A Week in LLG: From Byron Burgers to an H&M Harlem Shake…

It’s been a week punctuated by beautiful flowers. These arrived at the LLG office attached to the invitation to the Toast store launch on Marylebone High Street next week, where I gather they will be filling the shop with blooms from The Flower Appreciation Society.

At the MiH AW13 press day at their enviable studios in Hammersmith, much loved florist Scarlet & Violet filled the showroom with Paper White Narcissi, Snowdrops, and delicate Hellebores. I couldn’t decide if I coveted the stretch suede skinny pants or the flowers more…

And this ravishing bunch, also from Scarlet & Violet, arrived in the office as a thank you from a London PR.

When I wasn’t sniffing Spring flowers, I was doing quite a lot of eating. On Tuesday night I took lil’sis to the press preview night for Byron Burgers’ Lamb Burger (prescient on their part given the current meat origin crisis), at their new Store Street branch in Bloomsbury. It’s  been cleverly squeezed into a converted filling station. Can you tell?

She went lamb and chomped down with glee; I went Portobello mushroom. (Although I’ve eaten this many times at Byron on my own dime, I’m still not convinced by the combination of mushroom, grilled red pepper, and goats cheese. Too slippery, slide-y, slimey.)  On the other hand the historic (to use a Winner-ism) onion rings would be a satisfactory lunch in themselves.

On Wednesday, colour for the week was provided at The Conran Shop, where they have a new bespoke chair covering service — look at all these wonderful fabrics. There are many changes afoot at Conran, under Jasper Conran’s new creative leadership, and I challenge anyone to go downstairs and not want to buy, well, pretty much everything, from perfect cooking pans to pink suede rollerskates.

I spent Wednesday night at Balthazar with three girlfriends. (And wrote about it here.)

Over Thursday lunchtime Emily & I checked out the six shiny new floors at H&M’s re-launched Oxford Circus store. Goodness things have changed since the Hennes days of my youth. Not only is there free WiFi throughout, but these are some of the changing rooms:

And props to the exuberant staff, who performed an impromptu Harlem Shake outside the store as the countdown to the public opening started:

In the evening, I went to a dinner thrown by the brilliant digital story telling and ecomm agency Folk, at Quo Vadis in Soho, quite one of my favourite London restaurants.

I had squash, sage and goats curd on crisped polenta. It is utterly delicious, but I have now eaten it four times since December, so maybe it’s time to change the vegetarian option Mr Lee?

We still appear to be stuck in a Narnia-like eternal winter, although with less snow and more driving rain/hail/sleet. At least as the days grow longer, there are some glorious sunsets over Camden.