 200 people, every day, seven days a week. When we talk to other Michelin‑starred chefs, they’re like, “How do you do that!” because it makes it so much harder to achieve that consistency – but it also makes it so much more rewarding.

Together with AngloThai, we’re starting a new trend of Michelinstarred restaurants that are fun, relaxed and familiar – and I think Michelin are increasingly looking for that style. Lita doesn’t have the stuffiness associated with traditional starred restaurants because I don’t want to eat in them anymore. The food, too, isn’t overly intricate – by which I mean, it looks simple on the plate, but there are 40 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

lots of components to it. The main priority is making the produce do the talking. Every day I’m thinking about how we can push the guest experience, the food, the service – everything. I take huge pride in what we do, and I think that shows.

Q: Reading through this year’s Murphia list, which celebrates Irish people working in hospitality in London, it seems that the Irish currently have an outsized influence on the city’s food and drink scene. What do they bring to it?

A: I think London being so close to Ireland and being a key player on the world’s culinary scene means we do get a lot of Irish talent here.

To be included on the Murphia list for the first time this year was very special. The Irish are a real community in London, particularly in hospitality, and it was very nice to be able to meet up with them all and celebrate. Unfortunately for Ireland, that means they lose a lot of their best talent – the country has a fantastic food scene, and it is growing, but it’s nowhere near the likes of here. I couldn’t open Lita in my home town. I think the main thing we bring is warmth. When you’re in an Irish space it’s warmer, and a bit more fun. There’s not so much stuffiness. I think people feel they can be themselves more.

Q: This year, the Michelin Awards were somewhat overshadowed by the subsequent fallout over diversity of representation and kitchen culture. How do you ensure Lita’s kitchen remains as inclusive and kind as possible?

A: I want to create a staff culture where everyone feels valued and can voice their opinion. There is a hierarchy, yes – but I’m no more important than the kitchen porter or the pot washer, because without my team I am nothing.

I can’t run a restaurant on my own; I need to be surrounded by the

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

right people, and if I’m coming in and screaming from morning to night no one will want to work with me. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years about how to be a better manager. I strive for perfection, and there are times when I get annoyed, but it’s nothing like before. During briefings before lunch and dinner, the guys all have a chance to speak up and have a voice. I’m proud of the fact that 90 percent of the staff I started with are still here. I want a team that believes in the direction we’re going in, so I can in turn bring them up with me, to the next level.

41 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Q: Where do you go from here?

A: I’m always looking to what’s next – I want Lita to become a London institution, and have a star for 15, 20 years to come. I want the menu and drinks list to always be evolving, but for the restaurant to still feel warm and comforting. We’ve done very well to create a buzz around the place, and I don’t want to lose that buzz. The key is always giving the guests a better experience.

It needs to be the same place, but it needs to move with the times. I want Lita to be something that people remember and return to for years to come – familiar but always evolving.

Q: You were born in north London, grew up in Tipperary, and have worked in London for over a decade. Where feels like home?

A: I moved to Tipperary when I was three, so I grew up there and I am Irish. I was born in London, and when I’m in London, I say it’s my home. But then when I go back to Tipperary – well, I’m going home. I’ve spent half my life in London now – but I still haven’t lost my accent.

LITA 7-9 Paddington Street, W1U 5QH litamarylebone.com

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

ANATOMY OF A DISH

A GLASS APART Daniel Kaizen, bar manager at El Bar de Cavita, on an unusual Mexican liqueur that is making waves in the cocktail world Interview: Viel Richardson

Some drinks are familiar to all of us, while others will raise an eyebrow when you first hear about them – Nixta belongs firmly in the second group. A liqueur made entirely from heirloom Mexican corn, it is distilled at the Destilería y Bodega Abasolo, north of Mexico City and over 2,000 metres above sea level – the highest distillery in the world. This altitude subtly changes the distillation process, influencing the spirit’s character and creating something truly unique.

The drink was developed

by Dr Iván Saldaña using cacahuazintle corn, an ancient variety with deep Mexican cultural roots.

The corn undergoes nixtamalisation, a process that involves soaking and cooking it in an alkaline solution.

The nixtamalised corn is then mashed into a dough‑like masa. Over the course of a month, 100 percent corn distillate is slowly added, infusing into the mixture. Finally, it’s sweetened with piloncillo, an unrefined Mexican sugar with an intense, earthy flavour.

After clarification, it is finally ready to be bottled.

42 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

The resulting drink is a golden-hued liqueur with a distinctive flavour profile.

The taste is reminiscent of a corn dessert – imagine corn ice cream or a sweet tamale.

It’s rich and creamy with a wine-like mouthfeel, but not too sugary. It’s on our dessert menu as a 25ml pour and I’ve never seen it come back unfinished.

Nixta is also extremely versatile behind the bar. You can use it like a liqueur or as a base spirit in cocktails. We have a Nixta old fashioned, where it’s mixed with corn‑based whiskey for a silky twist on a classic. It also shines in a carajillo with espresso, or in an espresso martini, and you can swap it in for orange liqueur in a margarita. It works really well in so many familiar cocktails.

Nixta is a relative newcomer in the UK, but its appeal is growing. People are often surprised, but once they’ve tried it, they love it. It’s not available everywhere yet, but that adds to the mystique.

Nixta is not just a new liqueur.

It’s a new idea.

EL BAR DE CAVITA 60 Wigmore Street, W1U 2RZ elbardecavita.com

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

BIGOLI IN SALSA DI ACCIUGHE

Simon Piovesan, owner of 2 Veneti, on a traditional Venetian pasta dish Interview: Clare Finney Image: Carla Barber

In a nutshell This is a traditional pasta dish from Venice: bigoli, a Venetian pasta, with salted anchovies.

It is salty and savoury, balanced by the sweetness of the white onions.

The inspiration This is the signature dish of Venice and completely represents the city. Venice was once a big naval port, with ships coming in from all over the world, and anchovies were common. It’s a dish born of poverty: onions were also something everyone could afford, and bigoli is a flour‑and‑water pasta typical of the region. There was also a big Jewish community in Venice, and this dish, which has no pork, became popular for that reason.

Today in London, anchovies are very fashionable, but when we introduced this dish about 20 years ago, we were one of the first restaurants to have an anchovy pasta dish on the menu and it was a more difficult sell.

The purpose I founded 2 Veneti years ago with an old friend of mine, who is no longer in the business.

I’m from Treviso, he’s from Venice. They’re only 30 miles apart, but Treviso is in the hills, and we use more meat than fish. As restauranteurs, we wanted to combine the food of our childhood homes. I brought a duck ragu, and for him it was bigoli with anchovies. It is a bit of a Marmite dish, but if you like 43 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

anchovies you will eat it with a lot of pleasure.

The technique Start with the white onion, either diced or cut in long slices – I prefer dicing. Fry this slowly in olive oil then, when slightly translucent, add the white wine and a touch of water and let it cook down until the onion is soft and sweet. Keep a bit of the liquid in the dish, then add the anchovies, broken into pieces. Traditionally these would be whole anchovies kept in sea salt for storage, which you would have to debone and very slightly descale, but you can use anchovies in olive oil for speed and ease. Continue to cook until the anchovies melt into the dish, which they will do because they’re such a very fatty fish. Meanwhile, cook the bigoli. When al dente, strain – reserving a bit of cooking water – and add to the sauce. A touch of parsley goes well, as it’s a fresh, green, earthy herb that complements the salty fish.

The secret Our secret is frying the anchovies and onions really slowly, up to an hour and a half.

You can do a faster version, in just 20 minutes, and it’s crunchier and a little more sour. But we think this is the best way – softer and sweeter.

2 VENETI 10 Wigmore Street, W1U 2RD 2veneti.com

A CLOSER LOOK FOOD

NEW ARRIVAL

NEW

Josephine Josephine Bouchon, which opened last year on Fulham Road, is a homely neighbourhood bistro loved by locals and restaurant critics in equal measure. Run by Michelin-starred chef Claude Bosi in partnership with his wife Lucy, it’s a love letter to Claude’s home city of Lyon, serving up bold, earthy Lyonnaise dishes with impressive skill but very few airs and graces. A much-anticipated second Josephine site arrives on Blandford Street in April, taking its cues from a different time and place – the golden age of 19th century Parisian bistro culture. Expect exceptional cooking, attention to detail, all-day dining and effortless elegance.

JOSEPHINE 6-8 Blandford Street, W1U 4AU josephinebistro.com

44 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Experience the Gentle Face of Dentistry & Facial Aesthetics in London’s Harley Street Est. 2001, with a worldwide client base, Dr Issy’s philosophy is based on personal attention with a strong emphasis on prevention.

As featured on Sky News and Living TV, please enquire for more information.

New patients always welcome. info@drissy.co.uk 020 7935 3668 www.drissy.co.uk 72 Harley Street, London W1G 7HG Instagram: dr.issy_face

Fine Senneh Rug with Silk Foundation, Persia, circa 1900, 2.03m x 1.40m Specialising in antique and decorative rugs, carpets and textiles.

Over 30 years experience.

Cleaning and restoration services available.

Located close to the world famous Alfie’s Antique Market Aaron Nejad Gallery 4 Church Street Marylebone London NW8 8ED Tel: 07976 826218 Email: anejad@talktalk.net www.aaronnejad.com

Pilates for Strength, Flexibility and Energy •

Reclaim your focus and vitality

•

Tailored sessions designed for your busy lifestyle

•

Private 1:1 or 2:1 sessions

•

Reduce Pain

•

Strengthen your core and posture

•

Relieve stress and tension

•

Recharge in our light filled studio

BO INTR OK OUR O 2X4 OFFER:

5M

INS PRI SES VATE SION S

BOOK ONLINE at wellthyclinic.com I 07766 093159 63 New Cavendish Street, Marylebone W1G 7LP

45 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

46 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

Q&A: KATIA BARROS

The founder and creative director of FARM Rio on the colours of Brazil, the creative power of collaboration, and the journey from market stall to global brand Interview: Mark Riddaway Portrait: Larissa Kreili

Q: Where did your love of design come from?

A: I’ve always been drawn to the fashion world and started exploring this during my teenage years. The first design I ever made money on was repurposed jewellery which I custom made and sold to friends.

Q: Your first career was in accountancy. What took you down that path, and what gave you the impetus to leave it?

A: After taking a vocational test, my two recommended professional paths were fashion and auditing.

I chose the latter, citing my family’s legacy in the business world and the lack of fashion-focused schools in Brazil in the 1990s.

But something was missing in my life, and I needed to unleash my creativity – so I went back to school to study fashion design. I felt that our fashion didn’t truly represent the creative spirit of my hometown, Rio de Janeiro, so I was motivated by the will to design clothes that could capture its joyful energy and share it with the world.

Q: You started out selling your clothes on a market stall in Rio. What lessons did that experience teach you?

A: It taught me the power of visuals and the importance of human connection – two values that still resonate deeply with FARM Rio. I learned how vibrant, well-organised displays can elevate perception and create an inviting atmosphere, using colour, pattern and thoughtful design to draw people in and tell a story.

Beyond the visuals, the market stall experience also taught me that real magic happens in the connections we build. Markets are social spaces, where conversations with customers and collaborations with other vendors create a sense of community. Ultimately, the market stall taught me that success isn’t just about selling a product; it’s about crafting an experience

47 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

that connects emotionally. It’s a philosophy I carry forward, knowing that every interaction is an opportunity to build relationships.

Q: When you look back at your early designs, what do they have in common with the clothes you’re designing now?

Looking back at our early designs, the vibrant colours, bold prints and joyful energy remain at the heart of FARM Rio. However, as a global brand, our creations have evolved to reflect diverse cultural influences and the need to adapt to different climates and lifestyles. Pieces like our puffer jackets and fleeces emerged to meet the needs of the northern hemisphere, incorporating thicker materials while staying true to our essence. While our roots are firmly Brazilian, our designs now blend local charm with global inspiration.

Q: FARM Rio is such a colourful brand – unlike so much of European fashion. Where does that love of colour come from?

A: It comes from the vibrant spirit of Brazil, especially Rio de Janeiro, where the brand was born. Colour is deeply woven into Brazilian culture – the lush landscapes, the festive energy of Carnival, the joy of everyday life. It reflects the way Brazilians celebrate diversity, creativity and connection, even in the simplest moments. While European fashion often leans toward minimalism, our approach is rooted in the idea that colour can bring joy and tell a story. We want our community to wear our brand authentically, and we hope to bring colour and originality to streets across Europe. Our pieces can be mixed and matched with other prints or paired with solid items – we love to see how people across Europe incorporate our designs into their own style, creating a beautiful blend of Brazilian spirit > and European flair.

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

STYLE PHILOSOPHY

TRUNK CLOTHIERS Mats Klingberg, founder of Trunk Clothiers on timeless design, team chemistry and the slow revival of the tie Interview: Ellie Costigan

I want Trunk to be a destination of discovery – it’s very important for me to introduce our customers to new things. I want to surprise and delight my customers with something they haven’t seen before.

I’m Swedish, but I’ve lived in London since 2005. I’d wanted to start my own business for a long time, and there were lots of brands I liked that weren’t available in London at the time. Marylebone felt like the perfect place for us – not too old school, not too trendy. It has a very neighbourhood feel.

I met Andre Balazs, founder of Chiltern Firehouse, in 2009. I’d been looking at Chiltern Street as a spot for Trunk anyway, but when I found out he was going to turn the old fire station into a hotel, I knew it was going to be a great location.

Q: The prints used by Farm Rio are particularly stunning.

Who creates them?

A: All our prints are designed in Brazil, by our in-house team of print designers. There is not just one designer at FARM Rio: the brand has an outstanding collective of Brazilian creatives, including fashion designers, print designers and many more outstanding people. Their skills turn clothes into tools of empowerment to spark joy everywhere.

The collections we sell in Britain are not the same as those in Brazil, but the development of the prints, which is where the creative process 48 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

Mats Klingberg

I’ve always got my buying hat on. Most of the time I’ll notice a brand because it’s worn by a cool guy or I find it in a cool shop.

It’s not necessarily the case that I’d wear everything we stock – that would be too limited – but they are always things I’d like to see on other people. Just because something isn’t right for me doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.

I like to work with brands that have a good story, that take pride in provenance, quality and how things are made.

We want to know where our products are coming from and that the people who made them have good lives. Many of these brands are family-run businesses and have been for generations.

Ties are something that continually come in and out

pretty much started at the shop and has evolved into other roles as the business has grown, or we’ve met through mutual connections. It’s important you have the right chemistry, as we spend a lot of time together.

It’s also important that they are as passionate about Trunk as I am.

of favour. In the early days, we sold a lot of them – then, with the pandemic, that disappeared. Now it’s ticking up again. People are wanting to be smarter again. Things come and go in cycles.

We started our own label to focus on staple products that you want all year – trans‑seasonal items like t-shirts, chinos. All-weather products with a functional element.

We don’t buy sweaters from another brand and just put our logo on it – we do it all ourselves. Everything is made in Scotland, Portugal and Italy, and the most important part is finding the right makers.

There’s a lot of back and forth, choosing materials, perfecting the sample and altering the design until it’s right.

begins, is managed by a unique department that serves all of our markets. The creative and styling teams, which are separate, then adapt these prints according to the specific needs of each region. Since the UK experiences colder winters, we work with different fabrics and calendars to ensure our collections are suitable for the climate. Despite these adjustments, the DNA of the brand remains consistent across all markets.

Q: In Brazil, climate change and biodiversity loss are pressing issues. How does that inform your approach?

49 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Our team are a picky bunch.

We look at lots of fabrics and yarns before deciding. Julia, who manages our own brand, has spent lots of time at Milano Unica, a fabric trade centre, to find suppliers. In some instances we’ve worked with makers directly to develop our own. A mill up in Scotland on the Isle of Lewis made a twill for us, for example. I’m passionate about materials, especially when it comes to knitwear.

We sell classic menswear without being too traditional.

Shapes change slightly over the years, but I have jackets that are 10 years old in my wardrobe that I still wear.

Trunk embodies that – it’s timeless design.

I used to do everything myself, so I’m grateful to have such a great team now. Everyone

A: Becoming a more sustainable brand is a journey, where each act matters. Step by step, we move forward, reviewing our habits and practices. Nature has always been our home, and we’re passionate about taking impactful steps to ensure it continues to inspire new generations with its power and diversity. Right now, we focus on four main pillars: nature, culture, people and circularity. These include efforts like neutralising the company’s carbon emissions and increasing the percentage of responsible fibres in our collections. One of our most notable initiatives is

The kind of man we attract is 35 to 55 and well-travelled.

They appreciate and want to know how things are made – to understand the value a particular garment or brand has. They’re very loyal and many of them have been shopping with us for 15 years. We’re not a ‘cool’ fashion brand, we’re here for the long term. A lot of other shops have come and gone, but I think that’s why we’re hanging in there.

It’s our 15th anniversary this year and we’re working on lots of exclusive collaborations. There’ll be events throughout autumn as well, with people in the industry who we’ve gotten to know over the years – and of course our customers.

We had a big launch party in September 2010. We want to celebrate all these years in similar style.

TRUNK CLOTHIERS 8 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PU trunkclothiers.com

our reforestation project, which focuses on Brazilian biomes such as the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon Rainforest. To date, we’ve planted 1.5 million trees and continue to donate 1,000 trees for planting every day.

Q: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that Europeans have about Brazil?

A: Sometimes, there can be a tendency to see Brazil through a singular lens – be it Rio de Janeiro, Carnival, or the Amazon. In truth, Brazil is a vast and multifaceted country, rich in culture and filled with diverse landscapes, ecosystems >

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

Below: The FARM Rio boutique on Marylebone High Street

and experiences. I’d encourage Europeans to go beyond the well‑known images and experience Brazil’s incredible variety firsthand.

You’ll find that Brazil is not just one country but many Brazils, each waiting to be discovered. Our collections and narratives celebrate the immense beauty and depth of Brazilian culture.

Q: What are your impressions of London?

A: It’s such a dynamic and vibrant city, with a unique mix of modern and historic elements.

I really enjoy how diverse and multicultural the city is; it feels 50 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

like a place where different cultures, ideas and traditions come together seamlessly.

Speaking of Marylebone specifically, it’s such a charming neighbourhood with a perfect blend of local shops, cozy cafes and beautiful architecture. The atmosphere is so inviting, with a more relaxed vibe compared to the busier parts of the city – a great place to explore and unwind.

What I find most difficult is the weather! It can be unpredictable and often quite grey and rainy, compared to Brazil’s sunny vibe.

But overall, London is a very special place to be.

Q: Your Marylebone store is such a beautiful space. What was the inspiration behind it?

A: All of our stores are designed to create an immersive experience that transports visitors into our world, reflecting Brazilian culture through artistic expression and artisan craftsmanship. We want our spaces to be an escape, and a celebration of our roots. The FARM Rio store in Marylebone was designed by architect Renata Gaia in collaboration with our creative team. Its entrance is inspired by the stunning Amazon flora and fauna, with handcrafted marquetry design

by Maqueson da Silva, whose work is deeply influenced by Brazil’s rich biodiversity. The artistic influence continues throughout the store, with delicate watercolour paintings

by French artist Dominique Jardy transforming the walls into a tropical dreamscape. Sculptural pieces, like Walmor Corrêa’s bronze sculptures of hummingbirds and a symbolic ‘weaver bird’, give a sense of wonder and harmony, and handpainted accents by English artists Carlie Allan and Daniel Bland blend our signature prints with a classic European aesthetic.

Q: Now that you’re leading a global brand rather than a market stall, are you still able to enjoy moments of pure creativity?

A: What brings me the most personal pleasure is the opportunity to create in a collaborative environment with a diverse team.

Over the 27 years of FARM Rio, this collaboration has allowed us to continually infuse freshness into the brand and keep the creativity alive and thriving. This constant exchange of ideas and inspiration makes the creative process fresh and exciting, allowing me to continue enjoying pure moments of creativity – even as I lead a global brand.

FARM RIO 26 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4PQ farmrio.uk

E S T A B L I S H E D 19 8 9

FOR BEAUTIFUL LIVING

8 8 M A R Y L E B O N E H I G H S T R E E T, L O N D O N W 1 W W W. C O LO G N E A N D C OT TO N . C O M

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

THREE OF THE BEST

LIGHT JACKETS Doubtless at the exact time you’re reading this, the nascent spring will have been felled by a sudden cold snap. But in general, spring is springing, and the sun’s tentative rays dare us all to attempt a slightly lighter jacket.

Of course, not all spring jackets are created equal. Some are too thin to be functional in anything less than 20-degree heat; some are so fabulous and floral they go with nothing in your wardrobe.

We’ve combed through Marylebone’s offering to bring you the best in the business.

52 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

1.

SAFARI JACKET BELLA FREUD, £575 bellafreud.com Don’t let the title put you off: this smart, slightly fitted overshirtstyle cotton jacket is designed for Chiltern Street more than it is for the savannah, probably better suited to an English spring than an African summer.

It will work as well with a floral skirt as it would sturdy trousers. Two patch pockets will easily accommodate phone, wallet, lippie and keys, enabling you to even go bag free if you so choose!

53 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

2.

3.

The queen of classic, functional style with an edge comes into her own come springtime, and this denim shirt cardigan, complete with patch pocket, is the perfect example. It’s 100 percent cotton (sustainably sourced, of course) so it’s both airy and insulating, and the denim style, long sleeves and snap button fastening lend themselves to a wide array of outfits and formats.

Florals in spring are a cliché for a reason: they suit it. They suit us, now our cheeks are beginning to lose their winter pallor, and they suit our blossoming surroundings. This jacket is a case in point: light, but with a soft quilting to fend off any lingering chill, decorated with pale pink heirloom roses, and completed with a pretty tie fastening detail.

DENIM SHIRT CARDIGAN AGNÈS B, £245 agnesb.com

SASKIA JACKET

BY NATALIE MARTIN TRIOLOGY, £295 trilogystores.co.uk

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

THE LOOK

LIFE & LIBERTY Tania Hindmarch,

co-founder of O Pioneers, on a Liberty print dress suited to every occasion

We’re obsessed with Liberty prints – we use them for pretty much everything. Historically, we’ve always worked with cottons, but we’ve started to introduce a few silks to the range, and our Shelley dress is one of them. It’s a crepe de chine, so it’s a softer silk. The print is Betsy, which is a classic Liberty, in charcoal black with muted lilacs, pinks, blues and a very light mustard. It floats and swishes beautifully – it really is gorgeous to wear.

Silk is very good at keeping you cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s cool, so it’s a nice transitional piece. It’s a good length for those who want to show a bit of ankle, but it’s a wearable length too: it works with sandals, trainers or high heels, like the model is wearing here, outside the Golden Eagle pub on Marylebone Lane. We try to design items which aren’t obviously summer or winter, and aren’t obviously nighttime or daytime, so you can make it whatever you want.

We try to design dresses that have longevity – dresses we might have found in the back of our mum’s wardrobe in the 70s and borrowed, hence the Pierrot collar and capped puffed sleeve. We always put pockets in our dress, though – not a feature of the 70s.

We want to be able to chuck our phones or keys in our pockets; pockets are a feminist statement. We aren’t chasing trends; we’re designing and making pieces we like and would want to wear for years to come.

O PIONEERS 76 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2PR opioneers.co.uk

54 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK STYLE

DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT JACKET SANDRO, £439, uk.sandro-paris.com

SEMI HOOP EARRING KIMAÏ, £695 kimai.com COTTON POPLIN SHIRT SUNSPEL, £225 sunspel.com

CASHMERE TANK BRORA, £295 broraonline.com

BALLERINA FLATS ME+EM, £225 meandem.com

55 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

MATURE HA WP PAPER BRAID HAT MOUKI MOU, £260 moukimou.com

WHITE DENIM MIDI SKIRT WITH SEASONAL PRINT SCARF BELT PAUL SMITH, £550 paulsmith.com

A CLOSER LOOK HOME

ANATOMY OF A DESIGN

56 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK HOME

PLINTH DRAWER

José Antonio Santos, director of eba, on creating an elegant solution to a perennial kitchen storage problem Interview: Viel Richardson

Requirement One of the major issues with traditional kitchen bases is the valuable space wasted by large plinths being used purely for support. Our goal was to reclaim that lost space and turn it into functional storage while maintaining a clean, elegant aesthetic. The challenge lay in ensuring easy access to the drawer and seamless integration into our existing range without compromising either the functionality or the aesthetics. For example, placing the drawer 2cm above floor level allowed us to maximise capacity without affecting comfort. The drawer also features a subtle tilt, ensuring enough space for your feet when working close to the countertop – a small but essential detail. This combination of depth and inclination makes the stored items easy to access. It is a versatile, ergonomic and space-efficient solution that enhances both functionality and design cohesion.

Inspiration Our inspiration comes from a combination of engineering principles and a deep understanding of how people use their kitchens. Storage is one of the most valuable aspects of any kitchen and yet so much space 57 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

is wasted in many kitchen designs. We carefully observed how users interact with their kitchen cabinetry, and this played a significant part in shaping the final design. It was absolutely key that the final design provided easily accessible storage without obstructing movement, otherwise it would be largely unused and we would have failed to reclaim that space in a meaningful way. We also worked very hard to ensure that the plinth drawer would complement our existing kitchen systems.

This required us to develop specific integrations for the plinth drawer within each base module. This took a lot of time and effort, but the result is an extremely versatile storage solution as well as an efficient one.

Process The plinth drawer is manufactured in our own factory. This gives us complete control, allowing us to ensure each one meets exacting standards of precision and quality.

The main manufacturing challenges we faced were related to its adaptability and versatility. Given the wide range of modular options available in our kitchens, we had to ensure that the drawer could integrate seamlessly with a multitude of different configurations.

This required careful design adjustments and constant testing of hardware. Another challenge was ensuring the plinth drawer was suitable for the wide range of materials and finishes we offer. Each material has unique properties, and the drawer needed to work seamlessly with all of them.

All this design and testing created several iterations during development – it was a process of continuous refinement. Each version was tested for ergonomics, functionality, aesthetics and ease of integration with our existing modular systems.

Materials The materials used in the

plinth drawer are carefully selected to maintain the same high standards as the rest of our cabinets. All materials are sourced sustainably and responsibly, including FSCcertified wood. Every material undergoes rigorous in-house control tests to guarantee the highest levels of quality, durability and functionality.

The plinth draw is available in the same materials as our range of cabinets, including laminate, melamine, veneer and a series of lacquered finishes. This allows us to offer over 60 possibilities, covering a wide range of textures, colours and finishes. In fact, with the lacquered fronts, you can create an infinity of colour combinations to complement the overall aesthetic of your kitchen.

Philosophy Our design philosophy is centred around timeless elegance, functionality and precision. We believe that every piece we create should not only be visually striking but also serve a practical purpose – it’s vital that it enhances your overall living experience. We are inspired by the principles of quality craftsmanship, sustainability and a deep respect for the space the objects we create inhabit.

In the design of the plinth drawer, this philosophy is expressed through its seamless integration with the broader kitchen environment.

It enhances the storage capacity of your cabinetry while maintaining a refined, minimalist look. The use of premium materials and meticulous craftsmanship ensures longevity and durability, while the versatile modular design aligns with our commitment to innovation and space optimisation. Every detail is carefully considered to create a sophisticated yet highly functional element within the kitchen. Enhancing everyday life through design – that’s what eba is all about. eba MARYLEBONE 28 Wigmore Street London W1U 2RN ebainteriors.com

A CLOSER LOOK WELLBEING

HAND & NAIL CARE

L:A BRUKET REJUVENATING HAND SERUM 273 OH MY CREAM!, £42 ohmycream.co.uk

INVIGORATING NATURAL HAND AND BODY WASH ANATOME, £32 anatome.co

RESURRECTION RINSE-FREE HAND MIST AESOP, £13 aesop.com

NAIL STRENGTHENING TREATMENT MARGARET DABBS, £16 margaretdabbs.co.uk

58 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

NERI FIRENZE MANICURE SET MOUKI MOU, £355 moukimou.com

FRESH HONEYSUCKLE MOISTURISING HAND CREAM FRESH, £16 fresh.com

LIME DI SICILIA HAND CREAM ORTIGIA, £22 ortigiasicilia.com

A CLOSER LOOK HEALTHCARE

60 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

A CLOSER LOOK HEALTHCARE

IN WITH THE NEW

Dr Chris Laing, CEO of healthcare innovation agency UCLPartners, on the challenges of turning bright new ideas into real world practice Interview: Viel Richardson

Q: Has your approach to healthcare innovation been shaped by a particular challenge?

A: One of my defining experiences was leading emergency services at UCLH during the Covid-19 pandemic. I was responsible for working with infection teams, critical care teams and key hospital departments to develop an acute care pathway at unprecedented speed. One particularly impactful project, which was actually led by Becky Shipley, who has since Joined UCLPartners, involved partnering with Mercedes Benz on a new CPAP device that made ventilation easier to deliver, which was provided free to the NHS and healthcare systems across the globe. That experience 61 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

reinforced my belief that effective healthcare innovation is about framing the challenge you face correctly and then fostering an environment which encourages solutions to emerge.

Q: As an innovation agency, how do you balance the competing priorities of academia, healthcare delivery and the commercial world?

A: We focus on aligning our priorities where we feel the impact will be strongest. Universities excel at research, but translating discoveries into scalable solutions is a challenge. Industry wants to develop new products, while the NHS needs effective solutions that integrate seamlessly into existing structures. Our guiding principle is to ask: what does the patient need?

By addressing real healthcare needs first, we ensure that the innovations developed by academia and industry have a clear pathway to adoption in clinical practice.

Q: Looking at healthcare innovation globally, what does the UK need to adopt or strengthen?

A: The UK has world-class research and a single-payer healthcare system, but innovation adoption can be slow. We can learn from countries that have streamlined regulatory pathways and faster procurement models. The UK should continue investing in testbeds for rapid evaluation and ensure NHS procurement is flexible enough to adopt new technologies efficiently. Currently, the NHS can be difficult to work with, creating barriers to the adoption and spread of innovation. Companies coming to London either want to enter the NHS market or establish their headquarters here, and we need to ensure both pathways are as smooth as possible.

Q: What are the key factors determining whether innovations are adopted into the NHS?

A: The uniqueness of an innovation helps, and a strong evidence base is critical. Strong clinical and operational impacts with minimal disruption to existing services will make adoption easier, and innovations that align with national priorities tend to stand a better chance. Companies that understand NHS funding mechanisms and transformation programmes will also have a significant advantage. Ultimately, innovations succeed when they solve a pressing problem, align with the needs of healthcare providers, and have champions within the system. At UCLPartners, we work with companies to bridge any gaps.

We help innovators understand how to position their solutions for real-world uptake while working with NHS partners to reduce the friction of adoption.

Q: Your work spans multiple disciplines. How do you foster genuine interdisciplinary collaboration rather than simply bringing different specialists into the same room?

A: We begin with shared problem definition, bringing a team of experts together at the earliest stages. We then create dedicated physical and virtual collaboration spaces where traditional hierarchies can be temporarily set aside – this proved invaluable during the pandemic response. We actively cultivate ‘translators’ who understand multiple domains and can bridge communication gaps between specialists. Most importantly, we recognise that meaningful collaboration requires time – our most successful innovations often emerge after 12 to 18 months of regular interaction.

Q: How do you ensure that innovations address health inequalities rather than widening them?

A: That’s at the core of our strategy – our priority is to create

>

A CLOSER LOOK HEALTHCARE

innovations that are scalable and accessible to diverse populations.

Digital solutions must consider digital literacy and avoid excluding those with limited access to technology. Contrary to what many believe, digital health can actually increase engagement and reduce inequality rather than making it worse – it just needs to be done in the right way. During the pandemic, we saw very high digital uptake across all communities, including those previously considered harder to reach.

Additionally, we focus on co-designing solutions with communities, ensuring they’re culturally appropriate and meet real-world needs. A prime example is AI-driven predictive healthcare, which helps direct resources to the most at-risk populations, rather than simply benefiting those already engaged with the healthcare system.

By training our innovations on data from patients whose outcomes are currently worst, and creating customisable solutions for those patients, we’re actively working to reduce healthcare disparities.

Q: When it comes to fostering patient involvement in innovation, what methods have you found to be most effective?

A: We’ve developed several approaches that create patient engagement beyond tokenistic representation. We employ community researchers from specific populations who gather insights from their peers, which is particularly valuable when it comes to underserved groups who may distrust traditional methods.

Patient design partners participate throughout the innovation process, with their contribution being valued equally with clinical professionals.

We’ve established digital communities where hundreds of patients with specific conditions provide rapid feedback on innovations. We use ethnographic approaches to understand lived 62 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

experiences rather than relying solely on what patients tell us in formal settings. Importantly, we measure the impact of involvement on outcomes, tracking how engagement improves adoption and effectiveness. To us, patients aren’t just users but essential co-creators whose expertise is as valuable as any clinical or technical knowledge.

Q: Given the current economic pressures, is UCLPartners adapting its approach to ensure that innovations deliver financial sustainability?

A: Absolutely. Cost-effectiveness is a key criterion for selecting innovations. We focus on solutions that improve outcomes while reducing long-term costs. What’s remarkable is that just five percent of health service users consume 50 percent of healthcare resources in North Central London alone.

This high-need cohort generally has three or more long-term conditions, and the complexity of their care is extremely burdensome for them, often requiring over 30 appointments a year, with some attending up to 80. Their care is frequently uncoordinated, with unclear clinical ownership and poor outcomes. We’re exploring ways to consolidate care for these patients through data and digitally enabled solutions. The goal is to deliver care that better meets patients’ needs, while being significantly more cost-effective.

Q: You often speak about the importance of proactivity, prevention and personalised care. Can you share a real‑world example of an innovation that embodies these principles?

A: The AI for urgent and emergency care programme exemplifies this approach. It uses machine learning to predict which patients will require emergency care months in advance. Our data shows that 95 percent of acute care demands are likely to come from 5 percent

“We are on something of a burning deck in terms of healthcare sustainability, so AI’s arrival is timely.

We need safeguards and proper evaluation, but we must embrace this opportunity.”

of the population who – and this is key – are identifiable in advance.

These patients receive proactive interventions to steer them towards community-based care. With patients who might need more serious intervention, we’ve seen a 30 percent reduction in hospital admissions. It’s particularly valuable in addressing health inequalities, as those most at risk of hospitalisation often belong to underserved populations. The reality is that these patients aren’t overusing health services; they’re underusing them until they reach crisis point.

Q: What specific policy or structural changes would most accelerate the adoption of healthcare innovations within the NHS?

A CLOSER LOOK HEALTHCARE

NEW ARRIVAL

NEW

Hale House Under the stewardship of The Howard de Walden Estate, the Harley Street Health District is evolving into an integrated healthcare ecosystem that spans prevention, treatment and long-term care. Launching in April, Hale House marks a significant step in that evolution. This impressive new Portland Place development, created by incorporating three existing buildings, will act as a dynamic coworking space for healthtech startups and other innovators in the healthcare sector, offering access to the resources and networks needed to support their growth. UCLPartners is the facility’s anchor occupier.

HALE HOUSE 76 Portland Place, W1B 1NT spacemade.co

A: There are four key changes.

First, streamlining procurement through more unified pathways would remove significant barriers.

Second, dedicated innovation budgets protected from operational pressures would ensure promising solutions receive the necessary investment. Third, standardising evaluation frameworks across the NHS would prevent the inefficiency of repeated assessments for each organisation. Finally, investing in NHS leadership capability around technology adoption would address the skills gap that often slows implementation. These practical changes would transform the pace at which the NHS can benefit from innovation while maintaining its core principle of equitable healthcare for all.

63 — MARYLEBONE JOURNAL / ISSUE NO. 109

Q: Do you think there is a role in healthcare for social media?

A: Social media definitely has a role in addressing healthcare inequalities because digital literacy is remarkably high across all demographics.

During the pandemic, we observed significant uptake of digital platforms for health information, even in traditionally underserved communities. The barrier isn’t digital technology itself but how we approach it. By creating digital solutions that meet people’s needs where they are, with platforms they understand, we can increase engagement and reduce inequalities.

Q: What impact do you think AI will have in the coming years?

A: AI is shifting the focus from reactive care to proactive, predictive

medicine. Clinicians are becoming increasingly involved in developing AI-driven decision‑support tools, ensuring they align with clinical needs. Researchers play a vital role in validating AI models and ensuring ethical considerations are addressed. However, technology developers must prioritise usability and transparency, making AI tools interpretable for clinicians.

The challenge is to integrate AI seamlessly into workflows without creating additional burdens. There are certain functions where AI will deliver superhuman performance in terms of scale, speed, depth and reliability. This is where we try to focus our efforts. When done right, AI has the potential to enhance, rather than replace, human expertise. We are on something of a burning deck in terms of healthcare sustainability internationally, so AI’s arrival is timely. We need safeguards and proper evaluation, but we must embrace this opportunity.

Q: How does working within the Hale House healthtech hub on Portland Place enhance your ability to deliver on your mission?

A: London offers extraordinary advantages for healthcare innovation. World-leading academic institutions, teaching hospitals, life sciences companies and investment capital create unparalleled collaborative opportunities. Being located within Hale House positions us adjacent to healthtech companies and venture capital firms while maintaining proximity to university and NHS partners. The move signals our evolution toward more ambitious, transformative innovation. This location isn’t just about the address, it’s about embedding ourselves within a dynamic ecosystem that enhances every aspect of our work.

UCLPARTNERS Hale House, 76 Portland Place, W1B 1NT uclpartners.com

MARYLEBONE PROPERTY AGENCY MARYLEBONE PROPERTY AGENCY

E S TA B L I S H E D 1 9 8 1 E S TA B L I S H E D 1 9 8 1

WEYMOUTH STREET, MARYLEBONE VILLAGE, LONDON W1G A unique opportunity to acquire a lateral apartment having an area of approximately 1,864 sq ft (173 sq m) located on the second floor. The apartment has the added benefits of original features, underfloor heating and a passenger lift.

The property features an entrance hall, separate kitchen, a spacious double reception room, three/four bedrooms, including a master bedroom with views over Weymouth Mews, an en-suite bathroom, plus an additional shower room.

Situated on the south side of Weymouth Street in the heart of Marylebone Village.

Leasehold

£3,500,000

DEVONSHIRE PLACE, MARYLEBONE VILLAGE, LONDON W1G This three bedroom apartment is approximately 1,842 sq ft (171 sq m) located on the ground floor and first floor.

The ground floor comprises of entrance hall, reception room, office, cloakroom, kitchen. The first floor comprises of three double bedrooms benefiting from en suite bathroom. The property boasts high ceilings with plenty of storage.

Conveniently located moments from Marylebone High Street and the open spaces of Regent’s Park, the building is located on the west side of Devonshire Place close to the junction with Devonshire Street.

Unfurnished

£1,750 PER WEEK

jeremyjames@jeremy-james.co.uk jeremyjames@jeremy-james.co.uk

020 7486 4111 020 7486 4111

www.jeremy-james.co.uk www.jeremy-james.co.uk

Your Marylebone & Regent’s Park estate agent and more

SALES, LETTINGS &

NEW HOMES

SALES, LETTINGS &

NEW HOMES

SALES,

LETTINGS & NEW HOMES

Want to know the best schools in Marylebone & Regent’s Park?

Ask a local.

Our expert local knowledge is supported by 34 offices across the country, including nine in London, and with a global network across 50 countries we really do go above and beyond.

From Marylebone to Mexico, we’ve got you covered.

And, with a 5 star Google review rating, why search anywhere else for a local estate agent.

@carter_jonas_homes

Thinking of selling or letting?

Contact one of our experts or scan the QR code to discover the value of your home.

020 7486 8866 | marylebone@carterjonas.co.uk 37 New Cavendish Street, Marylebone, London W1G 9TL carterjonas.co.uk/estate-agents/london/marylebone

SWEAT SWEATINTO INTOSUMMER: SUMMER:Transform Transform Your YourBody, Body,Elevate ElevateYour YourSpirit!

Spirit!

Achieve Achieve the the physique physique of of your your dreams dreams with with one one of of Club Club 51’s 51’s Summer Summer Fitness Fitness Programs, Programs, tailored tailored toto YOUR YOUR specific specific fitness fitness needs. needs.

1-11-1 Personal Personal Fitness Fitness Training Training Small Small Group Group Fitness Fitness Physio Physio && Sports Sports Therapy Therapy

Medical Medical Exercise Exercise Specialist Specialist

Yoga Yoga && Pilates Pilates

Corporate Corporate Fitness Fitness

ENQUIRE ENQUIRENOW NOW 020 020 3982 3982 3856 3856

AsAs Featured Featured In In

ENQUIRIES@CLUBFIFTYONE.CO.UK ENQUIRIES@CLUBFIFTYONE.CO.UK

CLUBFIFTYONE.CO.UK CLUBFIFTYONE.CO.UK