Friday's Feature: Soutine Restaurant

(hot-dinners.com)

This week our special feature leading into the weekend is a restaurant within a cricket ball throw of Lords Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London.

(squaremeal.co.uk)

Soutine belongs to restaurateurs Jeremy King and Christopher Corbin and when asked: "And why ‘Soutine’? Jeremy replied: "Well in creating a restaurant for St John’s Wood it was important to look at the area and its history. St John’s Wood has always been the home to many artists - from Landseer, Alma-Tadema & Tissot through to Nevinson, Craxton, Minto & Freud – not forgetting the all-important Calderon. Now his particular importance stems from him being the founder of St John’s Wood Art School in 1878 which was notable because it embraced Female Artists at a time when it was not generally accepted that a woman would ever chose art as an activity outside the home, let alone as a career. This led to the ‘St John’s Wood Clique’ of artists in 1910 and I must admit I could imagine them going to Soutine… if it had existed." (hotdinners.com)

I had a sandwich at a table in the street and when I went inside to use The Ladies Room I found the walls of the passageway and up the stairs were lined with wall paintings. I have not been able to find out the name of the artist who painted the images which is a great shame but let's enjoy the images nevertheless.

Soutine is named after the French expressionist artist Chaim Soutine who had a fondness for painting chefs and waiters.We will look at some of his paintings next week. (squaremeal.co.uk))