London: Greatest Hits and B-Sides

By Bedouin Bourdain

London does not ask to be liked. It simply plays its set, and you either know the words or learn them fast. This time the occasion was the Sun Devils, an Arizona State football weekend an ocean away from Tempe. However, the game was only the opening track. The rest of the album belonged to the city.

The Gilded Room

Sun Devil maroon glowed beneath a painted ceiling. Gods and nymphs tumbled through oval clouds overhead. Marble columns stood guard in amber light. Meanwhile, portraits of long-gone dignitaries watched a room of Arizonans cheer a pitchfork on a projection screen. It was absurd, and it was perfect. In fact, that is London in a single frame: centuries of ceremony, cheerfully hosting whoever shows up.

Twelve Miles of Personality

The only honest way to know this city is on foot. Hyde Park first, then Buckingham and Westminster. Across the Thames. Along the river past Tate Modern, through the idyllic stretch, until Tower Bridge carried us back over. Every mile brought a new neighborhood with a new accent. Mayfair buttoned up. Notting Hill in pastel. Chelsea polished. Soho restless. And Borough Market, impossibly charming as ever.

The Grit on Brick Lane

Then Shoreditch. Here the city takes off its jacket. Brick walls wear decades of paint like tattoos layered over tattoos. “FACT” and “H.M.P. LONDON” hang above barred windows. A blue “Curfew” sign goes politely ignored. Parked out front, a matte-black Chevy pickup on whitewalls looks lost and entirely at home. Nothing here is curated. Yet somehow everything feels composed.

Saints, Sinners and Supper

London also has the audacity to turn church into culinary compound. Under a Victorian timber roof, stained glass still glows above the old altar. Below, strangers pass plates and pour wine where pews once stood. Sacrilege, maybe. Nevertheless, the saints in the windows look well fed.

Later, forty floors up at Duck & Waffle, the Gherkin glowed like a lantern against the dark. Tower Bridge shimmered below. After that came late night at Hakkasan with friends. Somewhere in between, a dim pub with organ pipes behind the bar, an £8.95 Aperol Spritz and a bartender flashing a peace sign. Wonderland and whirlwind.

The Last Track

London is painters, poets and punk rockers, whether they call themselves such or not. They live in the kitchens, in the flats and on the street. With respect to Francophiles and Manhattan sycophants like me, this may be the world’s greatest city. It has been too long, London. Play it again soon.