The 5 Senses #4: Shoreditch, London

Featuring appetizers, listening bars, and adult ball pits.

Greetings from my roof, where my husband is reading the Rick Rubin book I loved and my dog is barking at our neighbors because he wants their Katz’s deli takeout (same tbh). I am excited like I’m going back to school tomorrow and I sort of am — it’ll be my first day working full time at The Ankler!

We are back from a week in London. I’d never been before so I did what any millennial would: decided to stay in one of the neighborhoods mentioned in Taylor Swift’s generic but delightful song London Boy:

And after some analysis like: how many third-wave coffee shops would we be surrounded by? We landed on Shoreditch, which is so analogous to our Lower East Side that we literally stayed a block away from their Rivington Street. In Shoreditch and its neighboring or should I say neighbouring Spitalfields we found excellent chain pizza courtesy of Pizza Pilgrims, fries that didn’t seem to get the American shrinkflation memo, and street art that made me want to put it on Instagram with a murky filter, as if I studied abroad there in 2013. If you can stand people screaming with drunkenness until 5 in the morning because I don’t know, you’re a night owl, or you’re trying to stay on US time, here are the best things I tasted, smelled, heard, saw, and touched in Shoreditch and Spitalfields.

The Best Thing I Tasted in Spitalfields: Cold Vegetable Appetizers From Ottolenghi

If you’ve been to one “shoppy shop” or have decided to try a more “Mediterranean diet” except you don’t want to eat fish eyes, you have probably heard of Ottolenghi and his fantastic cookbooks. Through simple ingredients and cooking techniques, Ottolenghi can bring out the different facets of a vegetable, conducting a symphony that would probably make me say “should we just go to Ottolenghi?” constantly if I lived in London. We had roasted cauliflower with raisins and red onions and roasted sweet potatoes with labneh, harissa, and pumpkin seed salsa. As someone who doesn’t always love eating meat it was exciting to watch vegetables get so much attention, without them being turned into a frankensteined burger (which I also love — 7th street is the only smash burger worth going to and you can quote me on that)

The Best Thing I Smelled in Shoreditch: the Matcha Milk Candle by Moco Fragrances at AIDA Shoreditch

Shoreditch has so many cute stores filled with colorful objet that make you curse the exchange rate. One such store is AIDA where I ended up fondling towels, shirts, and shirts made of towels until I found a candle that stopped me in my tracks. It smells exactly like matcha and vanilla and the kind of milk that would make my tummy hurt. So many candles fail to deliver on their luscious copywriting but not this one.

The Best Thing I Heard in Shoreditch: the Nina Simone Cover of “Ain’t Got No” From the Musical Hair

*Stefon voice* London’s hottest concept is the listening bar, where the records being spun are just as important as the drinks served. More of these bars are popping up in New York and we of course have Japan to thank for starting the trend. One such listening bar which had leather couches perfect to sink into and cowork mercilessly is a bar on Broccoli Lane (my literal dream to live on a street named after a fruit, flower, or vegetable) in Spitalfields called Cafe 1001. I had heard a lot of Nina Simone’s music before but not this song, which I realized I knew all the words to despite never hearing it — because I made the musical Hair my entire personality in high school. So hearing those lyrics in a different context was certainly a fun trip down memory lane. 

The Best Thing I Saw in Shoreditch: The Adult Ball Pit at Ballie Ballerson

London is rife with… shall we say blue…business names. This isn’t even the only ball-themed bar in Shoreditch, the other was a minigolf bar we went to called, you guessed it, Balls. But the cheekily named Ballie Ballerson has an adult ball pit. I urge you to not ask any of the questions I was thinking to myself: what happens if drunk people vomit on the balls? Do people sweat on them? What if they spill drinks on them? My life hack would be: go as soon as the bar opens to ensure the balls are clean, but make sure to bring some friends along with you. Better yet, go on a bar crawl and go to NQ64 next, which is a black light-lit barcade where you go down a slide and end up playing Stranger Things Pinball, Crazy Taxi, and Guitar Hero, which is a lot less fun when you have carpal tunnel.

The Best Thing I Touched in Shoreditch: the Strange Burger Stool at the McDonalds Anniversary Popup

I work in marketing so I do really love a brand activation, and my liberal arts degree soul up and left the building after I said that. But outside the outdoor market Boxpark Shoreditch was a popup for McDonalds’ British anniversary, complete with food trucks and McDonald’s-themed manicures, if that’s your thing, which, why would it be? But I happened upon this little guy who seemed so derpy, so filled with wonder. I wanted to take him home, if just to save him from all the people who tried to sit on him.

Anyway, TTFN, and hope you’re having a nice Labor Day.