This edition of Camdenist comes to you all the way from Manila in The Philippines. You probably didn’t expect that as the intro of your regular neighborhood-focused weekly newsletter, so let me explain…

Some of you may know that in parallel to Camdenist, I also run a similar hyperlocal culture guide to Hackney Wick and the wider Olympic Park boroughs, producing a quarterly print title, The Wick, with its own weekly newsletter, alongside some great partners.

We were invited by the British Council Philippines to speak at this week’s two-day Creative Nation Summit 2024, discussing our experiences of how nurturing and protecting artistic communities, rather than letting them get priced out, can be the catalyst for establishing thriving creative-led neighbourhoods.

The emerging ‘Hackney Wick Model’ also includes a monthly community meeting which brings stakeholders of all sizes together in one room, successfully forging serendipitous alliances and promoting the mission to achieve a sustainable creative economy for the long-term. A separate trust additionally seeks to bring local buildings into community ownership, ensuring truly affordable workspace is permanently available for artists and creative entrepreneurs.

If you’d like to know more about all that, do sign up to receive The Wick every Wednesday…

Meanwhile, here in Manila it has been a fascinating, whistlestop few days, discovering the unique vibe of this South East Asian city for the first time. I’ll write more about the summit, the many talented people we met and shared knowledge with there, and The Philippines ambitious plans to become the region’s cultural powerhouse by 2030 in The Wick when I’m back, but today I’ve been reflecting on a few universal urban experiences.

Manila is in fact multiple cities rubbing up against each other in one urban sprawl on the tropical island of Luzon. We often hear that London is ‘a collection of villages’, and shrug at the complexity of having 32 individual boroughs and councils, but the difference between each part of the city over here is a touch more stark than bin colours and e-bike parking rules.

Imagine if crossing the border from Camden and Islington included the sudden end of pavements, the barring of certain kinds of vehicles altogether or a dramatic height drop from skyscrapers to shacks, directly across the road from each other. You can really feel the legacy of WWII destruction here, (as you still can in London, if you look), but Manila grapples with the added divisions of the colonial era still very much impacting the flow of daily city life.

I love how the heartbeat of a place irrepressibly reflects its setting - the chaos of Manila surely also fired up by the permanent unpredictability of the next big typhon, tsunami, earthquake or volcano going boom. Now that’s vibrant.

We were warned about the traffic, but experiencing the non-stop multi-lane gridlock every day has been next level. It really puts into perspective the improvements things like the congestion charge, ULEZ and the bike lane network bring to London. Our ‘I’m with the motorists’ naysayers should come and breathe some Manila air before having another cheap below-the-line pop at Sadiq.

We’ve been introduced to fabulous designers, artist collectives, environmental pioneers and more, all bevering away on the same kind of projects that London’s creatives do, experiencing the same challenges of finding space, paying rent, being seen and more. It’s nice to be reminded that there are so many things in common to all urban dwellers - the good stuff as well as the bad - even when our cities look and feel very different.

And it might have been a long way to come, but oh how refreshing to finally find cheap, tasty food again, and lots of it. There are plenty of challenges living in Manila; the relentless heat, noise, haze, gridlock and more, but people seem to just shrug it all off and sit down to a damn fine convivial meal together. Such nice people at every turn, always offering mountains of tasty food.

It’s funny where focusing so foolhardily on the culture of local London neighbourhoods can end up leading you. Thanks Manila, until next time… ❤️

😍 Supermodel Schiffer jumps the gun on big Choose Love drop

While we’re speaking about projects you might not know are linked with Camdenist, there was a flurry of backroom drama last week when original supermodel Claudia Schiffer posted an Insta pic of herself in a t-shirt. Why? Because the limited edition garms in question, designed by fellow top draw catwalk icon Helena Christensen, are a project we’ve been working on with Brighton’s Hey Girl Magazine for nearly a year, and nobody was quite ready for the uber-celeb to post it to her 2.3m followers.

Cue the starting gun on a mad scramble to get the shop page live and make some decent money for refugee charity Choose Love, who get 100% of the sales revenue.

The hand-painted design started life in a casual chat between Hey Girl founder Simon Clemenger and Helena, who is a fan of the magazine. Simon put the idea to her and, much to our collective delight, she was up for it, working on the imagery over recent months with established textile artist Olivia Antoniades.

The resulting tees - and also sweatshirts - featuring the bold, colourful design seen above are only available for the next 12 days, so please hurry and support the cause, while bagging a very stylish, supermodel designed (and endorsed) piece of fashion history.

1-CLICK POLL

📊 This week's poll question:

FOOD & DRINK

The Japanese robot skewer chefs are coming

A corner of St Martin’s Lane is about to get a very Tokyo influence with the arrival of Yari Club, featuring the first robot yakitori chef outside Asia. We don’t want to oversell it, as this device still needs to be loaded up by actual humans, but diners, passers-by and - crucially - social media food types, can marvel at its automated grasp, grill and sauce-dip process.

The yakitori in question are various juicy or crispy chicken or prawn skewers that you order individually or as part of a box. And here’s the heads up - there’s a 50% off everything soft launch from their opening day next Tuesday 8th October, running for a full week.

🥘 Home of the perennial queue (and some delicious Bombay cafe-inspired Indian Iranian food, too) Dishoom has just unveiled a complete overhaul of its beloved menu, the first big change in the 14 years(!) since they first stormed onto the London scene.

🍣 All-conquering Danish sushi juggernaut Sticks N Sushi have just opened their latest outpost here in North London, over on Islington’s Upper Street.

🐴 Another week, another bit of news about a high profile local closure, sadly. This time it's Chalk Farm pub The Farrier, which has been serving decent pints and posh pub grub in the converted stables for the last few years. They’ve announced their final service will be November 3rd, so you’ve got a last chance to drop in for a famous Sunday roast or an atmospheric autumn drink on the cobbles.
Longer-term readers will remember we worked closely with The Farrier on our month-long Secret Feasts event debut, where Camdenist and Labtech helped a group of restaurants North Yard restaurants emerge from the Covid lockdowns by showcasing them to locals at a great all-in ticket price.
It will leave a lovely heritage space in a parade full of various other underrated dining and drinking options, which suffer from being hidden away from the main drag on Chalk Farm Rd, but are well worth trying. Let’s hope it isn’t vacant for long.

ALL-NEW THINGS TO DO

Last gasp art, new craft and a competitive night out

🖼️ Chalk Farm’s very cool Prohibition Studios is about to be knocked down for a big redevelopment, and this weekend sees the final show from art and homewares dons Adorn The Common. Kalos Eidos Skopeo offers a kaleidoscopic landscape of paintings, sculpture and print work each representing the inner workings of the 20 artists involved.

🍯 Take a trip up to Hampstead Village to see how the new Hampstead Emporium is coming along. You’ll already find NW5 expat Kentish Town Stores now in-situ, selling loads of the lovely homewares that first debuted on the shelves of their previous coffeshop incarnation.

🎳 Lane 7 has just opened at Hawley Wharf, a new bowling alley that suggests it might be you dream of ‘the best bar you’ve ever been to’, plus fluro-laned bowling, ping-pong, pool, beer pong, darts, shuffleboard and an adults’ only arcade hall. I’m not sure that’s the bar of my own dreams, but you can book now to see for yourself. Do let us know!

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MUSIC

⚡ DJs, bands and singers this week - take your pick

⚡White Trash continues its electro, Italo, post punk and acidic disco pogo trawl through London’s basement clubs and back room pubs, with another high flying night at The Social on Saturday 5th Oct. TV and stage actor Ben Miles plays an all vinyl electro disco set, while TV presenter and style icon Katie Puckrik (Kingdom Come) gets her post punk anthems out.

🎸 Head to The Fiddlers Elbow for a Saturday (5th) Camden Rocks all-dayer featuring The Bogards, Tizane and local lounge heroes Naked Yoga amoung many others.

🎙️Day of the Girl - Bree Runway sees the fantastic singer headlining a very special show to raise money for girls and women living through conflict. It’s the latest in the War Child series, that has already raised over £150k for the charity from powerful female-led shows. It’s at Lafayette on Tuesday 8th October.

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