The Time Out London blog team

London becomes a glorious glittering wonderland this time of year. But it also gets seriously, seriously crowded. Ice skating rinks get booked up weeks in advance, department stores get so full you can barely move, train stations are packed with more tourists and commuters than normal, and good luck getting a seat in a central London pub.  If all of that sounds like your nightmare, don’t worry. It can (mostly) be avoided. To help you swerve the seasonal crowds, location-sharing app Life360 has predicted which London pubs will be the busiest this Christmas. It compiled the list by looking at the number of visits lasting at least one hour within 10 metres of a pub’s location between December 1 to 23 or Dec 31 last year. Obviously, it’s not definitive, but it is a pretty good indicator of busyness.  It looks like the most packed pubs this month are likely to be those nearby offices and commuter routes, owing to all the workers that like to indulge in a few pints post work. According to Life360, London’s busiest boozer this festive season will be The Globe, a City pub that is a literal stone’s throw from Moorgate tube station. Photograph: Shutterstock Nell Gwynne Tavern in Charing Cross came second place in Life360’s research while the Duke of York in Victoria landed in third place.  Life360 said: ‘Aside from the locations showcasing the desired ease of getting home, the top 10 list also reveals that office workers are not shying away from the post work day drink. With The...

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...