Seafood in the city: Bonnie Gull

It has been a while since I blogged about a new opening but our big move required celebrating. The new Bonnie Gull Seafood Cafe opened just under a month ago in Exmouth Market. I used to work near the first one that opened in Fitzrovia so I knew we would be in for a treat.

A combination of bright Breton stripes, gingham table cloths and simple wooden serving solutions makes you feel as though you're by the sea as soon as you sit down. We had gorgeous weather and a table outside in the sun. 

This was the first London evening that properly felt like summer had arrived - we drank a delicious bottle of cremant as the sun set and stayed chatting and eating for maybe 3 hours before leisurely heading home. 

 Of course the Oysters were a must. The maître d help us chose the exact right ones for us - not too big, not too small and deliciously creamy. 

Exmouth market is great for people watching because of all the great restaurants around that spill into the street on hot summer nights. There's also such an eclectic mix of people there, from neighbouring market stall sellers to city lawyers and my advertising and branding homies too.

I ordered the 'Smash your own crab' and totally smashed it. So much so that at one point, I shot a leg into my dining partner's face. He had the fish and chips which is a mammoth sea beast in crispy golden batter. Both came with excellent sauces - my marie rose was to die for and his tartare had little pieces of hard boiled egg in it - it's all about the detail.

 

 Told you I smashed it.

 Inside, the decor continues to delight with a gorgeously well stocked bar on a white and blue background, shellfish on a bed of ice and a chalk board that they illustrate every day with the catch of the day to show you where their fish is caught too. It's so much nicer to eat fish in the city knowing where it came from and when it was caught!

We finished up with a billionaire shortbread and ice cream with caremelised nuts. The desert selection allows you to either go for a full on pud like we did or opt for a smaller, more novelty option like Brighton rock or fudge - a nice touch on the menu.

You can book online or on the phone. Check out their website here.

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Humble Designs

Shhh... I'm sneaking up on some of my first guests to get a shot of the finished house before it's really ready. Rough around the edges is probably the best way to describe where we are now. There's still a fair bit of raw skirting boards and taped up edges around, not to mention the two major jobs that need to be done on the roof terrace and the downstairs garden. 

Despite still being in some disarray, the first 12 days in the house have been and gone, we've painted some more, hung some things, talked endlessly about the sofa layout and had an antique wardrobe arrive in an old palette that stank of fish which then nearly broke both Robbie and our lovely new neighbours' backs when we tried to get it up the stairs.

I will do a post on buying antique real wood furniture for far cheaper than MDF later on - the downside is that it's some heavy sh*t.

The little house has come alive from being lived in and to embrace a cliché  it feels like home in a way that nowhere has before. As I keep telling family and friends; our sweat and blood has literally sunk into these floorboards. 

The bedroom is slowly being assembled. The new wardrobe compliments an old chest of drawers and the floor perfectly. I got it from Ebay for £110 (similar here) to replace an MDF piece of rubbish that I panic-bought last year for £250 that died in the move. Antique wood pieces are always cheaper than new MDF and if you look after them, will look after you forever. Ebay can be a hassle but is worth it for things like this. 

God I love these floors. Robbie did such a good job on filling the gaps that the upstairs retains all of its heat and they are smooth to walk on. So nice to have kept some of the original parts of the house and have them used anew. I wonder when these were last trodden on by human feet. It could have been back in 1890 when the house is dated to - it certainly looked like it when we uncovered them.

Each morning, we wake up and open the terrace door to the South which lets in the breeze and sprinkles a little extra sun down our stairs. A cup of coffee on the roof is such a lovely way to start the day. 

We are using the spare room as a study and general work space. The view onto the terrace is gorgeous and the grape vine keeps it private too.

Merlin, our house owl and a gift from my grandmother 'to watch over' us is fiercely guarding the stairs.

So nice to have the space to keep well stocked up on the everyday essentials.

Our living and dining room is fast becoming my favourite place in the house. The table - also bought from Ebay - is a sturdy piece of pine which extends to seat 8 people when necessary - though I'm sure I'll manage to get more around it. Our two John Lewis ex- showroom sofas (Ebay again, and 2/3rds of the original price) compliment eachother perfectly and also divide the space up in just the right way. Once the pictures are properly hung, this space will be so peaceful.  For my living room Pinterest board and other inspiration, take a look over here. For now, I'm off to finish bits and pieces.

#Happy

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Argentina: Buenos Aires

Sorry for the long long silence! While Elle has been up to her ears in sawdust I have been working horribly hard and neglecting my sisterly blog-writing duties.

Here is Buenos Aires at long last, written up by area... (with an extra section on steak of course!)

San Telmo

Looking back to when I landed, I didn't really know what to expect but found a tornado of scribbled graffiti covering just about every building within arms reach. San Telmo is a picturesque example of this, and would be a great place to stay (there are a lot of cheap and cheerful hotels around there). It is a largely derelict but charismatic area housing the bulk of Buenos Aires antique / vintage shops which mostly sell overpriced tat but makes for many amusing wanderings. On a Sunday the streets fill with tourists as the Plaza Dorrego market sets up stalls all over Defensa.

lovely little book shop sign

Also in San Telmo is a great Mexican café called Banco Rojo which blasts out very loud music and sells the most delicious tacos and barbecued pork. It is pretty cheap and the perfect spot for lunch on the go. 

Tacos 'especiales'

Tacos with BBQ pork

Villa Crespo

Our favourite area, and where we spent most of our time was Villa Crespo. There you can stay at Pop Hotel for amazingly cheap prices in quirky 'pop art' decorated rooms, eat fantastically well, and dance Tango for Argentinian prices. The tango really was the highlight for me thanks to the wonderful teachers at El Esquinazo (Tango Estudio)
who I had daily private lessons with.

Our room at Pop Hotel

After discovering Pick Up the Fork blog, we were guided through the area's best food offerings and found some real gems. There are two great places for breakfast, Cafe Crespin (photographed below) and Cafe Crespo which was sadly closed while we were there but is open again now. Crespin serves up hearty breakfasts and delicious pastries and had us coming there almost every day. 

There are plenty of great places for dinner but our favourites were Espera Ascura -  great and unbelievably cheap tapas restaurant with mouth watering burrata, and a Venezuelan restaurant called Arepas Buenos Aires which I forgot to photograph, oops!

Recoleta and Retiro

The other neighbourhoods we explored a little were Recoleta and its neighbour, Retiro. These host a couple of our favourite cocktail bars of the trip. The first, Floreria Atlantico in Recoleta, is a well-hidden speakeasy. You arrive at Arroyo 872 to find a flower and wine shop which you pass through an and open up a secret door leading, downstairs, to the bar. Down below, you find a dimly lit, narrow cellar filled with young, well-dressed Argentinians. 

Outside the bar

'The flower shop'

The food was, with one exception, fantastic. We started with some beautifully marinated anchovies, then had the special of griddled ram steak with sweet potatoes and a berry sauce. The meat was divinely tender and flavoursome, and the sauce accompanied it well. 

  

Avoid the pizza!!

The cocktail menu is fantastic and listed by the country that inspired them (see France below) – I ended up going for an Argentinian one that mixed Mate tea with some sort of bitters and fruit juice and some sort of Barley concoction which arrived with a lit cinnamon stick in it. 

The other bar worth a mention is Million. Situated in a converted three storey mansion, it really does feel lavish… I don’t know if it was the rather idiosyncratic characters in the bar – a white suited, artfully wrinkled 50 year old with a much younger glamazon lover, a gay couple with the most outrageous hairstyles I have ever seen, and a load of designer glad Argentinian glitterati – but the whole place reminded me of the early clubbing scenes in The Great Beauty. It is a fantastic place for people watching, and sampling interesting cocktails too.

Steak!

Now I can’t finish a post about Buenos Aires without mentioning steak. We tried a few places but came to the conclusion that Parrilla Pena was the best. We had the ‘lomo’ – tenderloin which was - as it should be - tender, flavoursome and perfectly cooked. Not only that, their chimichurri was also the best we have had – it had a stronger herbal flavour than most, going heavy on rosemary and oregano, as well as a slightly sweet, vinegary sharpness – my mouth is watering just writing of it. And they know how to do a decent salad – a skill that we have found sadly lacking elsewhere in Argentina. The photos aren't anything special but God did it taste good!