From summer rooftops to one-day only immersive experiences and the coolest restaurants, never miss one of these one-off wonders ever again. This is our up-to-the-minute guide to the best London pop ups to check out.
As part of Oxfam’s #SecondHandSeptember campaign fronted by Michaela Coel and Selfridges’ Project Earth iniative, the charity’s fashion adviser Bay Garnett has opened an Oxfam pop-up inside the department store. The shop is stocked with pre-loved fashion curated by Bay, including a Jean-Paul Gaultier red PVC suit, a Seventies Jaeger coat and Ossie Clark dresses as well as 90s sportswear, flying jackets, jewellery and more, with most of the items on sale for charity shop prices.
After launching ‘Giz & Green’s Monday Night Fakeaway’ on Instagram during lockdown, Gizzi Erksine and Professor Green are taking things IRL with a summer pop-up at Passo in Old Street. The cooking series saw Gizzi and Pro Green recreate classic takeaway dishes in their own kitchens, and now the pair are taking the most popular one – the deep dish stuffed crust pizza – and serving it at the Giz & Green pop-up. The menu will include Hawaiian, pepperoni and veggie stuffed crust pizzas as well as a chicken BBQ version with Tabasco chipotle sauce, alongside local drinks like Dalston’s Soda Co. The pizzas are available to eat in at the restaurant and also on delivery.
Sustainable sneaker brand Cariuma has popped up in Selfridges with an eco-conscious space that showcases the brand’s use of natural materials as well as tying into the department store’s Project Earth initiative. The pop-up features a recycled curved wall made from old plastic bottles caps collected around London, a skateboard display from WasteBoards, which are also made from recycled plastic bottle caps (and will be donate to the non-profit organisation Free Movement Skateboarding once the space pops down), mycelium tables (made from mushrooms) and a mini tree farm. Classic Cariuma kicks as well as new styles, including the Pantone collab range, will be available to shop and if you buy a pair you get a plant to take home too.
Wine on tap specialist Borough Wines are getting their groove on at their new pop up at Kristina Records on Well Street. Expect their signature refill wines as well as a more traditional bottle range featuring natural, biodynamic, organic wines including smashable Pet Nats, juicy AF Oranges and Cremants. Open from Fridays through to Sunday, discover your next cloudy beast with a killer soundtrack to boot. We’ll see you down there.
The Corsica Studios team has brought The Paperworks back for 2020 (it first appeared in 2014), this time taking over a strip of land on the site of an old Victorian ginger beer factory off the Old Kent Road and turning it into a socially distanced suntrap. Running on Fridays and Saturdays for a six week stretch, The Paperworks features street food, cocktails and tunes from Corsica-approved DJs.
Photo credit: Khris Cowley
Syke Gyngell’s restaurant Spring, inside Somerset House, is still closed so she’s popped up in the courtyard with a new pastel pink shipping container. You can get your hands on ice creams (with flavours like peach leaf, jostaberry ripple and blackberry), brioche ice cream sandwiches, granitas and lollies made with fruit from Fern Verrow farm in Herefordshire as well as iced chocolate drinks, fruit cordials and negroni cocktails.
Rapha is riding on over to Canary Wharf this summer with a pop-up clubhouse featuring everything you need for cycling around town. The pop-up is also hosting weekly workshops covering topics like roadside repairs, route planning and group riding, and the Rapha official ride leaders have collated a route library to help you get out and explore the city. And you can put all that practice to good use by taking part in the City Island Challenge.
Get the bevs in at an abandoned car wash in East London as The Old Car Wash in Homerton opens for the summer. The cocktail bar has a huge (and covered) outdoor space with seating for 70, and it’s all socially distanced so there’s plenty of space for everyone. The drinks menu will feature a mix of classic and bespoke cocktails as well as beers from Camden Brewery. There will be some spots left for walk-ins but if you want in, you can book for groups up to 8.
The Underbelly team, best known for its festival on the South Bank, is popping up in the area with new concept StreetEat. The pop-up will feature food traders like Hola Guacamole, Lukumade Doughnut Tales, Katsutopia, Kurbside Kitchen, The London Grilled Fish Company, Simply Falafel, Smoketeers and Coco Labelle, alongside open-air bars and socially distanced seating. There’ll also be free live music, DJ and cabaret performances on the StreetEat stage.
Mexican restaurant La Pilarica, set up by Federico Perez Diaz and Michael Kutziola who have been working together since they met at Marco Pierre White’s Frankie’s Bar and Grill in 2010, is taking over evenings at Loafing Cafe on Well Street. There’s a focus on slow cooked meats, with burritos, tacos, quesadillas, salads and a Mexican pulled pork burger on the menu, alongside Mexican fruit sodas.
After closing Dock Kitchen in 2017 Stevie Parle is making a return to Portobello Docks with brand new pop-up JOY. Created in collaboration with Tom Dixon, the space will include a bar, a 70-cover restaurant called FLORA, a farm shop from Canterbury’s The Goods Shed and a honey store featuring Parle’s very own hives. FLORA will be filled with hundreds of dahlias and floral displays, and the daily-changing menu will feature seasonal produce from The Goods Shed and will include dishes like clams cooked with fresh peas; red prawn with burned lemon; Fosse Meadows chicken stuffed with ricotta and nduja; Wilfra New potatoes & smoked butter; American Pie; and egg yolk & chocolate cookies.
Tomos Parry is taking Brat al fresco with a residency at Climpson’s Arch. Home to the coffee roasters by day, the arch hosts some of the city’s best chefs and restaurants by night, with Tomos having cooked there a few years back. For the summer he’ll be serving Brat’s signature whole roasted turbot, spider crab and grilled bread from the wood ovens in the courtyard, as well as new dishes like grilled Crocadon Farm aged mutton chops, petit snap greens with smoked new season garlic & homemade ricotta, Basque fish soup with Cornish velvet crabs and slow-grilled pollock, laverbread and tomato salad. Come winter, there’ll be roasted Game rice, fried pork with anchovy & hay butter, winter tomatoes with aged mutton, grilled cep mushrooms. Brat’s wine selection will be available alongside bottled and on-tap cocktails from Climpson & Sons, including fermented Bloody Marys, Pineapple Tepaches and Espresso Martinis. Come
