Cork Street’s neighbourhood doesn’t do quiet luxury. Laid out over a stretch of Mayfair and skirting regal St James, it’s where Lamborghinis and Porsches idle by the pavement, heritage shops outfit you for shooting weekends, and doors swoosh open courtesy of be-gloved doormen. Buckingham Palace is just down the road.
It’s rich in creativity and craft too, with an esteemed tailoring lineage stitched through Savile Row (plus bespoke shoemakers to complete the ensemble), centuries-old jewellery ateliers, and art galleries running the gamut from Old Masters to hot-on-the-market contemporary works, with 15 galleries along Cork Street alone.
This year, Mr & Mrs Smith will be at Frieze’s official exhibition space at No.9 Cork Street from 16–17 October for its first-ever photography exhibition, To Seek, To Find, showcasing works that encourage the viewer to look beyond the obvious and investigate the unfamiliar. With that spirit of discovery in mind, here’s our insider guide to what to see and do, where to eat and drink, and the art to visually feast upon in Cork Street and its surrounds during Frieze London.
What to see
Make the lower gallery at No.9 Cork Street — Frieze’s year-round exhibition space — your first stop. For To Seek, To Find, Mr & Mrs Smith enlisted Brandei Estes, Acting Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, to create an edit of the most compelling commissions by Smith’s Creative team over the past two years. The result is a line-up of legends in the field, such as Tina Barney and the late, great Martin Parr, alongside ascendant contemporary talents including Paolo Di Lucente and Isabelle Young, interpreting travel photography into their own visual language. All profits from the works sold will be donated to Mr & Mrs Smith charity partner the Human Dignity Trust, to support its work safeguarding the rights of LGBTQ+ communities.
On the first floor of the Frieze gallery, Lehmann Maupin has established a permanent London base and a global roster of talents who, through diverse media, speak to wider gallery projects across Europe and beyond. Directly opposite, Alison Jacques champions lesser-recognised figures from art history and holds big-swing shows, while veteran space Flowers, next door, brings together post-war art and photography, with a range that spans immersive abstract canvases to subtle minimalist paintings.
Next, hop along to Goodman Gallery, which originated in South Africa and upholds a global cultural dialogue through its London shows. Then turn into the Burlington Gate complex to explore the moodier showroom of Alon Zakaim Fine Art, which represents names as starry as Monet, Picasso and Marc Chagall, but whose remit is broad and often experimental.
Royal Academy of Arts
On parallel New Burlington Street, Sam Fogg delves deep into antiquity — if a gilded altarpiece or jewelled reliquary is on your wish list, marvels of the Middle Ages are its speciality. And considering White Cube’s cultural clout, its Mayfair outpost has a discreet location, tucked away in Mason’s Yard. Its minimalist building is a striking frame for exciting young artists and dynamic heavyweights such as Anselm Kiefer, Gabriel Orozco and Antony Gormley.
The Royal Academy of Arts is unique as a grand establishment managed by artists and architects; beyond its influential Summer Exhibition, its collection holds works by Michelangelo, Turner, Gainsborough and Constable. Further north are eloquent, largely sculptural works at Sarah Myerscough, set in an abandoned Victorian schoolhouse, just down the road from Antony Gormley’s Room sculpture clinging to The Beaumont Hotel.
What to buy
Looking the part in Mayfair means within-an-inch-of-your-life tailoring, but with Savile Row two streets over, you needn’t go far to find wearable art. Henry Poole & Co are famous for inventing the tuxedo and gave the ‘Golden Mile of Tailoring’ its rep for suit-making. Gieves & Hawkes outfitted Horatio Nelson, but these days has a sleeker, less-militaristic selection; while Ozwald Boateng and Thom Sweeney favour more relaxed silhouettes and sate more flamboyant tastes.
Or go avant-garde: Margiela Tabis and Matières Fécales’ punk assemblages are stocked at Layers, and A Bathing Ape (BAPE)’s cult streetwear gets a hall pass at high-end establishments. The Row’s stealth-wealth Mount Row outpost welcomes you with a James Turrell light installation, and the raw, hand-painted concrete interiors of Balenciaga’s New Bond Street boutique are designed to evoke ‘a gallery emptied’. Dover Street Market showcases directional wares on Haymarket.
Burlington Arcade
Dover Street Market
Chandelier-strung Burlington Arcade runs the gamut of luxury goods, from New & Lingwood’s silk lounging robes, via Lalique crystal, N. Peal cashmere, Globe-Trotter luggage and more, to Santa Maria Novella scents at the other end. Along Piccadilly, the design nous of Maison Assouline’s travel books is as hefty as their size (save plenty of suitcase space). It hosts exhibitions, too, and onsite mixologist Gabor Onufer is heavily decorated with bartending awards.
For classic arts books, catalogues and lithographs, head to bijou St. James’s Art Books or Thomas Heneage — the latter also offers a bespoke library-building service. Further along The Mall, the tomes in the ICA bookshop examine race, feminism and revolutionary theory in the arts.
Where to eat
Sketch is one of London’s most arrestingly styled restaurants. Every few years, it redesigns its dining space and has collaborated with artists whose visual language is all-caps, including India Mahdavi, David Shrigley and Camille Walala. It hosts an art-and-design exhibition each year, too. Mount Street Restaurant is a Hauser & Wirth project literally built on art (the gorgeous Broken Floor mosaic by Rashid Johnson). It has more than 200 works on display, by names as big as Warhol, Matisse and Lucien Freud; furnishings are inspired by Swiss designer Sophie Taeuber-Arp; and the salt-and-pepper shakers resemble Paul McCarthy’s cheeky Christmas tree sculpture (IYKYK).
A few doors down, Scott’s intimate private-dining space, the Renoir Room, has an honest-to-God original by its namesake hung alongside works by Chagall, Miró and Braque, all mesmerically lit by a glowing green-agate floor. And at the east end of the street is the divisive Bacchanalia, an orgiastic mix of Damien Hirst’s winged horses and Gorgon statues suspended over tables, busts, frescoes and even millennia-old artworks.
Where to drink
Bar Finch is Cork Street’s only drinkery, so West London’s art crowd is automatically drawn there for a Venetian-style aperitivo. On nearby Albermarle Street, Brown’s Hotel’s Donovan Bar honours the work of 1960s fashion photographer Terence Donovan, displaying his striking black-and-white works on its walls; book a table in the semi-private ‘Naughty Corner’ to sit among a dozen prints. The cocktail menu here is conceived by drinks maestro Salvatore Calabrese, who holds the Guinness World Record for the most expensive cocktail, but there are far cheaper sips than the £7,500 Salvatore’s Legacy (made using 700-year-old Cognac).
Bar Finch
RH London is a lifestyle store and drinking and dining emporium set within a Palladian mansion. Its rooftop space has been styled by Anouska Hempel, with painted panels of smoked glass, and its cathedral-esque lounge has its own hologram showing how your life could be improved by a private jet or yacht. For more designs on life, pause in the art and architecture library, or gaze up in awe at Giacomo Leoni’s grand staircase and gold-leaf-decorated dome. And back on Mount Street, The Audley Public House has the pints of prawns, wood panelling and well-poured Guinnesses you’d expect of a Victorian-era boozer, but all cast in the rosy glow of artist Phyllida Barlow’s colourful ceiling installation.
Where to stay
Broadwick Soho
In designing maximalist stay The Twenty Two, Natalia Miyar drew on details from 18th-century French interiors, juicing them up with a modern palette and an array of cool, contemporary canvases.
Como Metropolitan, meanwhile, favours Asian-accented minimalism, and creativity comes in the form of sushi masterclasses at the all-time-great Nobu restaurant. Or position yourself at Broadwick Soho, a fellow official Frieze partner, to peruse curator Jonathan Brook’s eclectic collection of 300-plus Old Masters, modern masterpieces and flea-market finds.
Find out more about To Seek, To Find, discover more of Mayfair, or take a cultural catnap in our hotels with impressive art collections
Header image: installation view, I Dare Not Appear, 2021. Courtesy of Frieze, the artist and Norr Cohan.