When a fireplace tore by Chiltern Firehouse on Valentine’s Day this yr, it didn’t simply shutter certainly one of London’s most iconic locations – it left a void within the metropolis’s social soul. The lodge’s Laddershed bar had lengthy been a glittering crucible of A-list celebrities, business titans, cultural tastemakers, and impossibly trendy out-of-towners. Now, the scene’s coronary heart had stopped beating.
Don McLean as soon as sang “the day the music died” about Buddy Holly’s premature demise in a aircraft crash. For London’s elite occasion circuit, this was the equal. As memes flooded social media – socialites jetting to Chateau Marmont or in search of refuge at Resort Costes – one fact rang clear: Chiltern Firehouse was greater than a venue; it was a motion.
For Kendal Barrett and Anna Howell, the duo behind Chiltern’s meticulously curated visitor checklist, the fireplace marked a second of each private {and professional} disaster. The pair had constructed their reputations behind the velvet rope, fastidiously sculpting the vitality of every evening with intuition, discretion, and a masterful understanding of social chemistry. Instantly, that platform was gone.
However fairly than stall, Barrett and Howell pivoted. From the ashes of the Firehouse, KENNA was born.
Curation Over Spectacle
KENNA is just not a membership, and even an occasion sequence within the conventional sense. It’s an evolving constellation of invitation-only gatherings – set on rooftops, tucked into basements, staged as one-night takeovers. What binds them isn’t location or luxurious, however a philosophy: curated connection. A time period the pair coined after 5 years orchestrating London’s most coveted social areas.
“We realised the true magic isn’t in exclusivity – it’s in alchemy,” they clarify. “It’s about mixing the best energies, not simply names.”
These nights aren’t about paparazzi or efficiency. They’re about freedom, friction, and stream – the permission to play, and the promise of sudden synergy. “It’s much less flash, extra feeling,” Howell says.
A New Social Chapter
Now anchoring a weekly residency on the Broadwick Soho – dubbed by insiders because the “Chiltern pop-up” – Barrett and Howell are as soon as once more setting the tempo of London’s nightlife. Each Thursday, a well-recognized cross-section of celebrities, creatives, and cultural connectors gathers, drawn by one thing much less tangible than standing: the excitement of belonging.
Although tight-lipped about visitor lists, they’re visibly having fun with their evolution from gatekeepers to architects of expertise. “We’re not simply opening the door,” says Barrett. “We’re constructing the entire room.”
Their ethos is resonating. In an period of overstimulation and hyper-curation, KENNA affords intimacy with out pretension, exclusivity with out elitism. It’s not only a occasion – it’s a platform for artistic collision.
From Tables to Discuss Exhibits
Their subsequent chapter? A deeper dive into the minds that fill their rooms. Enter Sure (No) Possibly, a podcast born at 2AM in dialog with filmmaker Baz Luhrmann. After they requested if he’d be a visitor, he vanished briefly and returned with 4 phrases: “I’ve an thought.”
Now, Sure (No) Possibly is about to debut reside on the inaugural SXSW London this June, with Barrett and Howell as soon as once more curating not simply who’s within the room – however what conversations unfold. The podcast extends their mission: championing authenticity, curiosity, and artistic momentum.
Sure (No) Possibly at SXSW London:
• Turning into: On Digicam, On Web page, On Objective with YouTuber Jack Edwards and actor Herman Tommeraas
June 4th 2025 | 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Christ Church Spitalfields | Tradition Stage
A candid dialog exploring visibility, artistic identification, and the facility of exhibiting up authentically – on and offline.
June fifth 2025 | 10:10 AM – 11:00 AM | Christ Church Spitalfields | Tradition Stage
A reside extension of Sure (No) Possibly, this speak focuses on artistic redirection and the instruments that assist artists transfer by the unknown.
The Energy of Presence
For Barrett and Howell, this second is about greater than nightlife – it’s about narrative. Not simply who’s the place, however why. Their story is certainly one of rebirth and redefinition: from stewards of exclusivity to storytellers of a extra linked, acutely aware social period.
“We had been taught by one of the best,” they are saying. “However now we’re constructing one thing that’s ours.”
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