Chris Waywell

Pasta and pizza are way more than just fast-food comfort carbs at these restaurants, which excel in showcasing Italian cuisine. The basics – a creamy carbonara, say, or a simple margherita – are done exceptionally well, but the repertoire extends to stylish antipasti, crusty sourdough pizzas, richly sauced pasta and beyond. You can also find finely crafted specialities drawn from the traditional trattorias of the rustic south and fashion-conscious north at London’s best Italian restaurants. From super-spenny spots like The River Café and Luca, to cheaper but just as tasty neighbourhood joints like Artusi and Marcella – as well as everyone’s fave one-stop pasta shop Padella – London’s Italian dining scene is on point. Oh, and by the way, just because a restaurant isn’t on the list any more doesn’t mean it’s not still great. As places open and close, and seasons and menus change, this list does as well.

As glorious as the capital is in the summer – think 9 million of us Londoners careening towards the closest beer garden, green space or rooftop bar – the sheer volume of revellers thronging the city can occasionally leave you feeling a tad claustrophobic.  Thankfully, this year has seen domestic travel open up properly again, with day trips and overnight stays in Airbnbs, campsites and hotels. And that means we can once again hit the coast, hike a forest trail or explore a postcard-perfect village whenever the Big Smoke gets a bit much. Planning a quick getaway? Here’s some fuel for your own day(trip)dreams. These are 17 of our favourite day-tripping spots, complete with cute pubs and ace restaurants – all close enough to London to get there and back in one glorious day. RECOMMENDED: 101 incredible things to do in London instead // // This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

One day in 2015, a London pub was pulled down. There’s nothing unusual about that. Pubs vanish in the capital every day. Business wanes, the boards go up, the redevelopment notice is stapled to the door, then it’s gone. But Maida Vale’s Carlton Tavern was about to hit the headlines. Polly Robertson, a local, remembers April 8 2015 vividly. ‘I came out of a meeting and I had 60 missed calls,’ she says. ‘I didn’t understand what was going on. I walked down there, and when I arrived, it had already been demolished.’ At the time, Robertson was campaigning on behalf of the local community: advising on tenants’ rights and trying to keep facilities like church halls open. She was well aware that the area’s working-class character was under constant threat, but even she wasn’t prepared for what had taken place. On the pretext of conducting a stocktake, the Carlton Tavern’s owner closed it one day then simply pulled it down. It happened so fast that all the contents of the pub, including the local hockey club’s trophy cabinet, a flat-screen telly on the wall and the kegs of beer in the cellar were destroyed along with it. It had been the only building on its street to survive the Blitz, but there was something savagely warlike about the Carlton Tavern’s destruction. It felt like the links to its customers and community were being demolished along with the pub. Its owner was London-based Israeli lawyer Ori Calif. He was on site at the demolition with an associate. Polly Robertson is al

The weekend might start on a Friday (or a Tuesday, depending on your lifestyle) but everyone knows that Saturday is the best day of the week, and London is the best place in the world to spend it. Whatever the season, there are literally thousands of things to do in London on a Saturday: dancing, drinking, shopping, going to a gallery or museum to see some art, taking in a theatre show, eating out, or just chilling in a park. We’ve got you covered. Honestly, you’ll never waste a Saturday in London again.  RECOMMENDED: Things to do today and more things to do this weekend in London

London has many fantastic local curry houses, plus some extremely high-end fine dining options. There are plenty of both that deserve shouting about. Here are some of the ones we think are particularly worthy of your attention (and cash). It’s a mix of great neighbourhood joints and more upscale central London purveyors of South Asian cuisine. Our city’s vibrant Indian food scene offers the full range of regional styles and specialities – from Bombay biryanis to Punjabi grills – it’s a Bollywood symphony of fantastic flavours. RECOMMENDED: The 100 best restaurants in London.

From swanky City skyscrapers to performatively casual warehouse hangouts, the capital has a real crush on a rooftop bar. Whether braving arctic-cold conditions or catching a breeze in a heatwave high, Londoners are blessed with all kinds of rooftops offering a combination of wicked city views and top-notch drinks. Take your pick from hip Shoreditch or buzzing Soho and Covent Garden, it’s time to soak up those sunsets.  Bear in mind, though, that a lot of these places are always in high demand, so we recommend booking tables as early as you can. Lots do offer walk-ins as well, if you enjoy living dangerously. Fancy a square meal high up in the air? Check out London’s best rooftop restaurants. Prefer somewhere a bit more down-to-earth? Here are London’s best beer gardens.   

Get your vittles with a side of weird. London is home to hundreds of amazing restaurants , but sometimes everyone hankers for a talking point with their amuse bouches. We’ve rounded up entertaining eateries: oddball decor, kooky culinary concepts and – yes – cats. Our list of unusual restaurants will delight music fans, animal lovers, garlic nuts and more, and you’ll find these joints in venues as various as a boat, a prison and a church crypt. They may not all be home to London’s best dishes, but they definitely deliver dinner with a difference. 

There are lots of world-class music festivals happening only a tube ride away from most Londoners. And that, people, is a real luxury. After a long day of sun and debauchery, there’s nothing better than a nice hot shower and your own bed. Haha, who are we kidding? With headliners from underground electronic DJs to massive international bands and rap stars, loads of 2022 London festivals are selling out. So if you’ve yet to book, get cracking.  RECOMMENDED: The best 2022 UK music festivals.

There are a lot of museums in London. Of course, there are world-famous names like the British Museum and Natural History Museum. There are local gems like the brilliant Horniman Museum in south London. But then… Then there are many, many tiny niche or sometimes downright plain peculiar museums in every corner of the city, with collections of everything from fans (the ‘Bridgerton’ kind not, like, desk fans) to anatomical specimens looming out of glass jars.   So get stuck into our guide of the best weird museums in London and prepare to get freaky.

The yearly unveiling of the Michelin Guide’s ‘Great Britain and Ireland’ edition is always big news in the food-nerd world. For very good reason, too – London’s one of the top-ranked cities in the world for fine dining. And it’s got plenty of those coveted stars. While Michelin’s expertise on expensive, upmarket restaurants is well known, the Michelin Guide has also been criticised for its lack of relevance to ordinary diners. Conspicuous by their absence are London’s more affordable places to eat. The 2022 list saw restaurants led by Iré Hassan-Odukale and Jeremy Chan at Ikoyi and The Clove Club, but no new full three stars. The canny eater, it should be said, should consider aiming at the board’s Bib Gourmand list – a kind of ‘highly commended’ round-up that doesn’t require the formal fripperies of the star system. Really, it’s where the most exciting stuff lies – newcomers on the list this year include Time Out faves Evelyn’s Table and Trivet, and plenty more places that also appear in our meticulously compiled list of the best restaurants in London. Still, if you’re feeling flush, read on to find all London restaurants with a Michelin star (or three). RECOMMENDED: The 100 best restaurants in London. 

Most of London's major museums and galleries are now open, but check their sites before visiting, as you may have to book a timed slot. London is the best. Obviously we're biased, but come on: it has something to offer everyone. Want to explore the history of cartoons? We've got a museum for that. Rather learn about fans (the cooling type, not the screaming ones)? We've got a museum for that too. History? Check. Science? Check. Wax models, grotesque artifacts and advertising? Check, check, check! There are more than 170 museums in the capital and many of them are free. Whether you’re teaming up with like-minded friends or going it alone, London’s museums are great places to spend a bit of time. RECOMMENDED: 101 amazing things to do in London. This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

What’s the point of eating out if you’re just looking at your plate? Boring! Dine like a demigod, staring down at your enemies, at these sky-high restaurants and cafés (as well as a few ground-dwelling joints with stunning backdrops). From jawdropping views of (and from) The Shard, to Tower Bridge, to a glittering lake in Victoria Park, London’s the most beautiful city in the world (okay, we’re biased), and if you fancy a panorama with your pizza you’ve definitely come to the right place. 

A man crouches in a bucket as he’s lowered into a hole. It’s scarcely wider than his shoulders, and pitch black. He’s a tin miner in Nigeria, part of the fag-end of a colonial legacy that has seen industry revert to the Stone Age. Karimah Ashadu’s video ‘Plateau’ is typical of this dark and troubling group show, curated by Gabi Ngcobo. Many of the works see man pitted against his landscape, or what’s left of it. Others bring the landscape into the room, like Moshekwa Langa’s ‘Drag Paintings’, huge suspended ochre canvases that are scarred and riven by the physicality of his home town, a centre for platinum mining.  The overarching themes of ‘The Show Is Over’ are ‘loss, threats to the environment, spirituality, labour and silenced histories’, so it’s not exactly a massive cheerer-upper. What it does brilliantly, though, is remind you that global environmental concerns, as articulated by activists and politicians, have a real human face and cost, and that even that articulation remains defined by colonialism. Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Tessa Mars’s ‘How Many ____Does It Take?’ is a dialogue about the founding of a South African newspaper at the end of the nineteenth century and reforms in Haiti, and is appropriately ramshackle in its investigation of how storytelling is always fraught with untrustworthiness and partial truths.  There are a few pieces here that feel superfluous, and there is an uneasy relationship between the purely visual and more conceptual in places (plus, I def

It’s not a-ha’s fault that they’re Scandinavian and that since they became mega-selling global music sensations (in the early ’80s)‚ the connotations of being Scandi have changed quite a lot. At the time, being from Norway seemed properly exotic. Unlike, says ABBA, they looked like actual rockstars. Leather jackets and the lot (plus some knitwear). They had the looks, the musicianship and the teen appeal.These days, a-ha look like an advert for avoiding the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. The lads, especially too-handsome-to-be-a-real-human frontman Morten Harket, are terrifyingly well-preserved and still enjoying being in a band as much as ever: i.e. not at all.    This doc, four years in the making, celebrates their 40th anniversary ‘together’ and is full of fan-pleasing footage from those early years, as well as cutesy childhood home movies that look like they were commissioned by Nudie jeans. But four decades on, a-ha’s airbrushed Nordic cool smacks of over-privilege and the kind of ‘issues’ that populate endless Nordic noirs. Guitarist Pål and keyboardist Magne have the air of men with many stored-up grievances, only they involve ancient touring incidents (Morten’s hogging of hair products evidently still rankles: ‘He’d use house paint when he ran out of spray’) rather than unsolved murders or missing children. They’re still enjoying being in a band as much as ever – i.e. not at all On one level, this is almost a really intriguing study of a very particular kind of first-world

In a departure from its usual madcap programming, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art has put on a show of Nashville-born sculptor Virginia Overton. It’s quietly satisfying, but it’s not a lot of fun. Overton is a great exploiter and explorer of other artists’ works, and also materially responds to the spaces in which she shows. So here, we have literal offcuts from pieces by British luminary Sir Anthony Caro, and works reflecting the grimy mechanics of the Goldsmiths building, a former boilerhouse. This means a lot of scrap metal: tubes, I-beams, chutes and jagged rusty sheets that might have once been almost anything. Despite all this heavy industry, Overton’s works are mostly domestically scaled, not fuck-off massive outdoor-type things. This gives them a quiet and insidious presence, like you might be able to use them as (really uncomfortable) furniture. One of them even incorporates that marble lump from the iconic Arco floor lamp, now supporting a ropey old bit of pipe that Overton picked up in the street. This kind of tension populates a lot of her pieces. For instance, the two mismatched halves of metal tubing seemingly attempting to form a whole in ‘Untitled (½ and ½)’. You might be able to use them as (really uncomfortable) furniture Oh yeah, that’s a thing. Overton is a follower of the ‘shall I?/shan’t I?’ school of nomenclature. Everything is ‘Untitled’, then given a title in brackets. Eg: ‘Untitled (Chime for Caro)’. That probably doesn’t bother you (if you ev

​​In 2016, Joe Corré, son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, announced that he planned to burn a trove of unique memorabilia, including some of his mum’s designs, in protest against the commodification of punk and climate change. The stunt inevitably prompted outrage. Corré (who, like Roderick Spode in PG Wodehouse, designs ladies’ undies) is a mass of contradictions, but that’s understandable. For all its anti-capitalism, punk always commodified itself, since McLaren and Westwood first opened a shop. The tabloid stories around Corré’s destruction focused on the hoard’s value (about £5 million) far more than its significance as examples of one of the country’s most vital female designers (priceless).  Wake Up Punk should be good. It isn’t. Like Corré’s stunt – a hybrid of the Sex Pistols’ Thames boat party and the KLF’s Scottish money-torching – Nigel Askew’s doc is derivative and sloppy. Corré and his PR in a big hat seem to have no real goal except to provoke. Worst of all are scenes in which plummy white stage-school kids dress up as Dickensian waifs and discuss the problems with ‘the establishment’.  Joe Corré and his PR in a big hat seem to have no real goal except to provoke If there’s anything Victorian here, it’s not the UK’s still-teeming underclass, but the antics of these squabbling cultural aristos with their petty slights, arguments about inheritance, big houses and offensive clothes. Whether Corré really did set fire to his mum’s legacy is almost academi

‘At least we’re trying’ reads one placard as Extinction Rebellion disrupt the goings-on of Shell’s London offices. And really, that’s this doc in cardboard form. Before Covid and George Floyd and Ukraine, XR managed to achieve remarkable things, getting successive cities around the world to declare a ‘climate emergency’, galvanising a generation into action, forcing don’t-want-to-know politicians to listen (or be on camera pretending to, anyway). At the same time, these people really are trying. By the end of the 83 minutes of Rebellion, you’ll want to flush their collective head down the bog.  At the film’s heart lies the age-old Trotsky versus Stalin methodology debate. Do you engage intellectually, or do you super-glue yourself to a tube train? XR’s own Mr Motivator, farmer Roger Hallam, favours the latter. Hallam emerges as one of those quintessentially British troublemakers, a kind of WhatsApp Wat Tyler. He wants arrests and imprisonment and fuss; everyone else wants inclusion and that their voice to be heard. Unfortunately, the playing-out of these internal factions becomes church-fête-committee very quickly, which does really detract from the importance of XR’s message. Still, their protests brought London to a standstill with mime, a pink yacht and a fire engine full of fake blood, so let’s not forget that. By the end of Rebellion, you’ll want to flush a few politicians’ heads down the bog  XR made initial progress because they were politely intractable, largely whit

Hoxton’s Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum) is hosting a very special ‘yard sale’ of designer furniture, pieces by local makers, textiles, homeware and other mid-mod and mid-mod-inspired goodies. We are also promised a fair amount of ‘attic clearout’ (who has an attic??). If you’re a bit of a pro/in trade there are early bird tickets at 9am; for those who prefer a Saturday-morning lie-in, there’s general entry from 10am. As an added incentive to get you to pony up your hard-earned cash, a percentage of all sales will be donated to the London Homeless Collective. Come on, that Danish(?) coffee set won’t buy itself.  

Haydn’s oratorio The Creation is a sumptuous retelling of the Book of Genesis, inspired by the composer’s visits to London and the optimism of the Enlightenment. It’s performed as part of the Barbican’s fortieth-birthday celebrations by the LSO under Sir Simon Rattle with the full LSO Chorus, plus soloists, 224 years after its premiere in Vienna.

Devoting a whole show to a nineteenth-century model and muse is pretty niche, even by art history standards. But the reverse psychology of this RA exhibition is compelling, and by the end of it what emerges is not just a portrait of the artist, but of the strange morality and tastes of a whole age. James Abbott McNeill Whistler arrived in London from the States – via Paris – in the 1850s and took up with artists’ model Joanna Hiffernan in 1860. He was making prints around the river in the slummy East End but it was his paintings of Hiffernan that defined his early career in the capital. The most famous of these, ‘The White Girl’, later renamed ‘Symphony in White No 1: The White Girl’, shows Hiffernan, her famous russet hair uncoiled, in a long white dress, standing in front of a white curtain, holding a white flower. It’s both stagey and ghostly, and definitely intended to challenge the accepted painterly approach of the time – a large portrait of an unknown, non-society woman without any explanatory historical narrative. And that’s what makes this show, once you get into it, so interesting. Another painting from the same time shows Hiffernan in conversation with two men on the balcony of a Wapping pub. Her hair’s tied up, she’s hatless, she’s in a simple dress of dark green and black. She’s very much not there to be appraised and gazed upon. More importantly, she is shown as the societal equal of her companions. Hiffernan comes across as central to Whistler’s work and life,

April to June 2022 sees the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands War, when Britain sent a military taskforce halfway around the world following the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina. Although relatively brief and small in scale, the conflict saw many moments of huge personal suffering, and raised questions about the idea of British sovereignty in the modern era and the role that media has to play in covering war. Also, let’s not forget, that it meant Prince Andrew could never sweat again. Visitors will be able to explore the experiences of those who witnessed or participated in the fighting, and those who dealt with the conflict’s aftermath.

Audiovisual installations, artists’ new material and multimedia collaborations across music, dance, visual art and the spoken word. For 2022, Purcell Sessions will include a new album performance from Martha Skye Murphy, works-in progress from Soumik Datta and Secretsundaze, a long durational improvisation from the band Caroline, Seder: a multidisciplinary, performative piece from poet Adam Kammerling, and a collaborative Earth Day event focused on the climate crisis from Tongue Fu – Hot Poets. Truly an outstanding programme of challenging contemporary sounds. 

Subtitled ‘Real Conflicts | Virtual Worlds | Extreme Entertainment’, this landmark show will look at the way that war has become a dominant environment in gaming, and how it in its turn has shaped our understanding of the nature and experience of conflict. In their quest to become ever-more ‘authentic’, how far are FPS and strategy games distorting the reality they seek to portray? ‘War Games: Real Conflicts | Virtual Worlds | Extreme Entertainment’ will challenge perceptions of how video games interpret stories about war and conflict through immersive installations and perspectives from key voices in the industry. Showcasing a broad range of video games, from Second World War shooters to strategic survival games set against the backdrop of conflicts, ‘War Games’ will also include historic objects from IWM’s collection.

International music, fashion and film icon Grace Jones follows (prowls?) in the footsteps of David Bowie, Yoko Ono and the Smiths Patti and Robert by curating the twenty-seventh outing of the annual Meltdown festival on the South Bank. And it looks like a proper banger, with Solange, Peaches, Skunk Anansie and Baaba Maal feature on the line-up. 

Whew. London’s really hot right now. Some might even say apocalyptically hot. We know Londoners love a good heatwave, using any excuse to out on flip-flops and make a beeline for the nearest pub garden, but this is the kind of weather where cramming in somewhere with loads of other people has rarely seemed less appealing. Sure, there are great beer gardens, fancy rooftop bars and our dear old friend THE PARK, but are they actually cool? Not necessarily. Time to think laterally (without actually having to ask an assistant in Iceland if there’s a wifi password).  View this post on Instagram A post shared by QUEENS • skate • dine • bowl (@queens_skate_dine_bowl) Just chill out!  Ice skating might be about staying on your feet, but you won’t mind slipping over too much at Queens Ice and Bowl in Bayswater, where the surface temperature is, of course, freezing all year round. Don’t be tempted to go bowling though, or you’ll immediately become a hot mess again.      Find a very old building  While there’s no definitive answer to the question of which is London’s chilliest building, older generally means colder. Unlike your flimsy newbuilds, these babies have metre-thick walls and great insulation. If you can face the Central line – officially the hottest on the tube – then go and tick St Paul’s Cathedral off your (ice) bucket list (you can get there on foot, too, obvs. Just make sure to stay hydrated.) The crypt, with its tombs of Wren, Nelson and Wellington shou

You can’t miss Deptford High Street. At the top end sits its famous anchor, reinstalled by the council in 2018 after it was mysteriously removed five years earlier, supposedly because it attracted street drinkers. Over its quarter of a mile, it runs down to Creek Road, across which lies the Thames. It packs in a street market, a golden-clad library, one of London’s finest baroque churches, lots of Vietnamese restaurants and more history than you can shake a stick at. Stuff changes fast here. Recent years have seen tons of new openings (and a few closings) around the redeveloped Market Yard. Locals fear that SE8’s character will be lost for ever but it sails on. Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was murdered in Deptford after quibbling about his bar tab, described ‘infinite riches in a little room’ in ‘The Jew of Malta’, and that just about sums up the High Street. From the market traders to the post-church Sunday crush it’s some of London’s best street theatre. Stroll past the wet-fish shops and the buckets of giant African snails. Fuss the cats in Terry’s Discount store. All human life is here. Plus a lot of other stuff. Drink this   A photo posted by BUSTER MANTIS (@bustermantis) on Jun 22, 2016 at 7:44am PDT   Pub chain Antic caused a right hoo-ha when they opened The Job Centre, following their policy of naming pubs after their former uses. ‘Shameful’ and ‘insensitive’ was the social media verdict on the name. They redid the frontage recently and reve

In a strange twist to the ongoing funding dispute between Transport for London and the government, Secretary of State for  Transport Grant Shapps has raised the spectre of London getting driverless tube trains ‘like Paris’.  Shapps made the remark to BBC London in an interview discussing the latest funding offer from the Department of Transport to bail out TfL. ‘This is the latest and indeed the last such payment,’ said Shapps, ‘which should see TfL get back to its own financial stability the year after next.’ However, Shapps went on to say that TfL would be expected to ‘modernise’. ‘[The offer] will enable us to move to a more advanced TfL as well, where working practices are up to date […] To give you one example, other European cities, even Paris for example, have moved ahead and now have driverless trains. The London Underground doesn’t.’ It’s a provocative suggestion, given recent strike action affecting the tube (alongside London bus strikes affecting a host of routes). It may seem extreme and expensive to address a pay and working-conditions dispute with tube staff by getting rid of the staff (a bit like an alcoholic avoiding drink-driving by selling his car), but London has had the driverless DLR since 1987, while many other cities around the world, including Rome, Copenhagen Budapest and Shanghai have automated metro systems. However, TfL commissioner Andy Byford pointed out that all these networks – including the Paris Metro that Shapps cites – receive central gover

  It's the details that make our city special. Chris Waywell appreciates a nineteenth century approach to seating. Modern benches tend to fall into one of two categories: either the 'memorial' ('x loved this spot'), or the 'town-planner' (geometric, dosser-repellent). The Victorians didn’t do that: if it could be decorative it got two thumbs up. When Cleopatra's Needle arrived on the Embankment in 1878, it was joined by some inspired Egyptian-themed benches, so the casual stroller could pause a moment and reflect on what a great country Britain was. There are some sphinx-y ones up the road if you feel a riddle coming on, and these brilliantly lumpy laden camels. I love them. If you found them in another city, you'd be instagramming them silly, but they just sit beside the Thames, unnoticed, as the cement lorries thunder past, on their way to construct another pyramid. Victoria Embankment.  Is there a little bit of London you'd like us to feature? Email thingstodo@timeout.com. Remember when someone went round putting cheeky signs on London's benches? Check 'em out here.

It’s easy to think of the tube – especially in summer – as a grimy, crowded, hot, urban nightmare. It’s a great thing, sure, and London would be lost without it, but it doesn’t really suggest rural bliss.  In fact, though, the tube is getting greener. TfL staff have been busy planting small platform and station gardens across the London Underground and Overground networks, growing flowers and even fruit and vegetables. Highbury & Islington tube station has brightened up its entrance with flowers and set up a Bee Friendly Trust planter on its London Overground platform. TfL has established other community gardens with the Bee Friendly Trust at Northfields, Wimbledon Park, High Barnet and Upton Park. Highbury & Islington ticket hall garden | Photograph: Transport for London/Eleanor Bentall TfL’s Julia Nelson said: ‘It has been such a pleasure creating the flower garden for Highbury & Islington station. The joy it brings to our customers and staff is so uplifting and it adds warmth and calmness to a very busy station.’ Down at Morden, a disused platform has been transformed into a garden, which is now growing cherries, potatoes, peppers and plums. On the new Elizabeth line, staff at Seven Kings station have sited large pots on the platforms and involved local young people in looking after the plants. Seven Kings station garden | Photograph: Transport for London/Eleanor Bentall ‘I have found that garden projects are a great way to engage with customers,’ said Richard Baker, T

If a tiny part of you longs for the strictures of lockdown drinking with its pre-booking of tables and zero bar crush, we might have an expansive drinking solution for you. Scottish beer magnates BrewDog have announced the opening this August of what will be one of London’s biggest bars.  BrewDog Waterloo is a two-floor, 27,500 sq ft tanking shop situated under the train lines running into Waterloo station. In proper London 2022 style, it’s not just slinging out pints. The new venue includes co-working spaces and pods, a micro-brewery, a café, a secret cocktail bar, duckpin bowling alleys, a podcast studio, some meeting rooms and an ice-cream van dishing up Hackney Gelato. We assume there are some kitchen sinks in there as well.  To celebrate its opening, BrewDog is giving away 100 free recording slots to podcast creators. So if you fancy getting on the mic, get in touch.   As well as all those facilities, BrewDog Waterloo is one of the company’s first bars to open following its ‘BrewDog Blueprint’, in which 50 percent of the profits generated by each of its bars will be shared directly with the staff who work there. A bit like Waitrose.  The bar opens on August 18, but maybe save your attendance for its Grand Opening on August 20, featuring an exclusive performance by venerable North-Eastern post-punkers Futureheads (tickets here), which should be a decent accompaniment to a few ales. Get down there, and spread right out. BrewDog Waterloo, Unit G, Waterloo Station, 01 The S

He won the war and inspired the famous canine mascot of an insurance company, but it can be easy to forget that former British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill was also a longtime Londoner. Throughout his political career, and during WWI and WWII, the statesman lived in a succession of properties in the capital before occupying No 10 Downing Street and his famous wartime bunker. Now one of those homes is on the rental market. And it ain’t cheap. Churchill and his wife Clementine moved into Number 34 Eccleston Square in Pimlico in 1908, soon after they were married. They stayed in the property until 1913, shortly before Churchill’s extremely difficult (and at times disastrous) rôle in the Great War. The chichi townhouse on a private square was built in the Regency period by notable architect Thomas Cubitt, and was a suitably aspirational home for the ambitious young politician, as well as conveniently located just a 25-minute walk from the Houses of Parliament. It’s been on the market a few times in recent years and is available again now, for a wallet-eviscerating £19,500 a month. For that, you get an apartment over two stories, with five bedrooms, three reception rooms and access to the square’s residents-only private garden, which includes a tennis court. You could probably lay out your very own tennis court for £19,500, but hey. How the other half live etc. You also get a blue plaque in honour of the shack’s famous previous owner. Should you be interested in a viewing

It another blow to London’s beleaguered public transport system and its users. TfL announced at lunchtime today that the Central line would not run this evening because of the number of staff off sick, then reversed the decision, announcing that it would. The news follows strikes by London Underground workers as well as the disruption caused by this week’s searing 40C+ temperatures. The news was delivered via email at 1.15pm to those Londoners who have intelligently signed up for news updates of TfL travel disruption. The email read: ‘The Central line will close early today due to staffing issues in the control room caused by sickness. Complete journeys from central London by 17:30. After that no trains will run on most of the line, except a shuttle service between Leytonstone and Epping/Hainault until the end of the day.’ But just over an hour later, it seemed that this issue had been sorted out, after the Independent said that a TfL spokesperson had confirmed that Central line trains WOULD run tonight as usual. TfL’s replied to people @ing them on Twitter with:  ‘Hi, sorry for the confusion. We can now confirm the Central line is on normal schedule and operating.’ So, good luck getting home, and maybe just think of it as a good excuse to stay in town and have a drink or something civilised. Get up-to-date information at TfL. Just how safe is it to swim in London’s canals? We ask an expert.  Luton airport’s runway melted in the heatwave.

The capital is famously full of great museums – we have hundreds of them. There are massive international ones like The British Museum, the V&A and the Natural History Museum. There are tiny weird ones dedicated to subjects like fans (the Greenwich Fan Museum) or grotesque anatomical specimens (the Hunterian Museum). Somewhere between those two poles, there is the Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill, south London. And the Horniman has just won the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2022. The Horniman was founded in 1890 by Frederick Horniman, a tea importer and collector of artefacts and artworks from across the globe. He was essentially an amateur anthropologist who had the money and the means to have whatever took his fancy shipped home to London. His collection eventually outgrew his home (and Mrs Horniman’s patience) and in 1901 he had a superb museum built to house it in the up-and-coming suburb of Forest Hill, just a mile or so from the site of the world-famous Crystal Palace. Since then, the Horniman has become a real London cultural landmark, and one whose approach has evolved over time to reflect changing attitudes to the role of the museum in education and community, with an emphasis on learning and engagement rather than simply showing random old stuff to people. Plus, it has the world’s most famous walrus and amazing views across London. Jenny Waldman, chair of judges, said: ‘In many ways the Horniman is the perfect museum, and I would encourage everyone to go and

Train journeys are set to be one of the travel trends of 2022. And we don’t mean just a day return to Walton-on-the-Naze. All across Europe there are new services starting up that will bring back the romance of the golden age of steam. You can now get a sleeper train from Paris all the way to Romania; it’s like being in an episode of ‘Poirot’.  International rail travel means you get less of that pesky airport security, you can have a wee in (relative) comfort and there’s something to look at out of the window. Plus, your journey starts and ends in a space of some architectural merit that isn’t 450km outside town. Big stations can be magical places and, best of all, they have bars on them. The bar at Gare de l’Est in Paris, for instance, is a classy art deco beauty. But maybe no station bar in the world can compete with the one at St Pancras International. Booking Office 1869, which opened at the end of last year, is – obviously – in the Grade I-listed former ticket hall of the fabulously gothic station (which – obviously – opened in 1869). Booking Office 1869 naturally has food and drink on a lavish scale, with a 1am licence on Fridays and Saturdays. But it’s the decor that really should get you down there, whether or not you actually have a train to catch. Inspired by original appointments of the St Pancras hotel upstairs, French architect and designer Hugo Toro has gone full fin de siècle, creating a ‘Victorian-style Winter Garden’, although one that the Victorians might s

The opening of the Elizabeth Line has been a ray of sunshine in the rollercoaster of London transport news, but for bus users, things are looking slightly more gloomy.  The capital’s bus network is facing the biggest proposed cuts in ten years after Transport for London agreed to four percent bus cuts in return for bailout cash from the government. If the cuts go ahead, 100 services per hour will be slashed.  What exactly is happening?  TfL has plans to axe up to 16 bus routes and amend 78 routes as part of a plan to meet savings targets imposed by the government.  The cuts would save TfL £35 million per year. It makes up part of a funding deal with the government for a cash bailout which would help the network to recover from the collapse in fares during the pandemic. Under the terms of the bailout, TfL will have to make savings of £730 million per year to achieve ‘financial sustainability’. A public consultation is ongoing, and has been extended by four weeks until April 7 so that more Londoners can have their say. Get involved.  What services are being slashed?  Sixteen bus routes could potentially be axed – equivalent to a reduction of around 20 percent in overall London services. The changes will set out to try and remove the overlaps between routes on major roads in central London. Some roads will be left without a bus service entirely.  ‘The reductions are primarily focused on central London in areas where we think it will be least impactful and the least worst option,

Londoners are used to being rattled about on the tube. The world’s oldest and most iconic underground railway is a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels, stations (both swankily brand new and eerily long-disused) and atmosphere – a kind of alternative version of the huge diverse city above its head in negative. Also, it’s really old now. So it should come as no surprise that it has some properly ancient trains still running on its lines.  In fact, the venerable Bakerloo line (the brown one) has some rolling stock on it that was introduced in 1972. That right, these carriages are 50 years old in 2022, and some of the oldest continuously-in-use trains running in the UK. If you’re into the history of London public transport, there is a fascinatingly nerdy breakdown of the history of these trains on the brilliant Ian Visits site. If you think that the Underground can feel a bit hit-and-miss in the twenty-first century, it was clearly a lot more Wild West in the 1970s, with trains swapped between lines, proposed extensions and new lines being proposed and then cancelled, all under the pall of awareness that the network and its trains were getting old and worn out and that there would probably never be enough money to sort it all out and keep apace of demand from London’s ever-growing hordes of commuters.  So, next time you’re being jostled about as your Bakerloo tube screams round a bend somewhere between Elephant & Castle and Lambeth North, just remember that it’s travelled literally mi