London’s wildest and best park to get lost in. Just follow your instinct, chase trees, go up to the viewing points and you’ll always find breathing and mindspace in Hampstead Heath. If you can, visit often, as it goes through wonderful changes over the seasons.

The Premises is cozy café attached to a recording studio in Hackney (frequented by Nina Simone, Al Green and Jarvis Cocker over the years.) Lovely people serve up tasty breakfasts and Turkish food in the evening.

Turkish food meets Heavy Metal. Lee Tiernan's (ex St John Bread & Wine Head Chef) experimental take on Turkish cuisine. Flatbreads, offal, squid ink, cod roe & foie gras doughnuts. Expect the unexpected.

This beautiful 19thC industrial building is situated in Markfield Park just around the corner from my studio. Once a sewage treatment works serving the whole of Tottenham and now a museum. The fully restored Victorian pump engine is only open to the public on the second Sunday of every month but the outside of the building and surrounding park is a worth a visit regardless.

The gallery was extended into a neighbouring Victorian House space about a year and a half ago, with a real skill in judging the meeting point between the contemporary and the conserved. The architects — 6a — were also responsible for Raven Row near Spitalfields (another favourite place). I'm lucky enough to work part of the week next door, at Camberwell College of Arts. This is about great food and good books. The café — a real haven at breakfast time before work — is run by the nicest team of people, with intertwined relationships to Camberwell. This book, designed by James Langdon, represents the kind of find possible in the bookshop and also the quality of conversation content had, over the best coffee.