It’s official! The new edition of LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 is now available, featuring totally new content and plenty of great features. Order your copy now for only £12 and we will dispatch it to you wherever you are in the world.

LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 gives a fresh insight into the city’s contemporary and vintage retailers, as well as design galleries, museums and bookshops. All 140 new and established hotspots are compiled and reviewed by design commentator Max Fraser.

Shops are categorised by neighbourhood and accompanied by detailed maps – plus walking tours written by local tastemakers including Sheridan Coakley, Tom Dixon and Kit Kemp – to help navigate the best that the city has to offer.

You’ll find restaurant, bar and cafe recommendations, selected as much for their design credentials as for the quality of food and service.

And we’ve commissioned 10 short essays by local experts including Naomi Cleaver, Hugh Pearman, Benjamin Hubert and Libby Sellers, each discussing an aspect of the industry, be it designing, producing, selling, communicating, collecting, even discarding design.

The 2012-2013 edition also introduces 4×4, a new 16-page supplement featuring the top furniture, lighting and accessories designs available in London design stores. The survey does your homework for you, evaluating the designs based on quality and longevity.

The 208-page LONDON DESIGN GUIDE is a snapshot of the design scene today, a celebration of creativity and a practical tool for Londoners and tourists alike. There’s no better incentive for exploring the wealth of design in the capital.

It’s “a must-read” according to the New York Times.

Publisher: Spotlight Press

Editor: Max Fraser

Book designer: Richard Ardagh Studio

Cover designer: Peter Crawley 

British furniture brand – Case Furniture – has its very own showroom in South London’s Clapham area. The showroom is the only place in the UK to showcase the entire Case collection of good quality, well-priced designs.

CASE FURNITURE

189 Stonhouse Street, London SW4 6BB (020 7622 3506)

Case was established in 2006 with the mission to keep good accessible design alive. Rather than creating furniture to shout about, they make furniture with which people will actually want to live, favouring woods and gently contemporary forms.

Case works with a number of leading designers including Shin Azumi, Marina Bautier, Matthew Hilton, Bethan Gray, Nazanin Kamali, Sam Wilkinson, William Warren and the late Robin Day.

The showroom is open on weekdays only, from 9am-6pm.

The team behind Ottolenghi have opened a new all-day dining restaurant called NOPI, just north of Piccadilly Circus (hence the name). The interior is designed by Israel-based designer Alex Meitlis.

NOPI

21-22 Warwick Street, London W1B 5NE (020 7494 9584)

The restaurant serves a cuisine blend that they describe as ‘contemporary London’: bold flavours and colour, broadly based on Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern and Asian ingredients, using lots of herbs and spices.

NOPI is a brasserie, the interior of which includes familiar materials such as marble, brass and wood. In fact, brass is a recurring feature – the tabletops, bar tops, the light fixtures are a replica of an antique lamp from Jaffa’s flea market in Tel Aviv, while the 1920′s brass entrance doors are the original doors from Harvey Nichols.

Highlights from the menu include:

Breakfast: Rhubarb and plum compote, ewe’s yoghurt / Black rice, coconut milk, banana, mango / Chickpea and merguez sausage stew, sourdough, poached egg / Courgette and manouri fritters, lime soured cream

Nibbles: Kohlrabi, mint soured cream / Prawn toasts / Beef brisket fritters

Sharing plates: Slow cooked pig cheeks, celeriac and barberry salad / Rose veal carpaccio, marinated beetroot, kashk / Seared scallops, pickled daikon, green apple / Seared prawns, fennel, white oregano, feta / Grilled garfish, vine leaves, chermoula / Raw brussels sprouts, oyster mushrooms, quail egg / Baked stilton cheesecake, wild mushrooms / Braised carrots, mung beans, smoked labneh

Desserts: Vanilla ricotta, blackcurrants, rhubarb / Quince, quince jelly, Vin Santo sabayon / Chocolate, peanut brittle, mace syrup, crème fraiche / Cardamom rice pudding, rose syrup, pistachio

Open daily 8am – midnight, except Sunday 9am-5pm

Restauranteur Oliver Peyton of Peyton & Byrne has launched the 150-cover Restaurant at Royal Academy, complete with an interior by Tom Dixon‘s design practice, Design Research Studio.

RESTAURANT AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY

Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD (020 7300 5608)

The 250 square-metre refurbishment references the long and illustrious history of the Royal Academy of Arts with materials chosen to complement the existing fabric of the Regency building including Tom Dixon’s signature material palette – marble, brass and velvet.

The dining area is divided into different zones, with each area inspired by the work of a different Royal Academy ‘Great’, such as Turner and Sir John Soane. A dramatic free-standing unit stands in the centre of the space, consisting of a number of glass cubes. Each cube houses a selection of artefacts dating back to 1897. The pieces belong to the Royal Academy of Arts permanent collection but have long been stored out of public view.

The restaurant is open Sunday-Thursday 10am-6pm, and Friday + Saturday 10am-11pm.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has opened a stand alone, off-site bookshop – V&A Reading Rooms – which also incorporates a wine bar, enabling customers to read and shop with a glass in hand.

V&A READING ROOMS

8 Exhibition Road, London SW7 2HF (020 7225 0594)

The Reading Rooms stock a changing range of over 1,000 book titles covering the topics of fashion, design, architecture, photography, graphics and art as well as biographies, fiction and history.

Out of print, vintage and early editions are also for sale, as well as the V&A’s own list of over 120 art and design books.

The space is small and intimate, retaining the original architectural features of high ceilings, fine cornices and bay windows. David Collins Studio advised the V&A on the interior design with Lucy Woodward creating the graphics in response to the V&A brand.

Behind the menu is Duncan Ackery who has put together an edited range of wines and delicious snacks, which have all been chosen for easy consumption while reading.

The V&A Reading Rooms are open daily, from midday until 10pm.

Fans of chef Peter Gordon and his popular Providores restaurant in Marylebone will be delighted to dine at Kopapa, the latest venture from the award-winning ‘godfather’ of fusion cuisine.

KOPAPA

32-34 Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9HA (020 7240 6076)

Open all day, seven days a week, Kopapa serves dishes from breakfast through to post-theatre suppers. Gordon is renowned for his unique culinary philosophy, influenced by his travels around the world, and both the menu and restaurant design reflect this.

Douglas Stewart is the architect who led the design of the restaurant, having worked in the same capacity with The Providores nine years ago. His aim was to reflect Gordon’s use of ingredients sourced from across the globe, from the artisan Turkish floor tiles to the Autobahn designed bench seats.

Food-wise, brunch dishes include Gordon’s iconic Turkish egg dish from his changa restaurant in Istanbul – two poached eggs with whipped yoghurt and hot chilli butter. The dinner menu features seared Yellowfin tuna with nori sauce, dashi jelly and jicama slaw, and New Zealand lamb chops on smoked sweet potato mash with braised butter beans and pickled garlic tapenade. This is accompanied by great coffee and an outstanding wine list.

Kopapa is a joint venture between Peter Gordon, Michael McGrath (co-owner of The Providores) and Adam Wills and Brandon Allen, the original founders of Gourmet Burger Kitchen (sold in 2006).

The Maori meaning of Kopapa: to be crowded, a gathering

Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, the characters behind legendary St JOHN restaurants in Smithfield and Spitalfields, are opening a 15-room St. JOHN HOTEL in the centre of London, developed as a “mini grand, urban hut.”

ST. JOHN HOTEL

1 Leicester Square, London WC2H 7BL (020 3301 8069)

The new hotel is due to open on 1st December 2010 on the site of the well-known Manzi’s seafood restaurant, a London Theatreland landmark. The building has been stripped back and essentially rebuilt.

The hotel includes a restaurant and bar, open until 2am, serving St. JOHN’s no nonsense ‘nose-to-tail’ cuisine. Room rates start from £200 per night.

Once we receive more images, we will add them to this posting.

In an area with plenty of restaurants but where very few are any good, Camden can now welcome a quality new contender – Made In Camden – headed up by ex-Ottolenghi chef Josh Katz, with interiors designed by Michael Sodeau.

MADE IN CAMDEN

Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH (020 7424 8495)

This dining room and bar is housed within the iconic performance venue, Roundhouse, but is a far cry from the mediocre offerings often associated with such venues. Indeed, a concerted effort to raise the bar in terms of food and design makes this a destination in its own right, not just somewhere to fill your belly before or after a performance next door.

The space is large and is able to seat over 100 covers at any one time. The number of diners fluctuates massively according to the event schedule of the Roundhouse, but any off-peak visit is calm and relaxed.

The designer Michael Sodeau has opted for earthy tones and textures throughout the interior, contrasting the wooden floor, ceiling and furniture details with red accents in the upholstery, tubular framed chairs, and various structural elements.

The menu carves a confident path through Camden’s existing culinary extremes (cheap-and-cheerful/high street predictable/eye-wateringly expensive). Head chef Josh Katz has embraced global influences across his menu, creating tasty dishes with confident flavour combinations, which are comforting yet alluring in the same mouthful. Check out the menu here.

Thankfully, there is no pretension in the food or the service, and menu prices are entirely fair. Lunchtime dishes are between £7.50 – £13, and dinner’s tasting plates are between £5 – £10 each. How refreshing not to feel ripped off in London.

Made In Camden sits geographically within relative calm between the tourist swarms of Camden and the yummy-mummies of Primrose Hill. For the locals, they’re probably keen to keep it that way.

Images © Mark Whitfield

Chef Jamie Oliver, in partnership with New York chef Adam Perry Lang, has opened a new restaurant called Barbecoa. Located in the Jean Nouvel-designed One New Change near St Paul’s cathedral, the interior is by Tom Dixon’s Design Research Studio.

BARBECOA

20 New Change Passage, London EC4M 9AG (020 3005 8555)

Barbecoa is a ‘celebration of the relationship between fire and food.’ Dishes are based on traditional cooking methods from around the world, using wood pits, Robata grills, tandoors, and smoking. The interior aims to reflect this style of food with a colour palette of rich, earthy tones.

The space includes a 200 seater restaurant, 40 seater bar, a take-away venue and onsite butcher shop. The scheme maximises views of neighbouring St Paul’s cathedral with a furniture layout that allows every customer to see the London landmark.

Be warned: it would seem this restaurant is a victim of its own success as it is apparently impossible to book a table. Hopefully this will ease after a few months.

Danish chef Christoffer Hruskova has opened his new restaurant NORTH ROAD on St John Street. He has transferred and developed his Nordic inspired menu from his FIG BISTRO in Islington to the new Clerkenwell site.

NORTH ROAD

69-73 St John Street, London EC1M 4AN (020 3217 0033)

Hruskova’s Scandinavian roots provide the foundation of the dishes at North Road. The dishes are light, sometimes earthy, with no overpowering rich sauces. The ingredients take centre stage whether they are hand-dived scallops or langoustine from the Scottish coast, lamb from Cumbria, beef from Galloway or simply wild herbs or salad roots. View A La Carte menu here.

The design of the restaurant, by El Nino Design, combines oak parquet floors, bronze fittings and mid-century furniture alongside modern yet classic pieces. There are custom-finished smoked-oak Danish dining chairs by J.L.Møllers, Cherner bar stools and aged bronze and brass wall lights, as well as Serge Mouille hanging lights.

The kitchen is on show with windows overlooking the seated white carrara marble bar and another in place for keen onlookers at the Chef’s Table (pictured above).