Words by Charlotte Cox
If a box-set binge/Creme Egg coma was the Easter plan, scrap it. We've got way better bank holiday ideas
DRINK: Barrio Brixton
Tequila! Mezcal! Pisco! Rum! Now that we have your attention, we’d like to hereby bring it to your notice that Barrio – London’s favourite Latin bar – has just opened its first outpost south of the river. Which means that Brixtonites can now feast on Peruvian street-eats (salmon ceviche, grilled pork belly), Mexicano cocktails (tequila, mezcal… etc etc) and Latin craft brews without having to travel all the way to South America (or, er, up to Barrio Shoreditch). Which further means that this bank holiday, you can have yourself a veritable fiesta. Ole, indeed.
Now open
Barrio, 30 Acre Lane, SW2 5SG
DRINK: Black Rock
Q: When is a bar not a bar? A: When it is a tree. A huge, 185-year-old oak, to be precise, which has been split in half, turned on its side and filled with 17 litres of whisky cocktails… Yes, this has actually happened. And it is the centrepiece of Shoreditch’s newest subterranean drinking den. The perfectly aged cocktails – choose from the Cherry River or the Special House Blend – are then delivered straight to your glass via taps at the end of the trunk. A concept for which there is only one word: tree-mendous.
Now open
Black Rock, 9 Christopher Street, EC2A 2BS
DATING: Date Lab at Coin Laundry
Tapped out Tinder? Over OK Cupid? Perhaps it’s time to take a more scientific approach. And that, our date-weary friends, is just what this new event has in store. Describing itself as ‘psychology speed dating’, the Date Lab takes findings from studies on attraction and uses them to help you find Mr or Miss Right. So, all guests wear black to level the playing field, are given a ‘Date Kit’ to help them find their ideal match and have to follow unconventional rules all evening long. It is, we’re assured, ever so scientific – and it is, we are also assured, ever so possible to knock back tasty Blind Date cocktails. Helps with the chemistry, you see.
29 March; £15
Coin Laundry, 70 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QP
coinlaundry.co.uk
NIGHTLIFE: Eglo Records Bank Holiday Special
When Eglo Records call an event ‘special’, they’re not messing about. Because not only is this huge 10pm-6am affair headlined by label boss Floating Points – one of the most dreamily uplifting producers to set record to deck – but it features a full roster of his jazzy, housey protegés. Don’t miss the broken beats of Kaidi Tatham and Dego, or the soulful sounds of Al Dobson Jr. Repeat after us: bank holiday is not for sleeping.
27 March; £15
Corsica Studios, 5 Farrell Court, Elephant & Castle SE17 1LB
SHOPPING: Make Do & Mend Easter Vintage & Makers Market
Hold it: our vintage-shopping senses are tingling. They’re telling us that this Saturday, Pop Brixton is the place to go for quirky retro clothes and accessories, super-stylish 20th century homewares, unique handmade crafts, original prints and one-off jewellery. Well, our vintage-shopping senses are telling us that – and the event poster. That was quite useful too.
26 March; free
Pop Brixton, 49 Brixton Station Road, SW9 8PQ
FILM: Secret Cinema X Goes Clubbing
So you'll have heard of Secret Cinema – it’s a secret that is less than well-kept. But you may NOT have heard of its smaller, cooler and even more mysterious offshoot, Secret Cinema X. As with the original SC, at this one-nighter the film and location are kept tightly under wraps. But judging by the last event (a screening of Amy that transformed Camden's Koko into a full-scale jazz club), plus promise of ‘a breathless night-time journey, discovering one of 2016’s most anticipated films’, rolling into the early hours with underground DJs, this is one secret you're REALLY going to want to be in on. Shhh...
26 March; £28
FOOD: Yard Sale Pizza x White Men Can’t Jerk
We love a good collaboration. Rodarte x & Other Stories, Charlotte Olympia x Mac, Rihanna x Manolo... Fabulous, you'll agree. But ask yourself this: do they offer you stone-baked pizza topped with smoky jerk chicken? Here to fill that quite obvious collab void is hip Hackney restaurant Yard Sale Pizza, which is teaming up with street food stars White Men Can't Jerk for a five-day 'love-in'. A love-in involving not only said stone-baked dough and chicken, but also fior di latte mozzarella, callaloo leaf and pineapple scotch bonnet jam. Top that, Uniqlo x Lemaire...
24-28 March
Yard Sale Pizza, 105 Lower Clapton Road, E5 0NP
MUSIC: The Lock Tavern Festival
What could be better than a bank holiday spent in a boozer? Well, a bank holiday spent in a legendary canal-side Camden boozer, where there just so happens to be a free four-day festival full of up-and-coming bands and DJs (including grungers Skinny Girl Diet, lo-fi punkers Rats on Rafts, pictured, and psychedelic popsters The Proper Ornaments), plus street food and ample amounts of craft beer. That's what.
24-27 March; free
The Lock Tavern, 35 Chalk Farm Road, Camden, London, NW1 8AJ
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