Capital Letter
Dispatches, essays and city notes from around London and beyond.
No. 17 16 October 2025
DiCaprio is Friezeing
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kendrick Lamar at Frieze, and two better pop-up shows in King's Cross, Behrang Karimi above the shuttered McGlynn's and Clarissa at 9 Caledonian Road. Also: whether the non-dom exodus is cooling London's art market, the pubs where Proms orchestras and Chelsea Pensioners drink, the Tibet Film Festival and the Sands Films cinema club, the Taste of Nawab, and Soho Square at lunchtime.
No. 16 2 October 2025
A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Drunk Horse at Sushi Samba
Kerry James Marshall's The Histories at the Royal Academy, reviewed, after a chaotic Marina Abramović opening at Saatchi Yates. Cameron Allan's guide to Walworth, from East Street market to Lao Dao and the Red Lion. Also: why London Cocktail Week's £20 wristband is a con, LACRIMA at the Barbican, and the barber Tom Braham on choosing a barber in an unregulated trade.
No. 15 18 September 2025
The Secret Chef Returns!
Secret Chef returns to score the Instagram accounts of Jackson Boxer and Santiago Lastra on cooking, looks and arse-licking. A guide to Finsbury Park, from the WB Yeats to Rowan's Tenpin. Also: Alexander Molochnikov's Seagull: True Story at the Marylebone Theatre, a warning against The Storehouse in Dalston, Gresham Kirkby's brutalist St Paul's in Bow Common, and the Hackney Sample Sale.
No. 14 4 September 2025
Miss La La Drinks at The George Inn
Alayo Akinkugbe and Francesca Mollet nominate the best artworks on permanent, free display in London, both at the National Gallery; and the pubs trading on invented histories, from the Fitzroy Tavern to the Mayflower in Rotherhithe. Also: how to do Open House, the London Podcast Festival in King's Cross, proper beigels at Rinkoff's and Grodzinski's rather than B Bagel, and the Templar effigies of Temple Church.
No. 13 21 August 2025
Starry Nights at Camden Arts Centre
Duane Linklater at Camden Art Centre in Frognal. Star casting on the London stage, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge in An Oak Tree to Lenny Henry in Every Brilliant Thing, and the case for Adeel Akhtar. Also: Bleecker Burger as W1's most miserable meal, Marline Anderson's protected grapefruit trees in Wandsworth, and two new queer bars, The Roses of Elagabalus in Dalston and La Camionera off Broadway Market.
No. 12 31 July 2025
Plonk at Gordon's Wine Bar
A panel of sommeliers, chefs and critics names London's worst wine list, with Jay Rayner on Gaia, Andy Hayler on Chez Roux, and Gordon's Wine Bar winning. Bexley and Bexleyheath, from the King's Head to William Morris's Red House and the pub called the Polly. Also: Arthur Jafa and Mark Leckey in Croydon's Whitgift Centre, the New Communist Party's Battersea shopfront, and gigs at the Old Church, Stoke Newington.
No. 11 17 July 2025
Two Ugly Sisters
Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf at the Royal Festival Hall, reviewed. Cenci in West Norwood, the vintage barn London's designers keep to themselves. Also: Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward's Ugly Sisters at Soho Theatre, a walk down Holloway Road to Alcedo, the village of Eynsford by train from London Bridge, restaurants pretending to be pubs, the London Archives by Exmouth Market, and St Paul's, Covent Garden, the actors' church.
No. 10 26 June 2025
Saatchi Isn't Working
A Sunday-night open mic at Pentameters, the theatre above the Three Horseshoes in Hampstead, with Leonie Scott Williams and Godfrey Old. Saatchi Yates's Once Upon a Time in London opens to six-hour queues, while Harlesden High Street shows a prison cell. Also: Peter Brook's Mahabharata restored at the BFI IMAX, Greasby's auction house in Tooting, Shooters' Hill and Severndroog Castle, and St Mary's, Rotherhithe, with the Finnish Church's sauna.
No. 9 12 June 2025
London’s Most Embarrassing Gallery
Saatchi Yates, London's most embarrassing gallery, launches a membership scheme with a WhatsApp group and a Once Upon a Time in London show; round the corner, Paul Thek at Thomas Dane. The Reckoning, built on Ukrainian testimony, at the Arcola. Also: Les Associés, a Parisian bistro in north London, vintage shopping at Files and Twos in Hackney, and St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield's medieval survivor.
No. 8 29 May 2025
Subtitling the Stage at Theatre 503
Why new British plays read like television, from Derry Boys at Theatre 503 to James Graham's Dear England and Punch. Gary Foulkes's cooking at Cornus in Belgravia, reviewed. Also: Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis back at the Royal Court, five Bloomsbury galleries for London Gallery Weekend, Somali slow-cooked lamb at Al Kahf in Whitechapel, film clubs including The Machine That Kills Bad People, and the opening of V&A East Storehouse.
No. 7 15 May 2025
Lunch at the Rice Wine Shop
Imelda Staunton and her daughter Bessie Carter in Mrs Warren's Profession at the Garrick, and Timberlake Wertenbaker's Little Brother at Jermyn Street. Glenn Brown's private museum in a Marylebone mews. Also: the Rice Wine Shop on Brewer Street for desk lunches, solitude above Kenwood on Hampstead Heath, Beauty & the Beat at the Bath House, Through The Noise's classical gigs, and the post-war stained glass of Christ Church, Southwark.
No. 6 1 May 2025
Raoul Moat, John Fosse and Baba Segi walk into the Royal Court
A theatre special. Robert Icke's Raoul Moat play at the Royal Court, Femi Elufowoju Jr's coming season at the Arcola, and Jon Fosse's Einkvan at the Coronet. Victor Garvey's tasting menu at the Midland Grand, reviewed. Also: Ken Kiff at Hales Gallery, Rene Matić's Idols Lovers Mothers Friends, a Jah Shaka tribute at Brook House football club, One Club Row, and the Tower of London before the tourists arrive.
No. 5 10 April 2025
A Lament for Digga D in Vauxhall
RIP Germain's Anti-Blackness Is Bad, Even The Parts That We Like at Cabinet in Vauxhall, a video installation that lays UK drill to rest. A return visit to Hugh Corcoran's Yellow Bittern on the Caledonian Road, this time with the rabbit pie. Also: Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Almeida, reviewed against its critics, and All Saints, Margaret Street, William Butterfield's high gothic church off Regent Street, with a bar underneath.
No. 4 27 March 2025
London’s 25 Best Boozers
Jimmy McIntosh and The Fence list the 25 best pubs in London, in no order, from The Bell in Walton-on-the-Hill to The Crown on Holloway Road. Among them are the Cow in Notting Hill, The Ship in Fitzrovia, the Prince Edward in N7, the Dog and Bell in Deptford, Turner's Old Star in Wapping, the Black Deer in Debden and the editor's favourite, the Sir Robert Peel in Kentish Town.
No. 3 13 March 2025
An Eavesdropper's Guide to London
Joe Bishop and Kieran Morris on why London's haute cuisine lags behind Paris, Tokyo and Copenhagen, with Marina O'Loughlin and Andy Hayler. Where to eavesdrop, from Kennington Tandoori to the toilets at Quo Vadis. Also: Lotte Brundle nominates Kenneth Tynan for a blue plaque at 120 Mount Street, Leigh Bowery at Tate Modern, Jeanne Dielman and On Falling at the BFI, and St Peter's, London Docks.
No. 2 27 February 2025
Soho Confidential
The best pubs in Soho are not in Soho, in a guide that ends at The Ship on New Cavendish Street. Lamorna Ash on Festen at the Royal Opera House. Also: Zoe Paskett on comedy nights beyond Leicester Square, a night out from the Rising Sun in Lewisham to Tea House in Deptford, where the Sloanes eat, verified by Peter York, and George Michael's grave in Highgate Cemetery.
No. 1 13 February 2025
On the Razz in Westbourne Park
The first Capital Letter. A night out in Westbourne Park, from Bloody Marys at The Westbourne to Angie's Free House and Eritrean food at Mosob; and the church of St Giles in the Fields, from Richard Penderel's tomb to the Angel pub. Also: the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery, the Garden Cinema, Dennis Severs' House for half-term, and the case for Nanahoshi in Soho.