Wee Birdy

My Secret London with Imelda Burke

In the latest instalment of My Secret London, I caught up with Marylebone's organic beauty queen, Imelda Burke, owner and founder of Content Beauty/Wellbeing. She opened up her little black book to share some of her secret London gems...

Best for a books?
Books are an ongoing obsession – our house is covered in them. We’ve got everything from art and photography books to medical encyclopaedias - it’s quite an eclectic collection. I go to Donlon Books for the hard-to-finds. It has the best photography and art collection and books on subculture. It’s now got two stores - one in Bethnal Green and one in Broadway market.

For books to give your brain a workout, I love The School of Life. Their faculty have read their way through thousands of books to bring you a carefully edited selection. They have the best categorisation of any bookshop I’ve been to. Shelves are organized in the following topics:

How to turn over a new leaf
How to know you’re in love
How to be green on the cheap
How to be more creative
How to enjoy your own company
How to make the world a better place
How to find pleasure in everyday things
How to understand your childhood
How to survive melancholy
How to find a job you love
How to think deeply about life
How to get on with other people

Charlotte Mann's hand-drawn walls at The School of Life.

Best for vintage?
The Peanut Vendor, a mid-century furniture shop based in Newington Green in Islington. It’s filled with wonderful, previously-loved pieces of furniture and homewares as well as design classics. Look out for G-Plan and Ercol classics.

Best for interiors and gifts?
Rob Ryan’s store on Columbia Road, Ryantown, would have to be my favourite. From tiles to prints, glassware and now cushions – we decorated the treatment room at CONTENT BEAUTY/WELLBEING with his ‘No other planet could be as beautiful as this one’ print.

Best for stationery?
I love a notebook and the best come from www.o-check.net. Their ‘Another Day, Cloudy Memory’ notebooks are sometimes available from twentytwentyone. Made from old-school heavy newsprint paper, numbered and fabric-bound.

I also love their cards, especially the ‘Spring Bird’.

Others I love are from the Monocle shop in Marylebone. Great linen-backed notebooks designed by the Monocle team in London and produced in Germany by Brandbook.

Best for kids?
Jabberwockie in Islington has the best clothes, gifts and shoes for kids. Great for presents, skincare and quirky Japanese ranges. Don’t bother with the mainstream.

Best for beauty/skincare?
That would be my own shop, CONTENT, of course! A selection of the best organic brands such as Dr Alkaitis and Pai Skincare and established near-natural brands like Ren and Nude. We also have one of the most extensive collections of natural perfumes and hold CONTENT wellbeing evenings once a month, which include food and wine tastings and tips for keeping healthy from our team of naturopaths.

Best London souvenir?
I think the best thing to take home from London is an appreciation for the diversity living in a large city brings and the energy it creates.

Best place to eat?
Saf vegan restaurant in Curtain Road.

Click here for a Wee Birdy map of Imelda's secret addresses.
Click here for more Secret Londons.

My Secret London with Neal from Present & Correct (Part 2)

In part two of My Secret London with Neal from Present & Correct, we find out exactly where he shops for stationery, children's toys, skincare ... and stacks more. Dig in, birdies.

Best for stationery?
Present & Correct of course! I always check out Magma, Muji and Shelf too to see what they are stocking on their shelves. Most of all I think that there are some brilliant old-school stationers dotted around. Belsize Stationers in Hampstead is a good example. Lots of binders, school notebooks and an eraser for any mistake. Holloway Arts, on Holloway Road is another good one. They have an old Letraset sign that I have been coveting for around 8 years.

Some of the design and stationery goodies from Neal's online shop, Present & Correct.

Best for kids?
Caramel has a great selection of things. The museum shops too, especially The Natural History Museum. And Couverture. Anywhere that sells traditional wooden toys makes me happy.

Above: wooden toys at Couverture.

Best for skincare?
I always buy Aesop products for myself and as gifts, I love the old-style apothecary packaging. The store itself is original and fun. You can’t beat Boots though. A good long walk in any London park will work wonders, too.

Neal out for a stroll on Hampstead Heath.

Best London shopping secret?
My friend Emma introduced me to Sunbury antiques market in Kempton. Get there early and be prepared to dig through lots of nonsense to find a great gem.

Above: Treasure to be found at Sunbury Antiques Market.

Best London souvenir?
A bag of Brick Lane bagels and something to put on them from Fortnum & Mason.

Best place to eat?
There are a few, because I love to eat lots and try new places. For breakfast The Modern Pantry on Clerkenwell Road is brill, as well as Bob Bob Ricard in Soho which is an OTT diner/brasserie where the staff have gold and pink uniforms and the menu features Farley’s Rusk milkshake!

Above: the fabulous interior of Bob Bob Ricard.

Ottolenghi is always good for lunch, as is Leilah's at Arnold Circus near Brick Lane. Market on Parkway in Camden is great and not dissimilar to the brilliant Quality Chop House in Farringdon - hearty British dinners.

Café Paolina on Kings Cross Road is a wonderful, cheap Thai café. Wood panelling, fake flowers, melamine chairs. An old greasy spoon now run by a super-friendly Thai family. Monmouth is always great for coffee, at Borough Market or in Covent Garden. I plan to go to Petersham Nurseries this year as I have been wanting to go for ages. 

I like eating on the sofa at mine, too. It’s BYO at P&C headquarters.

For all addresses and a Wee Birdy map of Neal's secret London, click here.

Read more about Present & Correct here.

For more secret Londons, click here.

Shopping in London: Lapin & Me

For those who may have missed my story in Time Out, here are some more pics from my latest fave shop in London, Lapin & Me. The newest arrival to the independent shopping haven that is Columbia Road (well, it's actually just around the corner on Ezra Street, but near enough), Lapin & Me stocks a fanciful and French-y range of limited-edition dolls, design-led products, stationery, homewares and children's clothes.

Wee Birdy is also super-chuffed to have served a tiny role in the creation of the real bricks-n-mortar shop. Apparently owner Madeleine James was inspired by the Columbia Road Christmas Wednesdays post last year, and started looking around the area for the perfect premises.

On my shopping wishlist is the hand-stitched "one-eyed" doll (see top pic, £36), Nathalie Lete's illustrated "Parisian shopper", and a Fatina doll brooch (£21). There are also glass jars on the main counter brimming with the most delightful pocket-money goodies, like Alain Gree labels (£3.50), vintage stork & baby sets (£2) and Tooth Mouse boxes (£3.50).

Don't fret if you're out of London - you can dig into this whimsical treasure trove online at www.lapinandme.co.uk.

Lapin & Me
14 Ezra St
London E2 7RG
Nearest tube: Liverpool Street
Click here for a Wee Birdy map.

Opening hours:
Friday 11am-2.30pm
Saturday 11am-3.30pm
Sunday 9am-3pm

Click here for more shops in East London.

Wee Easter finds: Egg hunt at Present & Correct

I just got an email from Neal over at Present & Correct about the Easter egg hunt that's happening right now on their website. One egg will be hidden each day in the lead-up to Easter. The first person to find it wins a super-lovely bag of paper treats, with some chocolate thrown in for good measure. Too sweet!

My Secret London with Martina McHowat - part II

In part two of "My Secret London", Urban Junkies Style Editor Martina McHowat tells us her favourite London destinations for gifts, stationery, beauty and food. It will make you dream of Icelandic mud and stationery with tiny beefeaters...

Best for interiors and gifts?
Lifestyle Bazaar on Newburgh Street always has a cool selection of lifestyle bits. Urban Outfitters and Muji are good for knick-knacky gifts, and the Magma product shop next to the book store is great for unusual finds. And I’m looking forward to seeing what H&M does with its homeware offering, slated to arrive in February.

H&M homewares range.

Best for stationery?
I do love Liberty’s stationery department, as much for their own line of note cards, diaries and address books, as well as the range of designers they stock. Smythson do great correspondence cards and stationery which you can have personalised, and their current Giles collaboration is a fashion-lover’s dream, with design sketches on the front and neon pink and green tissue-lined envelopes.

Best for beauty?
I get facials at Elemis off Bond Street, which is like a little sanctuary in the middle of potentially the busiest shopping district – not that you'd know it! It’s all quite South-East Asian feeling which I love, and Amanda gives the best tri-enzyme resurfacing facials - sounds hardcore but is really gentle.

I also love Sjal skincare, you can get it on www.cultbeauty.co.uk (also love their website, finally a site you can believe in completely, full of things properly tried out and reviewed).

And if you’re ever in Iceland, try out the hot springs at Blue Lagoon which have pots of this amazing silica clay mask dotted around – you just slather it on and float about. They’re doing it in tubes now for us poor souls who can’t be there in person.

I’ve just come back from Compton Hair in Covent Garden where I tried out their Brazilian Keratin Hair treatment, and it may well change my GHD-dependent life - after leaving it in for three days, my usually wavy, frizz-prone hair is down to a quick morning blow dry and it still looks straight and soft. I didn’t think it was possible!

Other London favourites?
I’m a bit obsessed with Columbia Flower Market on Sundays. The prices are just silly compared to what you’d pay in town, and the street is just stunning filled with every imaginable kind of tree, bush, shrub and stem.

Even better though, is that one side of the street is choc-full of some of the coolest little boutiques in the city; Cerise for jewellery, Suck & Chew for vintage-style sweets in jars and pocket money bits and Treacle for cupcakes and cool kitchen/homewares. I also love Far Global and Nom for the collections of Far Eastern antiques and bits & bobs. They have that lovely incense-y smell and everything inside is authentic and comes with a story. 

Best London souvenir?
I try and stay as far away from the tacky souvenir shops you tend to find down the dodgy end of Oxford Street; nobody needs a Union Jack G-String. Instead, try Muji’s ‘London in a bag’ full of wooden London landmarks like the London Eye and St Paul's, and now they’re doing rather fabulous little ‘London transport in a bag’ containing little painted wooden buses, black cabs and tubes.

I also like Julie Bell’s stationery, which come in beautiful boxes and have London icons embossed on them - beefeaters, buses or phone boxes.

Best for food?
Sophie’s Steak House on the Fulham Road - it’s a lovely, homey but chic feeling place with no reservation policy, so you turn up, get given a number which flashes up on a board above the bar, and wait over delicious cocktails. Lots of exposed brickwork, lightbulbs hanging loose from the ceiling and old train carriage luggage racks above the tables. And it’s not unusual to see Sophie herself wandering around serving steak, which by the way, is divine. They’re just opened in Covent Garden too. Go!

For all addresses and a Wee Birdy map of Martina's secret London, click here.
Check out Martina's London Fashion Week coverage at Urban Junkies, which includes designer interviews, backstage images and a competition to win the Ultimate Swag Bag.