Lauren O’Neill

It would be a total understatement to call Peckham a melting-pot. Home to Del Boy, road rap hero Giggs, national acting treasures Olivia Colman and John Boyega and a much-photographed pink staircase, this south-east London neighbourhood is a place where a multitude of cultures exist alongside one another, creating a vibe that is completely unique. Here, you’ll find communities with their roots and origins in Nigeria, the Caribbean, China, India, Turkey, eastern Europe and many more places, all of whom leave their indelible marks on the area.  The beating heart of the area is Rye Lane, a cacophony of sounds and colours where you’ll find fruit and veg stalls and clothing stores on top of chicken shops and arty cafes, jumbled up with the smells of saltfish and raw meat. Walk past the kiosks playing Nigerian pop and the Chinese supermarket inexplicably blasting dance bangers and you’ll reach the Rye: a sprawling patch of green that stretches all the way to East Dulwich. 🏘️ Ultimate guide to where to stay in London But Peckham isn’t all about Rye Lane’s rickety shopfronts, crowded arcades and looming tower blocks. The side streets are leafy and low-rise, with cast-iron bollards by artist Antony Gormley. The railway arches house mechanics, breweries, bars, a tattooist and even a foundry. To the east, the streets around Queen’s Road station have started sprouting trendy bars and small plates spots, which sit alongside old man boozers and the famous M Manze pie shop, where you might

Head to Hackney and you've got a seriously exciting evening of dining ahead of you, as some of the city's boldest chefs have set up shop in this rapidly-gentrifying patch of east London. High-end restaurants sit alongside chic brunch spots, inviting gastropubs and long-established neighbourhood joints. Whatever you're after, you'll more than likely find it here. Go east(ish) and eat. The latest additions to the list include modern Korean marvel Miga, Sesta in the old shell of the much-loved Pidgin, fun with fire at Lagom, chef Abby Lee's incredible Mambow, Ace Pizza in Victoria Park, and Elephant - an Italian restaurant in the bones of an old Victorian pub.  RECOMMENDED: Here are London's 50 Best Restaurants. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor and thinks Hackney restaurants are some of the best in London (but don't tell the other boroughs, they'll only get jealous). For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. So east London it hurts? Follow our Time Out East London WhatsApp channel for the latest news, openings and goss from the coolest bit of the capital. (Yeah, we said it.) 

Need a place to stay in London? We’re here to make it easy for you. Every year, a wealth of new hotels open in the capital – a testament to the fact that London remains one of the most desirable places to visit in the world. That can, however, make it rather tricky to decide which hotel to choose. But worry not: we have slept our way across the city and hand-picked our favourites, to bring you this ultimate list of London hotels, from Mayfair to Shoreditch, and from budget to blowout (butler included).  Newcomers to our list include the all-new July in Victoria, apartment-hotels which opened in July 2025, and eco-hotel 1 Hotel Mayfair, as well as a few old classics we’ve re-reviewed just for good measure (hint: The Dorchester is just about as great as we remembered). We’ve got a brand-new number one too, but we won’t give that one away just yet. For everything from genuine good value stays to all-out, Zone 1 luxury, you’ll find something on this list for every kind of trip. Superb bars, great architecture, world-class hospitality and the opportunity to have a home-from-home in the best city in the world await you – here are the best hotels in London.  🏘️ Looking for even more options? Check out our list of the best Airbnbs in London Which area is best to stay in London? It’s not just the range of hotels that’s so impressive – you’re also spoilt for choice when it comes to picking a neighbourhood to stay in London. The city is made up of a sprawling network of dynamic neighb

Peckham locals have always been proud of the area’s brand: a melting pot of cultural vibrancy, eccentric individuals, and an artsy, young DIY crowd thanks to nearby Goldsmiths University and Camberwell College of Arts. It rivals Dalston and all those other East End upstarts as the place to hang out, and it’s the perfect spot for new restaurants to find their feet. Here are some of the best in the area, as well as a host of notable places to eat just down the road in Camberwell, too.  RECOMMENDED: The best 50 restaurants in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

You’ve decided you’re travelling to London. You’ve booked your transport and downloaded a tube map, but where to stay? You’ve probably clocked that London is one massive, sprawling city, made up of neighbourhoods that each have their own unique character. Resist the urge to panic-book a fancy hotel in London’s West End – there’s plenty more out there, we promise. Dive into the real London by branching out from the well-trodden tourist path. Immerse yourself in the sights, sounds and smells of somewhere totally new. Whether you’re after lively nightlife, easy access to gorgeous green spaces, culture on your doorstop, or serious dining, you’ll find it here. Ready to get booking? Read on for our guide to the best neighbourhoods and places to stay in London.  📍 RECOMMENDED: Ultimate guide to the best hotels and Airbnbs in London Ella Doyle and Rosie Hewitson are editors at Time Out London. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.

Richmond: go for the green space (or for the Ted Lasso location spotting clout), stay for the gastronomy. There are more than a few great restaurants in TW9, from charming neighbourhood bistros and waterfront restaurants, to easy-breezy brunch spots and polished garden cafés with lovely outdoor dining areas. Here's our pick of Richmond’s best. RECOMMENDED: The very best breakfasts in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. .

London, obviously, has a great many cafés, but how to choose? We've got normal ones and really posh ones. Massive ones and tiny ones. Ones with loads of cake, and ones with loads of sandwiches. All of them, thankfully, with coffee and tea. This list is our attempt to group together the best ones. Want to know the difference between this list and our ranking of London’s best coffee shops? Well at these spots you can get eggs (fried, poached or scrambled) or a sit-down meal with your flat white. RECOMMENDED: London's best breakfasts. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Damn, 2024 came through with some absolute bangers. We had Brat summer with hit-after-hit from Charli xcx, but we also saw Sabrina Carpenter sing silly little outros to her sleeper hit Nonsense, Taylor Swift quite simply refusing to leave the charts (by any means necessary) and Chappell Roan catapult into fame faster than you can say ‘Pink Pony Club’. The past year really was for the pop girlies. But what are the songs that defined the year? Well, aside from the above, we’ve seen chart-topping country boy crooners, instantly iconic rap takedowns and joyously twee indie – all making 2024 a pretty stellar year for new music. I was tasked with building our ranking of the best songs of 2024 and compiled this list by asking our amazing international team of writers and editors to contribute their year-defining tracks. Expect to find a global list of tunes, from personal favourites to chart-toppers that simply can’t be ignored. 

London is a stressful city at the best of times, but going away for a few days to recharge isn’t always possible. However, you can get a quick fix of relaxation with a trip to one of London’s best day spas. Dissolve into a hot tub or heated pool, feel your muscles release as you succumb to the heat of a sauna or steam room and let a professional massage your cares away. The places on our list of London’s best day spas range from the ultra-affordable to the super-luxurious, and includes tried-and-tested favourites from several of our editors (they’re a perennially stressed out bunch with some of the worst postures you’ve ever seen, so trust us when we say they’re the perfect guinea pigs for trying out some steam rooms and massages). Ready to step out of your daily life for a few hours. Here are fourteen of our favourite paradises for pampering, right here in London. Aaaaaaah. Recommended: the best spas in LondonRecommended: the best hotels in LondonRecommended: the best Airbnbs in London

London is full of glitz, glamour, and very swanky places. And if you want to stay somewhere with character and individuality, give the chain hotels a day off and head to one of London’s gorgeous boutique hotels. There are plenty of brilliant smaller hotels in London to suit everyone’s taste, from cosy hipster hangouts to extravagant, super-central lodgings that give London’s five-star institutions a run for their money. With artfully designed rooms, well-considered service and quirky extra touches, London’s best boutique hotels are all about being a little less fusty and a lot more on-trend.  Looking for more options? Check out London’s best Airbnbs. Who makes the cut? While we might not stay in every hotel featured, we've based our list on top reviews, hosts and amenities to find you the best stays. This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.

From head-spinning literary debuts to masterful novels from authors at the height of their power, big-name autobiographies to binge-worthy cultural histories, here are our editors’ favourite page-turners of 2023. Add these lot to your ‘to read’ pile, stat. RECOMMENDED: 🎬 The best movies of 2023📺 The best TV shows of 2023🎵 The best albums of 2023

If your Insta ‘explore’ page is full of London food, London bars and London restaurants, you’ll be well-versed with certain unavoidable phrases: ‘small plates’; ‘neighbourhood’; ‘bosh’. But there’s another, which has found renewed interest on feeds over the course of 2023. And that phrase is: ‘supper club’. A supper club is a one-off dinner thrown by a venue or cook, usually with a special menu just for that evening. They’ve been a staple of dining culture in London for years, with the most hyped ones hosted by chefs like Asma Khan of Biryani Supper Club and Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler of Mam Sham – but over the last six months, it feels as though something has shifted. Suddenly, online, it was supper clubs as far as the eye could see. There they were, replete with rows of colourfully set tables, swathes of cute gingham place settings and piles of prettily mismatched vintage plates. The supper club had collided with the algorithm, and it was taking over sharpish.  Nailing the aesthetic  As a quick scroll of TikTok or Instagram will show you, these days, there are supper clubs of all kinds: supper clubs in chefs’ own homes, on barges, even one on an old Tube carriage. There are supper clubs for singles, supper clubs for vegans, super clubs for zero-waste aficionados and supper clubs for only women. The concept has grown in visibility – and has been filtered through the #aesthetic hashtag – after being adoptied by increasing numbers of chefs with big social media follow

The source of the massive queue that reliably snakes up Camberwell Church Street every lunchtime, Falafel and Shawarma serves up breezeblock-sized falafel wraps for about a fiver, and trays piled high with moist chicken shawarma for not much, with a host of additional touches that mark this Lebanese takeaway out as an elite lunch spot. Add soft aubergine in sweet tomato sauce to your wrap, chuck on a side of almost fudgy potatoes, and order your chicken as part of a mezze with stuffed vine leaves, fried shards of flatbread and whatever other good stuff happens to be on the counter. Also: always, always get garlic and chilli sauce. 

While everyone who’s ever set foot in Peckham knows what Frank’s Café is, you might be less familiar with Bold Tendencies, the outdoor art gallery that Frank’s sits amongst, which is also open from May to September every year. The permanent collection includes work by world-renowned artists like Jenny Holzer, Richard Wentworth and Abdel Abdessemed, and featured artworks change annually according to each year’s theme. While it’s great to combine a visit with a trip to Frank’s, Bold Tendencies is also a brilliant destination for art fans all on its own.

Accessed via the Old Kent Road, Walworth Road, and Camberwell, Burgess Park is one of the two major parks that bookend Peckham – the other being Peckham Rye –  and, on balance, is probably a bit more action-packed than its compatriot. Facilities include a BMX park, tennis courts, and a park-run track for weekly timed runs, while you’ll often see roller bladers gliding about its paths. It occasionally hosts open-air film screenings in the summer, as well as several festivals, the largest of which are Maiden Voyage and the Jazz Cafe Festival. 

Was it a side of genuinely useful social enterprise you were after with that hot cup of joe? That’s exactly what you get at Change Please Academy at Peckham Print Village, a café where people experiencing homelessness can complete barista training, allowing them to earn a living wage. It is, obviously, an incredibly worthwhile project, and in supporting what they do, you’ll also get consistently very good coffee.

If it’s jerk you want, this Caribbean hole-in-the-wall at the end of Peckham High Street is where you must go. Classics like flaky patties and an especially robust curry goat are always on the menu, but it’s the jerk that is particularly special – the chicken from the grill is charred and tender, and the jerk sauce only compliments it, sweet and maddeningly moreish. If you’re around at the weekend, make sure to pick up a portion of jerk pork, too.

In many ways the centrepiece of the area, Peckham Rye is a 113-acre park for the community. Any given weekend sees various local sports teams playing and practising – everything from rugby to hurling – kids populating the well-maintained playground, plus more hobbyist runners than you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s an excellent spot for a walk or a picnic, and contains manicured gardens with benches as well as its more open areas. In the summer months, it hosts various festivals including major dance music weekender Gala.

Immediately off Rye Lane is Copeland Park, home to the Bussey Building and its rooftop bar and cinema – a lovely choice for a wholesome night out on a summer evening – as well as bars, restaurants and shops. Visit Vintique for a massive selection of vintage furniture, specialising in mid-century modern, and Copeland Social for great Japanese fusion food courtesy of the Yagi Izakaya pop-up kitchen.

Peckham’s self-styled ‘corridor of wonders and esoteric delights’ is a haven of small businesses, from nail techs and hairdressers, to independent publishers, Inverted Audio, a record shop specialising in electronic music, and Balamii, south London’s favourite radio station. Though it may be narrow, it’s easy to while away the hours browsing everything Holdrons Arcade has to offer.

Brought to Peckham by the people behind pioneering east London nightclub The Cause and Hackney Wick venue All My Friends, The Greyhound is a new pub for the area, with big screens for sport and a menu of burgers, pies and Sunday roasts. It also features a roomy basement that’s perfect for dancing, and a quality roster of local DJs, collectives and record labels stop by to spin tunes on weekends. Fridays and Saturdays get pretty lively, but you’re always likely to get a seat, and you’ll hear some good tunes too. 

Closely linked to Camberwell’s beloved Nandine, Yada’s on Rye Lane is is a Kurdish-run restaurant that does a fantastic line in mezze, so even if you’re adverse to sharing, it’s an excellent place to go with a group. If you do happen to be dining solo, go for the Falafel Beauty plate, which is probably the best £13 you can spend in the area, and offers you a taste of everything. Otherwise, menu highlights include the baba ganoush, the joja kebab, made with succulent minced lamb, and the delicious veggie kibbeh.

Everyone thinks they ‘get’ halloumi wraps – and then they have the Yemane’s version and realise they didn’t have a clue. This van parked up just off Rye Lane slings out north African wraps flavoured with a selection of house-made chutneys, which vary in spice levels but all hit a 10 on the taste-o-meter. Whether you go for the fantastic breaded halloumi, the crispy falafel or the lamb shish, this is the best, most reliable lunch option on Rye Lane.

When it comes to hotels, you’re not always looking for the same thing on every trip. Sometimes you want luxury, and sometimes you want simplicity and ease. Leven, located just off Manchester’s Canal Street, is an ideal meeting point between the two.  This mid-sized hotel, located only a few minutes’ walk from Manchester Victoria station and the city centre is a pretty unique proposition, offering all the perks of a fancy hotel, with all of those comforts you do tend to miss when you’re away from home also included. Guests can enjoy a cracking continental breakfast, a great Lobby Bar downstairs at reception, and standalone bathtubs, but rooms are also equipped with comfy living spaces with kitchens, wall-mounted TVs and big sofas to lounge on. Leven really does feel like a home away from home – that is, if your home was conceived with elegant, minimalist Scandi-style all the way through, and was equipped with a minibar.  In our Living Space room, there was everything you could ask for from a brilliant hotel: the type of rainfall shower you could linger under for days, beds to positively sink into, for example. But there were also practical elements designed to make your stay as convenient as possible. The full-size kitchen, for example, was replete with sleek fixtures and fittings that I’d have loved to cook with had I been staying for longer. It’s the type of addition that for a longer stay – or one with children – would be a total godsend, especially when it comes to budgeti

Nothing says Christmas like pushing yourself to the human limits of food consumption, whether that means Christmas pudding, novelty crisp flavours, or simply: roasted meats. A highly important cornerstone of this particular seasonal tradition is the obligatory box of Quality Street. Cracked open in late November and passed around laps in living rooms all December long – until it’s more infuriatingly full of wrappers than it is of sweets – it wouldn’t be Christmas without between one and four chocolates to send you nicely over the edge after dinner every night. Your choice of Quality Street is especially telling (milk chocolate block: boring; fudge: cute, likes little treats), but consider this: is it actually the case that your Quality Street chooses you? Hear us out: each choc in the box has clear characteristics (like, Strawberry Delight is definitely annoying on a night out), but does your favourite match your personality? Are you a classic, discerning green triangle? Or the biggest chaos merchant of them all: a Toffee Finger? Take our (definitely very scientific) quiz below to find out.    

Picture it: you are sitting on a restaurant terrace drinking a cold glass of white wine. It’s a balmy 26 degrees in London and you don’t need a jacket, and are wearing sunglasses so you look really fit. You feel good. You are perusing a concise but varied menu and you are about to order a meal which will both satisfy and enrich you. But what are you going to order? What foods will define your summer dining experiences in 2023?  When considering what the big dishes of sunny season might be, there are a few criteria that we need to take into account. First – seasonality: which fruits and vegetables thrive during the high season? But equally, is it light and airy enough to eat on a hot day? Secondly – how does it look? London restaurants are increasingly susceptible to the hype machine, largely fuelled by social media and photos of viral dishes that crop up online. The big hits of the summer then, will also be photogenic. And thirdly – and most importantly – is it properly delicious? The dishes that go stratospheric, after all, are those which stand up to demand.  With these important yardsticks in mind, I have employed my knowledge as a deeply greedy individual to predict what you’ll be ordering as you while away the hours (and your earnings) during the very best time of year, from fluffy roe to citrusy crudo.    10) Perello olives Now memed to within an inch of their lives, meaty, briney Perello olives are still a very nice offering for your mate’s barbecue (moved indoors last