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Portobello Road Market
Photograph: Richie Chan / Shutterstock

Notting Hill area guide: the best things to do

Discover the best things to do in Notting Hill, including Portobello Road Market, great cinemas, restaurants, bars and pubs in W10 and W11

Alex Sims
Edited by
Alex Sims
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Notting Hill is so much more than just the setting for that famous movie: it plays host to the Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s biggest street fiesta; it’s brimming with fashionable restaurants, pubs, bars and shops; it’s home to one of London’s best street markets: Portobello Road; and it’s got oodles of fascinating architecture and cultural history, including the Ladbroke Grove punk/reggae scene.

Attracting millions of visitors every year to its rainbow-coloured houses, enviable gardens and boho atmos, Notting Hill is the perfect place to spend a weekend exploring. Whether you’re into shopping, eating, cinema or just people-watching, it’s a great bit of London to lose a few hours (or even a few days) in. 

RECOMMENDED: The lowdown on London by area

Things to do in Notting Hill

Portobello Road Market

Portobello Road Market

You’ll find more than bric-à-brac at this characterful and vibrant London institution

Museum of Brands

Museum of Brands

Explore the history of consumerism, culture, design, domestic life, fashion, folly and fate

The best bits of Notting Hill

Restaurants in Notting Hill

Farmacy

Farmacy

  • 4 out of 5 stars

If Jay Gatsby had fled West Egg for the beaches of Bali, his new home would probably look a lot like west London’s latest health food spot. Farmacy (as in...

Fez Mangal

Fez Mangal

  • price 1 of 4

A compact, no-frills Turkish BYO on Ladbroke Grove.

Mazi

Mazi

  • 5 out of 5 stars

This stylish addition to the capital’s Hellenic dining scene opened in 2012 in what used to be Costas Grill. Its food has more in common with the creations of...

Hereford Road

Hereford Road

  • 5 out of 5 stars

St John in Farringdon has become something of a culinary academy, sending its graduates out across the city to spread the word. Hereford Road is run by one of...

Bars in Notting Hill

The Resting Room

The Resting Room

  • price 3 of 4

Portobello Road Gin couldn’t have come up with a better concept for the height of London’s second gin craze (the first was the less salubrious...

Trailer Happiness

Trailer Happiness

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

This popular Portobello Road basement bar calls itself a tiki bar, but the hilariously dodgy decor resists simple categorisation. It looks like a...

Cow

Cow

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

Owner Tom Conran was a gastropub pioneer, and the Cow continues to serve fine, pricey, fish-oriented food in its upstairs restaurant. Eating in the smallish...

Prince Bonaparte

Prince Bonaparte

  • 3 out of 5 stars

There’s a hint of gastropub-by-rote to the large, corner Bonaparte, but the formula is rendered well. It’s a big, bare-bricked, high-ceilinged...

Hotels in Notting Hill

Portobello Hotel

Portobello Hotel

For bath-related celebrity antics, the Portobello has no equal: Alice Cooper kept his snake in his, while Johnny Depp filled a tub with champagne for Kate Moss...

The Laslett

The Laslett

For a cute, British boutique vibe, make a beeline for The Laslett. We're not talking Union Jacks all over the place. Oh no. It's much more elegant at this...

Pubs in Notting Hill

Churchill Arms

Churchill Arms

  • 3 out of 5 stars

Not that most tourists would know, but there seems to be a contradiction here. The Churchill, a celebration of the wartime leader (they even estimate the...

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

  • price 2 of 4

The Windsor is an ancient inn, and thankfully a 2013 refurb was sympathetic to its many charms. It’s clad in aged wood the brown of Princess Anne’s...

The Eagle

The Eagle

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4

Away from the absolute chaos that greets you outside Ladbroke Grove tube and up the nearby hill sits The Eagle. It’s bright and airy in summer, dark and cosy...

The Elgin

The Elgin

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

The few patrons in place on a Thursday mid-afternoon were dawdling luxuriously in this big, airy neighbourhood hangout, and it was a treat to join them. This...

The perfect weekend in Notting Hill

Heading to Notting Hill Carnival?