A Stroll Through Hip Clerkenwell

St. John's Hospital, industrial chic gastropub, Hadid's very traditional digs, the old and the new juxtaposed

The Clerkenwell neighborhood, a 10-minute walk from our flat, is what Portland's Pearl District aspires to be. The guidebooks claim that few areas are better at exemplifying London's capacity to reinvent itself. Originally home to the order of St. John's and its Knights Templar, the 11th century priory gateway rubs shoulders with renovated buildings housing some of the city's top architects and designers, such as strident Zaha Hadid (whose office is fittingly in an old school bearing an entrance marked for "women and infants"). Industrial chic gastropubs like the Clerkenwell Kitchen offer pricey cuisine amidst exposed brick, stainless steel, and sleek black leather to similarly sleek, black-clad 30-somethings.