Finding the right restaurant during Frieze London? It's an art

One of my earliest memories of my father is sitting at the family dinner table, listening to him recount the day’s many meetings, hopping between Scott’s and The Wolseley. He was never a fan of the long lunch (a trait I clearly didn’t inherit), preferring instead to fit as many places into a single day as he could. Perhaps that is why his knowledge of restaurants runs so deep. Table Hopping, his 34th book to date, is a social history of London told through its ever-changing culinary scene.

Taking in Langan’s Brasserie and cult favourite St John, the book wipes every crumb from the plate. And there is no better time to view London through its restaurants than October, the busiest month in the city’s art calendar – and in my professional year, as marking and communications director at Saatchi Yates. Frieze London descends on Regent’s Park for a week-long escapade in which collectors and dealers mingle and works change hands. And, inevitably, everyone needs somewhere to eat. With the art fair on the horizon, then, it’s essential to consider where you will be dining.

The artists themselves go somewhere they can actually afford. White tablecloths give way to sticky pub tables; food critics to art students. In fact, the best of the week is often found as far from the collectors as possible, among the artists, few of whom can stretch to a table inside Zone 1. The Marquis of Granby pub in New Cross is a favourite spot. Most of the gallerinas are based in south London, too, so everyone mingles here.

A wedge of green on the corner of New Cross Road, The Marquis sits in dangerous eyeshot of Goldsmiths Library. For decades, it has pulled in art students in neon-pink fishnets and non-ironic tutus alongside Millwall regulars – all sharing a bar and the jukebox without much friction; avant-garde dress next to old-school pints. The food would not trouble a critic, though I would never say no to a sausage roll. You come here instead for the company and perhaps ω ϖa sighting of Sophia Loeb or Michael Craig-Martin…As my father understands better than anyone, a good restaurant is defined as much by the company in it as by the menu. He taught me to ‘sing for my supper’ and to always dine with people I could learn something from and feel inspired by. ‘Always leave feeling fed but lighter,’ he used to say. He was never too full himself: his order at Scott’s has been the Dover sole for as long as I can remember. Throughout the book, he invites friends and industry names alike to recount their favourite meals and the stories behind them. In his spirit, I turned to the circle I call my own and asked where they eat.

A dinner with Joe Bromley (a trusted London tastemaker and dear friend) and his other half, PR man-about-town Nikola Simeonov, will often begin at 8pm and rarely end before the sun comes up. Joe’s go-to is Decimo, the penthouse Mexican restaurant at The Standard hotel. ‘It’s a veritable slice of New York in London,’ he says. ‘The food, to put it elegantly, slaps (don’t leave without the halibut wrapped in corn husk), and I have never once managed to escape before 3am.’

Further west, my best friend, editor Inès Cross, suggests Café Deco or the Eagle in Farringdon. ‘Order the egg mayonnaise, and don’t leave without dessert,’ she says. She also recommends The Latimer, recently opened by the Spiteri family: ‘Everything was delicious. Even my mother said so.’

PR extraordinaire Pink Squire, a close friend since school whose opinion I trust above all others, will never let you order badly. She surrounds herself with the food set in east London, among them Hannah Crosbie, wine expert and ‘the next Nigella’, and Chloé Houx, the events-planning force behind social spots Bar Crispin and Canal. Squire, however, champions The French House in Soho. ‘It’s perfect from top to bottom: the bottom being the pub, where they serve beer by the half, and the top being the petite dining room with its seven tables.’ It has long been a pull for Bright Young Things.

When I started reading my father’s book, I expected to finish it with an extensive knowledge of every restaurant in London worth eating at. That turned out to be only half true. What I came away with instead were familiar names, and the comfort of stories about the people I grew up with. What my father shows so effortlessly (a rare moment of subtlety for him) is that who we eat with matters as much as where we eat.

In that vein, as much as I love Frieze week, you will find me at my happiest with a filthy martini at the bar of Dover Street Counter, my partner, Tyger, beside me. Without a doubt, the only reservation you need to make this Frieze is at Martin Kuczmarski’s latest haunt. Sit at the counter, put yourself in the hands of their iconic R&B playlist, order the cheeseburger, and wash your sins away with a cocktail from their king, Angelo Jarrin. Your reservations matter, but it is the people at the table who make the week.

This Frieze London feature was first published in the November 2026 issue of Tatler.