Whitechapel Gallery

The gallery is oh so lovely with good major exhibitions and often interesting free ones as well. Bookstore is gold and staff is always friendly. Really, the bookshop! The café however is quite bad. The food is alright but not great and the staff were confused. Restaurant much nicer and better food and service. Laid back but nice.

Dropped in here when I arrived earlier than expected for dinner nearby. Always nice to have free galleries available!
I’m not an expert on contemporary art but I do often enjoy wondering around these exhibitions. In my opinion, the ground floor was a little heavy on video installations and pieces — it might just be me but I find these quite hard to engage with — maybe I need something more tangible? I found these in the upper galleries, where there were some really interesting sculptures as well as playful and thought-​provoking costumes.

Be nice and stop by the café. Lovely place, with good food and very low prices. The quality really pleased me, I have to admit. Then I had a little walk around to check out the collections, very interesting. Give it a go, you’re for sure have a lovely time.

If you’re an art student you’re gonna love it and should go. If you’ve been in the industry for the past ten years and are over the art scene… Boaoaoaring. I give it ⁴⁄₅ because it does what it is intended to do for the ‘art world’ well. You’ll get your abstract sounds mixed with vintage imagery fix here.

I was really disappointed by the Whitechapel Art Gallery, which I was hoping would be like New York’s glorious New Museum. It didn’t start well when a member of staff barked «we’re not open» at me as I approached the front door and tried to look at the opening times… charming. I returned shortly after opening time and either the staff hadn’t quite registered there were now visitors milling around or they just don’t care about them enjoying the art because the whole ground floor was extremely noisy — two staff gossiping really loudly in the gallery housing what I think would have been an excellent installation had I been able to immerse myself in it at all, and other staff slamming doors and yelling at each other outside the video art screening room (unfortunately this is also located next to the cargo lift). This basically negated the enjoyment of those two exhibitions which otherwise were actually very good.
Two galleries were closed for installation of new exhibits which was a shame but that’s always a possibility. However, a good museum should have enough solid alternative offerings to make a trip worthwhile. A youth project and a social project weren’t in my view artistically weighty enough to carry the day (bearing in mind I was at this point discounting the ground floor noise experience), nor was a ceramics room where, ironically, most of the work was borrowed from the region where I now live, where there are much better exhibits. Obviously that’s not the gallery’s fault but I had to wonder why a gallery whose primary focus is contemporary art was displaying 19^th century pottery (delightful as it is). The contemporary ceramics were beautiful but only made up about a 6^th of that gallery, which while it contained objects of individual appeal was not overall a coherent exhibit.
If you’re looking for books on art, the bookshop seemed to have an outstanding collection.
In the end, I was out within the hour. I would hesitate to go back and to recommend without checking the website first for what’s on.

This is a review for the Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room.
What an oasis!
We needed to go to Whitechapel and decided to pop into the gallery for a look around. I’ve not been there for years and had no idea they had a fancy new restaurant. Without reservations, we got a table for two for Sunday lunch. We were lucky, as during the course of our lunch the place filled up. The staff were charming and sincerely friendly and showed knowledge of the gallery and the exhibiting artists. The room looks great, with beautiful wooden chairs and nice lighting and parquet flooring.
The menu is broken down into ‘To begin’ which are like bar snacks (£2 — £3), ‘Small plates’ (£6– £8) and ‘Bigger plates’ (£11 — £15). I ordered asparagus with ham and egg and a plate of radishes. I then had the roast beef with full trimmings. I was told that the meat would be medium rare. I wasn’t given a choice, but that was fine. My meal ended with salted caramel tart. Each course was freshly prepared and delicious.
In my opinion, the surrounding area is pretty awful. But as you enter the gallery you leave all that behind. To then have a wonderful dining room too is such a delight. I will most definitely be back.

If I’m ever in the area I will pop into Whitechapel and have a quick look round. Every single time I get lost inside, but perusing the ever changing exhibitions is always pretty good. Of late however, I haven’t enjoyed the exhibitions so much, maybe even found them a little boring. Obviously this comes down to personal taste but Gert & Uwe Tobias don’t really rock my boat.
However, the bookshop there is always fantastic and varied.

I liked the interior, free Wi-​Fi, and bookshop. That’s about it.
I have to say seeing the rubbish exhibited at this place, dead squirrel, banal videos, pointless and meaningless art, I have decided, like another reviewer, that I really hate conceptual art and I think it has had its day and am bored stiff of it. It got to the point where I just walked through the studios and headed straight to the bookshop. It just wasn’t worth me spending any more time there.
I think the poor of the East End, would probably enjoy attractive landscapes and portraits rather that incompetent and uninspiring art and I think the Art Gallery needs to get rid of conceptual art and put in place art that local people really enjoy,. It was pretty empty so something can’t be right.
It is such a waste of a lovely building to have such awful banal rubbish in it. It could have so much potential.
It really is farcial that room guards even have to guard this rubbish. I just wish someone from the Council would just get rid of this stuff and do the East End a favour.

Huge space with a lot going on and lots of levels. I may have gotten lost inside. I may have taken a few naps, too. There are two entrances on the ground level, one leads into the gift/​book shop and one leads into a super ambiguous hallway. I entered via the super ambiguous hallway. I’m pretty sure I stayed clueless throughout the duration of my visit.
There is no natural light but the space is huge and white so you don’t really miss it. The video displays had two sets of headphones but only one seat. There were a lot of doors.
Overall, Whitechapel is a super popular gallery with lots going on and I’ll probably find myself back there. There’s a café that looks fun and a lot going on in the neighbourhood. But, the gallery has no personality at all and feels slightly corporate, like you’re walking into the RBS headquarters or something. Nothing bad about a gallery which allows the visitor to focus on the art but when the art is boring the bland gallery should at least provide a few more seats for some uncomfortable napping.

Given the wonderfully large amount of free museums and galleries in London, it seems sometimes difficult to part with up to a tenner, (sometimes more) for entry to certain cultural institutions.
However I have felt totally vindicated paying my £8.50 entrance every visit I have taken to the Whitechapel Gallery, and I hope you will think so too.
Alternatively, if you want to consider membership, you could cut an excellent deal, £40/​year (only £20 for concessions!) with a gallery shop discount, free entry to all exhibitions and other preview member’s advantages.
Fantastic book store, I always have to leave half my visiting time to peruse the beautiful selection of arts publications on display here.
A note on visiting– although the name alludes to another potential tube station, Aldgate East is actually the stop you’ll be wanting, the gallery is right at its exit.

Ramsay protégé Angela Hartnett has thrown her hat into the ring with this newly renovated matchbox sized dining room at hip East End Whitechapel Gallery. It’s under her ‘consultation’ along with a company called Smart Hospitality. It smacks slightly of a branding exercise, but the promise of Hartnett’s gutsy, honest and simple Italian cooking (along with a fascinating exhibition by collage maker John Stezaker) made us take the trek out east on a frosty February night.
The menu is short, seasonal and flies all over the place. It’s more Italian than anything, but only just… Nibbles include a gorgeously grassy olive oil, emerald green and good enough to drink straight — served with slices of sourdough. The list then divides into small and large plates, interchangeable easily, but starter and main for most people’s needs. We go for a full-​flavoured and rich cauliflower soup, essentially hot cauliflower flavoured cream, tasty but slightly too rich for me. Served with blue cheese beignets, these seem like a step too far. I have Cornish mackerel served with pickled fennel and harissa. It was as nice a piece of the fish as I’ve ever had, sweet and perfectly cooked. The fennel was a subtle side, heated slightly by the harissa, cutting through the oiliness of the fish without overpowering it. Other options included a healthy sized portion of deep fried squid and a plate of cured salmon served with a sweet mustard potato salad that my guest combined with a beetroot, goats cheese and sweet potato dish for her main options, preferring these to the larger plate options on offer.
My rabbit hot pot was exceptional. Strong flavours combining well to deliver a dish the equal of anything I’ve eaten at York & Albany. Tiny carrot cubes gave a sweet hit to the small oven pot packed with gamey rabbit. As a side, I went for a portion of truffle chips, the only off note of the meal for me, they arrived slightly limp and over-​salted.
The dessert list is similarly bijou, but of enormous interest. A prune and almond tart was rich, moist and (from the tiny amount I was allowed to sample) perfectly balanced. My bitter chocolate pot came in the cliched kilner jar and was as nice a pot as I’ve had (if not necessarily bitter) set off with a lovely homemade honeycomb.
The buzz and chatter in and about the tiny dining room appears deserved, and I hope that they’re able to sustain this level of quality in the months and years to come. If you find yourself in the area, and aren’t on a pilgrimage to Tayyabs, then I’d certainly suggest stopping by.

We had visited the Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room earlier this year when Maria Elia was the head chef and we had a lovely meal. It’s now headed up by Michael Paul but we had heard good things so we decided to jump on the East London line and head across town for a Saturday supper with our old tennis partner Esther and B’s university chum, the delightful Carmen.
As dining rooms go this is one of my favourites. Situated right next door to Aldgate East tube station you reach the restaurant through the gallery entrance and the main dining room is immediately on the right with a small private room, seating about ten, on your left. It’s a small intimate room, with lovely lighting and well-​spaced tables which look out onto a very busy Whitechapel High Street. I’d guess it would seat in the region of thirty or so at full capacity but on this particular Saturday it was pretty quiet which is odd given the quality of the food, the excellent dining experience and the reasonable prices.
However, this definitely worked to our advantage when Carmen eventually joined us only 45 minutes late with Tory Boy in tow. The lovely waitress Helena, who showed great patience with us all evening, quickly accommodated our unexpected guest by pushing a couple of tables together and we decamped to the other side of the room and set about ordering from the nicely balanced menu which has moved away from the vegetarian focus it had previously when Maria was in control.
Esther was slightly gutted as she had been on the web site earlier in the day and had already made her choice from the sample menu they had posted on-​line. However, the menu on Saturday night was much changed, with only a couple of the dishes from the sample menu remaining. I took this to be a good sign and there were plenty of great dishes amongst the choice of four starters and four mains to agonize over. Helena was very helpful and provided excellent but unobtrusive advice.
I started with the scallops with cauliflower purée and crispy pancetta which was a classic combination, beautifully cooked and presented on a slate platter. I had a nibble of Carmen’s choice of ham hock and fois gras terrine with kohlrabi slaw which was rich, robust and full of flavour. B was also pretty pleased with her beetroot and cardamom marinated smoked salmon.
We were washing this down with the 2009 Santo Isidro White which was crisp and fragrant at a very reasonable £14.25 per bottle which made a refreshing change to the entry level wine at £20 plus a bottle which seems to be becoming all too common in London restaurants. As Esther was going to Bordeaux next week and she was thinking of taking her pals some English wine we also tried a bottle of 2009 Chapel Down Flint Dry which was fine but I think you can drink much better French wine at £25 a go.
Anyway, we were soon onto the mains and my breast of guinea fowl with a madeira jus was just perfect and even better was the little dish of turnip-​topped shepherd’s pie which came as an accompaniment — a touch of genius and extremely tasty. Food envy could have been the order of the day because all the other mains also looked great and Tory Boy was raving about his sea bass with clam chowder. We shared a couple of sides of potatoes and various vegetables which also went down very well. Presentation and execution was again spot on.
Very happy by this point in the proceedings we moved on to desserts and while my bitter chocolate tart with a poached clementine was mighty fine I found myself wishing I had gone for the pear and apple crumble with butterscotch sauce as I watched Esther scraping every last morsel from her bowl.
It was an espresso for me while the other guys had a variety of herbal teas and I ordered a single glass of a very tasty Pedro Ximenez Triana so the ladies could have a try of this fine digestif.
The icing on the cake was that, even on a Saturday night, we could use B’s Taste London card so we got a very helpful £30 off the bill.
A great evening and we will, without a doubt, be back before too long.

I don’t want to be the one guy who leaves a bitter and negative review among the sea of positive ones but … I will be for the wankiness that is the Whitechapel Gallery.
Wanky. Wanky to the core. Wanky is really the only word I can think of to describe this place. Well, that wouldn’t actually make for a very good review so let’s try and through some more out that. Pretentious, hipstertastic, boring, white, conceptual, dull, wanky. Gah. It always comes back to wanky.
So I’m sitting in a coffee shop with my friends and we’re trying to decide what to do. We’ve done all the big stops like the National Gallery and some of the little ones like the Geffyre Museum so I suggest The Whitechapel Gallery. I read in the paper last year it has been reopened to much fanfare so we decided to try it.
First off, if you must go don’t go to Whitechapel tube station go to Aldgate East which this gallery is built on top of. It’s quite a long walk down one of London’s less desirable high streets from Whitechapel. Once you arrive and step through the door you can feel a kind of ice blast take over you. The woman on the reception desk and the couple milling around by the gift shop really want you to know you’re not cool enough to be there. Where are your vintage loafers, canvas rucksacks and fascist haircuts?
We awkwardly entered into a large room containing what was essentially some doors and metal. A gallery assistant glared at us as we tried to walk around it looking for any clue as to whether this was art with meaning or Hackney Council’s recycling centre. A couple of equally bemused viewers come in from the other end and made a quiet remark about it being a «piece of ****» which wasn’t terribly mature but, to give them credit, was very accurate only for the attendant to chastise them like they were school children. Like I said, icy atmosphere.
We walk through to some stairs at the top of which were some closed galleries then down again to sit in a movie theatre showing some weird and, frankly, childish performance art. We sat in here for a while to discuss what to do next and all ended up laughing to ourselves about the pure pretension this gallery exuded. We vowed to soldier on to see if there was some kind of permanent exhibit to enjoy.
Back through the door room and upstairs into a series of small gallery rooms with some conceptual art that didn’t really mean anything unless you read the huge amounts of explanatory text which seemed to take away from the whole point of this being an ‘art’ gallery. One of the exhibits was a piece made in the 70s from cheese and chocolate. Sick. There was quite an interesting display of illustrations from a book of terrifying fairy tales but nothing special.
By this point we made up our minds up to leave. Everyone there seemed to see something in the art we didn’t and they were all looking very self-​satisfied to be reassuring themselves that they were cool enough to understand this place. A quick glance into a gift shop which was nothing much then out onto the street feeling bewildered, bored and totally uncool.

Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room
Pics at The London Foodie (
)
I have heard some excellent reports on Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room (WGDR) lately, and when I learnt that it had joined TasteLondon, Dr G and I decided to pay it a visit.
The restaurant area is surprisingly small and intimate and sits a maximum of 40 diners. Light and airy, the long vertical mirrors on its walls help to create the illusion of a more spacious dining room.
I like the nearly minimalist, understated but elegant décor reminiscent of a 1950’s Scandinavian home, with its beautiful chairs, parquet flooring and light coloured wood throughout.
Head-​Chef Maria Elia, daughter of a West London restaurateur, spent a summer working at El Bulli before her ten year stint at Delfina on London’s Southbank. She joined WGDR following the gallery’s multi-​million refurbishment in 2009.
Renowned for her vegetarian credentials (she recently published a book called The Modern Vegetarian), Maria Elia is a creative chef who makes the most of seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, and her reassuringly short menu at WGDR, reflects these qualities.
On our visit, Dr G ordered the Clementine and jupiter marinated quail, bitter leaf and char-​grilled radicchio salad @ £7.50 as a starter. This was an excellent choice the meat was sweet and tender, with a deliciously citric hint from the clementines, contrasting well with the bitter leaf and radicchio salad.
My choice of Pan-​fried scallops, white bean purée, wild mushrooms @ £8.25 was also good. The white bean purée and wild mushrooms were a nice addition, but despite being very fresh and meaty, the scallops were slightly over-​salted.
I’d hoped my starter had been a one-​off, but we soon overheard from the table next to ours about their nice but a bit salty scallops.
For main course, I had the Pot roasted rabbit, confit rabbit baklava, swiss chard, lemon dressing, parsnip skordalia @ £17.75. This was a beautifully presented dish with some interesting gamey flavours balanced by the zesty lemon dressing, but at nearly £18, we felt the portion was slightly ungenerous for such an economical meat.
Dr G’s Pan-​fried duck breast, creamed lentils, January kings, roasted quince @ £18.75 was a lovely choice. The duck was cooked to perfection and combined well with the roasted quince. I wasn’t entirely convinced about the texture of creamed lentils, but the flavours were good and, unlike my rabbit, there was plenty of it.
As a side dish, we had Truffled parsnips and winter leaves @ £3.75. We were both impressed by the combination of caramelized parsnips and truffle oil — it was a delicious accompaniment to our main courses.
Dr G’s dessert Rosemary and blood orange crème caramel, citrus salad @ £5.75 was sensational. A light and delicious dessert with some complex flavours at play.
The Hot chocolate pudding, cha tea mousse, chocolate dirt @ £5.75 was also good and rich, with a molten chocolate core.
The wine list, although short, represented the old and new worlds well, with bottles ranging from £13.75 to £64 (most bottles were priced between £16.50 and £30). We ordered a bottle of Marche Sangiovese 2008 @ £16.50 which was light, fruit driven with a nice balancing acidity, and did not break the bank.
Cost: the total bill was £98 including 12.5% service. We paid £64 after the 50% TasteLondon discount on the food was applied to the bill.
Likes: Elegant and intimate dining room, very friendly service, seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, and some impressive cooking. We were also impressed by how reasonably priced their large bottle of sparkling water was @ £1.
Dislikes: Over-​salted scallops, slightly over-​priced a la carte, although lunch set menus are excellent value @ £18 (2 courses) or £23 (3 courses) from Tuesday to Sunday.
Verdict: Creative cooking and some very interesting dishes made from local ingredients, served by friendly, efficient staff in an attractive setting. Chef Maria Elia is a good proponent of modern British cooking. Not bad value after the discount.

This gallery recently reopened after refurbishment extended the original gallery into the old library next door. The gallery was originally opened so that the poor of the east end would be able to see works of art. An almost noble and altruist act of charity…
It’s a cool funky white space while retaining much of the features of the original buildings. However what is really important is the exhibits. I cannot say I’m overwhelmed by them apart from the Guernica tapestry which illustrates so vividly the mindless violence and chaos of the Spanish civil war. But I was a bit surprised to see gay porn being used in an exhibit in the Victor Pettigas gallery. It’s not too noticeable though.
I ended my visit in the café… They served good coffee even though the staff seemed more interested in chatting amongst themselves than serving. There is blackboard menu offering a nice choice of salad or a pasta dish. Oh before I left I picked up a free copy of the Observer worth £2.
The shop was a bit disappointing concentrating mainly on books. I like buying postcards as they look so pretty on my wall. Books don’t have the same effect.

I take unconventional routes on my way to nowhere.
Hence why it took me all but 47 minutes (I know cuz I hacktuwally got a watch) of wandering before taking a gander on the post-​modern madness of The White Chapel Gallery.
Well…I learned I’m not a Iza Genzken fan by any means not necessary.
Mind you, the Gallery itself is beautiful and the doors are worth mentioning because they are lovely but I have to figure I’m the type of person who is taken by words more than images, at least impacted more by words than door frames placed strategically around a gallery floor.*
I understand the concept of post-​modern art but I’m fed up with it. Marcel Duchamp’s toilet was the beginning and the end for me.
The good new is, the excellent bookstore at White Chapel got my pleasure centers pulsating as the collection of intellectually crafted titles appealing to my generation such as: ‘Mind & Brain: A Graphic Guide to the Science of Your Grey Matter’ and a book series: ‘Introducing’, introducing the theories of the concepts behind Michel Foucault, post-​modernism, Nietzsche, cultural studies etc etc etc Shizzle that gets the rocks off for the young philosophically curious.
Whatever floats your boat.…
*(
)

Rightly regarded around the world as one of the most important exhibitors of contemporary art, it has been sad to see the Whitechapel Gallery go into relative hiding during its renovation. It still maintains some programming (some offsite, some on) but I miss popping in for regular openings and shows. To keep abreast of their activities you should check out their website as they still have live Friday night events which are pretty cool. And they’ve done a good job of partnering whilst their doors are mostly shut.

The Whitechapel gallery is a quirky little place, where whilst at University, we were constantly told to visit galleries, to help build inspiration and develop our creative young and absorbent minds, so we did.
Going the grand and well known galleries can be thrilling but can also be quite annoying as there is too much to see and far to many people.
Where as at the smaller lesser known galleries, you can you feel a little more involved. They hold decent exhibitions here, in all art genres. The last one I went to was a photography exhibition, which was great, and I thought the curator did a brilliant job in allowing the audience to really have an insight.
To many people, these little galleries are better than the world renowned ones in London, it is somewhere you can meet people with similar interests. They have plenty going on in 2009 so take a visit.

I was lucky enought to study art opposite the Whitechapel. As far as galleries go, this is one of the best. Stituated where the city meets the east end, the gallery has a reputation for showing great figures in art as they are on the rise.
The Bookshop is excellent, stocking a wide variety of titles, as well as magazines. And the space itself is superlative. There are two main floors, with the lower being the main one. In between these is a kind of mezzanine, with a small cinema and very good café.

This gallery is the perfect stop for all things modern art. They have a brilliant program of events and terrific art exhibitions and is really in keeping with East London’s quirk and vibrancy.
The atmosphere is really youthful, in keeping with the art, and it’s good to see there are now gigs sometimes on at the gallery too. Even if you don’t know what’s going on at the gallery, it’s definitely worth stopping by, if you’re lucky you’ll get to see something a little different and cool for around a fiver. Perfect.