Addicted? Try Antiques Anonymous

This one sounds like fun. As a sort of last hurrah for London Design Festival, the first ever Antiques Anonymous – a name we really like, incidentally – is a collaboration between a whopping eighty art and antique dealers, including many from highly rummageable London institution Alfie’s.

The idea is, say the organisers, to highlight Church Street NW8 as a “last outpost” for high-quality decorative objects, both old and new. After all, some of you – at a guess – probably have never even set foot on the thoroughfare, hidden as it is between the Regent’s Canal and noisy old Marylebone Road.

In which case you’ll have missed both newcomers like Daniel Raphael Gallery and Cutler & Gross Vintage, longstanding galleries like Stephen Sprake and a return to the street from Les Trois Garcons  – whose previous incarnations include the eponymous Shoreditch restaurant (which, if you’re of a certain age, was an absolute classic).

As well as pop-up shops and exhibitions all day Sunday, there’s live music, and food provided by cupcake sensations Kooky Bakes and Hackney-based Young Vegans, plus coffee from Mouse Tail Coffee Stories, who you’d normally find on Borough High Street or Whitechapel Road.

Even that old queen of chippies, the Sea Shell on Lisson Grove, currently celebrating its 60th anniversary, is joining in with a one-off special menu and discounts on food purchased on the day.

So if you’re an interiors – or foodie – nut whose never been to this highly characterful north London stretch, Sunday could be the time to go, um, ‘anonymous’. 

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