A Tate Modern collaboration channels Frida Kahlo while a Hackney newcomer brings LA diner culture to East London.
Santiago Lastra just turned the Tate Modern’s visitor experience into an edible essay. His new menu at Kol doesn’t simply exist in the museum’s orbit; it’s a direct conversation with Kahlo’s life and work, translating the Mexican artist’s unflinching self-examination and bold symbolism into courses that feel less like homage and more like artistic response. Each plate carries visual and conceptual weight, the kind of dining that makes you sit differently in your chair.
Meanwhile, Hackney is getting its own LA import: an all-day diner concept that’s hitting at precisely the right moment in London’s casual food cycle. After years of London’s dining scene treating daytime eating as something to rush through, a proper American-style counter operation, built on the foundation of immigrant food culture that actually defines Los Angeles, brings a different tempo entirely. It’s the kind of place where you can show up at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. and the menu makes the same promise.
What separates both openings from the usual seasonal shuffle is their refusal to feel borrowed. Lastra isn’t doing “Mexican-inspired” in the way that phrase usually signals compromise. The LA diner isn’t performing nostalgia for a place most Londoners have never lived. Both spaces acknowledge their influences as foundational, not decorative, which is what makes July worth paying attention to.
