A multicultural countdown to the Olympics
The Austrian delikatessen shop Kipferl, near Barbican tube
Here is a little guide to Austrian stuff in London, which I just did for Visit London’s countdown to the Olympics in 2012. Over the next two years, Visit London will feature the 205 countries that will be participating in The Games by looking at the places where expats go to mingle and indulge in bouts of nostalgia. Nice idea, isn’t it? That’s what I thought.
Not that I was a particularly active or homesick member of the Austrian crowd during my eight years in London, but I did enjoy going to places like Kipferl and The Tiroler Hut every now and then. Usually, it was just for the heck of it, but at other times perhaps also out of some irrational urge to check whether they were still there.
No matter what your opinion of the benefits (or lack thereof) of hosting the Olympics, Visit London’s approach to drumming up enthusiasm for the Olympics is a likeable one. They have chosen to focus of the city’s multicultural heritage, rather than the football-themed initiatives run by expats, some of which are borderline nationalist and none of which give you the insight into a culture provided by places such as the Ethiopian restaurant Sodere in Shepherd’s Bush, the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in Highbury or the Finnish Church in SE16.
Tags: Freud Museum, Kipferl, London, Olympics, Tiroler Hut, Visit London
