LDNGuide
Where To Go When You’ve Just Got A New Haircut
Your hair looks fantastic (according to you), and you have roughly 24-48 hours to take advantage of that fact.
You can always spot someone who’s just got a new haircut. They walk like they’re in an advert for Pantene. They stop in front of every single reflective surface. They smell of some amazing product made of honey and mermaid tears. Or, they’re the person running down Shoreditch High Street weeping with a bag over their head. But that’s a different guide. This guide is about capitalising on that moment after a great new haircut when you’ve never looked, or felt, better. Here’s where to take your new look for dinner and drinks, because it would be rude to hide this level of good-looking from the general public.
THE SPOTS
At 6.46pm today, your makeover entered the world. And since then, you’ve practised your Oscars speech in the mirror four times, lip synced to every song containing the words ‘hair’, ‘gorgeous’, and basically the entire soundtrack to Hair the musical. Frenchie is a restaurant as beautiful as you are. It’s a modern brasserie in Covent Garden that serves some seriously excellent food like a bacon and maple syrup scone, goat’s cheese manicotti, and a banoffee dessert that’s an absolute must order.
If long layers and curtain bangs are going to be your new personality trait then you might as well head to this fun, incredibly OTT, 300-seat trattoria in Covent Garden while it’s still fresh. Three floors, with three completely different backdrops, means endless Instagram story potential. Capture that shiny blow dry while twirling some creamy mafaldine al tartufo by the floor-to-ceiling mirrored bar in the red room, get a snap in the rattan chair-filled Amalfi coastline-inspired floor on your way to the bathroom, or eat a slice of the ginormous chocolate gelato cake in the Studio 54 x parmesan collaboration in the basement. But really, you should be doing all three.
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Café Cecilia is a couture canteen. Hip things young and old book weeks and weeks in advance, all clucking for a table at London Fields’ hottest restaurant. So once you've booked your cut and blow dry, book a table. There's no better spot to debut your do than this east London scene, full of beautiful people eating gorgeous deep-fried bread and butter pudding with custard. Plus whether you're here for lunch, with sunlight streaming through the windows, or dinner when there's a soft glow, the lighting is always on point for a candid snap with sage fritti or perfectly pink onglet.
Today someone massaged your skull for you and you felt like a beloved pet cat. How could today possibly get any better? Kerridge’s Bar & Grill, that’s how. This huge, slightly broody restaurant near Embankment has oxblood leather booths, a statue of a gold suit in the middle of the dining room, is part of the Corinthia Hotel, and is definitely deserving of your new haircut. If you’re going all out, get the sharing lobster thermidor omelette that’s a casual £120. This place gets bonus points for having the kind of blindingly shiny cutlery that you can subtly check your hair out in every 10 seconds or so. Perfect.
The Prince is one of those loud and proud boozers that will undo all that personal growth you made having to tend to your own split ends over the past year. From the people behind Pergola, this West Kensington spot is a huge open-air situation with plenty of cute ‘candid’ photo opportunities beneath the foliage or while casually holding a jug of Pimm’s. The selection of street food vendors changes regularly but usually they’ll be classics like burgers, jerk chicken, and empanadas. But really, this place is about boozy fun with friends while fulfilling your noble cause of ensuring as many humans as possible see your haircut before the blow-dry wears off.
The Palomar is one of the most fun places in the whole of London. Yes, we’re including Hyde Park and that adult ball pit in Shoreditch in that statement. And when the sun’s out, you can enjoy this Middle Eastern restaurant’s sharing plates on their terrace. It’s buzzy, cool, and basically a party where the guest of honour is octopus hummus. And your hair, obviously.
Lady Of The Grapes is one of those charming little wine bars that always brings out our inner romantic. Seeing as you’re probably deeply, tenderly in love right now—yes, with that nice chap who just spent four special hours smearing your scalp in peroxide—it’s the perfect spot for an al fresco glass of red and compliments, not to mention a top cheese platter. They’ve got outdoor seating on Maiden Lane, a charming Covent Garden side road that has all the potential to feel like the quiet parts of Montmartre on the right sunny day. Parlez-vous hair flick?
You need somewhere that is big enough and trendy enough to hold all your BHE (Big Haircut Energy). Greyhound Cafe is that place. Everything about this Fitzrovia spot is capital F Fashion. The menu looks a bit like a food-focused issue of ID, the service is as aloof as a model that’s just been booked by McQueen, and the crowd is generally very good looking. Basically, this is the perfect place to debut your new look. Think of it as your own personal catwalk with some good Thai food thrown in. Get the tataki tuna larb.
Sushi Atelier sounds kind of like a hairdressers for fish, but that’s not why we put it in this guide (picture a tuna with a quiff though, we dare you). No, Sushi Atelier gets a place in the guide because eating great sushi when you’ve got brand new hair is just one of those combinations in life that works. This place on Great Portland Street serves an excellent 12-piece omakase, as well as a razor clam ceviche that arrives in its own smoke-filmed dome. The best part is it’s pretty great value for money.
You’ve just got a fringe, again, and you know that eventually you’re going to have to grow it out and it’ll be your own personal Waterloo. But you can’t waste your new hair thinking about your future, and whether in that future you’ll look like the love child of Liam Gallagher and that dog from the Dulux adverts. No, just head for a drink (or many) at Goldfinch in Tooting. It’s a great, casual bar that serves excellent cocktails, and has the kind of atmosphere that turns one drink into several. It’s a small spot and the back garden is always pretty crowded, so it’s a good idea to book ahead.
A human being washed your hair for you and now you’ve got a taste for the good life. Really, the best way, the only way, to escalate your new diva-dom is a ‘press for champagne’ button. This entirely over the top restaurant in Soho is an excellent place to get classy drunk and people watch. Sorry, our mistake, have people watch you and your new ‘do. Their French meets Russian food is good, and although there’s a lot of caviar on the menu, the beef wellington is the dish you really want to get involved in.
Is it normal to find yourself this good looking? Don’t stress, that crippling sense of self doubt that normally follows you around will be back in no time. Until then, head for upmarket Chinese spot Park Chinois in Mayfair. This place is borderline ridiculous and looks like the design brief was just the lyrics to ‘Money’ by Abba, but crucially, it has many reflective surfaces and a mirror ceiling in the bar. That’s right, you can get a bit tipsy on botanical martinis while checking your hair out from every possible angle. The food here is very expensive and decent enough, but really you’re here to listen to the live brass band and pretend you’ve just purchased your fourth private jet because you needed somewhere else to keep your excess of shoes.
Haircuts are an expensive undertaking, and that’s before you factor in being tricked into shelling out an extra 20 quid on a conditioner that will ‘save you money in the long run’. How? We don’t know, something to do with split ends and protein. But we do know that when you’ve just spent a whole lot of your salary within a couple of hours you should go to Brasserie Zédel. This all-day French brasserie in Soho is very 1920s Paris with a big, grand dining hall and, importantly, some very affordable food. The three-course prixe fixe menu means you can have some great steak without spending the rest of your rent.
