on the inside | team loti #2

Behind the scenes part 2. We’re into the second month of 2018 already.
Team LOTI reflect on what’s been happenings as well as what’s coming up.

Jules Pearson
Co-Founder

It’s been a crazy January and I’ve only been back a week having ended 2017 and started 2018 with three weeks in Cambodia. If you haven’t been we strongly suggest you do – Koh Rong has the best beaches we’ve ever experienced and outside of the one small town it’s pretty much deserted….more on that on our TRAVEL page soon. Meanwhile back in London I’ve just gone straight back into the food scene and found a CORKER, Nest in Hackney serving a tasting menu for £28 (yep £28 and it’s bloody brilliant). I finally got to see the inside of The Store, 180 The Strand for the annual Smith hotel reviews where Villa La Coste was the winner of best hotel, a place I stayed on my birthday in September and the nudge I needed to finally write up a piece. It gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘art hotel’. Lumiere also helped light up my dark January and reminded me of just how great it is to live in London and how good we have it, I’ll defo be trying to make it over to the Winter Lights Festival at Canary Wharf before it ends. In terms of LOTI we’ve set our minds to you, our audience and we’re thinking of ways we can make our user experience more friendly. We’re currently debating ideas for our tabs and there’s a new newsletter in the making, the LOTI edit. Watch this space, oh and if you have any ideas for tab names we’d love to hear them.

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Ben Smith
Co-Founder

Well, where did January go? It was a tough one for me having drawn the short straw…did I go to Cambodia, no I didn’t…Did I go to Austraila, no, I didn’t…I spent very long days in Hackney (shout out WeWork London Fields crew) getting LOTI off to a banging start. We hit a huge milestone on Instagram, having now over 100,000 followers which is just mad (shout out to Jules for the hard work). Dry Jan and the whole new found fitness motivation didn’t happen (snore)…but instead, I put that enthusiasm into finding out some of the best Sunday Roast spots in London with Bob Bob Ricard, The Waterpoet and The Hand of Glory proving solid new additions to our ever expanding and damn right brilliant guide. Other foodie ventures included Ember Yard, Brindisa, Franco Manco, Dirty Bones and dare I say it, McDonald’s (it was a late one) which have been PLEASING scoffs. I got along to LFWM and dug the John Lawrence Sullivant psycho cowboy catwalk show in particular, I drew some birds in a wildlife drawing class at The Hoxton Hotel . Internally, lots happenings, including a brand new site…yep you heard me…a brand new site, launching very soon. Working hard us lot.

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Christina Dean
Content & Social Media Writer

I started January in Australia and after an incredible three weeks, it was a BIG shock to come back to the cold and the dark (and back to work). And then I immediately moved house, which I do not recommend doing after such a big trip unless you want to go a little bit mad. That means I’ve mainly been back and forth between my old place, IKEA and the recycling bins – turns out that lugging furniture around town is actually a great workout so that’s one plus. And meatballs. Meatballs are always good. I did finally manage to get to My Neighbours the Dumplings in Clapton and now I’ve got my eye on Dumpling Shack at Old Spitalfields Market as well as all the other places on our mega Chinese restaurants guide that I haven’t been to yet.

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