Here’s Where to Eat During Frieze London 2023

In and Around Frieze London

The best thing for sale at Frieze doesn’t have to cost more than your monthly rent payment. Rita’s, the fashion crowd hangout in Soho, is bringing their talents to Regent’s Park with a dedicated tostada bar on the terrace. The stylish New American restaurant has become a staple at the fair since their 2018 debut, and this year, they’ll serve gluten-free tostadas alongside those iconic Cubano sandwiches. Run, don’t walk.

More info here.

Your jaunt through the ritziest of art fairs is screaming for an oyster and martini pairing. Fallow has handily put both into one mouthful, with their famed oyster martini — an efficient hack for a quick stop between heated negotiations over that last Emin print. The sustainability-minded St. James’s restaurant is popping up at Frieze for the first time this year, and they’re bringing apple crumble soft serve and chocolate spelt sundaes with them.

More info here.

Bill Granger’s veg-centric restaurant on Marylebone High Street is a short walk from Frieze and an ideal detox spot for those that spent a bit too long at the fair’s numerous watering holes. As they say, come for the courgette chips, stay for the turmeric and coconut daal. Aesthetes will be at home here, with its stylish Italian mid-century design. Meanwhile, Granger himself helped select the restaurant’s stellar art collection, which includes an abstract screenprint by Nigel Hall RA and a chromogenic print from Justine Varga.

This Soho institution is a natural place to end up after an afternoon among artistes. Formerly owned by Damien Hirst (and before that, home to Karl Marx), the restaurant still maintains some of its YBA ethos. Menus here are as collectible as a work of art. Each month, John Broadley illustrates the page with his whimsical drawings, taking inspiration from the season’s offerings. For October, he’s given a Wind in the Willow treatment to the menu of refined British classics. These are more interactive than Picasso sketches — you get to eat them afterwards.

If your journey home from Frieze means a hike north through Regent’s Park, motivate yourself with a booking at Mr. Ji. The Asian fusion cult favourite got a new lease on life after closing its hot-but-tiny Soho original. Here, in minimalist surrounds, wash down pork-stuffed chicken wings and king prawn fried rice with low-intervention wines. Try to come up for breath to take in CHIC KEN, a permanent exhibition on the walls of Mr. Ji featuring super-saturated still life photos by artist Wang Wei.

Off-Site Happenings

For the less deep-pocked among us, The Other Art Fair runs concurrently with Frieze, Hosted by Saatchi Art, it’s billed as a chance for buyers to meet emerging and under-represented artists in a laidback warehouse setting. Your next move after browsing here should be Oranj, a natural wine bar down the street that hosts rotating residencies with buzzy guest chefs (right now, it’s Mexico City’s Ariel McQueen). Not to be upstaged by the art fairs, Oranj is hosting its own mini exhibition this month, Love Potion nv, by Swedish artist Frida Wannerberger.

Best not to entirely neglect London’s performing art venues during Frieze Week. The National Theatre’s new restaurant Lasdun (and sister restaurant to Marksman) is a stone’s throw away from the Hayward Gallery, which is opening a blockbuster show of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photography during Frieze Week. Lasdun makes for the perfect afters: named after the building’s architect, the restaurant is currently glistening with its sleek brutalist refurb. Oskar Proctor’s celestial still life photographs on the walls offer a serene backdrop for dining for dining Thameside here.

Learn more here. 

Could it be overboard to hit up the Frieze restaurant during Frieze week? Worth the risk when it involves perfectly cooked tagliatelle. Toklas, a highly stylised restaurant by Frieze founders Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, is just a few steps away from 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair — another highlight of Frieze Week. As expected, Toklas’ walls are littered with prints, vintage exhibition posters, and photographs, including a striking Wolfgang Tillman shot that takes centre stage.

Learn more here. 

A match made in heaven: Indian cuisine and Irish booze. While not the first pairing to come to mind, they’ve got this one right. In a tiny spot off Well Street in Hackney, Shankey’s has been turning out fusion hits, like their pumpkin and wild mushroom Bhuna. The bricks-and-mortar spot, which follows their sell-out 2022 pop-up, has an eclectic mish-mash of prints, photographs, and books on the walls, alongside mismatched vintage plates. It sounds chaotic, but it works. Shankey’s is just a short stroll away from Chisenhale Gallery’s new Benoît Piéron installation.

Smack in the middle of the most-hyped hotel opening of this year, Café Lapérouse is coming in hot. The Parisian export, opening this week at The OWO Hotel, is an architectural feat from design studio DaeWha Kang. Most of the restaurant is housed inside a glass structure with a rippling metallic rooftop, amidst the imposing hotel’s courtyard. It’s the closest we’ll get to alfresco fine dining this side of September. Just around the corner is London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, which hosts Frieze Film, a drop-in screening of artist films and shorts.

This Mayfair spot is sandwiched between all the high-powered galleries of Mayfair and set to be a Frieze crowd hangout. Around the corner and down the street, Gagosian will have one of the biggest off-site exhibits of the year, with a Richard Prince show running across both their Mayfair galleries. The upscale French fare at Mister Nice can bring you back to this side of the Atlantic after spending time with Prince’s iconic American cowboys. The restaurant is hosting their own exhibition during Frieze, in partnership with nextdoor gallery JD Malat, including paintings by British-American artist Rocco Ritchie (Madonna’s son).

More information here. 

There’s a natural comedown when the Frieze tents get broken down and the art world glitterati start flying home. But The Pelican is here to make artists of us all. Part of their ongoing series of creative events, the buzzy Notting Hill pub is hosting a live drawing class with artist Bella Franks on October 23rd. Your pint and pencil might work together to get you drawing all the way to a Frieze 2024 slot.