six months (eating) across the pond

pub dating, bagel longing, godly salvation from RESY

Mar 16, 2025

Six months is a funny amount of time to have been somewhere new. Because my friend asks where she should host her birthday dinner, and I have an answer. I have the coffee shop I, unfortunately, don’t feel I can ever enter again due to an awkward misheard-wifi-password-conversation with a handsome barista. And there’s the street corner where I first made out on tiptoes with a boy in London that, every time I walk past I think to myself, Well, yeah. This is the street corner that I first made out on tiptoes with a boy in London.

But you can tell me you grew up in the North or the South or East or West, went to school in Daylesford or Sittingbourne or Scunthorpe or Leeds, and I still have not one preconceived notion of you based on that. In fact, I think it just sounds so lovely and quaint there, and should we go together?

I’ve found my new peanut butter brand. The double-decker bus has lost its allure (I know), and I spend my commutes devoid of any wonder, scrolling on my phone like everyone else. But! I still ask Alexa to convert 375° to Celsius about three times a week and wonder when the hell I’ll remember that it is, in fact, 190°. And I think I’ve had mice problems in New York apartments that have lasted longer than this.

It’s undeniably sweet, though, to notice that six months is all it took: I can’t go to bed without drinking a cup of tea. I boil the water and squidge the bag, I carefully walk down the stairs to my room hoping not to spill, nestle myself under the duvet where I’m surrounded by all of the amassed books and candles and water glasses that have turned an empty room into a place I feel safely able to close my eyes, and I sip it in a race against time. Big delicious gulps of it before it can go the slightest bit tepid. I feel closer to my mother with every hankered-after cup, and I know the habit will stick because of that alone.

At the same time, six months is all it took: I’ve never wanted an everything bagel schmeared with an inch of cream cheese handed to me by an angry guy behind a counter so badly in my life. I swipe through old photos of the bagels and the coffees, of the baskets of fries and cocktails from evenings at the neighborhood chicken place. I think of the easy hours at those familiar tables in Brooklyn, hypothesizing and theorizing with my same female friends, about the same female friends doing the same things we’ve discussed verbatim a bazillion times, and I miss all of that.

I miss the walk from my door past the gardens, past the library, looping around the picnic house and back home again. I miss the Clean Turkey with bacon and pickles. Crying— no, sobbing, while barreling through the tunnels of the city late at night. Because letting hot tears spill in a New York subway car always feels like both the worst punishment and the most radical catharsis, and after ten years of that, I’ve needed it lately. The trains here are too quiet and respectable to cry.

But then I’m shocked with cold water to the face when I realize I’ve just gotten the chance to hear a first “I love you!” spoken with a smile from a new friend. A little moment that actually isn’t little at all. I’ve celebrated a birthday surrounded by sweet faces I’d never have known otherwise. I’m surrounded by all the sticky toffee pudding I could dream of.

Only six months in, and I strut down the street, earbuds in, as if it’s one I’ve long been familiar with— sidewalk-crack, malfunctioning streetlamp and all. It’s funny how quickly we adapt, isn’t it? But while I might charge through the hordes of tourists outside Tottenham Court Road Street Station, cursing them under my breath as I rush to the theatre, I’m unable to set foot on a bridge after dark without taking a few dumb, blurry selfies. Me, in this big new, place, with a stupid smile plastered on my face, eyebrows raised, and a whole aura of where the heck am I!!!! Get a load of this!!!!!???

Because in those moments, it’s clear: we deserve to stroll, cheeks warm from the intermission wine, across every nighttime bridge in every city we’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to try on. It’s a rapturous pleasure to feel my nose go cold, to look up and see how the buildings cast the very same yellow streaks on the water. The ferries and tour boats that honk just the same. But to know I’m standing there as a different version of myself, in a world that I’ve realized with new appreciation stretches so very wide. Even if no one on the bridge knows who I am or what I’m thinking, I like to believe they can feel that bit of wonder radiating off my skin like heat.

Half a year is, laughably, an extended “study abroad,” a short, bad national tour of Cabaret; it’s not even a blink. But it’s been six months of having my eyes shot wide open, my brain whirring so hard it’s surprising to me that you can’t hear it. And if I only ever got six months of remembering how that feels, I’d consider myself lucky.

Some London Favorites (6-months in)

A little half-year scrapbook of dining out in (mostly East) London. Without any concern for seeming like I know what I’m talking about, or that I’m an expert on any subject—because to be in a new place, I get to be so uncool and so full of glittery stars in my eyes, and spend all those minutes that I haven’t been on The Infatuation or TikTok or Resy (six months sober) like, touching grass, and I’m loving it. I’m simply asking people for their recs and then trying them out. Taking advantage of the amazing food in my area that I’m still getting to know. And then, looking actual Londoners in the eye and embarrassingly gushing in ways that are probably the equivalent to saying: “Oh my God, I just had this incredible vinegar chicken, have you heard of this place in Williamsburg called Bernie’s?!” And well that’s a hoot for me, cause who cares about all that anyways.

Favorite Quick Bite

Za’atar Manakish — Ta’mini Lebanese Bakery, Fulham/Bloomsbury

Why: It’s massive (£3.95) and comes out piping hot. The dough is chewy and rippable and the tang of the sumac delivers a real shock of flavor. Fantastic.

Favorite Coffee Shop to Work

Brunswick East, Bakehouse, Hackney Downs Studios

Why: To get there from my flat, I walk through a park and then through a tunnel under the overground train tracks, so it ends up feeling like a secret little hideout (it’s not). The espresso is fine, but the food is great, there are always empty morning tables with outlets, and the warehouse space turns into a brewery + pasta place at 5pm, so there’s never any pressure to leave in the early afternoon.

(Honorable Mention: Abney Park Cafe By Sabel.)

Favorite Free Place to Work

Barbican Centre, Farringdon

Why: I can’t keep buying coffees! It’s massive; there are a million places to sit, a Martini Bar if you need sustenance..and it makes you feel cultured/in close proximity to a lot of greatness happening around.

(Honorable Mention: The British Library.)

Favorite Pastry

Marmite, Schlossberger & Spring Onion Swirl — Pophams, Hackney

Why: I always prefer a savory pastry, and the umami you get from the Marmite is out of this world.

(Hardest to pick on this whole list. Honorable Mention I: Tahini halva brownie @ Violet Cakes. Honorable Mention II: The almond, orange, chocolate cake @ Ottolenghi)

Favorite Pub for Eating

De Beauvoir Arms, De Beauvoir Town

Why: I’ve tasted a number of dishes at this point, and I’ve always been impressed. Their large meatier plates are no less delicious than their moorish apps and snacks, and it’s clear that they do sauces really well. Not something I’d expected in a pub, and it’s why I keep returning.

Favorite Pub for Dating

The Elderfield, Lower Clapton

Why: Extremely cozy. Small enough to feel intimate if the date is going well, but big enough to not feel like you’re being eavesdropped on, well, if the date isn’t. Warm, casual, neighborhood-y, and smack dab between my flat and my friend’s and Thank God for that.

Favorite Tourist Trap

Cheeky Scone, Notting Hill

Why: Warm, fluffy scones served with cold clotted cream and your-choice-of-jam really can’t be messed up, and I respect a place that serves nothing but that. I’ve only had the raisin (and I’ve only gone at closing time on a weekday, so proceed at your own risk…) but I’d go back to try their other variations.

Favorite Sticky Toffee Pudding

The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead Heath

Why: Every combo of cold cream + hot toffee pudd is heaven on a spoon. But this one somehow felt colder, hotter. It was rich, and perfect to split among three.

Favorite Pre-Theatre Meal

Dumplings Legend, Soho

Why: Honestly, maybe even just for the crystal prawn dumplings. The tangy chicken with bean sauce, too. I just really love dim sum, and pairing it with a night of theatre (or a movie at the Prince Charles around the block) is my idea of flawless evening.

Favorite Sunday Roast

The Ladbroke Arms, Notting Hill

Why: Look at that pool of gravy. Look at it! No dry mouthfuls of chicken and potatoes here, and for that I am grateful.

Favorite Daytime Cafe

Toconoco, Regents Canal

Why: An airy, daytime cafe where I can sit and read and not be bothered to rush is heaven to me, and feels rare. I got that here (& I also got a really tasty tuna mayo rice roll). Plus, it looks right at the canal, which adds even more breeziness to the whole affair.

Favorite Breakfast

Norman’s Cafe, Tufnell Park

Why: I am generally afraid of restaurants that have 110k Instagram followers and release custom merch drops. But my meal there proved they’re not only in it for the “vibes.” Cheap tea, great Guinness bread, nicely portioned plates, and a fry up that somehow didn’t make me feel like utter crap after.

Favorite Place for People Watching

Lucky & Joy, Lower Clapton

Why: Our waiter was adorable and I wanted to be her best friend. It was bustling and busy and loud and full of pretty people in shoes I wanted to Reverse Google Search. But: the bites were excellent too, and that’s what will bring me back.

(Honorable Mention: Morito.)

Favorite Sexy Restaurant

BRAT, Shoreditch

Why: I’m sorry I love a sexy dinner where the music is loud, the cocktails are strong, and you know someone’s parent is shining a flashlight at the menu somewhere nearby. Cultured butter. Khruangbin grooving in the bathroom stall. The whole ordeal. BRAT lived up to my expectations.

(Honorable Mention: Rogues.)

And, Favorite Dinner Overall (so far!)

Gunpowder, Spitalfields

Why: I’ve had some delicious dinners, but this one I think produced the most oooos and aaaahs and oh my goooods coming from our table. The tandoori saag paneer. The rum bread & butter pudding. The perfectly sized menu and intimate dining space.