The Time Out London blog team

It may, famously, be the most important meal of the day, but breakfast is often severely underrated – overlooked in favour of a trendier brunch or simply skipped altogether. Not by us. London is stuffed with places serving fry-ups, pancakes, pastries and porridge and more worth rising early for. And Time Out has put together a new list of the very best.  Number one in our ranking of London’s greatest spots for breakfast is The Wolseley. There are few places that take the first meal of the day quite as seriously as this Piccadilly restaurant. It’s been famed for its breakfast spread for decades – one of the UK’s most renowned food critics, the late AA Gill, even wrote an entire book dedicated to it.  Time Out’s food editor Leonie Cooper called the Wolseley an ‘always-fun and always-busy art deco-styled grand café - and still a celeb-spotting paradise’. She added: ‘If you like to start your day with a sense of occasion, it doesn’t get much better than The Wolseley. From a just-baked pastry or an omelette Arnold Bennett, to a decadent kedgeree or the creamed porridge with fruit compote.’ Photograph: The Wolseley   Alongside every breakfast classic you could wish for, the Wolseley’s has a selection of specialities that include grilled kipper with mustard butter, fired haggis and duck eggs with whiskey sauce and fishcakes with poached eggs and hollandaise.  This is a rather posh venue, so prices aren’t low. But, Leonie says, ‘at a place of this exceptional quality you...

It’s no secret that London’s rental market is in a very poor state right now. As much as we’d all love to have a place all to ourselves, eye-watering prices force many – particularly young – Londoners to make do with a flat share. But how much would you need to earn in order to afford renting an apartment of your own? And how does that compare to other major cities across Europe? The Economist has revealed how affordable flats are in 28 European cities, in what it calls the ‘Carrie Bradshaw Index’ – named, of course, after the Sex in the City protagonist who rents her rather nice New York flat on a single person’s salary.  It couldn’t help but wonder: can the average Londoner, like Carrie, afford to live in a decent apartment on their own while still having cash to spare for designer shoes and endless Cosmos? The answer, you won’t be surprised to find out, is no.  The publication goes by the general rule of thumb that rent is affordable when it costs no more than 30 percent of the tenant’s monthly income. So, each city’s ‘Bradshaw score’ is calculated by dividing the average local wage by the wage that would be needed to keep rent within budget. Any place with a score less than one is branded unaffordable. Photograph: Abdul_Shakoor / Shutterstock.com The Big Smoke got a ‘Bradshaw score’ of just 0.68 percent. In London, the average wage is £55,530 and the average one-bed flat sits at £2,000 a month. That means anyone on an average salary would have to say goodbye to 44...

Whether you’re an immersive experience obsessive or someone that finds the whole idea of interacting with live actors quite unbearable, there’s no denying the chokehold that audience-participatory adult playgrounds have had on London in the past few years.  Now Phantom Peak, London’s Wild West-themed immersive town, has announced it is moving to a new venue that promises to be even better. Following on from the success of its Canada Water outpost, the interactive steampunk-tinged cowboy world will arrive in Stratford, east London, in the summer of 2026.  Not sure of exactly what happens at Phantom Peak? It’s an immersive ‘town’ that blends live performance, interactive storytelling and games within a continuously evolving narrative that changes every few months. Guests follow storylines, solve quests and undergo game-based challenges during their visit.  The new Stratford location promises to be even bigger than the OG, with a multi-level and fully accessible venue featuring three distinct areas, each with its own storyline. It will also have a themed bar open seven days a week plus upgraded technology to improve the interactive gameplay.  Phantom Peak in Canada Water will close on February 28 2026, with the Stratford location expected to open a few months later.  Looking for immersive experiences? We’ve seen them all, literally. Here’s what we learned doing five immersive London shows in 12 hours.  ICMYI: National Gallery masterpieces are coming to this south London...