The Time Out London blog team

It’s been a huge few months for Pokémon fans in London. October’s official pop-up immersive experience at Outernet was followed by the rare merch drop at the Natural History Museum from January, which was in turn followed by the Pokémon Europe International Championships at the ExCeL in Feb.   Now the Pokémon Company International has unveiled another attraction in the Big Smoke. This time it’s a Pokémon-themed green space called a ‘Pokopia Garden’, which opened this week and will be welcoming visitors until September.   Photograph: The Pokémon Company International So, what exactly is a Pokopia Garden? Well, it’s linked to spin-off video game Pokémon Pokopia, which was released in March and combines Pokémon with elements of life simulator-style games like Animal Crossing and Minecraft. The IRL gardens feature a selection of flora and elements inspired by the game, from terrariums and living walls to planters. Photograph: The Pokémon Company International Better yet, the garden also contains virtual treasures for Pokémon fans. Players of Pokémon GO will be able to find new PokéStops and Gyms at Pokopia Gardens. London isn’t the only city with one of the gardens, with others popping up in Berlin and Paris. London’s Pokopia Garden can be found at Acton Mount in west London. It opened on March 31 and will be open to the public (and free to visit) until September 30 2026. The nearest train station is Acton Town. Pokopia Garden London. The Mount, Acton, W3 9NW. Get the...

World’s 101 Best Steak Restaurants has unveiled its latest prestigious list, and several London steakhouses make the cut. Meat lovers, your time is now, as eight London steakhouses have been named in the new and appropriately blood-thirsty list of the 101 Best Steak Restaurants in the World for 2026. This list of the finest steakhouses known to humanity includes top rated London location; Ibai in Farringdon.  Ranking at number seven overall, the list singled out Ibai for being one of the most ‘distinctive grill-led restaurants in London, not because it tries to reinvent Basque tradition, but because it takes it seriously and applies it with judgement.’ High praise indeed. ‘Ibai knows exactly what it’s doing – if you take your meat seriously (and have the cash to spare), you’ll be booking a table now,’ said our own review.  The second highest ranking London steak restaurant was the brand new branch of Hawksmoor in St Pancras, which opened at the end of 2025, and we reviewed here. The new Hawksmoor can be found in the grand dining room at what is now the St Pancras Hotel, designed in 1873 by the daddy of gothic revival architects, Sir George Gilbert Scott. ‘The room is dramatic, but the cooking is not trying to match it with theatre. Classic cuts are treated seriously and served with the kind of accuracy that separates a good steak restaurant from a great one,’ said the 101 steak restaurants folk. Photograph: Zoilo Other London restaurants in the 101 ranking included Brat...

Walthamstow’s one of those east London spots that has a bit of everything: wetlands, a bustling street market, a criminally underrated library. But if you’re partial to an exhibition you might’ve noticed that, for a few years now, the town has been without one of its greatest museums: Vestry House.  Luckily that won’t be the case for too much longer. After shutting its doors years ago for a revamp, the museum celebrating all things ‘Stow will reopen later this year. The Grade II-listed Walthamstow Village museum will begin welcoming visitors again in autumn 2026.  The museum, which displays Walthamstow’s colourful cultural history – not to mention Britain's first ever petrol-fuelled car – closed for renovation in December 2023. The refurb has been funded by £4.5 million’s worth of government investment.  Soon the facelift will be complete – and the revamped house has various new bells and whistles. Of these are five new exhibition rooms, which will host various never-before-seen displays on anything from the borough’s contributions to theatre, music, cinema, and sport, to its connections to the transatlantic slave trade. There’s also a space for temporary exhibitions in a room designed by award-winning architects Pringle Richards Sharratt. Photograph: Vestry House, GuM And if you’re not too museum-fatigued after seeing all that, visitors can peer at the house’s very own police cell from when it was a 19th century jail, now open to the public. Brand new amenities are also...