Things to do in London
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Ledbury
Michelin starred and swooningly elegant, Brett Graham’s artful French restaurant attracts a well-heeled local clientele who wear jeans with designer jackets. To beat the credit crunch, go for the set- price menu.
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Columbia Road Flower Market
A real explosion of colour and life, this weekly market sells a beautiful array of flowers, pot plants, bulbs, seeds and everything you might need for the garden. A lot of fun, even if you don’t buy anything, the market gets really packed so go as early as you can, or later on, when the vendors sell off the cut flowers cheaply. It stretches from Gossett St to the Royal Oak pub.
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Ridley Road Market
Massively enjoyed by the ethnically diverse community it serves, this market is best for its exotic fruit and vegetables, specialist cuts of meat and colourful fabrics. You’ll also find the usual assortment of plastic tat, cheap clothing and mobile phone accessories.
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Meet Bernard
Who is Bernard? We’re not sure. But his shop in Nelson Rd is crammed full of carefully selected designer clothes for hip, young men about town.
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Algerian Coffee Stores
Stop and have a shot of espresso made in-store while you select your freshly ground coffee beans. Choose among dozens of varieties of coffees and teas.
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Masters Super Fish
This popular place serves excellent fish (brought in fresh daily from Billingsgate Market and grilled rather than fried if desired); low on charm but full marks for flavour.
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Forbidden Planet
A trove of comics, sci-fi, horror and fantasy literature, this is an absolute dream for anyone into manga comics or off-beat genre titles.
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Roman Road Market
This market along Roman Rd between St Stephen’s and Parnell Rds has pretty standard fare on offer, though some people rave about the low prices.
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Brockwell Park Lido
A beautifully designed 1930s lido, Brockwell is one of London’s best, drawing multitudes in summer months.
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Belgo Noord
This branch of the Belgian restaurant chain does a mean moules frites (mussels and chips; £12), which you can wash down with one of the many Belgian beers on offer.
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Pear Shaped
Advertising themselves as 'London's second-worst comedy club', Pear Shaped is the place to destroy the hopes of enthusiastic amateurs.
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Hakkasan
This basement restaurant – hidden down a most unlikely back alleyway – successfully combines celebrity status, stunning design, persuasive cocktails and sophisticated Chinese food. The low, nightclub-style lighting (lots of red) makes it a good spot for dating or a night out with friends (the bar serves seriously creative cocktails). For dinner in the main dining room you’ll have to book far in advance. Do what savvy Londoners do and have lunch in the more informal Ling Ling lounge.
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Hamleys
Reportedly the largest toy store in the world and certainly the most famous, Hamleys is a layer cake of playthings. Computer games are in the basement and the latest playground trends are at ground level. But that’s just the start. Science kits are on the 1st floor, preschool toys on the 2nd, girls’ playthings on the 3rd and model cars on the 4th, while the whole confection is topped off with Lego world and its cafe on the 5th.
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Blue Elephant
The surroundings, attentive staff and most importantly, the superb food of this Fulham institution, with branches around the globe, make this a memorable Thai dining choice. The atmosphere hovers on the cusp of kitsch, the dazzlingly bling Blue Bar giving it the final shove.
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New Tayyab
This buzzing (OK, crowded) Punjabi restaurant is in another league to its Brick Lane equivalents. Seekh kebabs, masala fish and other starters served on sizzling hot plates are delicious, as are accompaniments such as dhal, naan and raita. But with Tayyabs now appearing regularly in guidebooks and the huge London Royal Hospital round the corner, you should expect to wait for a table.
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Houses of Parliament
Coming face to face with one of the world's most recognisable landmarks is always a surreal moment, but in the case of the Houses of Parliament it's a revelation. Photos just don't do justice to the ornate stonework and golden filigree of Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin's neo-Gothic masterpiece (1840).
Officially called the Palace of Westminster, the oldest part is Westminster Hall (1097), which is one of only a few sections that survived a catastrophic fire in 1834. Its roof, added between 1394 and 1401, is the earliest known example of a hammerbeam roof and has been described as the greatest surviving achievement of medieval English carpentry.
The palace's most famous…
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Madame Tussauds
With so much fabulous free stuff to do in London, it's a wonder that people still join lengthy queues to visit pricey Madame Tussauds, but in a celebrity-obsessed, camera-happy world, the opportunity to pose beside Posh and Becks is not short on appeal. The life-size wax figures are remarkably lifelike and are as close to the real thing as most of us will get. It's interesting to see which are the most popular; nobody wants to be photographed with Richard Branson, but Prince Charles and Camilla do a brisk trade.
Honing her craft making effigies of victims of the French revolution, Tussaud brought her wares to England in 1802. Her Chamber of Horrors still survives (complete…
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Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace (1605) became the favourite royal residence under the joint reign of William and Mary and remained so until George III became king and moved across the park to Buckingham Palace. It still has private apartments where various members of the royal extended family live. In popular imagination it's most associated with three intriguing princesses: Victoria (who was born here in 1819 and lived here with her domineering mother until her accession to the throne), Margaret (sister of the current queen, who lived here until her 2002 death) and, of course, Diana. More than a million bouquets were left outside the gates following her death in 1997.
The building is…
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Piccadilly Circus
Together with Big Ben and Trafalgar Sq, this is postcard London. And despite the stifling crowds and racing midday traffic, the flashing ads and buzzing liveliness of Piccadilly Circus always make it exciting to be in London. The circus looks its best at night, when the flashing advertisement panels really shine against the dark sky.>/p>
Designed by John Nash in the 1820s, the hub was named after the street Piccadilly, which earned its name in the 17th century from the stiff collars (picadils) that were the sartorial staple of the time (and were the making of a nearby tailor’s fortune). At the centre of the circus is the famous lead statue, the Angel of Christian…
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Guildhall
Bang in the centre of the Square Mile, the Guildhall has been the City’s seat of government for nearly 800 years. The present building dates from the early 15th century, making it the only secular stone structure to have survived the Great Fire of 1666, although it was severely damaged both then and during the Blitz of 1940.
Check in at reception to visit the impressive Great Hall (ring ahead as it often closes for formal functions), where you can see the banners and shields of London’s 12 guilds (principal livery companies), which used to wield absolute power throughout the city. The lord mayor and sheriffs are still elected annually in the vast open hall, with its…
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London Zoo
These famous zoological gardens have come a long way since being established in 1828, with massive investment making conservation, education and breeding the name of the game. Highlights include Penguin Beach, Gorilla Kingdom, Animal Adventure (the new childrens' zoo) and Butterfly Paradise. Feeding sessions or talks take place during the day. Arachnophobes can ask about the zoo's Friendly Spider Programme, designed to cure fears of all things eight-legged and hairy.
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Thames Barrier
The sci-fi–looking Thames Barrier is in place to protect London from flooding and, with global warming increasing the city’s vulnerability to rising sea levels and surge tides, the barrier is likely to be of growing importance in coming years. Under construction for a decade and completed in 1982, the barrier consists of 10 movable gates anchored to nine concrete piers, each as tall as a five-storey building. The silver roofs on the piers house the operating machinery to raise and lower the gates against excess water. They make a surreal sight, straddling the river in the lee of a giant warehouse. The reason why London needs such a flood barrier is that the water level…
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Highgate Cemetery
Most famous as the final resting place of Karl Marx, George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) and other notable mortals, Highgate Cemetery is set in 20 wonderfully wild and atmospheric hectares, with dramatic and overdecorated Victorian family crypts. It is divided into two parts on either side of Swain's Lane. On the eastern side you can visit the grave of Karl Marx. The real draw however is the overgrown western section of this Victorian Valhalla. To visit it, you'll have to take a tour (%8340 1834; adult/child #7/3; 1 hr; h1.45pm Mon-Fri, hourly from 11am to 3pm Sat & Sun Nov-Mar, to 4pm Apr-Oct). Note that children under eight are not allowed to join. It is a maze…
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Tate Britain
The more elderly and venerable of the two Tate siblings, this riverside Portland stone edifice celebrates paintings from 1500 to the present, with works from Blake, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Barbara Hepworth, Whistler, Constable and Turner – in particular – whose light-infused visions dominate the Clore Gallery. It doesn't stop there and vibrant modern and contemporary art finds expression in pieces from Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Tracey Emin while the controversial Turner Prize (inviting annual protests outside the gallery) is held here every year between October and January. Free one-hour thematic tours are held at 11am, noon, 2pm and 3pm from Monday to Friday…
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Guildhall Art Gallery & Roman London Amphitheatre
The gallery of the City of London provides a fascinating look at the politics of the Square Mile over the past few centuries, with a great collection of paintings of London in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the vast frieze entitled The Defeat of the Floating Batteries (1791), depicting the British victory at the Siege of Gibraltar in 1782. This huge painting was removed to safety just a month before the gallery was hit by a German bomb in 1941 – it spent 50 years rolled up before a spectacular restoration in 1999.
An even more recent arrival is a sculpture of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, which has to be housed in a protective glass case as the Iron…
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