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The City of London area guide
• Time Out's guide to the City of London picks the best restaurants, pubs and bars
• Use our street map of the Square Mile to find plenty of things to do
The City of London overview
The City of London, usually just called the City or the Square Mile, is the centre of trade and finance in Europe, rivalling New York City as the finance capital of the world. The traders, bankers and other wage-earners in the area have to work hard, so it's no surprise they like to play hard here, too. Flashy bars outnumber quiet pubs in the City, and most bars and pubs are designed to impress. Likewise, the restaurants are grand and often expensive – great for hashing out the details of a deal or letting someone know how important you are. The City also roughly follows the boundaries of the ancient Roman capital of Britannia, Londinium, so there are plenty of museums and other things to do if you want to slow the pace down a bit.
What are your favourite City haunts? Let us know.
Restaurants in the City
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Bar Battu
Bars & pubs: French, 48 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7AY
Things to do near the City
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Bauhaus: Art as Life
Art
Until Sun Aug 12, Barbican CentreImagine going to an art school where the godfather of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, is teaching a class in wall pai...
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Song Dong: Waste Not
Art
Until Tue Jun 12, Barbican CentreThis 10,000-object strong result of the five-decade hoarding habit of Song Dong's late mother, Zhao Xiangyuan, fills ...
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Cymbeline
Theatre
Until Sat Jun 2, Barbican CentreYukio Ninagawa brings his acclaimed Ninagawa Company back to the Barbican for a production of Shakespeare's romance. ...
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Monument
Museums & Attractions MonumentAlthough the Monument, which commemorates the Great Fire of 1666, is often attributed to Christopher Wren - who did c...
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Museum of London
Museums & Attractions Museum of LondonThe history of London, from prehistoric times to the present told through reconstructed interiors and street scenes, ...
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