The London pop-ups to catch in 2019

Jimmy’s BBQ Club

For a delectable BBQ feast, head to Jimmy Garcia’s on Southbank, where the split-level wooden shack and garden has been transformed into a summer-long BBQ Club. Upstairs, the banqueting table (bookable for six – 12 guests) serves up a more-than-you-can-manage, seven-course tasting menu, featuring hot, maple-smoked sea trout; spicy roasted cauliflower and two different types of scorched lamb among its dishes. Downstairs, meanwhile, is a more laid-back affair of the grab-and-go burger and beer variety. If the weather’s fine and you’re feeling sporty, head across the way for Jimmy’s Patch and Picnic experience, where you can play classic British lawn games – croquet and swingball among them – while enjoying a BBQ hamper packed with alfresco goodies.

Ollie Dabbous at Chelsea Barracks Kitchen

To coincide with RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Michelin-starred chef Ollie Dabbous of Hide is running a pop-up restaurant at the Chelsea Barracks development. The all-day deli and bar is perched on the edge of the Flower Show, making it an ideal spot to nip to between garden viewings. Here, guests can expect a fine dining experience fuelled by fresh, seasonal produce and punctuated with the garden-style cooking Dabbous is renowned for.

Elizabeth Haigh at Maslow’s Mortimer House

Maslow’s Mortimer House has launched a new guest chef series, with Elizabeth Haigh of Kaizen House first to take the reins. Haigh has previously earned a Michelin star and been named ‘one to watch’ by Observer Food Monthly. The eight-week residency sees the chef take over the Living Room and Den at the venue, serving up a spread that draws on her British and Singaporean heritage. Dishes such as Ox Cheek Rendang buns with fermented sambal, and truffled roti with curried lamb sweetbreads are among those on the menu – which, as a whole, combines three of Haigh’s culinary loves: wood-fired cooking, subtle detail and bold flavours.

The Clumsies x 100 Wardour Street

The Clumsies, aka Greece’s best cocktail bar which is currently ranked seventh among the World’s 50 Best Bars, is popping up in London for four days only this June. The team behind the bar are bringing their award-winning cocktails to fun-loving Soho haunt 100 Wardour Street. Expect to find your favourite spirits muddled with traditional Grecian ingredients, from Baklava to Spinach and Green Olive. The ‘Popeye & Olive’ (gin, mint, apple, olive and bamboo) has our name on it.

Michelle Trusselle's Myristica Supper Club Series

Fine dining meets Caribbean soul food at Michelle Trusselle’s delectable supper clubs. Dishes are exciting, overtly colourful and impossibly pretty – arranged with intense attention to detail on the plate. The food is sourced sustainably, too, all found locally in a bid to mirror the freshness of meals served in the Caribbean. The supper clubs are held once a month and regularly book up well in advance, so hurry if you want to reserve a seat at the table.

Dinner is Coming: Game of Thrones Supper Club

With the eighth and final series of Game of Thrones has come a spate of GOT-themed pop-ups. Our pick of the bunch is Dinner is Coming – an immersive dining experience at The Vaults.

The evening is a feast for both the eyes and the belly: while the drama of a royal wedding unfolds, guests are treated to multiple courses complemented by a specially designed drinks menu. Guests are encouraged to truly commit to the experience by dressing ‘in accordance with their chosen house’, and by being prepared to declare where their loyalties lie.

DELAYED: Banquet of Hoshena

Dinner Time Story, creators of the immersive dining experience Le Petit Chef, are back with a new illusionary-fuelled pop-up: Banquet of Hoshena. Billed as a ‘two-hour, five-course theatrical fine-dining experience’, 3D audio-visual technology is used to transform the dinner table into a microcosm of flowing rivers and flying spirits, where guests become the hero of the story. Expect talking plates and dishes with a supernatural edge.

Kitchen FM x Crispin

Fabien Spagnolo and Max Truel, the chefs behind roving pop-up Kitchen F.M, are taking over all-day café and wine bar Crispin for two weeks only this April. The French-born chefs met in the kitchen of the Michelin-starred Pollen Street Social, and later worked together at Frenchie Covent Garden. They briefly went their separate ways but came together again in 2017 to create Kitchen F.M – a pop-up serving seasonal dishes inspired by Spagnolo and Truel’s French roots as well as Mediterranean cuisine. For £27 a head, guests can sample everything on the menu, which features the likes of crab with focaccia and beef tartare.

Click here to book

Tender Touches art café

Have you ever looked at a piece of artwork and thought: that looks so good I could eat it. If you have, you’ll be in good hands at Tender Touches, a pop-up gallery-cum-café at Peckham’s AMP Gallery. The menu here has been curated by Inês Neto dos Santos, a multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on merging art with sustainable food practices. Together with 11 other artists, Santos has created a dining space in which the crockery and cutlery is hand-sculpted, and both candlesticks and napkins have been designed by the artists to reflect textures of different body parts. Tuck into plates of jelly art while pondering the hanging artwork that’s been made with corn, clay and fruit.

HOPE supper club

London-based event designer Hilde has teamed up with bespoke catering company Caiger & Co. to launch a supper club in aid of St. Cuthbert’s, a drop-in centre for vulnerable and homeless people in west London. The supper club, which will run once every three months, is housed in loft venue Benk Bo, which has been styled by Hilde and decked out with flowers from Still Life Flowers, stationery from Sixfold Studio and photography from Jessica Williams. The menu, curated by Caiger & Co., promises to focus on being nutritious and macrobiotic, with a nod to nose-to-tail eating. Alcohol-wise, it’s bring-your-own.

Monograph’s Japanese Supper Club

Those with a penchant for authentic Japanese cuisine with a hint of the experimental to it should book in to one of Monograph’s Japanese Supper Clubs. The events are held in secret locations and are a chance to dine on an unusual multi-course menu: from a watercress salad through rich, broth-soaked mains and into sweets of the matcha, chocolate or sweet bean paste variety. The atmosphere is informal and relaxed, and guests are invited to bring their own drinks, too.

The Chocolate Cocktail Club

Following a sell-out stint in Brighton, sugar-laden pop-up The Chocolate Cocktail Club has begun a four-month run in Shoreditch, bringing chocolate cocktails, chocolate beers and even chocolate wine to sweet-toothed Londoners. The bar serves ‘delicious duos from mochas to mint’ as well as its signature chocotini, and there's even an onsite chef making chocolate brownies. Customers are advised to book an hour-and-a-half slot in advance, and will receive a chocotini with their ticket.

Hoppers X Ceylon Arrack

Sri Lankan street food meets Soho’s trendy, upmarket culinary scene at Hoppers, a beloved Frith Street restaurant from the Sethi siblings, who are also behind hot spots Brigadiers, Trishna and Gymkhana. This May, Hoppers is partnering with Ceylon Arrack, a local Sri Lankan family-run distillery specialising in producing Sri Lanka’s signature spirit (made from fermented sap of coconut flowers or sugarcane, in case you’re wondering). The team are running a series of arrack cocktail masterclasses on the restaurant’s new terrace, which is being launched to coincide with the arrival of long summer evenings – Cheers to that!

Eleven98 at Hackney Coffee Co

Hackney Coffee Co is a coffee shop by day, interactive fine dining experience by night (on occasion). Going by the name Eleven98, the pop-up supper clubs are held roughly once a month and seat up to 20 guests at a time. Guests are welcomed with a cocktail on arrival – but are expected to bring their own drink of choice to see them through the rest of the evening – leaving the focus on chef Aidan Brooks’ six-course tasting menu, which is comprised largely of ingredients grown in the borough of Hackney.