Exclusive: Corsica Studios is closing next year

Dear Londoners — Happy autumn, officially. A slightly foggy start to the week now seems, auspiciously, to have relaxed into blue skies and sunshine. And aside from yesterday’s pouring rain, the past week has been dream weather: bright, clear, with just a hint of chill — perfect for tramping around the park (let us know your favourites in the comments, bonus points for any more esoteric choices).

We’re feeling similarly sunny here at The Londoner HQ: your responses to our weekend read deemed it deserving of a "chef's kiss” and said that it “should form the basis for a film script”. When a piece involves, as this did, weeks of work (including intense legal disputes), it’s so heartening to see that our instincts to devote time and resources into publishing it were correct. We’re so grateful for your support.

He’s one of London’s most famous chefs. So why do so many people say Victor Garvey owes them money?

Giles Coren called him his “favourite kind of chef”. But former staff and business partners paint a different picture of the Michelin star winner.

The LondonerAndrew Kersley

In another example of our dedication to sniffing out scoops, we’ve got another exclusive revelation for you today: iconic Elephant and Castle club Corsica Studios is set to shutter next year. More on that below as the lead story in our Monday briefing, alongside conker championships, comforting Malaysian food and Thames Water’s failed attempt to open a £518mn desalination plant that has only pumped out a week’s worth of clean water in 15 years.

Exclusive: It’s curtains for Corsica 

Beloved South London club Corsica Studios is set to close next year, according to multiple sources close to the venue. Founded in 2002, the Elephant and Castle-based space is a vital hub for new DJs and clubnights, as well as welcoming some of the biggest names in dance music, including Fred Again, Four Tet, Bicep, Helena Hauff and Nina Kraviz (and beyond — Björk even played a surprise set there in 2017). It’s unclear exactly why the club is closing, although sources tell The Londoner that it’s simply another victim of an increasingly impossible environment for clubs in London — particularly in rapidly gentrified areas such as Elephant and Castle — who have to deal with noise complaints, an unsympathetic council and ever dwindling profit margins. A statement from the club is expected later this week, and we’ll keep working to bring you more about this story. If you have any more information, please get in touch at editor@the-londoner.co.uk.

Your news briefing

🎙️ London Mayor Sadiq Khan told an LBC radio show on Friday that he intends to stand for a fourth term at the next election in 2028, explaining he has the “best job in politics” and has “no reason” to give it up, even for the promise of a prospective return to parliament. The news will no doubt be heartbreaking for one group in particular: the dozens of local and national journalists who have been writing streams of speculative pieces about the supposed race to replace Khan at the next mayoral election.

🚒 A 64-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a fire was set at the Thistle City Barbican hotel in Islington. The hotel is being used to house asylum seekers and police say they are treating the attack as a hate crime. Nine people were arrested at an anti-migration protest that took place outside the hotel last month.

💩 A £518mn desalination plant built by Thames Water to improve London’s water supply, has been used just five times since opening in 2010. Beset by chemical leaks, system failures and high energy costs, it delivered just 7.2bn litres of usable water in that time, the equivalent of about a week of London’s drinking water demand, reports the Guardian. But don’t worry, as we previously covered at The Londoner in our piece on London’s drought-ridden future, the firm is now spending hundreds of millions more on other schemes to try and meet the capital’s demand. 

Quick hits: Primrose Hill is set to be shut on New Year’s Eve despite being one of London’s most popular firework spots, Met officers may be forced to reveal any ties to the Freemasons, and the race is on to find a new buyer for the shuttered Swiss Cottage pub (for which the tube station is supposedly named).

Subscribe

Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.

In case you missed it…

Image by Jake Greenhalgh

• In our Wednesday dispatch, Hannah reported back from the London Oyster Championships — feat. champagne, Prue Leith and a lot of bivalves… Come for the shucking, stay for the boisterous influencer yelling at Matt Tebbutt to take his shirt off. 
• On Saturday, we published a deep dive investigation into Michelin star winner, and Giles Coren’s “favourite kind of chef”, Victor Garvey. Ex-staff, friends and investors we spoke to painted a chaotic picture of the London chef’s businesses, a tale of angry bailiffs, mid-restaurant disputes and Warhammer 40k fans losing their life savings to Garvey.

Wining and dining

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

One perfect meal: Train journeys can be, to put it mildly, a little fraught: your journey was delayed, your ticket was invalid, somebody in your carriage was yelling on loudspeaker. We know what it’s like. But arrive into Paddington and no matter what ails you, it can be fixed — or at least ameliorated — by heading straight to Satay House Malaysian Restaurant. Snuggled on a cute little backstreet around a five-minute walk from the station, Satay House is two floors of unflashy, efficient excellence. 

Mop up the fish kari sauce with flaky, intricately whorled roti, or opt for the delicately spiced sambal tumis sotong, a dish of curried squid, and pitch-perfect nasi goreng sayur. These aren’t push-the-envelope, fireworks-at-the-ready dishes, but they’re plates of perfectly cooked comfort food, the exact thing you need when you’ve finally arrived at your destination after a long journey.  

One perfect drink: It’s an experience we all know. Because of some sort of obligation to “meet in the middle” you find yourself slowly marching your way around a pub desert like Bank, desperately looking for somewhere to get a decent, affordable pint, knowing it’s about as likely as a rainstorm landing in the middle of the Sahara. London’s full of areas like it; places that may once have had their own personality, but after the arrival of offices, chains and sky high rents, lose their individual soul.

I always used to say London Bridge was an example of one of those pub deserts. But the last few years have seen some great pubs brought back from closure or the surrender to soulless mediocrity in the area, like the Gladstone Arms in Borough, one of London's best desi pubs. The latest iteration of that revival is the Hand and Marigold, a former community pub killed by Covid but reopened by two 30-something publicans that now manages to pull of that impossible arithmetic we’re told can’t happen in London anymore; amazing pints for prices below £6, in a beautiful setting that equally doesn’t feel like a 70s time capsule.  

Have a perfect restaurant you think we should check out? Want to recommend your favourite pub? Let us know in the comments.

Our favourite reads

‘I’ve spent my life fighting for justice. This is my most important case’ — Joanna Moorhead, Observer

In this fascinating profile, Moorhead meets Nemone Lethbridge, who’s fighting to have her late husband’s murder conviction overturned. At 93 years old, Lethbridge has led a fascinating life: one of the first female barristers in England, she defended the Kray twins multiple times. In 1958, she met Jimmy O’Connor in the Star Tavern in Belgravia, who’d been released a couple of years earlier after his sentence for the murder of George Ambridge in 1941. He’d been convicted in spite of a lack of evidence and unreliable testimony, and had narrowly missed the hangman’s noose — his sentence was commuted two days before his scheduled execution. The two were married until O’Connor death in 2001. Now, Lethbridge is fighting to clear her husband’s name.

Welcome to London, the divorce capital of the world — Lucy Warwick-Ching and Alistair Gray, Financial Times

Heard of Natalia Potanina? If not, you surely will soon: the ex-wife of one of Russia’s wealthiest men, former first deputy prime minister Vladimir Potanin, has won the right to pursue her divorce claim in English courts — despite having legally separated in Russia back in 2014. In this piece, Warwick-Ching and Gray meticulously chart the rise of the capital as a battle-ground for the world’s wealthiest exes, with Britain’s favourable settlement rules leading to a glut of “post-divorce tourists”. Put simply, family lawyer Michael Gouriet says that the ruling “sends a message  that people who already have a divorce settlement elsewhere could still try their luck in England if they can establish a connection.”

To Do List

1. You might have to sharpen your elbows to get tickets, but The Old Vic’s production of Mary Page Marlowe is momentous for two reasons: 1.) it marks the London stage debut of legend Susan Sarandon, and 2.) it’s the first production in artistic director Matthew Warchus’ final season. A “time-jumping mosaic”, the play depicts the life of an Ohio-based accountant and mother of two over a period of 70 years.

2. It’s back — and it’s more high-octane than ever. Yes, the time has once again come for the fiercest of battles: the Peckham Conker Championships. Head to Brick Brewery on the 4 October to find out whether Pietro the Pummeller can win the 22-carat Golden Nut for a record third year in a row. 

Subscribe

Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.

From the archive

As this 1966 clip can attest, renting privately in London has never been fun. The only real difference, it would seem, are the prices — a studio for just over £4 a week, anyone? (According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, that’s just over £65). In this clip from A Whole Scene Going, a BBC series that sought to “reflect the tastes and times of Britain's under-21s”, we meet young tenants in tiny shared bedsits and reasonably sized furnished flats. “It’s very difficult to get hold of him,” says one young woman wanting her landlord to carry out repairs. “I’ve rung the number numerous times and got a very efficient secretary”.