The Time Out London blog team

Living in London is amazing – we’ve got many of the country’s best restaurants, museums, public parks, live music, theatre and more, all on our doorstep. But being surrounded by all that capital city concrete can also get a bit depressing, especially combined with the extremely high cost of living.  Property platform Rightmove has just unveiled its annual Happy at Home Index, revealing the locations in Britain where people are the most – and least – happy, at home. Rightmove surveyed thousands of Brits about where they live, taking into account not only how residents felt about their properties, but their thoughts on their community, local area and proximity to amenities.  The least happy borough in London, according to Rightmove’s data, was Barking and Dagenham. Coming in dead-last place out of the capital’s 33 boroughs, the east London area ranked 220th nationally.  To the residents of B&D, we say chin up, because we don’t actually agree. Not only is the postcode poised to receive a £200 million investment from the National Lottery Heritage Fund soon, but the area is home to a number of fascinating and beautiful historical attractions, including the Elizabethan Eastbury Manor House, and the Grade II*–listed manor with a medieval moat Valence House Museum.  Photograph: Abdul_Shakoor / Shutterstock.com B&D is also London’s most affordable location, where the average house price is just £335,500. This is much, much cheaper than London’s happiest borough, the affluent...

Esteemed restaurant guide Harden’s has revealed its list of the UK’s 100 best restaurants for 2026. And while no London restaurants ranked in the top three, the capital cleaned up quite nicely across the rest of the list.  The ranking, which is based on 30,000 reports from a survey of 2,500 diners, features 38 London institutions this year. And the highest ranked of the lot was The Ledbury in Notting Hill. Placing fourth on the ranking, diners hailed The Ledbury for its ‘head-to-toe near perfection… from the the owner, to the staff and especially to the tasting menu’ and ‘wallet-scorching but exceptional’. It received a ‘very good’ four out of five for its food and ambiance and a ‘good’ three out of five for service.  The luxury institution from chefs Brett Graham and Nigel Platts-Martin has been around since 2005 and has been showered with accolades over the past few decades. It’s been named the UK’s best restaurant on multiple occasions, earned two Michelin stars by 2010 and picked up its third Michelin star in 2024. The Ledbury closed for two years after the pandemic but since returning in 2022 has gone from strength to strength. One reviewer called the dishes ‘genius’ while another said it has ‘unquestionably the most impressive front of house staff’ they’ve ever encountered.  Being so highly decorated, eating here doesn’t come cheap. If you were to stop by The Ledbury for a three-course dinner plus half a bottle of wine and coffee, you’re looking at spending around...

Flying from Heathrow sometime soon? You’re going to want to be aware of changes to the major flight hub’s drop-off policy. In short, you’ll only be able to wait for a certain amount of time, and will have to fork out a bit more money.  In the New Year, the UK’s busiest airport will introduce a strict time limit on drop-offs for the first time ever. Bosses at the airport said this would be to ease congestion in the zones outside the terminals. They added that free drop-offs using the Park and Ride were still available to all terminals, should you not want to pay the fee.  Here’s everything you need to know about the changes.  When is Heathrow changing its drop-off rules? The new rules come into force on January 1 2026.  How much is Heathrow increasing the drop-off fee by? The fee to drop off a passenger at one of the Heathrow terminals in a car will increase by only £1, from £6 to £7.  How long will drivers have to drop-off passengers? People dropping off will only be allowed to wait for 10 minutes before they will be issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN). This should still give you plenty of time – the Heathrow spokesperson said that 95 percent of drop-offs are currently under 10 minutes.  How to pay the drop-off charge Visitors to the drop-off zones can pre-pay online or by phone. Alternatively, if drivers are paying after using the drop-off areas they must do it before midnight the following day otherwise they could be charged an £80 fine. Did you see that London Heathrow...