This week in London, temperatures have climbed to near record-breaking highs—but even on a scorching summer’s evening, a glittering crowd made their way to Hyde Park to toast the Serpentine Galleries and their most important fundraising event of the year.

The event, which is also held in honor of the gallery’s annual outdoor pavilion commission (for 2026, a rhythmic, rippling brick-walled wonder by the Mexico City-based architectural studio Lanza Atelier), also served as a celebration of Mexican design and culture more broadly. There were spicy mango sours made with Casa Dragones tequila doing the rounds, as well as a dazzling array of Mexican dishes prepared by Laila Gohar, including grilled elote-style corn on the cob lightly dusted with cheese and chili, and a tamale station. The real showstopper, however? An installation created in collaboration with the beloved Mexican chocolatier Casa Bosques, featuring molded chocolates inspired by the bricks of the pavilion served with refreshing hibiscus, mango, and guava sorbets. “I’ve always been drawn to ingredients that carry entire worlds inside them,” Gohar said of the concept. “Corn, chocolate, mole—ordinary and monumental at once.”

Of course, the crowd was also there to check out the art: currently showing at the Serpentine is a double bill of a David Hockney show featuring paintings of Normandy landscapes, and a major show of Cecily Brown paintings. (Michael B. Jordan, currently in London to film a remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, could be spotted checking out the latter approvingly, and chatting with the Serpentine’s artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist.) Kristin Scott Thomas wandered through the pavilion to chat with Richard E. Grant, while Alexa Chung—in a killer Dilara Findikoglu skirt suit—was busy catching up with Sienna Miller, who wore a Conner Ives upcycled silk and fur coat. (Yes, even in those temperatures.)

As a respectful nod to the cultural background of the pavilion’s designers, the night’s cohosts—alongside Obrist, the Serpentine’s CEO Bettina Korek, and chairman of the Serpentine’s board of trustees, Michael R. Bloomberg—included Salma Hayek Pinault and the Oscar-winning filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu. “Throughout my career, I have been driven by a belief that Latin American voices, stories, and creativity belong at the centre of global culture, not at its edges,” Hayek Pinault said of the evening. “I am honored to be part of celebrating it.” Cheers to that.