Where: Regent’s Park, SE corner; 44-20/78-33-72-70; www.frieze.com.
What: 150-plus commercial galleries in a massive art circus.
When: October 11–14, 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
How: By tube to Regent’s Park station on the Bakerloo line.
Highlights: Richard Prince’s fully functioning model of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, the artist’s first public piece in the United Kingdom. • Mexican artist Mario Garcia Torres’s conceptual piece, installed here as part of the prize for winning the Cartier Award for emerging artists. • The first shared curated booth: Three galleries—Jan Mot, Brussels; GB Agency, Paris; and Raster, Warsaw—have appointed outside curator Aurélie Voltz to select works by their artists. • Glenn Branca’s Symphony no.13, Hallucination City for 100 Electric Guitars: This year’s music presentation is performed by volunteer amateurs using their own amps (October 12, 7:30 P.m., at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm; www.roundhouse.org.uk). • The on-site restaurant: Mark Hix, of Le Caprice, is the chef in charge.



Stay:

Dukes
Since One Aldwych’s Gordon Campbell Gray, the cognoscenti’s preferred hotelier, took over Dukes this year, the fusty old dame has become a dazzling debutante. The redo hasn’t so much diluted as updated the Englishness on which the redbrick Edwardian has always traded: chintz draperies replaced by Savile Row tailoring plus flat screens, WiFi, and excellent AC. What remains intact: the spectacular, and quiet, Green Park location and Dukes Bar’s supreme martinis, surrounded by the mahogany paneling and new navy velvet. (Directions: Green Park station, Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, one stop on the Victoria line.)
St. James’s Pl.
44-20/74-91-48-40
RATES: $600–$1,370
www.dukeshotel.com

The Haymarket
Tim and Kit Kent, the famously talented duo behind Firmdale Hotels—whose stable includes the Covent Garden and the Soho—opened a seventh London location this summer, and it’s their most central and urbane yet. Just try to get through Frieze without passing the Tony Craggs in the Haymarket’s yellow-and-black lobby en route to some event in the glamorous Shooting Gallery, with its bleached-oak floors and wallpaper resembling grayscale Rousseaus, or the pool bar (pools are rare in this city, let alone cobalt blue ones that host parties). For next year’s Frieze, consider re-serving the Townhouse: four floors, five bedrooms, and a private entrance. Failing that, the 50 serene bed chambers are also hot properties. (Directions: Charing Cross station, three stops on the Bakerloo line from Regent’s Park.)
1 Suffolk Pl.
44-20/74-70-40-00
RATES: $490–$4,550
www.firmdale.com

The Stafford
Next door to Dukes and—paging joggers!—sharing its Green Park privileges is another redbrick Edwardian hotel, this one for traditionalists. A riot of toiles, brocades, tartans, and velvets studded with antiques, and many a four-poster, the Stafford’s “olde” decor reaches its zenith of cute in the hotel’s major calling card, the 13 black-beamed Carriage House rooms located in a 17th-century annex on its own cobblestoned mews. Since spring, these have looked out on their polar opposites across the way: 26 brand-new Mews Suites, all bright white walls and clean lines. (Directions: Green Park station, Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, one stop on the Victoria line.)
St. James’s Pl.
44-20/74-93-01-11
RATES: $500–$2,430
www.thestaffordhotel.co.uk

Eat:

Galvin Bistrot de Luxe
Chef brothers Jeff and Chris Galvin have been lauded in London ever since they opened this impossible-to-dislike (Francophobes aside) restaurant two years ago. The dark wood paneling, crisp white napery, bentwood chairs, and smoked white walls (not literally) do Paris better than most Parisian bistros; ditto Jeff’s duck confit on Puy lentils and poulet des landes rôti forestière. (Chris has opened a posher Galvin, on top of the Park Lane Hilton.) Prices, too, are remarkable. All this plus the easy stumble from Regent’s Park makes Galvin the unofficial Frieze cafeteria.
66 Baker St.
44-20/79-35-40-07