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Charterhouse Bar
Charterhouse Bar is most people's pit stop before going on to Fabric , so expect loud and relentless music on weekends, with a good pre-club atmosphere. For those preferring something quieter, pop by for brunch - the food is great - and enjoy the wedge-shaped structure, a traditional Clerkenwell warehouse design. DJs are on every evening and entry is free at all times.
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Cherry Jam
Once a must-experience club, part owned by Ben Watt of the Notting Hill Arts Club and Everything But the Girl (who still sometimes DJs on Saturdays), Cherry Jam has lost the edge it had some years ago. It's still worth a peek, though, especially for the music and good, reasonably priced cocktails (around £7 ). Friday and Saturday nights have electro and house DJs and the atmosphere is always good. Might need a shake-up or a face-lift soon, though.
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Chuckle Club
The comedian's favourite, this club has a great atmosphere thanks to comedy stalwart, resident host and all-round lovely bloke Eugene Cheese, who begins every night with the Chuckle Club warm-up song.
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Ciné Lumière
Ciné Lumière is attached to South Kensington's excellent French Institute, and its large screen-room was launched by Catherine Deneuve in 1998. It screens great international seasons and lots of French films subtitled in English.
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City Barge
The Barge, perched dramatically close to - but not on - the Thames, has been operating as a pub since the Middle Ages (1484, to be exact). It is split into two bars (go for the downstairs one) and there is a small waterside terrace. Little known fact: a scene from the Beatles' film Help! was shot here.
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Clapham Picture House
The Picture House is much loved by its locals for its four comfy theatres and café/bar. The programme has everything, from first-run blockbusters to art-house cinema. The Picture House is now a chain with branches in Greenwich and Stratford and has taken over Brixton's Ritzy and Notting Hill's Gate cinemas.
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Coach & Horses
Famous as the place where Spectator columnist Jeffrey Bernard drank himself to death, this small, busy and thankfully unreconstructed boozer retains an old Soho bohemian atmosphere with a regular clientele of soaks, writers, hacks, tourists and those too pissed to lift their heads off the counter. Pretension will be prosecuted.
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Coat & Badge
The Coat & Badge has gone for a tried and tested lounge-room approach (large sofas, second-hand books on shelves, standard lamps, sport on the telly), which seems to please the local clientele. It has a short but excellent menu and a fantastic large terrace out the front.
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Comedy Cafe
A major venue, the Comedy Café is purpose-built for, well, comedy. The meal-and-show deal will cost you around £20 , though during summer months it offers an around £5 ticket for the Friday show (no dinner). It can be a little too try-hard and wacky, but it's worth seeing the Wednesday night try-out spots for some wincing entertainment.
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Comedy Camp
This gay (but very straight-friendly) comedy club, hosted by Simon Happily, has become one of Soho's favourites. It's held in the basement area of one of Soho's more enjoyable gay bars, Barcode. Comedy Camp features both up-and-coming queer comedy acts as well as more established gay and lesbian comics.
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Comedy Store
This was one of the first (and remains one of the best) comedy clubs in London. Although it's a bit like conveyor-belt comedy, it gets some of the biggest names. Wednesday and Sunday nights' Comedy Store Players is the most famous improv outfit in town with the wonderful Paul Merton and Josie Lawrence, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday's brilliant The Best in Stand Up features (you guessed it) the best on London's comedy circuit.
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Coopers Arms
A classic Chelsea pub just off King's Rd, it's stuffed with taxidermists' delights such as a moose head and a stuffed pig's face among other stiff critters, and railway advertising cartoons. Newspapers abound near the bright and sunny bar, and the clientele is mixed and jolly.
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Counting House
They say that old banks - with their counters and basement vaults - make perfect homes for pubs and this award-winner certainly looks and feels comfortable in the former headquarters of NatWest. Even though the central hall and island bar are mammoth, the Counting House can feel like Clapham Junction in the early evening.
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Crash
If Vauxhall in general is one of London's newest gay hang-outs, then Crash, in particular, is its Muscle Mary heaven. There are two dance floors churning out hard beats, four bars and even a few go-go dancers.
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Cricketers
Facing Richmond Green from its southern side (where its very own team bats and bowls), the Cricketers is a friendly and comfortable, themed (guess what) pub with a decent selection of ales and a mixed clientele.
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Cross
This is one of London's best venues, comprising several low brick rooms built under railway arches hidden in the wasteland off York Way. Sunday is run by Vertigo, a Continental-style clubbing operation, who bring over lots of Italian guest DJs. There's a great outdoor terrace for the summer months, too.
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Cross Keys
Covered in ivy and frequented by loyal locals who come here for pints of Young's and spicy fry-ups, the Cross Keys is Covent Garden's tourist-free, local pub. Eccentric landlord Brian shows off his pop purchases as bar decorations (such as his around £500 Elvis Presley napkin) and the punters range from bar props and fruit machine devotees to Covent Garden professionals, all of whom spill onto the pavement and outside tables on summer days.
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Crown & Goose
One of our favourite London pubs, this square room has a central wooden bar between British-racing-green walls studded with gilt-framed mirrors and illuminated by big, shuttered windows. More importantly, it combines a good-looking crowd, easy conviviality, top tucker and good, inexpensive beer.
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Curzon Mayfair
This is the original Curzon cinema which, although a bit shabbier than its Soho sister, is a real avant-garde outpost that screens new independent and foreign films, shorts and Sunday screenings.
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Curzon Soho
Curzon Soho is London's best cinema. It has fantastic programming with the best of British, European, world and American indie films; regular Q&As with directors; shorts and mini-festivals; a Konditor & Cook café upstairs with tea and cakes to die for, and an ultra-comfortable bar that often doubles-up as a place for a drink for many Londoners. A haven in the midst of the chaotic West End.
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Cutty Sark Tavern
Housed in a delightful Georgian building directly on the Thames, the Cutty Sark is one of the few independent pubs left in Greenwich. There are a half-dozen ales on tap and a wonderful sitting-out area along the river just opposite. Count on about a 15-minute walk from the DLR station.
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Dickens Inn
Popular with both City folk and tourists who have strayed too far east from the Tower, this flower-bedecked three-storey warehouse is always heaving. But what keeps us going back is the waterside location, the outside tables and the fact that the building dates from the 1790s and not 1970s as everyone thinks (though it was moved here from elsewhere).
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Dogstar
Downstairs, this long-running local institution has a cavernous DJ bar, always mobbed with a young South London crowd. The main bar is as casual as you'd expect from a converted pub - comfortable sofas, big wooden tables - so dressing to kill is not imperative.
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Donmar Warehouse
This tiny theatre carries a lot of baggage; it was here Nicole Kidman administered 'theatrical Viagra' by stripping in Sam Mendes' Blue Room in the 1990s. However, current artistic director Michael Grandage is also writing a wonderful new chapter, with excellent productions by David Mamet and Patrick Marber, plus heavyweight hits like Frost/Nixon . It's a wonderfully intimate little space.
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Dove
A 17th-century coffee house-cum-pub, the Dove has many claims to fame, namely that it was in the Guinness Book of Records in 1989 for having the smallest bar in England. It was Graham Greene's local and Hemingway drank here too, and William Morris lived next door. There are good river views from the charming dark-wood interior, but if the sun is shining fight for a place on the terrace.
