ART: Leytonstone Stories exhibition
Sometimes you just need to glimpse the neighbourhood with fresh eyes – and that was really what was behind Leytonstoner as a title when we started it back in 2015 (and Kentishtowner, before it, back in 2010).
And if you feel a little jaded, or perhaps charge around without really looking up or at the area’s gems, Leytonstone Stories might be the chance to take stock in the hot summer months.
The brainchild of photographer Meg Khan, it’s the third annual Outdoor Exhibition and aims to connect “the photographer and story-seeker to the many storytellers of Leytonstone High Road”. The idea is to celebrate entrepreneurial spirit, friendship and a commitment to serving the same community. And you get to do a trail of cool bars, pubs, stores and restaurants at the same time.
The best place to start your art walk is at Leytonstone High Road Overground where you’ll see the introduction and some of the key portraits of the 20 local business owners featured, including Homies On Donkeys, Back To Ours, Hooksmith, San Marino, The North Star and Papi’s Munchies.
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The words to their stories and photographs are hung in the windows of all featured businesses so you can simply stroll around and visit each independent to read more about their lives. It’s a nice way of celebrating the neighbourhood. A little, in fact, like Leytonstoner itself. Follow Meg on @seenthestories
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SCULPTURE: Henry Moore comes to Fellowship Square
On a sizzling lunchtime this week we trekked up Hoe Street to Fellowship Square in Walthamstow to gawp at its latest acquisition, Henry Moore’s 6-metre-high fibreglass sculpture ‘The Arch’. This is an impressive world-class coup for Waltham Forest, and the piece is on long-term loan for the next four years.
One of his most famous works, first made in bronze in 1963 (this version is a 1973 fibreglass cast), visually it’s a bit toothy, a bit Stonehenge-y and also something of a slim cave to shelter, as one young family were doing, from the hot July sun.
The monumental work also marks the new Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Garden that wraps around the north side of the town hall, and The Sensory Garden, a space designed to connect with nature, and increase awareness of our surroundings that promote wellbeing and stress reduction. But unbeknownst to us, the arch looks out onto a wetlands too, a rather idyllic setting behind the Town Hall we had no inkling existed until now. And breathe.
FOOD: True Craft: more decent pizza in Walthamstow
St James Street feels different to the rest of Walthamstow: scrubbed up a few years ago, its parades of late nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture have the feel of a different city.
We were familiar with True Craft’s wildly popular original branch in Tottenham, on the corner of West Green Road. This St James Street branch, which opened earlier this year in a former deli, feels more restrained, even a little sleepy on a grey Monday evening.
But still the punning pizzas are worth a diversion, the sourdough proved for “no less than 48hrs, using our own cultivated starter culture,” they say on the menu: the red ‘Nottolenghi’ special (pictured above right) was especially good, topped with creamy ricotta, coriander oil and sliced spiced lamb salami from Islington’s Cobble Lane butcher. A ‘V-Gang’ (pictured left) delivered our five-a-day in roast garlic, mushroom, courgette, walnuts and parsley – but without quite that needed umami thwack.
Verdict? A decent option, although not as essential to St James Street as the rather majestic Spanish tapas restaurant nearby, Don Francisco, which I reviewed a while back here.
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