Native Bankside

Travel well with Chessie King and Native Bankside

Once we’d worked up an appetite, we headed straight to one of Chessie’s top local eateries (and one of our own neighbourhood heroes), Tibits, just a seven minute stroll from Native Bankside. Here we treated ourselves to a lunch of delicious veggie treats and Chessie was happy to answer lots of questions about keeping fit, well and happy in the heart of town.

“If I wake up in the morning and I really just want to get out and run,” she said, “I’ll do exactly that. You can literally just put on your running shoes and just go and explore. That’s my favourite way to exercise when I’m travelling. I think that’s how you find the real gems in London.”

To finish up, Chessie took us back to her Native Bankside apartment and showed us how to make the most of the spacious, comfy rooms with some chilled out yoga, deep stretches and mindfulness. There’s also our lovely fitness suite on the fifth floor, if you fancy a change of scenery while you work up a sweat.

“If I’ve been travelling and if I’ve had a long day,” Chessie said, “I love waking up my body with a flow. Sometimes I do [yoga] just before bed, to stretch out the day. I just take some time to give some love to my body – and then it’ll love me back.”

Watch the full video on how Chessie King stays healthy and active while travelling below.

Book your Bankside stay.

Recipe: Make some Bala Baya magic in your Native kitchen

Bala Baya’s Fish with Fennel

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 whole sea bass, sea bream or red snapper (roughly 800g), preferably left whole on the bone or with the back bone removed
2 red chillies (thinly sliced)
4 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
Vegetable oil
50ml Arak, Ouzo or Pastis
50ml water
50g butter
A bunch of chopped parsley, dill and mint
12 cherry tomatoes
3 sprigs of sage
1 fennel bulb (thinly sliced into shavings)
1 teaspoon of sumac
Salt and pepper
1 lemon

Method

Preheat oven to 2200C.
Fry the fish in some oil on both sides until golden brown. At the same time, burn the sage over an open flame. If you don’t have a gas hob, fry the sage with the fish.
Put the sage into the belly of the fish.
Transfer the fish to a roasting tray and put it in the preheated oven for 5 minutes.
In the same pan you used to fry the fish, throw in the tomatoes, garlic and chilli and fry until golden brown. Add the alcohol and cook for 30 more seconds.
Add the water, then the butter.
Whisk everything in the pan so the tomatoes are crushed and mixed with the other ingredients, and the butter is emulsified.
Take the pan off the heat and season.
Add 1 tablespoon of the chopped herbs and a squeeze of lemon.
In a separate bowl, mix the fennel shavings with the rest of the herbs and the lemon, then add a dash of olive oil and season.

Plate up and serve

When the fish is tender, remove it from the oven. Make sure it’s cooked by checking the belly – the flesh should be white and not transparent.
Put the fish on a serving plate.
Pour all the sauce in the saucepan over the fish.
Pile the fennel salad on the side.
Sprinkle sumac all over the dish.

And dinner is served. Bon appetit!

Head to Bankside for a taste of Bala Baya.

Most romantic places to walk in London and Glasgow

End up at The Anchor Line Restaurant back at Native’s boutique hotel in Glasgow, where you can enjoy a sumptuous three course Valentine’s banquet of dishes like steamed Shetland mussels, prime Scottish sirloin and decadent peanut butter and chocolate tart. Get in quick, because tables are booking up fast.

Stroll the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

Explore one of the most romantic places in London by taking a leisurely meander around the Serpentine. Start at the exquisite Italian Gardens (be sure to take a selfie or two by the fountains), make your way round to the Peter Pan statue, the Serpentine Gallery and the Princess Diana memorial before stopping at the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen for a coffee to walk with.

End up at Patisserie Mille on Spring Street, just two minutes from your apartment. Treat yourself and your beloved to slice of a classic French Gâteau Mille Crêpes, in flavours like matcha, Valrhona chocolate and Sicilian lemon. Finish the evening with a night’s stay at Native’s hotel near Hyde Park.

Bounce around Borough.

A day around Borough wouldn’t be complete without a visit to its incredible food market (closed on Sundays). Start at Gentlemen Baristas for the best brew in town and wander round the stalls, picking up some delicacies for later. Then head towards the original site of Shakespeare’s Globe and keep walking to reach the rebuilt theatre itself. Stop in at the Tate Community Garden and, after that, just see where the River Thames takes you.

Finish up at Borough Wines to buy a refillable bottle, fill it up with your choice of red, white or rosé and take it back to your Native Bankside apartment for a romantic dinner for two at home.

Book a romantic hideaway in London or Glasgow in one of our many perfectly placed apartment hotels.

Top 5 places to feel inspired in London

If you are a horticulturist, or aspire to be, you can easily garner new ideas from seeing how plants of more than two thousand species are laid out to form what looks like a rainforest beneath the large glass roof. They do say plants are good for the office!

Nearest Native place: Native Bank 0.8 miles.

Libreria

After Rohan Silva quit as an entrepreneurial advisor to Downing Street in 2013, he opened this bookshop in East London. This attraction encompasses everything that makes a bookshop a bookshop, free of the distractions of loud coffee machines and Wi-Fi induced noises.

Here, books are arranged in suggestive themes rather than standard categories, allowing your trail of thought to run into many unexpected places. Come here to escape.

Nearest Native place: Native Fenchurch Street 0.8 miles.

Modern Society

This boutique in Shoreditch flung open its doors in 2015 and specialises in stocking luxury goods, including clothes from such brands as RE/DONE, Rejina Pyo and Alighieri. Modern Society has even launched its own clothing label and you can buy in the store. However, the building also houses a chic cafe where you can sip hot and cold beverages while admiring one of London’s coolest concept stores. It’s also a great place to stop for brunch.

Nearest Native place: Native Fenchurch Street 0.9 miles.

Cartoon Museum

This Bloomsbury museum is surely among the most unjustly hidden places in London. It includes British cartoons and comic art from various periods, right back to the eighteenth century.

Not only can you browse the three main galleries but you should also keep an eye on the line up of events and workshops, so you experience something new every time.

Nearest Native place: Native Mayfair.

Tate Modern London

If your creative tastes lean towards visual art of a contemporary slant, you could regularly find new sources of inspiration in the Tate Modern, which is among the most creative places in London.

The Tate recently opened a Switch House extension where you can check out solo displays from female artists and take to a viewing platform allowing panoramic views of the city. The Tate is in Southwark’s Bankside area, in what was the building of Bankside Power Station.

Nearest Native place: Native Bankside 0.3 miles.

So there you have it, don’t settle for working from home or in one of those mundane co-working spaces. Get out there and try somewhere new!

Meet the artists of Native Bankside

The crack you see here is a reflection of the 2008 Jaipur bombings, which happened just four hours after Simon and Carolyn left the city. The boy is one of the city’s many street children and the crack illustrates the ground being blown apart almost from beneath his feet. The boy’s in constant motion, forced to keep moving to avoid the danger tailing him.

We love the way this gives the piece energy and momentum, even in the stillness of the space surrounding the boy. The photograph was taken by Carolyn, and Simon painted in the photo-realistic cracked ground afterwards, bringing graffiti and print together in a whole new way.

Where’s the Crack? This artwork is displayed above your bed at Native Bankside.

Since then, Carolyn and Simon have built a small boarding school for girls in Morocco and founded a charity project that provides transport to get girls safely to and from school.

About Jon Liu

A photographic prodigy at the age of 13, Jon started his career in commercial photography and fashion, before starting to shoot more fine art. Having grown up in Singapore, he came to London to study at London College of Communication, where he started working primarily in black and white photography.

Here, he’s been playing around (just a bit) with colour. This shot, named Bankside Thames, is the view of Bankside as you walk over Millennium Bridge. Doesn’t look familiar? That’s because Jon’s removed the Tate Modern, Shakespeare’s Globe and all the people.

Why? Well, Jon was inspired by German artist Andreas Gursky, who takes panoramic landscape photos that are majestic and peaceful at the same time. By taking all the distractions out of this Bankside scene, Jon’s given it a kind of calm and tranquillity that just doesn’t exist in our bustling neighbourhood. It’s a sort of escapist fantasy, if you will.

You’ll find this piece in our entrance lobby.

About Frida Wannerberger

Frida, who grew up in Switzerland with her Swedish parents, is another international artist who brought her talent to London. Studying at the world famous Central Saint Martins school of art, Frieda started creating these astonishing paintings of girls, each sporting different fabrics.

Once a Victorian tea warehouse on Bear Gardens, so named for its famous bear baiting ring, our Bankside hotel has a rich history that Frida was keen to highlight in her paintings.

We love how Frida’s six different girls are accompanied by swatches of fabric that give a hearty nod to our building’s history, like bears for bear baiting, or compasses and Chinese pagodas for the tea trade. They’re both dreamy and bold, irresistible to the eye and perfectly set off by our soft grey living room walls or our apartments.

Come and see the artwork for yourself at Native Bankside or follow our artists on Instagram @beckerharrison, @jonsaysrelax and @fridawannerberger.

We’re opening the doors to Native Manchester Aparthotel this summer

Native Manchester

At Native Manchester, we bring together all the elements you might want from a traditional hotel stay but in the comfort of our chic apartments. We want you to have the flexibility to cook, entertain and relax in a home away from home. Each apartment features fully equipped kitchens, offering a space to relax and unwind after a day in the city.

This aparthotel is perfectly situated on the edge of the Northern Bohemian Quarter in Manchester city centre where you’ll find eclectic shopping, growing art scene and the buzzing nightlife close by. Let’s not forget football fans here, you’ll be in the thick of the Mancunian culture and their world-class football.

Book your stay in our Manchester aparthotel.

Travel well with Chessie King and Native Bankside

Recipe: Make some Bala Baya magic in your Native kitchen