My London: Aziz Ansari

I was living in north London, but then the other day my wife and I had a bad flood in our apartment because a pipe burst in the flat above us. All our stuff is fine, but we’re going to move. Before that we were staying in an Airbnb in east London that we took based on the pictures alone. They showed that there was one taxidermy giraffe there, but there were actually two, which is quite a lot of taxidermy giraffes for one apartment.

When I would come and visit for work they’d put me up at either the Soho Hotel or Chiltern Firehouse. Chiltern was a lot of fun and you’d always run into friends and we’d end up being hungover for whatever we were meant to be doing the next day. It was a good time until it burned down. All my London places are either burning down or flooding.

When I was at New York University I did a year studying in London. I lived off Edgware Road and we didn’t even have internet in our rooms, which is so wild to think about now.

I lived with a guy I didn’t previously know called Micah Lasher, who’s now running for Congress in New York.

I love farmers’ markets, especially in Primrose Hill and Marylebone. I also love going to La Fromagerie and great butchers like The Ginger Pig. I cook a lot of Indian food, so I’ll also give a shout out to Plentiful Foods in Euston.

I feel like every American who’s interviewed names the same six places. If I’m editing a film I’m usually in Soho, so I love Kiln, Barrafina, Quo Vadis, Govinda’s. Or if you’re in Farringdon you can eat lunch at St John and then take a nap for the rest of the afternoon. Or if you want to have a special night, you can’t beat the River Café.

The River Café might be a little too much for a first date… I’ve been married for nine years so it’s been a while, but I would say getting a coffee and going to Daunt Books or Primrose Hill Books. Recently, I’ve started going to neighbourhood bookstores instead of ordering everything online.

I love a martini at Dukes in Mayfair. When you’re 43, as I am, you do one martini there and you’re kind of good for the night. I also love going to the Prince Charles Cinema, which is such a great London institution and it’s always playing movies that you wouldn’t normally be able to see on a big screen.

Close Up in Shoreditch, where you can rent DVDs. There’s a whole generation of people who never had the experience of browsing movies at the video store and there’s something cool about how intentional it is. You can talk to people and share recommendations too.

My wife.

I’ve been doing stand-up a lot and I’m doing a show in the Royal Albert Hall this month. Otherwise I’ve just been working on screenplays. I did Romesh Ranganathan’s podcast recently too. I’ve never met him before and it was one of those things where I was like, how have we not met each other? We’re both guys with a similar skin tone who do comedy. We got along super-well and had a lot of fun.

I’d stop the people who drive pedicabs around Soho from blasting Sandstorm at the loudest possible volume. I mean I’m not trying to cut into their livelihood, I’m just saying cut the music.

I feel like people have already said all the big names, right? I’m going to say the couple behind St John and Rochelle Canteen, Fergus and Margot Henderson. I feel like their influence is everywhere, and they’re respected and admired.

I read about a lot of restaurants and things that are supposed to be good near Stoke Newington, and I never make it down there. I have some friends who live around there too, so that would be fun to try. I feel like if I got dropped into any neighbourhood, it would take me a minute to get my bearings but then I’d be into it.