London: Ottolenghi, Natural History Museum, The Hereford Arms, and The Harwood Arms

Lunch at Ottolenghi in Notting Hill

Day Five was our last full day together in London. We started off with breakfast at The Butter Bakery in Notting Hill. The bakery is located across from our apartment, so it was an easy walk across the street for our hand pies and coffee.

The Butter Bakery in Notting Hill

Plum and apple hand pies

Delicious cappuccino

After breakfast we walked to Ottolenghi, also in Notting Hill. We’re fans of Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbooks and were excited to try one of his restaurants. This location has a daily changing menu and I recognized a lot of the dishes from his cookbooks. You can take the food to go, or enjoy your meal at the table in the back. It was a bit of a gamble – only 10 seats and no reservations. Luckily we only had to wait about half an hour but we easily amused ourselves browsing the shelves and menus. Definitely recommend if you’re in the area!

Ottolenghi

My plate clockwise from the top 1) Basmati and wild rice with sautéed chestnut mushrooms, mixed nuts za’atar and crispy onion 2) Roasted baby potato and parsnip with mango salsa and coriander 3) Sweet potato wedges with roasted endive, saffron and orange yoghurt, fennel seeds and hazelut

Koen’s plate clockwise from the top: 1) Cauliflower, kale, red quinoa and apple slaw with whole grain mustard, walnutes and bitter leaves 2) Char-grilled broccoli with chilli and garlic 3) Mixed green beans with edamame, soy, roasted peanuts and lemongrass

Once we finished lunch, we headed to the Natural History Museum for our reserved virtual reality showing of David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive. So bizarre and cool! It was the first time for both of us and I didn’t really know what to expect. I’m sure I was really annoying to the woman next to me because I kept wanting to see everything around me haha. After the show we went exploring and learned too late that the dinosaur visit is awful and made for children and you can’t leave until you get to the end. After the dinosaurs, we spent a lot of time at the beautiful scientific illustrations exhibition. I could fill the whole house with these prints!

Natural History Museum

Entrance

Walking through the Whale Hall

Our first virtual reality experience!

Getting ready to begin

Koen in VR

Me in VR (it’s as heavy as it looks)

Virtual Reality and Real Life

Entering the dinosaur exhibit

An electronic T-Rex…

Gallimimus; a fast-running ‘ostrich dinosaur’ that ate anything it could catch with its grasping hands and sharp, toothless beak

Albertosaurus; a smaller, lighter relative of the T-Rex

Busy guy

European insects, attributed to Jan van Kessel the Elder

Birds by John Gerrard Keulemans

Magnolia by Georg Dionysius Ehret

Blue swimmer crab by Ferdinand Bauer

Latin American lady’s-tresses by Franz Bauer; to understand the complex structure of orchids such as this one, Franz would dissect them and paint individual parts from several angles

Color chart from the papers of Thaddäus Haenke, considered to be the one used by the Bauer brothers

The dodo, attributed to Roelandt Savery

Charles Darwin

We had some time to kill before dinner, so we decided to go to a pub for a pint. I mean when in London, right? After a quick search on google, we found The Hereford Arms in Chelsea, about halfway between the museum and our dinner reservation. So nice! We had a couple of pints and fried pickles haha. Definitely going to try this at home!

The Hereford Arms

Inside

Heritage cider and London sea salt and malt vinegar crisps for me

Wonderful company too of course

Enjoying my cider

Fried pickles!

Next pint: Alcoholic ginger beer

Koen’s Meantime Yakima Red

For dinner we made reservations at The Harwood Arms, the only pub in London with a Michelin star. I actually found the restaurant after doing a google search for the best scotch eggs in London. Needless to say we started our meal with a scotch egg! Yum!! Very cozy and the food was delicious!