Official fuel consumption in mpg and CO2 emissions (g/km) for the new Alpine A110 GT petrol, 221 kW are: Total consumption combined (mpg): 41.54 - 40.35 WLTP; CO2 emissions combined (g/km): 153-160 WLTP. Emissions standard: Euro 6d-iSC-FCM. Official fuel consumption on mpg and CO2 emissions (g/km) for the Alpine A110 range are (mpg): 45.56 - 40.35 WLTP ; CO2 emissions combined (g/km): 152 - 160 WLTP. Emissions standard: Euro 6d-iSC-FCM. The CO2 figures are based on the WLTP test cycle which will be used to calculate vehicle tax on first registration. For more information, please see alpinecars.com/en/wltp/.
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GQ World year for the past two decades. In the Watches early days, you could buy one for around £26,000. In recent years, sev- PATEK PHILIPPE, VACHERON CONSTANTIN: COURTESY OF BRANDS. CARTIER: N. WELSH, COLLECTION CARTIER © CARTIER; COURTESY OF CARTIER. Why the Coolest eral Simplicities have gone for more New Watches Look than £750,000 at auction. Like Vintage Grails Such is the cult of the watch Brands such as Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and Cartier world today that brands can create are dusting off decades-old designs and reimagining them for more hype around recognisable old the modern connoisseur, says GQ watch columnist Nick Foulkes. watch components than around new designs. Take Vacheron Constantin’s Above: The new NE OF THE most beautiful Get used to hearing the term. cornes de vache (cow horns) lugs, Patek Philippe Across the watch world, brands – and which were exhumed from the Swiss 5172G-010, O new watches to emerge customers – are embracing a rather brand’s archives and reintroduced an archival Cartier this spring doesn’t actu- antique sensibility. As in fashion, in the middle of the last decade. Tank Chinoise, ally look very new at all. watchmaking in the noughties was I remember vintage-watch enthu- and the Vacheron It’s the Patek Philippe defined by absurd sizes and baroque siasts describing them – the lugs, Constantin Cornes reference 5172G-010, a white-gold, design features. But the pendulum not just the watch – as if they were de Vache 1955. hand-wound chronograph with a always swings back. At the time, explaining a Michelangelo fresco. gorgeous salmon dial. It’s a fresh I remember the late Luigi “Gino” My favourite encomium came from model that borrows some of Patek’s Macaluso, the then owner of Girard- the Hodinkee website, which called most venerated design moves. In Perregaux, predicting that the styl- them “stunning, expressive, and mas- fact, when I first saw the watch, ish European customer would soon terful.” Which might seem silly, but it I thought I knew it already. The new be clamouring to buy simple, time- indicates something great: that we’re 5172G almost teases the wearer with only watches that measured around in a golden age of horological literacy, a sense of déjà vu: the protruding 36mm across – or about the size of where a close appreciation of watch- “box” crystal, syringe hands, and any fine mid-century timepiece. He making history feels more interest- stepped bezel and lugs look ripped was right: in the years that followed, ing than any new technological leap. from the pages of vintage Patek cat- case diameters shrank and got slim- alogues. As Patek Philippe president mer. The straightforward beauty of a This nostalgia kick has also led Thierry Stern explains, “It looks like three-hand watch face snapped into to closer inspection of company it is from the past, but it is made for sharp focus, too. One of the absolute archives, and brands with a rich the present,” underscoring the push hottest watches right now is the aptly back catalogue have been mining at the company to update its iconic named Philippe Dufour Simplicity. a fecund seam of heritage. Some design history for a new customer. Dufour has been crafting a handful have updated vintage models with At Patek, this sort of watchmaking is of the clean, time-only designs each modern materials and movements. known as a “vintage contemporary.” Personally, I was very happy to see the 2020 return of Breitling’s AVI model in an almost museum-qual- ity revival supervised by Breitling fundamentalist Fred Mandelbaum, whose pitch-perfect retreads have been a welcome feature of the brand’s rebirth. Over at Omega, the dynamic Raynald Aeschlimann has also rede- ployed the brand’s classics master- fully. I’ve always loved the solid-gold “Nixon-spec” Speedmaster, issued to celebrate the moon landing in 1969. With its revival half a century later, it features such historically correct touches as an oxblood bezel and onyx hour markers – but with a movement that meets exacting new modern standards. Meanwhile, at Cartier, Cyrille Vigneron has brought the brand’s watchmaking firmly back into the conversation by revisiting such Art Deco classics as the Tank Chinoise, which will return this year with a brand-new dial that nods to ancient Chinese design. At a time when art and fash- ion are chasing innovations in the metaverse, there is nothing more sat- isfying than seeing the excitement around neo-vintage timepieces that incorporate historic artistic touches. The 5172G might look familiar, but it actually reflects a radical creative path: the most revolutionary way for- wards in watchmaking can be found by looking backwards. MAY 2022 GQ 51
GQ World Fashion N E A F T E R N O O N in 1988, The elusive family behind one of fashion’s O Cher was rehearsing in most unlikely phenomena a Los Angeles recording explain how they built studio when a guy with Chrome Hearts into an wild, curly hair and a expensive, exclusive, and stern face dropped by. Richard Stark weirdly alluring empire. had recently started a brand called Chrome Hearts, which made jewel- By SAMUEL HINE lery, clothes, and accessories for bik- ers and rock stars, and he was doing the old-school version of influencer marketing: riding his Harley around town and seeing if famous people would buy his gear. There were plenty of brands sell- ing heavy-metal motorcycle jackets and rocker jewellery in those days, but Stark, a headstrong and clever leather wholesaler from New York, had a more luxurious vision for the genre. Through his job working with tanneries, he had access to super- thick hides normally used in uphol- stery, so he’d been tooling around in his Hollywood garage for a few years, making sturdy jackets he and his buddies would wear on their bikes. Thanks to a friend who worked in fashion production, the jackets were beautifully made, but the real break- through came when Stark and a jew- eller added custom silver hardware – sterling studs, zips, and biker cross embellishments. Suddenly, a Chrome Hearts jacket would not only save your arse if you crashed your Harley but it might also get you a table at Spago. Stark would soon become one of the most influential celebrity clothiers of his time, but in 1988, in that studio with Cher, only he knew it. “We were in a rehearsal hall,” Cher recalls by phone. “And some weird guy comes in, all leathered out, and he had a guitar strap with him.” The guitar strap, Cher says, was gorgeous: thick black leather, with baroque silver-filigree work. The only problem? Stark wanted $5,000, about double what an Hermès Birkin cost at the time. “I thought, Who is this crazy guy? I’ve never heard of him, and he wants $5,000 for a guitar strap?” Cher sent him packing. But some- thing about the encounter lingered in her mind. “I remembered that the workmanship on the strap,” she recalls, “was extraordinary.” She also marvelled at something else: the conviction it must have taken for a relative nobody to walk into her 52 GQ MAY 2022
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PEGAH FARAHMAND MAY 2022 GQ 53
GQ World studio and try to sell her a $5,000 Rodman, The Weeknd, Damien Hirst, first post-season touchdown pass Fashion guitar strap. Maybe Stark wasn’t weird and fashion luminaries such as Rei during the 2022 NFL playoffs, he did at all. Maybe, she thought, he was kind Kawakubo, Rick Owens, Virgil Abloh, so wearing Nike wide receiver gloves Kristian Stark, of cool. and Karl Lagerfeld. Biker gear is emblazoned with blue-and-yellow- in a Chrome now just a small part of the Chrome leather biker crosses, an unofficial Hearts chair. Three decades later, Richard Stark’s Hearts universe: the brand makes collab executed in Chrome Hearts’ scrappy operation has defied hat- everything from hoodies to ski goggles Hollywood atelier. When Drake ers, trends, and even conventional to handbags to crystal glassware to bought a new Rolls-Royce Cullinan, he business logic to become an unlikely tufted-leather sofas to funky novelties called on Chrome Hearts to redesign it fashion empire, with 34 stores and like ebony toilet plungers and sterling down to the leather floor mats. Why? over 1,000 employees around the single-slice lemon squeezers. “I don’t Zack Bia, the 25-year-old DJ, Drake world. Though Chrome Hearts doesn’t think we’re making money on that consigliere, and friend of Kristian, puts comment on sales figures or its finan- lemon squeezer,” says Richard’s wife it this way: “Chrome Hearts is one of cials, its pop-culture capital is easy and business partner, Laurie Lynn the greatest brands on earth.” to quantify. Cher, in fact, became Stark. “But it’s sick.” one of the brand’s most high-profile Which is strange, because Chrome supporters when she realised she Though it was never part of the plan, Hearts doesn’t seem particularly well needed a leather jacket to wear in Richard, Laurie Lynn, and their three suited to capture the current fashion the video for “The Shoop Shoop children have become fashion-world zeitgeist. Fashion has moved light- Song.” She called Stark and he celebrities. “We never wanted to be years beyond the heavy baroque-biker hand-delivered a western-fringe, famous designers. We wanted to be aesthetic that took off in the ’90s, and quilted-leather moto jacket the next successful artists,” says Laurie Lynn, most brands associated with that day. The design, Cher says, was beau- who says her kids freaked out when polarizing movement (Von Dutch, Ed tiful – an embodiment of the brand’s Drake name-dropped her in a song. Hardy) fell off a cliff during the nough- intriguing combination of, as she Celebrities, in turn, come to the Starks ties. But Chrome Hearts has stayed describes it, “haute couture and to realise their most over-the-top true to burnished metal and leather Hells Angels.” and luxurious flexes. Many are led by crosses, fleurs-de-lys, and daggers that 18-year-old Kristian Stark, who intro- in any other context read as outdated, Cher has been a loyal fan ever since, duced Chrome Hearts to the likes even tacky. a leader of an exceptionally diverse of Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert, like and fervent celebrity cult follow- his parents introduced the brand to It’s also not particularly easy to buy ing that over the years has included, the Sex Pistols and Guns N’ Roses. Chrome Hearts. The company is one among others, Lou Reed, Drake, When Odell Beckham Jr caught his of few in the luxury sector without a Nicolas Cage, Bella Hadid, Dennis permanent e-commerce shop, and it doesn’t advertise or publish collection pictures on its website. Your best bet to figure out what the brand is making at any given time, and to get your hands on it, is to go to an actual Chrome Hearts shop – if you can find one. Most of the brand’s stores operate like if-you- know-you-know clubhouses, with little in the way of external signage. And the prices, which can hit the upper five digits for fine jewellery, are still as jaw-dropping as they were when Stark was slinging guitar straps. “I have to tell you, a lot of peo- ple didn’t believe,” Cher says about Chrome Hearts in the beginning. Most people, early on, she explains, reacted to Stark’s quixotic project basically the same way she did. “They would go, ‘Oh, that’s just some guy making leather.’ ” The fashion industry still seems unsure of what to make of Chrome Hearts – despite its deeply American aesthetic, the brand wasn’t included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent Americana- themed Costume Institute exhi- bition. But it’s getting harder to ignore or write off Chrome Hearts. “Richard had a dream,” Cher says. “And it wasn’t to be ‘just some guy making leather.’ ” You’d think that after the brand’s expansion turned him into an excep- tionally rich man, Richard Stark would give himself a bit of a break. But most days he wakes up in Malibu, where the Starks reportedly own several houses, well before dawn. 54 GQ MAY 2022
ARCHIVAL PHOTOGRAPH OF RICHARD AND LAURIE LYNN STARK: LAURIE LYNN STARK, COURTESY OF LAURIE LYNN STARK. DRAKE: JOSIAHW/BACKGRID. MACHINE GUN KELLY: MARC PATRICK/BFA.COM. Chrome Hearts’ By 5am he’s on his Harley, which he if they don’t know what they’re going private and press shy, Stark “never OFFSET: KEVIN MAZUR/GET T Y IMAGES FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY. JAMES HARDEN: COURTESY OF BROOKLYN NETS. CHER: RON GALELL A/RON GALELL A COLLECTION VIA GET T Y IMAGES. celebrity clientele guns down the highway to their fac- to use the space for. The campus reveals too much of himself, ever,” includes Drake, tory, which spans three blocks in continues growing because Chrome says friend and Chrome Hearts client, Machine Gun Kelly, Hollywood. He has a hangar-size office Hearts is growing faster than they can the artist Marina Abramovic´. Rather, Offset, James in the complex, but he can usually be keep up. During a recent trip to the he wanted to talk about his fam- Harden, and Cher. found on the floor working with the London shop – in Selfridges – Laurie ily: Laurie Lynn, who joined the Below: Richard and hundreds of craftspeople he employs Lynn tells me she was shocked to business in 1994, and their three Laurie Lynn Stark – perhaps the only head of a luxury discover that the shelves were empty children. “I started Chrome Hearts at their Hollywood brand who spends most of his time – 2021, she says, was one of their best to be a 150-year-old company,” Richard factory, 2002. actually making stuff. years ever. The factory has sometimes says. “You need a family to make that had to run 24 hours a day just to keep happen.” And now, after spending “I’m all over this place,” Stark, 61, the stores (10 of which are located in countless mornings covered in saw- tells me via FaceTime. He rarely gives Japan) stocked. dust on the factory floor, his soul patch interviews, preferring to let the brand is going grey. He’s got succession on speak for itself. Stark, who trained Because of the massive demand, his mind. as a carpenter before getting into prices on the secondary market for the leather business, is hard of hear- Chrome Hearts gear, particularly On a winter afternoon, I met the ing from a lifetime of being around limited-edition and made-to-order crisp and businesslike Laurie Lynn motorcycles, rock shows, and scream- styles, are out of control. Pairs of at the Chrome Hearts West Village ing machine tools, so when we talked, vintage Levi’s customized by Chrome flagship, where you’re greeted by I mostly FaceTimed with his ear canal. Hearts with sterling-silver hard- a 10-foot-tall leather brontosaurus. I did manage to catch a few glimpses ware and leather cross patches are Up a monumental ebony staircase of his outfit, which is what he’s been currently a better investment than is the Starks’ unofficial East Coast wearing every day for years: a leather gold. Vincent Ferraro, who runs clubhouse, a warehouse-like room jacket, a quilted liner vest, and leather the fashion showroom 4Gseller in filled with more crosses than the trousers, flared to fit over his boots. New York, tells me he sold over £75,000 Vatican. Kristian was padding around “When you ride a motorcycle, you worth of Chrome Hearts jeans in in battered Chuck Taylors and volumi- kind of wear the same shit,” he says. February alone. The brand’s best clients nous leather trousers. His twin sister, It was only noon, and Stark had already generally get first crack at rare pieces, Frankie Belle, was doing homework been in four different workshops and only the best of the best are invited at a dining table with a few art-school that morning. to order custom items. “People who get classmates. Jesse Jo, the Starks’ eldest, custom Chrome, it’s like a Ferrari. was in London, where she moved Practically every Chrome Hearts You can’t really just walk in and buy to record an album. I was told not product, save for cashmere sweat- a Ferrari,” says Ferraro, who recently to try to pet the family dog Chicken ers, emerges from this factory, listed a pair of Chrome Hearts jeans, Nugget, a tiny white Maltese mix who which is really a network of build- reportedly made for Drake, for bites. “All three kids have style,” says ings that sprawl outward from the £55,000. “It’s insane,” Ferraro says Laurie Lynn. “I don’t know how that garage where the brand started. One of the exorbitant prices Chrome Hearts happened. Some people have three building houses a woodwork shop, gear commands on sites like Grailed. brainiac kids who all go to Harvard. another a silver shop. There’s also “But it’s not a fluke. The numbers These kids are all stylish.” an eyewear shop, a graphics shop, are there.” and a stone-setting shop. Every time On my way in, I found a zip-up hoodie a nearby building comes up for sale, When Richard Stark agreed to made out of heavy leather hanging Richard and Laurie Lynn buy it, even speak to me, it was not because on one of the racks. It had a solid-sil- he wanted to talk about himself or ver zip and a thick quilted lining. the brand’s recent success. Incredibly Upstairs, I mentioned it to Kristian, MAY 2022 GQ 55
who’s got a surfer’s tan and a chilled of the products Kristian works on GQ World demeanour to match. As it turns out, are the ones that sell for many times he designed it – at the tender age their retail price on Grailed. Kristian, Fashion of 10. The truth is, Kristian didn’t think perhaps by virtue of his youth, has an Chrome Hearts was cool when he was instinctual sense of what the young, next two years, including a renovation growing up. “When I was younger, rich, and famous want to wear. on Quai Voltaire in Paris by architect I used to wear hoodies, sweats around Jean Nouvel that will include an art the house,” Kristian says. “I wasn’t, like, Intentionally or not, Kristian has gallery. They’re also thinking about in it.” But he needed a jacket for rides helped Chrome Hearts execute an how to take their universe-building to on the back of his dad’s Harley, so one extraordinarily delicate pivot. In recent the next level. “Rentables,” says Laurie day Richard and Kristian went to the years, the company – like the rest Lynn, “small buildings” that will be factory and made a moto version of his of the luxury industry – has had to Chromed-out down to the hinges. “The favourite hoodie. Then they made 50 reach a new generation of social-me- only thing we don’t make right now is more and sent them to stores, where dia-savvy, status-obsessed consum- coffee machines.” In order to keep up they quickly sold out. ers (like Zack Bia) without alienating with demand, they’ve established an their older, loyal customers (like Cher). artisan training programme at the A lot of Chrome Hearts mer- Thanks to the enormous amount factory and have plans to open a new chandise sells out almost as soon of hype generated when guys like production facility in Italy. as it hits the shelves, but Kristian Drake wear Chrome Hearts, the brand seems to have a golden touch when hasn’t had to reinvent itself at all. But the Chrome Hearts business it comes to designing piping-hot The ’90s are back in style, and so model can only expand so much. clothing. When guys like Offset, is Chrome Hearts. “One of the things The Starks acknowledge that they’re Drake, Travis Scott, and Lil Uzi Vert I love is when parents are like, ‘Man, leaving enormous amounts of wear Chrome Hearts, they don’t look my kid’s stealing all my Chrome Hearts money on the table in doing things like bikers – they look more like stuff,’ ” says Richard. “I’m like, ‘Well, like making sterling lemon squeez- Kristian, because they wear the the good news about that is ers in Hollywood, when they could cross-emblazoned jeans and car- you’re hip.’ ” be doing things like selling warehouses penter pants that he developed full of foreign-made Chrome Hearts x with Matt DiGiacomo, a Florida- One day, the new generation will Drake hoodies online. Massive lux- born and bred artist who has have to decide just how big they want ury conglomerates, too, have come his own custom atelier at the to let Chrome Hearts get. When we bearing pallets loaded with cash for factory. It’s no coincidence that most spoke, the Starks were preparing an acquisition. But Chrome Hearts is to open five more stores over the a family business in the purest sense: all five Starks have to sign off KRISTIAN AND LAURIE LYNN STARK: SIT TINGS EDITOR, TORI LEUNG; HAIR, MITCHELL RAMAZON/MANE ADDICTS; Opening pages: on every decision. And it seems set MAKEUP, DOT TI AT STATEMENT ARTISTS; LOCATION, CHROME HEARTS WEST VILLAGE, NEW YORK, USA. Chrome Hearts to remain a family business for at least co-founder Laurie one more generation. When Laurie Lynn Stark and her Lynn mentions that some of the offers son, Kristian, who they’ve received for the company have has introduced been “great,” Kristian quickly shuts the brand to a new down the conversation: “I don’t want generation. Right: to sell.” Laurie Lynn at the Chrome Hearts Richard views Kristian’s eventual store in New York’s ascension to the head of the business West Village. as a matter of destiny. “All three of my kids love it, but Kristian especially,” All clothing he says. When I ask Richard where and jewellery he sees the brand going, he moves (throughout), the phone so I can see his face. One vintage or by day, he tells me, when Kristian Chrome Hearts. was about 13, Richard and Marina Abramovic´ were hang- ing out in the kitchen of the Starks’ house in Malibu. Kristian walked by, and Abramovic´ asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. (Kristian vividly remembers his response: “I was like, ‘I’m going to take over the family business.’ ”) As Richard tells the story, his eyes appear to get a little misty. “When that happened, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s great. Chrome Hearts has got a chance of being a 150-year-old family business now.’ ” samuel hine is gq’s fashion writer. MAY 2022 GQ 57
The New Maxxwell Spa Ups the Ante The two Maxx Royal resorts on Turkey’s sun-soaked Turquoise Coast have raised the bar for wellness in the region with Maxxwell, a new spa concept that covers all bases, from pampered indulgence to whole-body overhauls.
GQ ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE O O N E C O U L D accuse the vegan, and lactose-free options, all made with super-fresh local ingredients. The N team behind the Maxx Vitamin Bar brings balance, and for Royal resorts of resting those wanting to be buffed and bur- on their laurels. The nished the high-tech cosmetology lab two resorts at Belek and performs LED light therapy, oxygen Kemer on Turkey’s glittering Riviera therapy, and microdermabrasion ther- have long been the benchmark for apy to revive tired skin. all-inclusive Anatolian luxury: each has a suite of incredible restaurants, the And if you’re just after a bit of pam- design of both is cool and contemporary, pering between turns on the beach, and a huge range of activities are on or something to smooth out any offer, including a Colin Montgomerie- creases after a night at one of Maxx designed 18-hole golf course at Belek. Royal’s many brilliant restaurants, the Recently, though, the group has raised Maxxwell spa therapists are dab hands the bar when it comes to wellness with when it comes to all-out indulgence. its new Maxxwell spa concept, launched Their treatment menu features more last year at the Belek resort and rolling than 30 different kinds of massage, out this year at Kemer. from Swedish and Singaporean, to four- The latter is home to the Aven Royal, hand Mandara massage and Thai mas- a handsome, high-tech spa that ticks all sages with a herbal compress. There are the boxes. The lavishly appointed space super-indulgent hammam rituals and has Turkish baths, beautiful treatment the ultra-luxurious VIP Royal Supreme rooms, and a cutting-edge cosmetology experience, which includes exfoliation, centre. There are detox programmes, massage and sauna. Mandara massage specialists and Rhassoul mud therapies. Those looking The Maxxwell spa brings all these dif- for a tailor-made experience in privacy ferent strands together on its Ayurveda can arrange for treatments in their suite. and Yoga Therapy Detox Program. Up the coast, Belek’s Maxxwell Spa is Available over five or seven days, it an ultra-slick 3,000 square metre plea- takes a holistic approach to wellness, sure palace. As well as a huge 312 square combining many of the spa’s strengths metre indoor pool, there are four sau- into a superb all-round package. As nas, 24 therapy rooms, six scrub rooms, well as a daily Ayurvedic menu, the pro- and, as you would expect in Anatolia, a gramme includes warm-oil Abhyanga stunning marble hammam. Its extraor- and abdomen massages, ozone saunas, dinary size means it is one of those spas body wraps, and a full schedule of pri- you can use in different ways, depend- vate and group classes. Like everything ing on what kind of holiday you want. else at Maxxwell it’s a perfect balance After a rejuvenating reboot? The between relaxation and rejuvenation. [email protected] Maxxwell Studio is a state-of-the- Clockwise from art gym packed out with world-class left: Maxx Royal equipment and staffed by elite-level Belek; Laguna Villas personal trainers. It has aqua gym at Maxx Royal facilities and a range of work-out Kemer; the Royal programmes – including Crossfit and Beach Villa at suspension weight training – that can Kemer; inside the be tailored to your body type. Outside, spas at Kemer in the wider resort, are tennis courts and Belek. and football pitches, and professional athletes are invited to use the facili- ties for preseason warm-ups. And for the end of the day, the spa’s trained masseurs specialise in sports massage. Those looking to wipe clean the slate are also well served here. As well as offer- ing “Absolute Detox” massages for those who have overindulged, the Maxxwell Spa has a special menu of ultra-healthy dishes that includes organic, gluten-free, Professional athletes are invited to use the facilities for preseason warm-ups. MAY 2022 GQ 59
GROOMING, SIMONE FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS USING BOY DE CHANEL /KEVIN MURPHY. GQ World SPECIAL THANKS TO HOLIDAY SKATING CENTER, VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA. Culture Rolling Home With Atlanta’s LaKeith Stanfield The Atlanta star fashioned himself into one of Hollywood’s most exciting young talents by dodging convention at nearly every turn. And then he realised that surpassing expectations is even more fun than subverting them. By FRAZIER THARPE PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL SCHMELLING STYLED BY JULIE RAGOLIA MAY 2022 GQ 61
GQ World with a weary, sceptical look on his face – but today, GQ World he can’t quite stop smiling. TV Culture He was hopeful when he first left Victorville, but it’s hard to imagine that Stanfield could have expected this. No two LaKeith roles are the same – he has a magnetic, lethargic charm that masks a simmering intensity, giving him the range to toggle between cool romantic heartthrob and shifty scumbag. He has the screen presence to shine in a formi- dable ensemble (The Harder They Fall), and to transform a two-scene role into a film’s iconic moment (Get Out). And as of last year, he’s an Oscar nominee. Soon, he’ll step up to a lead role in an honest-to-goodness blockbuster: Haunted Mansion, based on the popular ride at Disneyland. But Stanfield has long moved at his own rhythm, only synchronizing with the industry when it suits him. It keeps everything around him exciting, from his filmography to his late-night appearances. “You have to do it your way, other- wise you get ran by people always telling you who you need to be, pushing you in all these fucking directions,” he says. “No, I’m going to do what I want to do for me, and take it or leave it, man. I’m not going to be where you need me to be.” But while Stanfield has spent the past decade finding ways to subvert our ideas about who he is, lately he’s been interested in more earnest self-exploration. Which brings us to Victorville’s Hook Park, and the precise spot – just past the baseball mound, to the right of the bas- ketball courts – where he knew he would become an actor. “Someone was shooting a short film out here, and we don’t get that a lot, so I was excited. They asked for volunteers and my arm immediately shot up. My first time on camera,” he says. He slips into a reverie, but before he can dwell, another memory crowds in: a memorable high school fight occurred a few yards away. (“Over a girl. Always over a girl.”) A K E I T H S T A N F I E L D is breaking a promise he L made to himself. He grew up in Victorville, a sleepy desert city about 90 minutes outside Los Angeles, and when he left a decade ago he told himself he wouldn’t look back, only for- wards, towards better opportunities and a promising career. But circumstances have changed. Stanfield has become per- haps the preeminent character actor of his generation, but he’s also in the midst of a self-proclaimed metamorphosis – and all roads eventually lead home. “I had to come home because I didn’t want to,” Stanfield explains. “Coming back home is part of a ritual – checking in with yourself, going back to where things started, starting over and becoming a new you. So the old you is effectively dead.” He’s in a new headspace these days, making major changes as he plots the next phase of his career – and his life. So here’s Almost New LaKeith, back in Victorville, aged 30, reliving the formative experiences that made him the certified star he is now. “Once you leave, see the world, and come back, you really start to appreciate [where you came from] more,” Stanfield says. He takes gleeful laps around the roller-skating rink where kids still gather on Friday nights. He gives a gawky preteen a zip around the car park in his Lamborghini Aventador, and he reconnects with his high school drama teacher. When he’s appeared in public recently, it’s often been 62 GQ MAY 2022
Cute hangouts like the roller-skating rink notwith- GQ World standing, it’s easy to see how the flat, Anytown USA-ness TV of Victorville might breed boredom: on our tour through town, someone outside the Holiday Inn remarked that something big must be going on today, because “there’s never this many other Black people around.” His hometown, Stanfield explains, “seems like a desert where nothing’s hap- pening. But there’s an underworld here that people don’t really know about. There’s a lot of violence, there’s a lot of hurt, there’s a lot of pain, and there’s a lot of isolation in a place like this.” As his high school friend Hernando puts it as we walk through their old campus: “If you ain’t humble coming from here, you ain’t you.” Stanfield used that desert isolation to foster his creativ- ity. He credits 1993’s Menace II Society and “all the hood movies from that time” with sparking his inspiration. “I’d walk through these desert plains and come up with scripts, stories, characters, ideas. It was just me talking to the ether, talking to God, and nothing else to get in the way of that. I’m making comic book strips in my head, all kinds of stuff.” While visiting his high school, Stanfield meets up with his former drama teacher, who shares her first impression of him: “I still remember the first day you came to class. I was like, You have the voice for Shakespeare. But I also remem- ber you were shy, [sitting at the back] trying not to make eye contact.” If boredom helped nurture Stanfield’s creativity, it also created challenges. Pointedly, Michael’s Market & Liquor was number one on his list of old Victorville haunts to revisit. Last autumn, in a since-deleted Instagram post pro- moting The Harder They Fall, Stanfield alluded to the “crip- pling anxiety” he struggled with while making the film in 2020. During that shoot, he tells me, he came to understand opening page that he had an alcohol addiction. “This is something I never really had talked about before, but I want people to under- Vest, £1,380, stand that it’s something that you can get through, that it’s and trousers, something that you can get past,” he says. “And I want peo- ple to feel empowered by the fact that the person they’re £1,480, looking at on that screen has gone through addiction and by Prada. survived it.” All jewellery (throughout), He went to rehab and eventually found guidance and his own. support from peers such as Jamie Lee Curtis, whom he met while making Knives Out in 2018. They stayed in touch, and left she reached out to Stanfield last year after hearing from a mutual friend that he was thinking about sobriety. “My Shirt, experience is that when you feel you are alone, that’s a very £950, scary feeling,” Curtis says. “So what I was trying to say to and trousers, him was, ‘You are not alone. And if I can be a source of com- £850, fort or understanding, then I hope you will allow me to do by Dolce & that.’” He did, with the two of them exchanging texts and Gabbana. calls as he continued to work. above An early post-rehab project was a familiar one, albeit with a new feel: season three of Atlanta Tank top, (streaming now on Disney+) picks up where the £1,220, season-two finale left off, but this time star and creator Donald Glover convened the crew to film on location and trousers, in Europe. They travelled via Air Gambino: “I flew out with £5,210, Donald, and he basically has a jumbo-jet airplane that is his by Amiri. Boots, £1,355, by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. MAY 2022 GQ 63
GQ World Culture own personal – I don’t know if he Coat, £4,450, interest in playing the game his way, rather than eschewing owns it or what, but the mother- turtleneck, it completely. “I need to move smarter, I need to watch what fucker’s big and there were three I say, I need to be more strategic,” he says. “There are things levels, and it was only me, him, £740, and that I feel strongly about, and I need to find creative and and Brian [Tyree Henry] on it.” trousers, artistic ways to get those points across.” £975, by Louis But Atlanta is still Atlanta, Vuitton Men’s. The next challenge is to make movies like the ones that which means that Stanfield’s Boots, £870, inspired him as a kid growing up in Victorville. “I felt Darius is still doing weird Darius by Gucci. connected to that struggle: knowing what it’s like to be things. “A lot of it is just letting Hat, his own. poor and be in a situation with the homies, just trying to me riff,” Stanfield explains. “They make it through another day,” he says. “We need more of set up a circumstance, say ‘Go,’ that, but motherfuckers got to be real. People want to make and then I just start doing shit. movies, but they don’t want to be real. All this shit watered I use the script as more of a down. They got to go hard again. We got to make some guidance thing than literally more hood movies. I’m going to make some. I’m working on saying every word. Because of a show right now.” the way that the character’s designed, I can do anything. There’s one rule, he says: “It’s got to be real. If it ain’t I can come into the scene float- real, fuck it.” ing. I can come into the scene bowing. I can just lay down on frazier tharpe is a gq senior associate editor. my side. Whatever I want to do, it fits with what Darius would do, because he would do anything.” Being so closely associ- ated with his character can be challenging. “It’s nice to know that a lot of people think that Darius is their favourite character – I love the enthusiasm,” Stanfield says. “But for LaKeith, I’d rather not even have that kind of attention.” Maybe that’s because so far, the spotlight has afforded him his share of scrutiny. Last May, Stanfield found himself in the awkward position of having to clarify that he is not antisemitic after, as he tells it, wandering into a Clubhouse chat room and being made a moderator before grasp- ing where the conversation was going. (It was going nowhere good.) He wound up in the spotlight again not long after, writing in an Instagram post a few months later that “no one should be forcing anyone to put anything in their body,” which was taken as an anti-vax sentiment. Stanfield is wary of discussing those incidents again, par- ticularly because he feels that people were quicker to believe gossipy headlines than what he says is the truth. One day your eccentricity is a charming quirk, the next it’s shorthand for bad behaviour. “I think the main takeaway is that I need to be careful about what I say and what I put out, because there is such weight surrounding my words now, and people can take them out of context,” he says, growing animated. “It doesn’t matter if it’s completely false. The fact that it’s there and in the ether affects my career. It affects me as a human being, being perceived the wrong way. And I don’t really care too much about what nobody thinks, but I don’t like when motherfuckers got me fucked up. You feel me?” A few years ago, Stanfield might not have cared about an internet backlash. But the New LaKeith has a vested 64 GQ MAY 2022
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We’re calling it The Return. Perhaps not to normal – whatever that is – but after two years of pandemic, it feels damn good to pull up a chair inside our favourite pubs, bars, and restaurants across the country, feast, and be merry. The restaurant and hospitality business might have been inexorably changed by the pandemic, but it has reinvigorated our love of brave cooking, inventive drinking, warm service, and the simple pleasures of going A record number out – and staying out. of you voted in our eighth GQ Food & Drink Awards. To whittle down the impressive shortlist to find our worthy winners, we turned to an esteemed panel of judges – experts and legends in their fields – who were set the task of selecting the standouts, to anoint electric new talents, and acknowledge towering icons. With the support of our partners, Veuve Clicquot and Belvedere Vodka, we crowned our winners on the evening of 26 April at Decimo at The Standard in London’s reinvigorated King’s Cross, where they were presented with engraved Waterford Crystal ice buckets (and a year’s worth of gloating rights, too). EDITED BY PAUL HENDERSON AND MILLIE WEST PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLIE CUMMINGS 66 GQ MAY 2022
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↓ Unchained to fashionable ideas, the Hendersons hold fast to a simple creed of good ingredients, well prepared. F 68 GQ MAY 2022
Editor’s Special Award: Fergus and Margot Henderson The Eternals E R G U S H E N D E R S O N B L O W S Marlboro Red smoke Fergus and Margot Henderson are the beating heart of modern British cooking. F high into the air, his free hand tucked into his He is the godfather of nose-to-tail eating, waistcoat pocket. Against the late-winter green she the queen of understated, delicious of the Rochelle Canteen garden, his Falstaffian cooking. Together they have shaped this outline is unmistakable, if a bit dishevelled: a country’s culinary landscape in their own moth-eaten knitted tie coming loose at the neck, his round, gastronomic image. brass-trimmed glasses steamed up by a lunch of cockles, bur- gundy, game pie, and more burgundy. By NATALIE WHIT TLE His three-piece suit, cut from blue-and-white striped cloth so that it resembles a butcher’s apron, looks like it hasn’t I find the pair of them in the middle of a string of celebra- seen a trouser press in years. The effect is unique, and typi- tions. A few weeks ago, they picked up his and hers OBE cal of Henderson. Since he and his business partner Trevor medals at Windsor Castle, proceeding through “room after Gulliver opened St John in 1994 – pioneering the then-radical room of just magnificence – chandeliers, helmets and giant idea of nose-to-tail eating, in which pig’s trotters and innards Reubens,” Margot recalls, leading to a ballroom where they had equal billing with sirloins – Henderson, 58, has earned a were anointed for distinguished service in the culinary arts. reputation as that rare thing: a one-off. Chefs from both sides of the Atlantic come to St John to learn from Henderson and “Prince Charles was quite chirpy,” Fergus says, although to imitate him. Many have gone on to open their own ven- the heir to the throne, who handed them their gongs, tested tures, spawning a St John dynasty that includes James Lowe positive for coronavirus the following day. (Lyle’s), Lee Tiernan (Black Axe Mangal) and Justin Gellatly (Bread Ahead). But St John remains the same, as warm and Margot rolls her eyes. “Everyone says we gave it to him.” welcoming as Henderson’s food. His friend, the late Anthony Conversation moves on to the monarchy. “Charles should Bourdain, went so far as to call him “a huge hero” in the U.S., put less sugar in his [Duchy] oatcakes,” Margot notes. “Apart and declared St John to be the restaurant of his dreams. from that he’s doing an incredible job.” The Queen, she “Doesn’t he look so handsome in his suit, smoking a thinks, is simply a role model for other women. “We all want cigarette?” Henderson’s wife Margot says proudly, from a to be working. This idea that you stop working – what do table inside the restaurant, which she runs with fellow chef you do then?” She looks horrified. “It would be awful to stop Melanie Arnold. Rochelle Canteen is a tucked-away east working.” But where the monarch works through a day that London spot so well hidden it’s like entering an oasis where is laid out for her, Margot, 57, thrives on sorting things out, wine always flows and the food is surreally bright – all golden rearranging rotas, being in the thick of it. “Business is what pie crusts and blindingly green vegetables. “He’s so brave. He we’re all in,” she says of the daily untangling of duties and doesn’t whinge,” she continues. “He just wouldn’t complain ideas that it takes to run a restaurant. “I love business.” about anything.” As for why Henderson has to be brave – well, that will MAY 2022 GQ 69 come a glass or two of Bourgogne rouge later. For now, over a long afternoon of food and wine at Rochelle Canteen,
If the restaurant world is a churn of fads and must-book ↓ No fuss, no day progresses, and often when he searches for the words to tables, Margot and Fergus Henderson are the antithesis, ostentatiousness, produce an answer he purses his lips, nothing forthcoming. utterly unchained to fashionable ideas, instead holding just consistently fast to a simple creed of good ingredients, well prepared. delicious food “And where did you think you were?” Margot prompts. Rochelle is convivial, elbow-to-elbow dining on canteen at St John. “I was at the Grassi Palace,” Henderson says, gleefully. He tables, whereas St John is more restrained, the dining room spent a fortnight hallucinating that he was a patient at the encircled by waiters in white mess jackets. But they both grandest art gallery in the world, when he was in fact supine have in common an old-fashioned, almost thrifty approach to at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. The whole table bursts cooking in which there is no frippery, no wastage and all the into laughter. menus are written fresh each day. Margot reminds me of the Fergus’s own conversation is spare, often just single words exiled French chef in the 1987 film Babette’s Feast who slowly – “good”, “tricky”, “yes”, “no” – but with enough mischief and seduces an entire Lutheran village away from their extreme doubt (there are many long pauses) to indicate the pres- piety with her fish soup, before changing their lives with one ence of much longer stories. And often, quietly, there’s a soft umpteen-course banquet. undertow of something more serious. I ask him if he just remembers Venice, and not the virus. “I remember being ill,” Still, though both restaurants are modest in an unstudied, he says. “There were less chirpy moments.” classic kind of way, their founders don’t mind admitting they Margot did her bit to keep his spirits up. “I managed to get love awards, or a “pat on the back”, as Fergus describes it. sandwiches in,” she adds conspiratorially. “We managed to “Longevity has been kind to us,” he says. sneak in upstairs, and we did a ham and cheese [sandwich], and some lobster risotto. But they weren’t actually giving it to Longevity has been kind in other ways. The day before we him. He’s lost a lot of weight. Slimmed down, and kept it off.” meet, Fergus and Margot marked their 29th wedding anni- Like her lipstick-pink dress, Margot is a defiant bright spot versary, and later that evening they’ll throw a birthday party in the room. Her New Zealander accent is as sure and ebul- for their son Hector, a sous chef at Rochelle Canteen. Hector lient as Fergus’s speech is increasingly slow and difficult. To was baptised into the restaurant world with visits to The Ivy cope with the stress when Fergus was sick, she turned the as an infant. His 12th birthday involved a trip to Le Gavroche. cupboards at home upside down. “I did a lot of drawers and Like his father, young Hector dressed in a suit for the occa- discovered the moths,” she says, gesturing at her husband’s sion, and “had a little sip of wine with each course,” Fergus raddled tie. “When things are tricky, I’m a cleaner. I did a lot says happily. Hector’s sisters were given the same treat for of hoovering.” their 12th birthdays; Owen chose a trip to The Fat Duck in On Fergus’s return from St Thomas’s, the hallucinations Bray, Frances to Dinner By Heston. continued. For a while, he believed there was a circus at the bottom of the garden. Margot says: “I called the hospital and But there have been worries lately, too. Fergus, who was I said, ‘Look, my husband is still hallucinating.’ It was quite diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1998, contracted coro- interesting, they said, ‘Are they [the circus people] touching navirus at the beginning of the pandemic, and still struggles him?’ I think that’s the next stage. Parkinson’s and COVID with the fallout. Two or three years ago, standing with his was quite a tricky combination.” cigarette on the same spot, he would have cut a much fuller Fergus doesn’t say more on the subject, so Margot plugs figure, stomach pressing through his waistcoat buttons. the silence: “Fergus is so loyal.” Today, he battles with fatigue and sleepiness that are harder “I think it’s the other way,” he says. to shake than they were before the illness. When I ask him how he is faring post-coronavirus, Fergus says quietly, “I’m T H E I R R E L A T I O N S H I P S T A R T E D 30 years ago at a dining club good.” Before adding after a little pause, “A bit dented.” in Covent Garden, where Fergus was the hot young chef, one of the “glamorous lads” that Margot remembers “pulling in He is no longer the outspoken, gun-slinging chef who the ladies” to London’s restaurant scene. shook London cooking from its fine dining obsessions in the 1990s. “Fergus used to be the most opinionated person you’d “Glamorous-ish,” he corrects her, a little bashfully. ever meet,” Margot says. “He felt he had something to say.” “My kitchen porter, who had gone to work for Fergus, said, ‘You’ve got to meet this young chef, the food is so simple and In Henderson’s memory of COVID-19, he recuperated not perfect,’” Margot explains. “I ordered pigeon and peas and in London but in Venice, watching from a canalside room what did I get on my plate? Pigeon and peas. Fergus said he as speedboats fought through bad weather, as his body fell in love with me at first sight. I was wowed by the food.” fought off the virus. “It was stormy, so the boats couldn’t Nothing happened until a year later, when Fergus and his land,” he explains. “It was stormy,” he repeats, as if trying to sister arrived at The Eagle pub in Clerkenwell, where Margot add more detail. Parkinson’s undermines his speech as the was a chef, sporting unseasonable tans from a holiday on a yacht in Spain. “They just stayed in the port,” she says, under- lining the very Henderson logic of this decision. At The Eagle, HAIR AND MAKEUP, MICHELLE LEANDRA USING SUQQU. Fergus would offer her a cigarette at every break, which she read correctly as a compliment. Days later Fergus’s sister came back to the pub and suggested her brother and Margot run a restaurant together. “He called and said: ‘I don’t know why we haven’t thought about it before’.” These tales, suffused with carefree innocence, summon a bygone London: it was David Eyre, founder of the original gastropub The Eagle, who whisked Margot over to Notting Hill on his motorbike, to the Globe club where Fergus worked at the time. Fergus was all meat on the bone, no sprigs on the plate, god forbid a slice of lemon or an unjustified piece of parsley. But when they sat down to talk, “she even let me talk about coriander,” he says. “That was it – we never spent another night apart. It was quite straightforward. We’ve been married 29 years. Met in April and married in February.” The restaurant that the Hendersons started, above The French House in Soho, lasted a year before Margot took time 70 GQ MAY 2022
“She even let me talk about coriander, and that was it. We never spent another night apart.” —FERGUS HENDERSON MAY 2022 GQ 71
out to have their first child. Fergus went into business with → Rochelle restaurateur Trevor Gulliver, shifting the bacon grease from Canteen: “an oasis an old smokehouse in Smithfield to inaugurate the white- where wine always walled dining room of St John. Margot continued to run The flows and the food French House with Melanie Arnold. “The best thing was is surreally bright.” Fergus got to be more himself.” She laughs off any ill feelings about him leaving. “Fergus kept pumpkin soup on the menu this where I want to be?’ That was my first feeling when we PHOTOGRAPH OF GL ASS, MITCH PAYNE. JUDGES’ PHOTOGRAPHS, ELLIOT JAMES KENNEDY, GET T Y IMAGES. at St John. No one knew about pumpkins in Britain then. We came back. I could sense it, I knew some people were looking grew up in New Zealand with really good pumpkins.” for a change. People don’t want to be working every shift under the sun. Chefs are getting better hours and wages – it’s At St John, Fergus made gutsy menus from formerly unfa- a good time to be in the industry.” voured cuts of meat and dispensed with music, art and flow- ers to let the food and its eating speak. In doing so, St John She is turning to consultancy, too – she and Hector are created something seemingly simple that is in fact strangely developing a sandwich line named Margot’s Pride for a new inimitable, like a wonder drug that should be generic by now. food market at Centre Point. The venture is led by Karam “Fergus is an artist,” Margot says of the St John phenomenon. Sethi and JKS Restaurants, who have successfully backed “But I’m a craftsperson. Having a clear idea about what a the likes of Bao. In the same vein, she is planning the food business is, I think that is a business. To have sureness of for a pub in Somerset, outside Bruton, with art dealer Max style. Artists love St John because aesthetically it’s an art Wigram. But there’s a little sense of nagging annoyance that piece in itself.” she and Fergus didn’t become long-term partners in the kitchen, as well as at home. When Fergus was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Fergus recused himself from the kitchen, but he remains the vice- After a malt chocolate ice-cream pudding, Fergus cuts out- roy of the quality and personality of the place. He props up side for another cigarette. We’d been playing a Mr & Mrs quiz, the bar and attracts, by reputation, a great team of chefs and and now it’s Margot’s turn. She guesses correctly that Fergus waiting staff. “Fergus has very, very loyal staff and it’s one of said his favourite culinary city was Paris, that her favourite his greatest strengths,” Margot says. meal was at Ikeda in London, and that her ideal breakfast is toast. Not all of the answers were the same, however. When Things have not always been straightforward; the last I asked Fergus which kitchen implement he’d take to a des- time I met Fergus, a few years ago, he described the relation- ert island, he replied, “a sharp knife”, but Margot had other ship between himself and Gulliver as “tricky”. The relation- ideas. “He’d take a spurtle,” she says. “He loves the aesthetics ship between Margot and Trevor has at times been chillier; of them. Or, realistically, a corkscrew.” Fergus describes “a weird falling-out. A great shame.” After lunch service the Rochelle Canteen kitchen staff When I put the same question to Gulliver, he says: “There’s gather round grown-up Hector for a chorus of “Happy a lot ahead of us and a lot of good things.” If there have been Birthday”, and his parents stand on the sidelines, looking on power struggles, he doesn’t disclose them. “I love Fergus and singing. During the lockdown in 2020, the Henderson dearly, he’s one of the good guys,” he says. “He and I go back clan regrouped into a bubble at home in Stockwell, drinking such a long time, and St John was hard work for the first five “far too much” in the afternoons, Margot says, obsessing over years. At times, in the world of restaurants, naivety is a good dashi and daikon cake recipes and enjoying “a lot of happy thing.” After St John hit what Gulliver describes as “an ice- times”. There is a boozy wholesomeness to the image; and a berg” during the pandemic, “we lost hundreds of thousands full-hearted enjoyment of family life that is mirrored in their of pounds in turnover,” he says. A mantra of action and pos- approach to restaurants: “good lunch, good supper.” itivity seems to now be in place. The “good things” include a new St John site opening soon in central London, refurbish- “I think St John is a place where Fergus should sit in his ment of the bakery, a bigger online retail offering and a St old age,” Margot says, invoking the kind of restaurant you John clothing collaboration with Drake’s. But there is work might find in some sun-dappled courtyard in France, or Italy to pull the business out of its “debt pile”, in Gulliver’s words. – Venice, perhaps. Somewhere timeless, welcoming. “Isn’t that what you want from a restaurant, even if the couple At Rochelle, Margot is also struggling with the capital’s running it are a bit old and gnarled?” new taste for hybrid working. “London is quiet!” she booms. “I want to be a bit bossy and say ‘we need to be back in the office’.” She bangs the table. “Restaurants! Shops!” She despairs of how London is changing. “The people in real estate are ruining it. Greed is ruining it. There aren’t any corner shops in Covent Garden any more, it’s all about selling some unguent,” she says. “And restaurant prices in Soho – I think it’s just disgusting.” Given the chance again, she would do lockdown differ- ently, she says. “I wouldn’t worry about work.” Alongside Rochelle Canteen, she and Melanie Arnold are patrons of a catering venture at the ICA, which had to be put into vol- untary liquidation because of the pandemic. “We were just rocketing into red numbers,” she says. “It was a wonderful business, but it wasn’t profitable. The positive is we have this really lovely tent [clear plastic over the outdoor tables]. We’ve got less and we’ve hunkered down.” When her staff returned from lockdown, she sensed that many of them had also been “lying on their beds thinking ‘is “Fergus was the most opinionated person you could ever meet – he felt he had something to say.” —MARGOT HENDERSON 72 GQ MAY 2022
Meet Our 2022 Judging Panel Introducing GQ’s panel of industry experts – leaders in the world of hospitality, interiors, media and food and drink – who have been tasked with judging this year’s shortlist. ADAM BAIDAWI TOM KERRIDGE MONICA BERG After becoming the first Editor-in-Chief Chef, presenter and author, Tom Kerridge When Berg isn’t shaking and stirring at of GQ Middle East in 2018, Adam Baidawi made waveswhenhisBuckinghamshire her award-winning London bar Tayēr + was appointed Deputy Global Editorial venue,The Hand&Flowers,became the Elementary,she isbusyexpandingher Director and Head of Editorial Content firstpub to wintwo Michelinstars.Since modernliqueurline Muyu,andworking at British GQ in 2021. In this expanded then,he hasaddedasecondpub,two on her nonprofit P(our), which provides role, Baidawi is leading British GQ on restaurants and an old-school butcher’s acollaborative platformforbartenders, an exploration of new luxury. to hisname,allthe while remainingan sommeliers, brewers, winemakers unwaveringadvocate forthe industry. and distillers. ALEXEI ROSIN After more than two decades at Moët HONEY SPENCER IRÉ HASSAN-ODUKALE Hennessy, 2020 saw Rosin named as the Sommelier Spencer previously Sager Alongside chef Jeremy Chan, company’s new managing director for + Wilde, Noma Mexico, and NUALA Hassan-Odukale leads London-based the UK and Ireland, where he oversees is founder of BASTARDA – a concept restaurant Ikoyi. Despite a series of Veuve Clicquot, Moët & Chandon, Dom pop-up seeking to unite creative talents setbacks posed by the pandemic, Pérignon and Hennessy Cognac. in the food, wine and art worlds – as well Ikoyi has retained its cult following as wine director for Palomar, Barbary, and gained a Michelin star for its bold RAVNEET GILL Evelyn’s Table and The Mulwray. reimagination of West African cuisine. Winner of GQ’s Best Breakthrough category in 2021, presenter, writer and AUSHI MEEWELLA PAUL AINSWORTH all-round pastry aficionado, Gill is the Meewella, an interior designer, is the Ainsworth is no stranger to the GQ founder of Countertalk – a networking founder of Whitebox, and the artistic Food & Drink Awards, having won Best and recruitment platform for the vision behind Kolamba, aka Soho’s Chef and Best Pub in 2019 and 2020 hospitality industry – bakery school favourite Sri Lankan restaurant and respectively. His empire spans two andpop-up,Puff,aswellasthe author worthy winner of GQ’s Best Interior restaurants, one pub, a boutique hotel, ofthe bestsellingbakingbible, category in 2021. chef’s table and hospitality academy. A Pastry Chef’s Guide. MAY 2022 GQ 73
Best Restaurant: BiBi A Bold New Take on Indian Cuisine Y O U ’ D B E F O R G I V E N for assuming that everything JKS – the London restaurant group behind the likes of Gymkhana, Hoppers, and Bao – touches turns to gold. Done deal. But to do so would overlook the stratospheric success of Chet Sharma’s debut restaurant, BiBi. Sharma (who cut his teeth in the kitchens of previous GQ Food & Drink Award winners, Moor Hall and L’Enclume) has created a contemporary Indian menu that traverses the cultures and cuisines of the subcontinent rooted in British produce, with an equally accomplished cocktail menu. These influences translate into dishes like plump Orkney scallops with blood orange and Indian lemonade (trust us, it works) and Lahori chicken, grilled in a traditional sigri (clay oven). BiBi got high praise across the board, with Aushi Meeweela noting its BIBIRESTAURANTS.COM “progressive, innovative and inspiring spirit”. RUNNER-UP: CAIL BRUICH British GQ editor Adam Baidawi said, ALSO NOMINATED: “its flair, atmosphere and energy FROG BY ADAM HANDLING; are unmatched.” JÖRO; SESSIONS ARTS CLUB Veuve Clicquot Innovator: Lorraine Copes for Be Inclusive Hospitality Best Sommelier: The Future is Fully Inclusive Drops for Henna Zinzuwadia at Akoko a New Era F O U N D E R O F N O N - P R O F I T Be Inclusive Hospitality, I T ’ S F A I R T O S A Y that Henna Zinzuwadia’s route to wine Lorraine Copes’s mission is to drive racial equality in wasn’t exactly textbook. Following a major injury, Zinzuwadia’s first unaided walk found her in a buzzing Spitalfields wine bar and the the hospitality industry. Having witnessed the lack seed to become a sommelier was sown – divine intervention, if you like. Today, she is head of wine at Michelin-starred West African of representation and leadership opportunities for restaurant (and previous Best Breakthrough nominee) Akoko, where she has amassed an “accomplished yet accessible” offering, people of colour in the sector throughout her career in according to Ire Hassan-Odukale, by bridging natural biodynamic wines and big names, all while championing BIPOC-owned wineries. restaurant procurement (working for the likes of Corbin AKOKO.CO.UK & King, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, and Shake Shack), RUNNER-UP: GARETH FERREIRA AT CORE BY CLARE SMYTH ALSO NOMINATED: Copes’s business delivers vital initiatives and education MELODY WONG AT JUMEIRAH CARLTON TOWER; JULES COPPIER AT CLOS MAGGIORE; ALESSIA FERRARELLO AT – including mentorships, workshops, advisory services RESTAURANT SAT BAINS and culture audits – to amplify unheard voices and helps other hospitality businesses foster more equitable and BIHOSPITALITY.COM accessible workplaces. Ainsworth applauded this RUNNER-UP: ADEJOKÉ “instrumental work,” adding, BAKARE FOR CHISHURU “Lorraine has already had a profound impact on our ALSO NOMINATED: industry and the way we LUCY VINCENT FOR FOOD operate within it. It takes huge BEHIND BARS; ROSIE GINDAY courage to challenge endemic FOR MISS MACAROON; SHANNON TEBAY, FORMERLY THE AMERICAN BAR and entrenched issues.” 74 GQ MAY 2022
Best Chef: Clare Smyth at Core by Clare Smyth A Legend at the Top of Her Game I N M A N Y W A Y S , this accolade feels long overdue for Clare Smyth (though we’re quite sure she’s content with her three Michelin stars, MBE for services to the hospitality industry, and a GQ Best Restaurant award from 2018). Core is a temple to a new era of fine dining, where epicurean creativity trumps conceit – and there’s zero starched linen in sight. A clear favourite for our judging panel, Kerridge describes Smyth as “undoubtedly one of the greatest chefs cooking today – not just in the UK, but the world.” Aside from her “unsurpassable” skill in the kitchen, Ainsworth was quick to celebrate Smyth’s “generosity and dedication to the next generation”, by taking part in training schemes, panels, and COREBYCLARESMYTH.COM awards. Truly a class act at the peak of her powers. RUNNER-UP: ALEX NIETOSVUORI AT HJEM ALSO NOMINATED: JAMES MURRAY AT TIMBERYARD; SIMON MARTIN AT MANA; TOM BOOTON AT THE GRILL AT THE DORCHESTER Best Hotel: Callow Hall, Peak District Escape to the Country I N A Y E A R W H E R E the staycation was king, what does it take to be crowned GQ’s Best Hotel? Individually designed bedrooms? Tick. Garden Room restaurant and Library Snug for an evening, post-walk round of Scrabble and scotch? Tick. Acres of woodland and meadows to explore? Tick. Converted Coach House offering first-rate wellbeing treatments for our weary limbs? Tick. Oh, and that’s before you’ve stumbled upon their oak-shrouded treehouses and woodland hives. The restoration of this Victorian house in Derbyshire “exceeds expectations at every turn”, says Tom Kerridge. It is testament to the team’s vision that, despite welcoming its first guests in September, Callow Hall already feels like a “timeless classic.” If there was a tonic to all that the last two years has thrown at us, a weekend spent hunkering down at Callow Hall might be it. (OK, make that a week.) WILDHIVE.UK RUNNER-UP: GILPIN HOTEL & LAKE HOUSE; THE MONDRIAN ALSO NOMINATED: THE LONDONER; THE YARD IN BATH MAY 2022 GQ 75
Angela Hartnett is Just Lifetime Achievement: Angela Hartnett Heating Up HAIR AND MAKEUP, CAROL MORLEY. SHOT AT MURANO, QUEEN STREET, LONDON W1, MURANOLONDON.COM. She forged her skills in the blast furnace F Y O U W E R E T O ask Angela Hartnett what she kitchens of the Gordon Ramsay group, then I does for a living, she would probably tell you created an empire of her own – on the way she was just a cook. If pressed, she might admit championing a generation of British talent. to being a chef and a restaurateur. And if you really pushed her, she might reluctantly add By PAUL HENDERSON that she has held a Michelin star for her Mayfair restaurant Murano since 2008. It is doubtful, however, that modesty would allow her to mention her MBE for services to the hos- pitality industry, the OBE she was awarded for her Cook-19 scheme which provided meals for NHS workers during the coronavirus pandemic, or that within the hospitality indus- try she is considered not just one of the UK’s best loved and most respected chefs, but a bona fide national treasure. After starting her career working 100-hour weeks in the thermonuclear reactor that was the legendary Gordon Ramsay haunt Aubergine, Hartnett spent 17 years helping Ramsay build his empire. She travelled the world setting up kitchens, won her first Michelin star at The Connaught 76 GQ MAY 2022 PHOTOGRAPHS BY GIULIA SAVORELLI
↓ When she started out, colleagues didn’t think she would last two weeks. Now, Angela Hartnett is one of the country’s most celebrated chefs. MAY 2022 GQ 77
↑ Murano, in 2004, then opened Murano in Mayfair for Ramsay four Weekend Festival. And I was doing a cooking Hartnett’s Mayfair years later, cooking the northern Italian dishes her nonna demonstration, making spaghetti in a tent at the restaurant, was and her mother had taught her to make as a child. In 2010, same time. That pretty well sums it up. awarded a Michelin she bought the lease, with Gordon’s blessing, and has gone star for its on to build a mini-empire of her own. From what I know, your mum is a pretty harsh critic of “sophisticated your cooking. Was she good training for working with cooking” with a As GQ Food & Drink Awards judge Tom Kerridge puts it, Gordon Ramsay? “delicious vitality “Not only is Angela Hartnett one of Britain’s most loved and [Laughs] I suppose she was. She has her moments, for and freshness.” well-known cooks, she is also one of the best professional sure. If something isn’t right, she lets me know. And in the chefs you will come across. past I have made things and she will say: “No, this isn’t nice,” and she’ll throw it in the bin. I would get more “She makes the most wonderful food seem effortless – nervous cooking for my mum than I would for Gordon. elegant but at the same time robust and full flavoured. The world is a much better place with Angela Harnett in it.” Your mother and your Italian nonna both had a big You were quite late to a career in restaurants. influence on you – did you always enjoy cooking I had always wanted to go to college like all my friends, with them, or were you a reluctant sous chef in the but once I had done that I decided to try working in Hartnett household? hospitality just to see what it was like. In Cambridge No, I loved it. The only time I didn’t like it was if it meant I worked in a couple of pubs and then Midsummer House I couldn’t go out to a party. But I loved every minute [the two Michelin-starred restaurant on the banks of the cooking with my nonna. Even when I was at college I’d Cam], and I decided to try and take it more seriously. Food jump at the chance to spend time with her in the kitchen. culture was developing and chefs were starting to get well One weekend my friends asked me why I was going home known. Gordon was on the rise, Marco [Pierre White] was and I told them: “To make the anolini [pasta filled with this enfant terrible, and it felt like an exciting time. But stewed beef ] for Christmas.” And we still do that as a to be honest, I didn’t even know what the Michelin Guide family to this day. For me, cooking isn’t just about the food was when I started. I wrote to three restaurants in London on the plate; it is about getting together with family and – Sally Clarke, Carluccio’s, and Aubergine – and after an friends and the preparation. interview and a day in the kitchen, all three offered me jobs, but Gordon’s kitchen [at Aubergine] was the most exciting. Your mother once said your brother had the brains and that you were good with your hands. Was that There are various legends about when you started. a fair assessment? Is it true the other chefs placed bets on how long you We were actually laughing about that recently. A few would last? months ago my brother Michael, who is a very successful True, although I only heard about that afterwards. economist, was doing a big speech at the Financial Times’ Marcus [Wareing] didn’t think I’d last two weeks. 78 GQ MAY 2022
“I would get more nervous cooking for my mum than I would for Gordon.” —ANGELA HARTNETT Is it true that Gordon’s nickname for you was Dizzy Lizzy? Were you the only female chef at Aubergine? And how many times did you get fired? Oh yes. There were a lot of women in the industry back He did call me that, among other things. But I never got then, but not many at that top level. There were women fired. All the other chefs did, then Gordon would chefs at Sally Clarke, but I spent a week cooking at Le invariably re-hire them after service, or the next day. Gavroche and I don’t remember any there. Again, that He did scream at me a hell of a lot. worked in my favour, especially when I took over at The Connaught in 2004. Gordon was really becoming a big You were working 7am to midnight, six days a week and deal then and he had lots of top chefs like Marcus, Jason getting shouted at by the most fearsome chef in the Atherton, Stuart Gillies, Mark Sargeant, but if journalists country. What made you stay? couldn’t get time with him they always wanted to talk to The first week I was there, a New Zealand chef was just me because I was the girl, the anomaly. Yes, it was finishing in the kitchen and Gordon was giving him a tokenism, but it didn’t do my profile any harm at all. terrible time. He had been annihilating him all day and I assumed that Gordon must absolutely hate this guy. You spent a lot of time working with Marcus Wareing. Who Then afterwards I found out that Gordon had arranged all had a bigger influence on you as a chef – him or Gordon? these placements for him – a week at Le Gavroche, a week Good question. I will say Gordon, in the sense that he’s at Koffman’s [now closed but which was in the Berkeley been there from the beginning. But they’re very similar in Hotel in Knightsbridge], a week at Daniel in New York. how they run a kitchen – grill discipline, respect for the He’s also let this guy stay in his flat for a fortnight while he produce, how they prepare ingredients. So they are found somewhere to live, all this stuff. And I thought: “If I probably on an equal footing in that regard. But I have work for him, he will look out for me.” So I did a year at to say, and Marcus will probably hate me for saying this, Aubergine and proved myself, I suppose. Gordon has the kinder eyes. When Gordon was bollocking you, you always felt there was love behind those eyes. Do you think he treated you differently because you Whereas with Marcus I used to think there was a chance were a woman? he really might kill me. He definitely did at first. And to my advantage, I have to say. It may have been sexist, but he looked out for me. Did that mentality affect your temperament in He would tell Marcus to send me home if it was getting the kitchen? too late, and things like that. But the thing was, I didn’t I don’t think so. I would say I’m hard but fair. I can lose my want to be treated differently. So after it had happened rag, but these days I just don’t see the point of screaming a couple of times, I followed Gordon out of the kitchen and shouting. I remember when I was at The Connaught one day and told him that I didn’t appreciate him giving and a chef walked out of service and I was furious. And I me preferential treatment. Looking back on it now, I must was talking to Richard Corrigan about it, and he said: “Do have been mad. But he listened and from then on I was you know them?” And I asked him what he meant. And he just part of the team. said: “Do you know where they live? Do you know how far ← Hartnett’s interiors are as sophisticated and welcoming as her food. MAY 2022 GQ 79
they travel? Do you know if they’ve got family problems, or relationship issues? You need to know them, to get under their skin, to care about them.” And he was right. And Gordon always did that. Because if you want chefs to work for you and believe in you, you have to treat them properly. And wasn’t it at The Connaught that you threw out your first customer? Yes, and Gordon was so proud. It was this horrible man who was rude to my staff and obnoxious to everyone – Lord something or other. I think he was one of those people who had bought his title. Anyway, he came into the restaurant, started moving tables, shouting at the waiters and I told him and his guests to leave. He then went to reception and started stamping his feet and saying, “Do you know who I am?” I told him it was my decision to throw him out and if he had anything to say he should say it to me. He said: “You? You’re just a cook.” And that was it. Out. You were with Gordon for 17 years. When did you start ↑ Hartnett and Does anything faze you these days? thinking about having your own restaurant? Gordon Ramsay I still get a knot in my stomach when The Michelin Guide After Marcus and Jason left to set up their own places, it in the dining room comes out. Obviously everyone wants to make the next got me thinking: should I be working for myself rather of the Connaught star up, but we don’t make it an overwhelming priority. than someone else? It was interesting, because Marcus Hotel in 2011. But you do want to know that you are at least maintaining and Jason didn’t leave Gordon on the best terms, a few your standards, you are keeping what you’ve got, and you people told me that I should be careful. But I just knew are still being recognised for that. Keeping stars is not a Gordon wouldn’t screw me over. And when I did tell him, given. You have to work really hard for them all the time. it was funny because we were having dinner at Scott’s and halfway through I just burst into tears. He thought I was How about COVID-19? You seemed to handle that better dying of cancer, the waiter was circling and Gordon kept than lots of chefs and restaurateurs. asking me what was wrong, and I said: “I want to leave I credit my team for that. When it all kicked off and we and do my own thing. I want to buy Murano.” And he said heard about restaurant groups suddenly laying people off that was fine and that we should sort it out. And he was with 20 minutes’ notice, it would have been easy to panic. great. I don’t see loads of Gordon and Tana these days, but But Chris [Yates], my managing director, held a meeting I know that if I needed a phone call he would definitely with all the staff and told everyone not to panic and not to be there for me. He’s never been anything other than hand in their notice. We put everyone on either unpaid supportive all through my career. I think of all the chefs in leave or holiday pay because we knew the government London, no one has had a bigger influence on the industry would have to make an announcement. Then the furlough than Gordon. The only one who comes close is Fergus scheme came in and we knew we could work through Henderson, or maybe the River Café. things as a business. Did having your own restaurant change you? And you also set out to feed key workers with your charity Not really, but it feels different. One thing I learnt from Cook-19. Ramsay Holdings was how to run a business and I made That’s right. My friend Lulu Dillon started it as a non- sure I had all those things in place – a good manager, a profit charity, providing meals for NHS workers and I got good accountant, great shareholders. I know what I’m involved in that. We started off just cooking from our own good at and what I’m not. I like to think I am clever kitchens, but by the end, with help from volunteers and enough to know my weaknesses. So then you need to get food donations, we were producing 1,000 meals a day. in place people who can help you. Ultimately the vision is mine and if I really want to make something happen we You are GQ’s Lifetime Achievement winner, but you are find a way to do it, but restaurants are businesses and they still young [53]. Do you have any burning ambitions left? need to be carefully run. I want a house by the sea. Professionally, I wouldn’t rule out launching a restaurant abroad. The two places I would Is there anything you don’t like about cooking and like to open in are New York, just because it is such a PHOTOGRAPH, ANDREW CROWLEY. running restaurants? fabulous city. And I would love to do something in Hong Probably that you can never switch off. When you are in Kong. So you never know… I am open to offers. charge, the buck always stops with you. So you can be on holiday, working away, spending time with the family, or muranolondon.com whatever, and you will still get the call about a problem. We’re not a big faceless hotel group or food chain… everyone knows who is responsible at the end of the day, and that’s me. “She makes the most wonderful food seem effortless – elegant but at the same time robust and full flavoured.” —TOM KERRIDGE 80 GQ MAY 2022
Best Overall Experience: Hélène Darroze at the Connaught A Place that Couldn’t be Bettered A F T E R G A I N I N G T H R E E Michelin star status in 2021, Hélène Darroze at the Connaught remains a place of culinary pilgrimage – “the epitome of fine dining”, according to Kerridge. The menu, available in artful 3-, 5- and 7-course iterations, reflects Darroze’s roots in classic French cuisine, while segueing through her experiences in Spain, Italy, and Asia. The journey is recreated in the restaurant’s staggering wine list, which traverses appellations, regions and countries from the iconic to the undiscovered and can be enjoyed through a series of wine ‘flights’, or privately with a seat at the Sommelier’s Table. With its gilded reputation and devotion to precision in food, wine, service, Hélène Darroze at the Connaught remains on every bon viveur’s wishlist for a reason. Word to the wise? Save TH E - C O N NAU G HT.C O.U K room for the legendary baba, liberally doused in RUNNER-UP: SOHO FARMHOUSE Darroze’s own ALSO NOMINATED: aged Armagnac. OXEYE; NUSR-ET; UGLY BUTTERFLY Best Breakthrough: Imad’s Syrian Kitchen From Damascus to the West End F O R C E D T O F L E E S Y R I A – and his string of restaurants, cafés and bars in Damascus – Imad Alarnab spent his journey through Lebanon cooking for other refugees, before bursting on to the London restaurant scene with a series of charity events and sell-out supper clubs. Last year saw the opening of his first permanent restaurant, which brings the bright, bold flavours of his homeland to Carnaby’s Kingly Court in the form of fattoush, falafel and the best hummus money can buy. Surrounded by convivial chatter and Middle Eastern spices, you’d be forgiven for forgetting you’re in Soho. “Imad’s story of sheer grit and IMADSSYRIANKITCHEN.CO.UK determination is inspirational,” says judge and previous Best Breakthrough RUNNER-UP: NOMAD winner Ravneet Gill. Monica Berg ALSO NOMINATED: adds, “The queues are testament to BRUTTO; HERON; 670GRAMS Imad’s hospitality and exquisite food.” MAY 2022 GQ 81
A Red Room of True Best Interior: Decadence Red Room at The Connaught U N V E I L I N G A B R A N D N E W B A R concept is no mean feat, but the stakes are that much higher when the world’s current number one, the Connaught Bar, is mere metres away. Accessed via a discreet velvet-curtained doorway, the space – designed by Bryan O’Sullivan Studio – is an homage to rouge of all shades, with a focal pink onyx bar, red-veined Italian marble fireplace, and artworks by female artists including Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, and Trina McKillen. Our judges were mesmerised by the Red Room, with Paul Ainsworth describing it as “the most striking TH E - C O N NAU G HT.C O.U K example of conceptual, contemporary design”, and Baidawi praising its “daring and decisive spirit”. RUNNER-UP: Guests have access to The Connaught’s wine list, SESSIONS ARTS CLUB showcasing its 30,000-bottle cellar, as well as wine-based cocktails and small plates, including ALSO NOMINATED: veal carpaccio, charcuterie and British cheeses. BEAVERBROOK; In this consecrated corner of Carlos Place, ROOF GARDEN AT PANTECHNICON; THE LIGHT BAR la vie en rose, after all. Belvedere Best Bar: SOMA Best Bartender: Maxim Schulte, formerly KOL Max, Master Mixologist N E W F O R 2 0 2 2 , the Best Bartender Award celebrates Britain’s finest mixologists, who aren’t afraid of ruffling the hair of the status quo in pursuit of the perfect libation. It seems only right that Maxim Schulte – who has worked behind the world’s most prestigious bars, including The American Bar at The Savoy – is awarded the accolade in its inaugural year. During his time at KOL, Schulte “transformed Britain’s thirst for Mexican spirits, consistently pushing new ground yet maintaining crystal clear vision,” says SOMA, So Good SOMASOHO.COM Veuve Clicquot’s Alexei Rosin. He is a “peerless host with an unparalleled eye for detail – the definition of what hospitality is all about”. Schulte has recently RUNNER-UP: THREE SHEETS departed KOL S I N C E O P E N I N G I N S E P T E M B E R , SOMA has taken Soho by storm – if you can secure a coveted stool at its small ALSO NOMINATED: to offer drinks KOLRESTAURANT.COM but perfectly formed steel bar, that is. The latest venture A BAR WITH SHAPES consultancy from the duo behind London’s much-loved Indian restaurant FOR A NAME; LAB 22; services to RUNNER-UP: Kricket, SOMA fuses East and West in a similar vein, with PRESENT COMPANY leading venues. LUDOVICA FEDI, THE Needless to say, GLENEAGLES HOTEL cult cocktails such as the Curry Leaf Gimlet and Pickled we’re eager to see what 2022’s ALSO NOMINATED: Mooli Martini. The attention to detail – from the moody subterranean interiors to the on- master mixologist GIULIA CUCCURULLO, ARTESIAN; KAT STANLEY- point service – is second to none. SOMA is “faultless”, says Honey Spencer. “So often, bars WHYTE, UNO MAS; BEN suit a certain clientele or occasion, but SOMA is the place to take anyone and everyone… concocts next. ALCOCK, FILTHY XIII even your teetotal friends, because their mocktail offering is every bit as creative as their cocktail one.” Ours is a Coconut Ramos Fizz, if you’re buying.
Best Restaurateur: Gordon Ker for Blacklock Gordon Dials Up the Joy Best Pub: T O H A V E O P E N E D four London restaurants in less than seven The Lamb Inn years, all while grappling with a global pandemic and Brexit fallout, is testament to Gordon Ker’s determination and the winning formula The Local Everyone he has found and fostered at Blacklock. His latest (and largest) site Wishes Was Theirs opened in Covent Garden in February, once more championing the old-school chop house for the 21st century, dialling up the fun with first-class cuts of meat, decent cocktail trolleys and absolutely no airs or graces. Paul Ainsworth is no stranger to the challenges of building a restaurant empire, and praised the Blacklock brand for I T T A K E S G U M P T I O N to open a new venture in lockdown, but when it’s headed up its “consistency, quality, and affordability”. Adding: “Sustainability by Peter Creed and Tom Noest – the pair behind The Bell Inn in Langford – the odds and community is paramount, Ker’s commitment to B Corp status are somewhat in your favour. The Lamb in [a certificate Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire is all of standards and business flagstone floors, real ales and roaring fires, but THELAMBSHIPTON.COM THEBLACKLOCK.COM most importantly, the same stellar food and RUNNER-UP: THE LOCH & transparency] RUNNER-UP: AMY CORBIN & PATRICK service that made their name – and continues THE TYNE proves passion and WILLIAMS FOR KUDU, SMOKEY KUDU, purpose are valued CURIOUS KUDU, KUDU GRILL to set the precedent for any pub. But don’t just ALSO NOMINATED: above profit.” take it from us. Three of our industry experts BERTIE BLOSSOMS; For now, the stakes ALSO NOMINATED: said: “I wish this was my local.” If there’s higher THE COPPER DOG; and the steaks GRAZIANO ARRICALE FOR LANGAN’S praise for two publicans, we’re yet to hear it. THE BRIDGE ARMS are high, but the BRASSERIE; JAKE KASUMOV & MARCO ambition is higher. MENDES FOR CASA DO FRANGO, KOL, VINEGAR YARD, BAR LA RAMPA; MAX GRAHAM FOR BAR DOURO PHOTOGRAPHS, SUPPLIED BY CLIENTS EXCEPT FALLOW’S COD’S HEAD WITH SRIRACHA SAUCE, STEVEN JOYCE. Best Front of House: Emma Underwood Sustainability Award: At the Top Humble Fallow of the Pem Produce, Wild I F E V E R T H E R E was a beau idéal for first-class New front-of-house service, Emma Underwood would be Heights it. Her latest position is heading up Sally Abé’s hotly- anticipated The Pem, where Underwood does what A F T E R A S E R I E S of successful she does best: preempting diners’ every need, all while nurturing her team and remaining an pop-ups, Fallow found its permanent unyielding advocate for the world of hospitality. The secret to Underwood’s success? “She’s a feet in London’s St James’s Market seasoned pro,” says Ravneet Gill. Honey Spencer agrees. “She is a true rarity. Her devotion to service last November. Led by former Dinner deserves more than any award could bestow… it is her signature style which so many hope to emulate.” by Heston Blumenthal chefs Will Murray Needless to say, if you find yourself in Underwood’s care, you’re in safe hands. and Jack Croft, Fallow’s ethos may be THEPEMRESTAURANT.COM simple – to elevate humble produce to wild RUNNER-UP: ANNEKA BROOKS, FORMERLY DAVIES & BROOK new heights – but the execution is anything ALSO NOMINATED: DIEGO MASCIAGA AT BIBENDUM; ROGER GIBBONS but. Take the signature corn ribs, sourced from AT A. WONG; LUCA MAGGIORA AT BARDO their Esher smallholding, which are fried, dusted in kombu, and doused with lime, to their instantly Insta- recognisable cod’s head with a sriracha butter sauce (right) – proof that eating sustainably needn’t mean compromising on flavour or fun. FALLOWRESTAURANT.COM Rosin commended Fallow’s “all-encompassing commitment to sustainability, from the RUNNER-UP: SILO menu to the restaurant redesign”. ALSO NOMINATED: The judges agreed that Fallow is writing HUMBLE; INVER; the blueprint for environmentally-minded THE SMALL HOLDING restaurants, now and in the future. MAY 2022 GQ 83
BY LAIA GARCIA-FURTADO PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACK BRIDGLAND found stardom by doing something very specific: updating flamenco for the digital age. But with a new album full of genre-melting, party-starting hits, the Spanish singer is ready to show just how expansive her music can be. STYLED BY OLIVER VOLQUARDSEN
¿Chica, Fonsi, sang in her native Spanish, refusing to court success qué on any single market’s terms. From there, she released a string of singles – some with flamenco flourishes, some dices? not – with several of the biggest names in reggaeton and urbano music, along with the likes of Travis Scott, The Weeknd, and Billie Eilish. In the process, Rosalía became a Spanish-language sensation and also a pioneer of music built for the global nightclub. And so, hidden inside that simple question are a few more complicated ones: when you reach the highest tier of pop – when you have everyone on earth ready to move the way you tell them to – what do you do? How do you surpass the work of art that changed your life forever? Do you return to what got you there? Or do you push forward into something entirely new? ¿Rosalía, qué dices? The question – “Girl, what you sayin’?” – opens all jewellery “ T H E Q U E S T I O N T H E project asked was: how do I make a Motomami, the Spanish pop star Rosalía’s latest album, and tooth gems photograph of this moment?” Rosalía says. We are in New released in March. It is a simple question but also a York’s Electric Lady Studios, where much of Motomami freighted one. After all, no one, least of all Rosalía, could (throughout), came together, conversing in Spanish; the doors to the have foreseen that a Spanish-language record that she her own terrace are open, letting the sunlight in. She continues, conceived and produced independently as part of her col- “How do I make a self-portrait? How do I translate my lege thesis project, 2018’s El Mal Querer, would catapult → experience – right here, right now – into music?” her to global success. But Rosalía’s one-of-one blending of vintage flamenco with modern sounds enraptured listeners and jumpsuit from She’s wearing a long Coperni halterneck dress, with synced up with what some called the “second Latin explo- Costume – slits at either side, patterned in a patchwork of ’90s ico- sion,” after the late-’90s moment when artists like Ricky The Stylist Room nography—the yin-yang symbol, that sun with the wiggly Martin, Marc Anthony, and Enrique Iglesias broke into rays, Beavis and Butt-Head – with chunky black platform pop with English-language hits. The difference was that bodysuit £470 boots. We sit on a red couch, and when she plays each Rosalía, along with peers like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Luis Saint Laurent by song she closes her eyes – done up with a glossy-green eye Anthony Vaccarello shadow – and vibes out to the music. She marks the beat with her feet, the melodies with a sway of her head. If she wasn’t a superstar, I’d think we were teenagers listening to records together. “I still dedicate most of my time to music,” she says. “The fundamentals haven’t changed. What has changed is my context.” After El Mal Querer, the world opened up for her. She joined the global fashion circuit – sitting front row between Virgil Abloh and Drake one day, performing at one of Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty events another. In her music videos and live performances she honed an aesthetic heavy on both high fashion and motorcycles. (That was her, briefly, in Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s internet-demolishing “WAP” video.) She made new friendships. “With Rosa you can feel that her body and spirit are in perfect alignment, giving her direct access to creating from her truth,” her friend, the Euphoria star Alexa Demie, tells me in an email. “She stands strong in her power and sinks deep within her vulnerability, sharing both with us effortlessly.” It was a lot, Rosalía says, explaining, “My life has changed. In three years it’s turned around 360 degrees. The way I’ve found to process all that has been to make music about it.” She has spent the past two years in the United States, primarily in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles, working on her album. It’s been the longest period of time she’s ever spent away from her family and from Spain. Ultimately, she says, the change in scenery helped. “These two years working here in the United States, it was like trying to rediscover the centre,” she says. “Because if you are in the centre – in your centre on a creative level
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– you really write from honesty, produce from honesty, → There is quite a bit of reggaeton in Motomami’s sonic arrange from honesty.” skirt £1,380 Prada landscape, along with bachata, a little dembow, and even a cover of “Delirio de Grandeza,” a 1968 bolero by the That meant exploring kinds of music she hadn’t nec- underwear £25 for Cuban singer Justo Betancourt. It’s like Rosalía walked essarily been associated with. “Saoko,” the album’s first pack of two Calvin through the garden of her favourite music, picking dif- song, was the last one she recorded for Motomami. She Klein Underwear ferent flowers and mashing them together to create new was here in this studio improvising, and perhaps because hybrids. Which explains how references to an eclectic mix she’d been deep into reggaeton, “Saoko, papi, saoko, came of musicians – the salsa star Willie Colón; the rappers Lil’ out,” she says, referencing the 2004 reggaeton hit from Kim and M.I.A.; the flamenco artists José Mercé, Niña Wisin and Daddy Yankee. The rest of “Saoko” builds out a Pastori, and Manolo Caracol – appear throughout. As philosophy. She will not be a static musical presence. (“I we’re talking, she starts to call the album a “radiografía,” am very much me, I transform myself / A butterfly, I trans- combining the words for radio and biography, then stops form myself.”) She will not let the pressures of success herself because she knows that’s not what a radiografía interfere with her creative instincts. (“Frank said to open is – it’s an X-ray – but it’s somehow still a fitting port- the world like a nut,” she sings, quoting her pal Frank manteau. The references further ground the project in Ocean. “If I die, may I die by the mouth like a fish dies.”) the autobiographical: this is the music she grew up with. If none of this clues you in to the shape-shifting at the heart of the project, the jazz piano breakdown towards the A N A R T I S T ’ S F I R S T press cycle can calcify a life, particu- end of the track announces that she will let her musical larly if the musician is a young woman with interests that experiments get as weird as she wants. “I owe so much fall outside of societal expectations. Very quickly, the story to flamenco; it’s been my home, and it will always be the of Rosalía Vila Tobella coalesced into the myth of Rosalía. foundation to my music,” she says. “But to me, there is no She was born in Sant Cugat del Vallès, a town north of one music that’s better than another – there isn’t one that Barcelona. When she was seven, she sang for her family is good music, and one that is bad.” and reduced them to tears. At nine she started learning how to play guitar, and fell in love with flamenco at 13. She It was as simple as that: “I thought it was super guay” studied at the Catalonia College of Music in a programme – Spanish slang for cool – “to open the record with a song that typically accepts one student a year. She played local that sets the mood and all the references for the project, tablaos, as the bars and restaurants in Spain where fla- especially the old-school reggaeton that I love… I spent menco singers and dancers perform are known, sometimes my whole adolescence listening to reggaeton. I remem- getting paid only with a free dinner. She released a debut ber dancing with my cousins to songs by Don Omar, album, Los Ángeles, which was straightforward flamenco, Lorna, Ivy Queen, all the classics – so why not pay homage to them?” just a guitar and her voice. Success soon fol- lowed: the critically acclaimed El Mal Querer, based on a 13th-century novel, and a role in director Pedro Almodóvar’s 2019 film, Pain and Glory. All this set her up as a Very Serious Artist with Very Serious Intentions. It wasn’t hard to imagine what would come next. Except Rosalía had other ideas – had always had them, really. She’d grown up listening to everything. Bon Iver, but also Kate Bush. Aphex Twin, but also Janis Joplin. She taught herself songwriting in part using books of Bob Dylan and Patti Smith lyrics her mother had given her. She was a child of the ’90s, raised with the internet: the idea of picking any one genre seemed limiting. “Her music [is] not only getting bigger and wider but also connecting deeper and more spiritually with audiences worldwide,” her friend, the musi- cian Arca, tells me. The two often connect via “melodic voice notes,” encouraging each other in their creative endeavors. “I see her star shin- ing bright,” Arca says. With El Mal Querer, she began to incor- porate the sounds of global pop. Then she began working with the biggest artists on earth. Rosalía fitted right in: “Con Altura,” her reggaeton-leaning song with J Balvin and El Guincho, has racked up nearly 2 billion views on YouTube. The likeliest outcome – indie- world recognition – was upgraded to full-on global fame. Motomami continues this process. Changing gears, shifting shapes: this has always been the idea, even if people were slow to catch on. “El Mal Querer was a mood; in fact, a very serious
MAY 2022 GQ 91
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mood,” Rosalía says. “A mood is a moment, and moments ↑ That quality has served her well as she has cannot be repeated. The most honest thing I could do for coat and shoes dealt with the complications of her new life. this project was to really open up.” (prices upon request) First, she faced the accusation that she should not make flamenco, traditionally a music of Opening up, in this case, meant devising a character: the skirt £1,380 the historically marginalised Roma people motomami. The body of work she’d accumulated – “There Prada of Spain. (This critique seemed to gain more was a very forward point, with a lot of energy, and another traction after the worldwide success of El Mal one of fragility and vulnerability” – called to mind a specific → Querer rather than the more traditional Los quality. Then all of a sudden she remembered an old friend’s sunglasses £370 Ángeles.) Then, after El Mal Querer garnered early email address: motomami. The moniker had stuck with several Latin Grammy nominations, ques- her but now raised new ideas. It seemed hard, but soft; fem- Balenciaga tions arose about her inclusion, despite the inine, but not rigidly so. It reminded her, too, of her mother. fact that it is common for artists from Spain “My mum has always ridden a Harley, dressed in leather,” gloves £235 to figure in the awards, which honour music she says. And even though it came to her late in the process, Thomasine in Spanish, along with Portuguese and other the motomami seemed like an idea that, somehow, predated languages spoken in Latin America and the her album, and maybe her life. It became a sort of affirma- hair by sergio Iberian Peninsula. I ask if she was think- tion, she tells me: “I’m a motomami because my mum was a serpiente with one ing about these things when she recorded motomami, and my mum’s mum is a motomami because my Motomami, filled as it is with musical styles mum’s mum’s mum was a motomami too.” off artists using from the Caribbean and Latin America. sebastian. makeup A motomami has a funny side: one song on the album, by mariona botella “I can only talk to you from my own truth, “Hentai,” folds a list of sexual desires inside a reference to for rosalía using mac which doesn’t mean it’s the correct one,” she erotic manga. This caused something of a freak-out among tells me. “To me, making music is a human a subset of her fans. “When I shared 15 seconds of ‘Hentai’ cosmetics. nails manifestation. It’s what makes me wake earlier this year,” she says, “many people liked it and I was by anna sancho. up in the morning with enthusiasm, what very happy and thankful, but many people were also put- tailoring by rosa pérez keeps me hopeful, my most honest way ting their hands to their heads, and I kept thinking: but Lil’ cadenas. set design of communication.” Kim has been writing explicit lyrics all her life!” She laughs. by chloe rood at dais “But it’s possible that people are expecting certain things agency. produced by She continues, speaking clearly on a sub- – because my other two projects were so serious – but this susana & kiku at bcn ject she’s given much thought to. “One of one for me, it’s giving space to humour, irony, all sorts of skies productions. the reasons I wanted to be a musician was subjects that are part of my life.” because I would get to travel and learn new things, meet new people,” she says. “All those The motomami exists for these moments. “When a things affect me as a person, and I want those woman does not do what she is expected to do, people are things to affect my sound… I understand and often ruthless,” she says. So she has learned to be ruthless. empathize with the people who may feel a different way, “In the end, I say: Motomami and move on.” but the truth is that, if I stopped [to] think there is a right way or a wrong way to be inspired, I wouldn’t be able to make music. There are many things, many people, that have influenced me, that have enabled me to make my music. If I choose musical styles, you can see that reggaetón clásico, dembow, bachata, and bolero are all present. That is all a result of love, admiration, and the utmost respect.” A few weeks after we meet, Motomami – the product of a career’s worth of sonic exploration and self-interroga- tion – draws closer to its release date. The rollout in the US befits Rosalía’s levelled-up status: she appears on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon not as the musical act but as a fully-fledged guest, complimenting the host on his “motopapi” energy. She performs on Saturday Night Live, singing in Spanish to an audience of millions. And then, the night before the official release, she gives a special performance recorded for her TikTok. She truncates most of the album into a 30-minute medley, employing many of the app’s trademark special effects and riffing on the idea that it will all be consumed via phone. The performance, confident and assured and designed for as big an audience as she can imagine, makes one thing very clear. With her first two albums, Rosalía cre- ated a world and welcomed listeners into it. But she has made it such that her new work, and all her work in future – defiant, beautifully chaotic, unmistakably Rosalía – will be released into a pop-music world shaped, subtly but indelibly, by her influence. ¿Chica, qué dices? She says: todo. laia garcia-furtado is a writer and editor living in New York. 94 GQ MAY 2022
BY MIKE CHRISTENSEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHARIF HAMZA STYLED BY LUKE DAY The EnlighHeistoneeof nme nt of Britain’s finest actors, as comfortable doing Shakespeare as he is cavorting across the Marvel multiverse in this month’s Doctor Strange sequel. But the real Ejiofor is chasing something deeper.
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There’s where sometimes a hilltop in Chiwetel goes to Uzbekistan think. Ejiofor It’s a peaceful place, somewhere he can have facets. Theatregoers will know him for his “Chiwetel always wins people over, whether he’s stepping in for a day of high-octane fight- a moment – take stock, as we all do every now legendary runs in Othello at the Donmar and ing or a heavy dialogue scene. But to say there’s one thing about his personality that makes him and again. “There’s a mountain range, a lake Romeo and Juliet at the National; film buffs for great would do a disservice to the rich, complex and deep human being and talent that he truly is.” and an open field, and it’s absolutely stunning,” bringing an unmistakeable gravitas and vulner- They say a sign of wisdom is knowing Ejiofor says. “For some reason I just feel some- ability to a career that has taken in everything what you don’t know, and Ejiofor is all too aware of what he doesn’t know. Some things thing there.” from Oscar-winning drama (12 Years a Slave) you probably didn’t know about Ejiofor are as follows: he is now 44. His go-to karaoke It’s become his safe place, this hilltop. to comedy (Love Actually, Kinky Boots) to CGI song is Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”. His favoured pet is a dog (his is a Pyrenean A solace away from the world, a space where lions (the Lion King remake). More recently, Shepherd called Clay), his favoured emoji the eagle (he’s a fan of Crystal Palace). he can go to exorcise his heaviest thoughts, there is Ejiofor the screenwriter and director He’s a two cups of coffee per day person, max. He can “more or less” change a fuse, but is still to manifest positivity and progress. But the (2019’s The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind). not fully comfortable with Zoom calls. He has read the Bible (in parts as a child growing up truth is he doesn’t even know where it is. “I was And now there’s Ejiofor the blockbuster draw, Roman Catholic, and in full for the part of a preacher in 2018’s Come Sunday) and thinks it’s bouncing around the world a few years ago on throwing up magical signs as Mordo in Marvel’s important to encourage what is positive about religious teaching. Wander and just hit upon this place,” he says. Doctor Strange. He was desperate to be older when he was Wander is an Oculus virtual reality app. On screen, there is an intensity to Ejiofor’s young and now is slightly resentful of getting older. He’s a lover of nature and is into the idea, Ejiofor initially downloaded it during lock- performances, a rawness that has attracted if not the practice, of hugging trees, “because of the exchange of energies that happens.” down as a way of connecting with family (“my some of our finest directors: McQueen, And right now, at a Daylesford Organic in West London, he’s just changed his order of scram- mum joined us at one point”) but it soon grew Spielberg, Scott, Cuarón, Lee. Among actors, bled eggs on toast for creamed mushrooms with a soft boiled egg. A green tea, too, because into something else. “Now every time I go, Ejiofor is known as someone who insists on at 9.50am he’s already reached his coffee quota for the day. I tend to put on some music, sit on a rug like going that extra yard – or hundred, as his 12 “It’s such a complex world and a complex I’m picnicking and just lie down with my VR Years a Slave co-star Alfre Woodard recalls time,” Ejiofor says, as if it explains Uzbekistan. “Although that can be challenging, it’s also a headset. It’s very relaxing, my Zen place.” from their time on the 2013 Steve McQueen great opportunity to figure out what you want to say and how you want to involve yourself If you didn’t already know this about film. “In one scene he came running full in the conversations that are happening. That’s where I’m at right now. I just want to Chiwetel Ejiofor, the actor is a deep and inter- speed from 300m away and arrived heaving, carry on finding the notes of the music I want to play, you know?” esting thinker, someone for whom meditating drenched in sweat, eyes ablaze,” Woodard says. in virtual reality seems only natural. He craves “He was so spent it shocked me out of charac- information, and likes to question things, large ter!” (Ejiofor did three more rehearsals at that and small. And right now he’s thinking about: intensity before shooting started.) what does it mean, his journey to this hill- “What makes Chiwetel such a great actor is top? Does travelling to an Uzbekistani hilltop his razor-sharp intellect and the tremendous in virtual reality somehow diminish our expe- hard work and preparation he always puts in,” riences of what’s real? “Do we lose that sense the actor Naomie Harris tells me. “No one is of excitement and thrill as a consequence of ever better prepared or has greater insight into experiences devolving into things we’ve seen their character and the project than him.” before?” Ejiofor pauses. “Like, ←← But in person, there’s a play- where do we take technology like ful side to Ejiofor that only a few VR so it can actually facilitate a real OPENING PAGES people get to see. “He is always expansion of our conscious thought the first person to lighten the and our interactions with other coat £1,330 atmosphere as well as dive into people, in a positive atmosphere?” shirt £1,330 whatever is required of a moment. Givenchy If you are unaware of this side of → Even if he’s laughing at his own Chiwetel Ejiofor – Ejiofor the phi- jacket £2,050 jokes, you can’t help but join losopher – then you will no doubt in,” says his Doctor Strange be familiar with his many other shirt £750 co-star Benedict Cumberbatch. Valentino 98 GQ MAY 2022
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