Laura Richards

We all want to be absolutely glowing and super fresh-faced. Alas, living in London can really get in the way of having dewy, delicious skin. That’s thanks to the combined efforts of pollution and air-conditioned offices, as well as the added bonuses of harsh weather, booze, sun exposure, dehydration and – our least favourite – the inevitable passing of time. Just thinking about what we put our skin through is enough to give you frown lines. Happily, there are loads of great spas, treatment rooms and estheticians in London who can give your face a break and a much-needed zhuzh. Whether you’re after a relaxing, soothing facial massage, some instant radiance, a total skincare overhaul or something a little more intense such as microneedling or laser treatment, read our pick of facials in London.  RECOMMENDED: The best spas in London. 

If you know where to look, there are some great places for wine, spirits, craft beer and beyond in buzzy King’s Cross. Take a look at our list of the best places to drink in the historic – and revamped – neighbourhood, from old-school spots and elegant DJ bars to wonderful wine caves. Try the bracingly hip Sweeties at The Standard, or the majestic Gothic Bar, which you'll find at another local landmark hotel, after visiting one of the best restaurants in King’s Cross.  RECOMMENDED: These are the best King’s Cross pubs.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Battle through the chain boozers of Upper Street and you'll find a host of charming pubs all across Islington, from Canonbury and Barnsbury to De Beauvoir and Highbury. Whether you're in the mood for a proper old-school palace of pints or a slap-up gastropub with fancy food, there's a watering hole for you in Angel and Islington. Here are some of finest pubs in the area, and if you want to find something a little further afield, then these are the best pubs in nearby Dalston, as well as the best pubs in Stoke Newington and the best pubs in Hackney. RECOMMENDED: Don't forget to check out Islington's best restaurants.    Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.  

We know a lot about bars in London. We know about the city’s best bars. We know about rooftop bars. We know about cocktail bars. And yes, we even know about (whisper it) hidden bars. There’s a chance you might have walked past a bunch of these secret smashers without even realising they're there. That’s how extremely secret they are. London has its fair share of mysterious, hard-to-find drinking establishments and if you promise to be discreet, we’ll let you in on them... RECOMMENDED: London's best quirky bars.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Few areas of London are quite so steeped in history as Soho. There are cultural institutions on practically every corner of this bustling central London neighbourhood, from historic drinking dens frequented by famous artists and writers to iconic gay bars, hallowed music venues that have played host to countless jazz, blues and rock’n’roll icons to relics of the area’s seedy past as London’s primary red light district. These days, Soho is equal parts edgy and sexy, polished and chic; a glorious mélange of cheap and cheerful gay bars, sleek restaurants, swanky designer boutiques, legendary old cafés and delis, tourists stopping by on the way to a West End show, office escapees necking post-work pints and gleeful teens gliding by on rickshaws blasting the latest chart hits.  Time Out’s offices are located just a short walk down the road in Covent Garden, which means our editors have spent many lunch hours browsing our way down Carnaby Street, and even more Thursday evenings stopping by the Coach & Horses for ‘a swift one’ before stumbling home via the Cambridge Circus McDonald’s after four pints and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch. As such, we’re extremely qualified to tell you what is good in this colourful, hectic and quintessentially ‘London’ part of town. So here are 20 of our absolute favourite things to do in the area. We’ll catch you ‘Going For Dinner With Billie Piper’ soon (if you know, you know!) RECOMMENDED: The best hotels in SohoThe best restaurants in Soho

For those wanting to take their taste for tequila to the next level, there's only one answer; get drinking its smoky, sexy and sumptuous sibling, mezcal. Unlike tequila, which is made only from blue agave in select regions in Mexico, mezcal is made from the heart (or piña) from up to over 30 species of the agave plant. The piñas are cooked in underground pit ovens, which gives the spirit its distinctive flavour, before being mashed and left to ferment. The liquid produced is then distilled in clay or copper pots, again altering the flavour. Of course, the best way to get to grips with mezcal is to try a whole bunch of it. Which is why we’ve traveled the length and width of London to find the best bars to drink mezcal.  RECOMMENDED: The best Mexican restaurants in London.

It's no longer impossible to find tasty and satisfying alternatives to pints at London's pubs and bars – in fact, some of the no-alcohol options on offer right now are even better than their boozy cousins. And they come with an added bonus of leaving you hangover-free. These bars cater to non-drinkers for Dry January and beyond. We've got buzzing drinking dens that also specialise in alcohol-free cocktails, completely dry tasting rooms and pubs with a penchant for low-and-no beers. These zero-percent champions are 100 percent fantastic.  RECOMMENDED: The best vegan restaurants in London.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Feeling the chill? As temperatures drop, it's time to make like a caveman and seek fire. And London's pubs are more than ready to help you out, lighting their fireplaces to fend off wintry weather. Whether it's in a sleek gastropub or a classic old boozer, there's a glowing fire waiting for you somewhere this season. You'll find them all in our guide to London’s best pubs with fires – but get down early to guarantee the warmest armchair and sofa spots.  RECOMMENDED: The best places to drink mulled wine in London.

Looking for a seriously good date spot but not quite sure where to start? We got you. We’re proper romantics at Time Out and think London is the sexiest city in the world (sorry, Paris!) Some of these places are the kind of dreamy, low-lit bars you'd expect, but others are a little more left-of-centre; we know it takes more than couple of candles and a Negroni to charm this city's discerning daters. So read on to discover atmospheric cocktail bars as well as some character-filled watering holes – all of them perfect for a lovely spot of London love.   Fancy some food with your flirting? Here are the most romantic restaurants in London Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

There are few better ways to make the most of a sunny (or not-so-sunny) afternoon in London than by spending it in a beer garden. Supping on a couple of cold ‘uns with your mates feels good anywhere, but in the Great British outdoors? There’s something seriously special about pints under London’s famous skies. And this city certainly has no shortage of spectacular beer gardens. Some have lush foliage and serene vibes, while others are ideal for booming open-air day parties. Some serve up marvellous cocktails, while others provide for gorgeous city and river views.  If you’ve had enough of the great outdoors, don’t forget to check out our list of London’s best pubs. Then, if you want to be outside but higher up, you might like our directory of the capital's finest rooftop bars.  RECOMMENDED: Excellent outdoor activities in London.

There's nothing to get you building up a thirst like admiring a beautiful body of water. And fortunately, London's full of places where you can soak up some riverside or canalside atmos while sipping a crisp and delicious pint. In our guide to the best riverside bars and pubs we provide top-notch Thames-side drinking spots, as well as some first rate canalside pubs and bars fit for a pleasant day of drinking in the capital. The list below runs from west London to east London and takes in the Thames, the River Lea and the Regent’s Canal. RECOMMENDED: Check out London's best rooftop bars and best beer gardens. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

If there's a chill in the air, there's only one place to go: London's pubs were made for cold nights and warming pints. What makes a pub cosy? Roughed-up sofas, comfy chairs and a burning open fire help, and these pubs have offered a welcoming home-away-from-home to generations of punters. Whether you want to get warmed-up after a brisk walk through Hampstead Heath or you feel like getting all aglow while in Soho, these are pubs to warm your cockles and lift your spirits. From creakingly old inns with nooks for hiding away from the London fog to modern pubs that know how to turn on the warming charm, find somewhere in the capital to get seriously cosy over autumnal ales and mulled wine. RECOMMENDED: The cosiest things to do in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor, and likes nothing more than a Guinness by a roaring open fire in a backstreet boozer. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

This review is from 2016. ‘Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ returns in 2024. No, not ‘Jeremy Kyle: The Musical’. Transferring from cult success at the Edinburgh Fringe is ‘Shit-Faced Shakespeare’, an anarchic adaptation of the Bard’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ where one member of the cast gets tanked up before curtains up.  Our compère for the evening sets the scene for this compact comedy version of the play, where the – let’s face it – boring Mechanicals sub-plot your teacher told you was important and all that fairy king and queen nonsense has been cast aside so we can focus on four lovers romping in the woods. The additional twist being that one of the four actors in the hormonal quartet has necked two Stellas, a large volume of vodka and squash, and a tin of pre-mixed Woo Woo – they’re a classy lot, these thesps.  It’s left a surprise which member of the cast is pissed-up, though the game is given up when he swaggers and smirks his way across the stage and lets his debauchery turn this into what must be Shakespeare’s raunchiest number (it’s the kind of behaviour that would get you Bard, geddit). Improv is top-notch and although our dear Lysander makes for a lovable drunk, it’s the rest of the cast’s razor-sharp reactions that carry the play. The only character outside this tangled love web is a well-hung, steam-punk Puck, who helps maintain the daft momentum, although littering his scenes with a few too many ejaculation gags.  Proceedings not-so-gently

Magic Mike on stage feels a bit like dating in London in my thirties: all the young, hot people got it on while I sat on the sidelines. But as a voyeur at this expensive strip-meets-cabaret show, there was some serious titillation: pains are taken to remind you that it has very much been made with the female gaze in mind. The romp unfolds in a faux-club built in Leicester Square’s already-slightly-seedy (in a good way) Hippodrome Casino, based upon the Xquisite strip joint from Steven Soderbergh’s surprise 2012 cinematic  smash. The movie’s star Channing Tatum – whose IRL undressing escapades originally informed the film’s plot – is behind this theatrical reimagining, with London the second destination of ‘Magic Mike Live’ following a hugely successful run in Vegas. But it’s important to note that co-director Tatum (who, alas, merely lends his voice to the performance) has worked with a gender-balanced team and the sense that this is a safe space for women enshrouds the entire show, despite it being filled with semi-naked men.  The plot (in the loosest sense) centres on Michelangelo – Mike to you – a waiter plucked from the crowd and trained in showing a woman a (consensual) good time by our female emcee, played by actor Sophie Linder-Lee. She sounds a bit like Jane Horrocks and makes a lot of jokes about ‘jizz’ and the tightness of her own vagina. Most of the ladies pulled to the stage for some public gyration were mega hot (so hot, it almost felt like they’d been planted),

Heads up! This review is from January 2018. Since then, The Mulwray upstairs has changed its focus to natural wine and basement restaurant Evelyn’s Table has acquired a Michelin star. All the more reason to pay the place a visit. In austerity London, you can expect a degree of fanfare when a closed-down pub on the edge of Chinatown reopens. In the case of The Blue Posts on Rupert Street, that excitement is doubled, since the people behind hit restaurants The Palomar and The Barbary now hold the lease to the 275-year-old pub. They’ve sliced and diced the space to cram in a cocktail bar up top and a tiny restaurant in what was once the beer cellar, with the ground level remaining a pub – of sorts. I say ‘of sorts’ because despite all the hospitality know-how, the place felt fairly inhospitable, lacking the heart or warmth you’d expect from a pub. It’s a narrow, somewhat grey space with a seriously chilly draft that meant our coats remained on for most of our stay. There’s little room for large groups, who have to cosy up on high leather stools around brushed-metal tables. Service at the bar is muted. Really, there’s little that’s pubby about it. Of course, the food and drink make a visit worth your while. Beer is on point; when we were there a stout from Titanic Brewery was going down well, while an IPA from Battersea’s Mondo and cider from Walthamstow’s The Real Al Company provided back-up. There’s real ale from Sambrook’s and the wines we sampled were quality drops, keenly pr

You can’t get high quickly enough in Dalston; sadly there’s no express lift to the area’s prime roof space. But the few flights up to Dalston Roof Park set the creative scene with wicked graffiti on the walls. There's also lurid AstroTurf, real-life flora in hanging baskets and makeshift planters, and bunting flapping in the breeze. Or in the storm, on our visit – there’s no guaranteeing that the Great British summer will actually make an appearance. With that in mind, the venue offers the shelter of a covered bar and a roofed area in front of the decks, so you can dance whatever the weather. Colour comes from bright beanbags (hang on, we thought we’d left those in the ’80s), allowing relaxed drinkers to carpet the floor as heavily as that AstroTurf. If a heatwave hits, there’s ample uncovered sunshine spots and plenty of deck chairs to lounge with a cocktail – mojitos and caipirinhas do a grand trade, but I tested out the Dalston Sunset, a cheerful blend of cranberry, lychee liqueur and gin that practically screams ‘summer’. It's open in colder months too – with the rooftop covered and heated to keep you warm and dry.

A snow-dusted Victorian town and a John Legend soundtrack give this Netflix holiday movie the ecstatic feel of The Greatest Showman with a dose of the cranky-yet-sweet-natured moralising of A Christmas Carol. And while a sugar crash hits around the movie’s midway point, there’s a lot to make you feel good about David E Talbert’s tale of a toymaker who’s lost his mojo, and the estranged granddaughter who helps him find it again. Not least its mostly Black cast, which marks it out from almost every other Christmas caper before it.Like any good festive yarn, it’s a story within a story – taking us to the world of Cobbleton, home of Jangles and Things toy store. And like a lot of us this year, its owner Jeronicus Jangle (played by Justin Cornwall in the opening number) is having a bit of an existential crisis. A young Jeronicus leaping around the scene soon becomes a weathered Forest Whitaker – who plays a sad, lonely grump with reliable skill. When granddaughter and plucky science wiz Journey (Madalen Mills) arrives for a visit, she helps him reconnect with his ‘magic’ and find the ‘square root of possible’. Admittedly, it’s a load of nonsense, but it’s Christmas, so who cares?She’s soon trying to stop Toymaker of the Year and former Jangles apprentice Gustafson (Keegan-Michael Key, the perfect mustachioed villain and buffoon) from running off with another of grandad’s ideas, the one that could finally make him his millions. The moral of the story might be predictable – family a

Bun House: a whole lotta fun with its steamy takeaway counter, informal layout and Cantonese decor on a buzzy corner where Old Compton Street meets Greek Street. But there’s even more fun hidden below ground at the Chinese joint’s speakeasy-bar-meets-tea-room. It’s lit by the glow of Cantonese lettering in green neon, which bounces off luxurious red drapes, creating a room as saturated in colour as a Nicolas Winding Refn film (although the owner is said to have been more inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s ‘In The Mood for Love’). In among gorgeous design, there’s a lot of novelty in a trip to the Tea Room. The menu is printed on a newspaper and a jukebox loaded with vintage vinyl sourced from Taipei, Singapore and Hong Kong warbles out ’60s tunes, although a bold sign warns punters to look but not touch. Authenticity is in your glass as well as on the airwaves, with drinks featuring Chinese spirits and flavours. There’s a whole list of imported baijiu, China’s national drink sometimes referred to as ‘Chinese vodka’. If you’re not up for a one-way journey on the vodtrain, ease yourself in with a Mango & Chilli cocktail, which features baijiu in the background of a bold fruitiness and heat that builds and tingles. It’s also the base spirit in the Peanut & Goji, a syrupy-sweet short drink served over a large rock of ice and good enough to treat as a dessert. Both were served with playful, almost-garish garnishes. Bar snacks were just as good to look at, with the likes of pork-neck skewe

Iceland was odds-on to win 2020’s Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in history, long before – as with every other major event this year – the competition got cancelled. It seems fitting, then, that the country should take centre stage in Will Ferrell’s Netflix dedication to the europop extravaganza. And the film does mostly come across as a surprising dedication rather than the US-centric send-up many expected. It seems sensitive and mostly true to the competition. Perhaps even Will Ferrell can’t spoof the unspoofable?He stars as Lars Erickssong, a small-town guy with big dreams to win the Eurovision Song Contest with his collaborator since childhood, love interest and ‘probably not sister' Sigrit Ericksdottir (played by a pitch-perfect Rachel McAdams). The kooky Icelandic stereotypes make them a likeable pair, but one with a very small fanbase. Even Lars’s ‘extremely handsome father’ Erick (now-silver fox Pierce Brosnan) has no time for the duo’s delusions in power-ballad group, Fire Saga. But by a twist of fate (and by praying to the Icelandic elves), the band ends up competing for their country on the contest’s main stage in Edinburgh.The songs are as anthemic as they ought to be (Savan Kotecha, the songwriter behind Ariana Grande’s biggest hits, is one of the production team). The staging is ludicrous, especially for Lion of Love by Russian lothario and favourite Alexander Lemtov (performed with animalistic prowess by Dan Stevens). And the lyrics are, of course,

Islandia tenía muchas posibilidades de ganar el Festival de la Canción de Eurovisión 2020 por primera vez en la historia, mucho antes, como con cualquier otro evento importante de este año, la competencia se canceló. Parece apropiado, entonces, que el país tome el centro del escenario en este tributo de Will Ferrell. Parece sensible y mayormente fiel a la competencia. Ferrell interpreta a Lars Erickssong, un chico de un pueblo pequeño con el gran sueño de ganar el Festival de la Canción de Eurovisión con su colaboradora de la infancia, interés amoroso y probablemente no hermana, Sigrit Ericksdottir (interpretado por Rachel McAdams). Los extravagantes estereotipos islandeses los convierten en un dúo simpático, pero uno con una base de fans muy pequeña. Incluso el padre extremadamente guapo de Lars, Erick (ahora zorro plateado Pierce Brosnan) no tiene tiempo para las ilusiones del dúo en el grupo de baladas Fire Saga. Pero por un giro del destino (y rezando a los elfos islandeses), la banda termina compitiendo por su país en el escenario principal del concurso, en Edimburgo. Las canciones son himnos como deberían ser (Savan Kotecha, el compositor detrás de los éxitos más grandes de Ariana Grande, es del equipo de producción). La puesta en escena es ridícula, especialmente para “Lion of Love” del ruso Lotario y el favorito Alexander Lemtov (realizado con destreza animal, Dan Stevens). Y la letra es, por supuesto, una tontería total. Los fanáticos de Eurovisión sin duda disfru

A bouncer pulls open the door to one of the arches by Queens Road Peckham station, as if it were an exclusive club. Plenty of railway arches have transformed into breweries and bars in south-east London – Peckham has a shedload of them – but this is the first along this stretch and there’s something very different about it. Mainly the fact that it feels nothing like drinking underneath the comings and goings of Queens Road. The bricks have been painted in earthy red tones, a directional sound system played soul tunes we could easily talk over and thanks to impeccable soundproofing, I hardly detected the rumblings overhead during what became a very protracted cocktail session. The lights of a very stylish chandelier flickered a touch… or maybe I was just a bit drunk. That all probably makes it sound a bit bougie, but it’s not. Smokey Kudu is the child of Kudu, a knockout South African restaurant a couple of hundred metres down the road. What Kudu does well is to marry fun flavours with top-notch service. And that’s what they’re doing at its spin-off bar. Two smiley staff worked the floor, with a dedicated bartender in a beanie hat behind the bar, smoke occasionally puffing from his workstation. Divided into four sections, the menu works from light, aperitif-style drinks through to heavy, boozy cocktails, reimagining the classics using ingredients native to South Africa. If you don’t fancy that, the SA wine list is just as on-point. But you really should try the cocktails, pric

The whole speakeasy thing doesn’t work if, once you pull back the door, the bar behind it isn’t buzzing. And it was really quiet when I visited Tincture. It’s below a vegan restaurant and is also predominantly plant-based – and right now, there’s a bit of a correlation between veganism and teetotalism. And while there are as many alcohol-free cocktails on the menu as there are boozy ones, you wouldn’t picture that from a bar modelled on the Prohibition era’s hedonism. The reality is that it’s a great hangout, on or off the wagon. Chiming in with the planet-saving plant-based ethos, there was no refit when the basement bar space was acquired. Instead, it’s chosen to recycle the art deco-leaning interior. Luckily, it’s a lovely bar – if a little fifty shades of brown. Seasonal, zero-waste cocktails are named after the foodstuff that makes them, and while five a day might be a bit much, we polished off a few of these sinkable bevvies pretty swiftly. Favourites included Pears, a kombucha-filled number with shavings of parmesan on the side, and Nips, a curiously earthy combination of apple, bitters and rum infused with roasted parsnips, which came with root veg crisps. Powering the alcohol-free stuff is an in-house creation called ‘crossip’, which our engaging bartender described as like a Lucozade sachet. It was a bit of an acquired taste in the Sazerac – a boozeless drink which tasted smoky, like a mezcal cocktail. But credit to it’s creators, it’s always nice to find new, inter

A lack of charisma and un-funny gags make this comedy about the cosmetics industry as pointless as a blunt eyeliner pencil. Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) are best buddies, business partners and flatmates in ropey friendship comedy ‘Like a Boss’. They’ve shared every detail of their lives – and plenty of dope – since high school, and yet they share little chemistry on screen as their make-up company, Mia & Mel, gets swallowed up by a cosmetics conglomerate fronted by Claire Luna (Salma Hayek). Inevitably, their friendship is tested as Luna puts them through their paces and smashes their ideas – literally, with a golf club, for no discernible reason. Predictably, Hayek’s character is a one-dimensional boss ‘bitch’ with a backstory that we never really understand, who has self-professed ‘enormous’ breasts and wears a Charlotte Tilbury wig. Scenes in Mia and Mel’s store are just as jarring. Jennifer Coolidge plays shop assistant Sydney, channelling her turn in ‘Legally Blonde’ but with astronomically worse one-liners (‘It’s fresh and clean, like a thermometer that goes in your butt’). There are some funny moments, including a shocking baby shower cake reveal and a typically sassy performance from the inimitable Billy Porter (‘Pose’) as Mia & Mel’s make-up creator, but most of the gags feel either completely out of context or completely out of nowhere – as does an appearance from Lisa Kudrow right at the film’s flimsy finale. There’s no amount of foundation that cou

Mia (Tiffany Haddish) y Mel (Rose Byrne) son las mejores amigas, compañeras de negocios y roomates en la comedia Socias en guerra. Han compartido todos los detalles de sus vidas, y mucha droga, desde la escuela secundaria, pero comparten poca química en la pantalla cuando su compañía de maquillaje, Mia & Mel, es tragada por un conglomerado de cosméticos liderado por Claire Luna (Salma Hayek). Inevitablemente, su amistad se pone a prueba cuando Luna los pone a prueba y destruye sus ideas, literalmente, con un palo de golf, sin razón aparente. Como era de esperar, el personaje de Hayek es una molesta jefa unidimensional —con una historia de fondo que nunca entendemos realmente— que se impone por sus enormes senos y usa una peluca de Charlotte Tilbury. Las escenas en la tienda de Mia y Mel son igual de discordantes. Jennifer Coolidge interpreta a Sydney, canalizando su personaje en Legalmente rubia pero con frases astronómicamente peores (Es fresco y limpio, como un termómetro en tu trasero). Hay algunos momentos divertidos, que incluyen una revelación impactante en baby shower y una actuación típicamente atrevida del inimitable Billy Porter (Pose) como creador de maquillaje de Mia & Mel, pero la mayoría de los gags se sienten completamente fuera de contexto o completamente de la nada, tal como aparece una aparición de Lisa Kudrow en el endeble final de la película. No hay una cantidad de base que pueda cubrir las grietas de los personajes a medio formar y trazar aquí.

Restaurants may have been closed for what feels like an eternity, but that hasn’t stopped the Michelin Guide from doling out a load of fresh stars for 2021. That means there are 66 London restaurants now considered to be the holy grail in dining, seven of which are brand-spanking-new to the list. While the buzz makes us want to book a table immediately, you can get a flavour of what some of these culinary destinations are all about in lockdown, too – by ordering their grub. If you haven’t already gone meal-kit mad, dive in at the deep end with one of these very fancy offerings. Or forget about faffing around with velouté in your rusty old pan and get in a very posh takeaway. Then you’ll just have to beg your housemate to hang your handbag on a bespoke stand, pull your chair out for your arrival to the table and rearrange your napkin as you nip for a toilet break between courses. All totally normal behaviour.  Here’s a complete list so you can fine dine from home. One-star newbies  Fish-focused excellence at Behind Sola brings you high-end Californian cuisine The Mayfair Indian staple that is Benares One star  South-west French fancies Club Gascon It's sophisticated. It's European. It's Elystan Street Galvin La Chapelle's French and Italian gourmet greatness The elite Indian of Gymkhana Cutting-edge dim sum from Hakkasan Seasonal tasting menu specialists Hide The Ledbury (RIP) sister restaurant Kitchen W8 Lyle’s, aka Shoreditch's favourite dining room Hey, it's that lovely Ma

Did you know that the way to the heart is actually through the stomach? Sounds gross, but trust us on this one. That means that if you’re no Casanova in the kitchen, the approach of Valentine’s Day (Monday February 14) might have you breaking out in a sweat because Monday night is the least exciting day of the week to go out and many restaurants are closed on the big day. Fret not, you’ve not left it too late for deliveries, and these ever-reliable and ever-delicious London restaurants have pulled together some very special (and not to mention easy to assemble!) meal kits for the international day of lurrrve. That means you can focus on setting the mood at home just right, or just settling in for a night in front of Netflix (cos meal kit for one = the ultimate act of self-love). Spread the love and cook up a storm with some awesome Valentine’s meal kit options.  Andrew Edmunds Recreate some of that famed date night magic from one of London’s most romantic restaurants. Head chef Tom Trubshaw has designed a three-course menu that’ll have you fall head over heels in love, from creamy carrot and chestnut soup to confit duck leg and a layered black forest gateau. They’ve even thrown in some candles from Issy Granger to help really set the mood for an amorous tablescape. Kits before the big day have sold out, but they’ll be available until the end of next month. Who says love is only reserved for one day? £65. Pre-order for Feb 18, available for delivery until March 25. https://www

Fancy a dram? Yea, you do! While you may have a go-to bottle of whisky on your makeshift drinks shelf, apparently variety is the spice of life. Who knew?! With that new knowledge, go forth and drink the spirit adventurously. While it’s harder to try new drinks while bars are closed without forking out for a whole bottle, there are a handful of life-saving companies finding a way to get affordable and really interesting whisky to yours. So check out these three delivery services to help diversify your experience of the water of life in lockdown – for Burns Night and beyond.      Whisky-Me (pictured above)  I mean, what’s not to love about a pouch of the good stuff dropping through your letterbox? You get 5cl of a different single malt delivered to your door each and every month when you sign up to subscription service Whisky-Me. It looks like Capri Sun, but the contents is curated by the team behind specialist Shoreditch bar Black Rock. If they don’t know good whisky, no one does.    From £7.95 per month, www.whisky-me.com Drams to Your Door If you’ve never visited Milroy’s, you’re missing out. Soho’s library of single malts – with a spin-off in Spitalfields – is a great shop-meets-bar to visit when looking to expand your whisky horizons. Luckily, in lockdown the team behind Milroy’s has developed a delivery service that sends flights of different whiskies to you in one neat package. Each bundle contains three 30ml drams curated by region or flavour profile. The packaging is

Christmastime is coming and new variant Omnicron is putting the cat among the turkeys: so perhaps it’s time to revisit the hottest trend of 2020, takeaway mulled wine. Even if you’re feeling nervy about sitting inside your local pub, you can still show your support – and fuel any bracing walks around the capital. C’mon! It’s all good exercise.  As the days get colder, takeaway mulled wine – a trend that first emerged in late 2020 – means you can get stuck into safe outdoor socialising without feeling the chill. Or alternatively, use the service to treat your cohabiters to a very steamy round at yours – without having to faff around with cinnamon sticks and end up with a kitchen that smells like the inside of a gingerbread house.  So get as organised as your folks with their to-do list this Christmas, and get in a warming round of the mulled wines from this list of London venues.       Clissold Park Tavern, Stoke Newington Plus hot toddies and mulled cider, too  The Grapes, Limehouse The Lauriston, Victoria Park Also serving mulled cider and hot toddies Red Lion and Sun, Highgate And Frozen Margaritas, if a thing like the cold doesn’t bother you  Renegade Urban Winery, Bethnal Green Making its own wine in its east London HQ – and mixing up three shades of the mulled stuff. Pay for a glass or get it for free with every wine bottle purchase!  Sun Tavern, Bethnal Green Also serving hot punch Pelton Arms, Greenwich Plus boozy hot chocolates or your standard takeaway pintsThe Vault

We’re frilled to welcome this gorgeously dressed and decadently trimmed mezcal spot to Stoke Newington. Doña Bar – brought to you by the team behind London Mezcal Week – has just popped up in the east London neighbourhood with its flamingo-pink look. The decor is said to blend Mexico with a 1920’s Harlem jazz club. But despite the playful appearance – and all the feathers – its got a drinks list that means serious business, with original mezcal cocktails championed.    Pasco Photography But the late-night bar’s real USP is that it will champion female-led performance. While Doña Bar is far from a girls-only space it intends to put a spotlight on female performers, with live music taking place every night.  Pasco Photography The bad news? The bar’s life in Stokey is fleeting, just popping up in the ’hood until Saturday December 21. But in that short time, it’s sure to tickle its punters pink.  Doña Bar is popping up at 92 Stoke Newington High St, N16 7NY. Open Wed-Sat, 6pm-11.45pm.  Find more hot-pink drinking spots in our list of London’s best neon-filled bars.  Get more boozy news delivered straight to your inbox when you sign up to Time Out. 

Sure, pub beer gardens are back open – but they’ve returned with a side of admin. In recent weeks, securing seats at London’s best outdoor drinking spots has involved booking waaayyy in advance. And nothing says fun like a strict two-hour timeslot policy! Luckily, takeaway pints are back too, and you don’t need to book yourself in for a session if you’re doing said session in the park.  We’ve rounded up all the London pubs near parks that are serving beer and other delights for you to take away. One final thing to mention: many pubs are now encouraging you to bring along your own pint glass to help reduce single-use plastic consumption. Drop your local a line to see if it’s joining the #plasticfreepints movement.Otherwise, though, bottoms up!   Victoria Park The Lauriston The People’s Park Tavern Hampstead Heath  The Duke of Hamilton  The Red Lion and Sun (check out its gorgeous takeout hatch!) View this post on Instagram It was late March as lockdown hit the industry when I grabbed a table from inside the pub, stuck it in the front yard and placed a few bottles of wine and beer on it, hoping in some crazy way to try and create an off sales business that might help us through the pandemic...and maybe help a few of our customers through it too! Yet seven months on, that idea, born out of an instinct for survival, has become a vital part of our business now and going forward. Many businesses have suffered from this pandemic, many of whom have been genui

Drunk so many M&S tins over the years that you’re basically Percy Pig now? Never want to look a Tyskie in the eye again? Good news. We’ve sourced some extra special tins to stock up on ready for picnic season AKA March 8 (when sitting in the park with a mate is allowed) until April 12 (when pub gardens open). Our choices?  1. Hackney distillery 58 Gin is in on the hard sparkling water act, using its spirit to make raspberry and pink-grapefruit seltzers. 2. Prefer your tinned gin in a cocktail? Hippy Fizz from Porter’s Gin is like Um Bongo for adults. It's technically made in Aberdeen but London bartenders are the brains behind it.  3. East London Liquor Company is also crafting cans: faves include vodka and rhubarb. 4. But if tinnies mean beer, there’s a West Coast IPA renaissance. Pick up a can of London Beer Factory’s Big Sur – like being hit by a massive fruity wave. The best picnic spots in London. 

Brace yourself for cuteness overload. Just before Christmas, Battersea Park Children’s Zoo welcomed the arrival of an adorable litter of Asian short-clawed otter cubs. And this season’s brightest debutantes are now ready to meet the world.  The four cubs – two male and two female – arrived on December 16, and the south London zoo has given them names to reflect these very strange times: Tia, Bubble, Rishi and Whitty. Keepers at the zoo have confirmed that, under the care of parents Little John and Robin, the quadruplets are growing exactly as they should, having just reached the eight-week milestone. Little John and Robin only arrived at the zoo in June 2020, so clearly they’ve taken to their new home very nicely.       Photograph: Battersea Park Children’s Zoo ‘These four cubs represent a huge milestone for the conservation of a species that is growing increasingly vulnerable to extinction,’ said keeper Jamie Baker. ‘Across South and South-East Asia, the wild populations of this species are in dramatic decline due to habitat degradation and the illegal pet and wildlife trade. Little John, Robin and their cubs represent the start of a new, safe and future-proof population of Asian short-clawed otters within zoos that will directly contribute to the conservation of wild otters across a range of countries,’ added the zookeeper.  Photograph: Battersea Park Children’s Zoo Alas, you won’t be able to meet the quartet right now, with the zoo currently closed to the public. But y

A secretive meeting of food fanatics has been taking place within the depths of one of the world’s most famous food markets since 2016. Borough Market Cookbook Club was like any other book club – but with added flames and flavours. For each event, a different landmark cookery book would take the spotlight, and attendees at Borough Market’s Cookhouse would bring along the results from one of the recipes they’d attempted to make from scratch at home. The group would then discuss the book and chow down on the dishes communally. Oh, and drink Borough Wines dry while they were at it (because what is a book club without wine, anyway?!). Naturally, all that sharing had to stop rather suddenly last year. But given that most of the cooking took place at home anyway, the appetite for a digital version was very much there. And so, Cookbook Club lives – on the worldwide web.   As always, the club is totally free to join. Even better: while in the past you’d pay £8 per event, they’re waiving the fee for the online format. Food writer and historian Angela Clutton is still hosting the meetings, and leading the discussion on the ins and outs of each fundamental read – just over Zoom, that’s all. Book a place in advance and you’ll then receive a couple of recipes from the book to have a stab at from home. You can then discuss your efforts with a group of fellow food lovers.       Up next (Feb 25), Rosie Birkett’s ‘The Joyful Home Cook’. Hopefully to reignite your passion after months of cooki

Right now, every day should be Margarita Day. The Margarita is absolutely the kind of strong, zesty party drink to pep up your time at home. But if you haven’t already been embracing the limes in lockdown, how about making it happen on Monday February 22, which is actual Margarita Day: an official, globally recognised time to honour a cocktail that was surely sent from the tequila gods. Yes, we know it’s a Monday. But at this point, why should a thing like the day of the week matter to you, amigo?  Marking the day are two master mixologists from Mayfair’s classy watering hole the Connaught Bar – the ‘world’s best bar’, no less. While the swanky hotel haunt may be best known for its Martinis, its pair of drink wizards, Agostino Perrone and Giorgio Bargiani, have designed a limited edition cocktail set for this auspicious occasion. Each kit contains three bottled cocktails reinterpreting the classic bevvy.  The Alpha Margarita includes a Chardonnay-based orange liqueur, the Omega Margarita features the bar’s own Italian aperitivo-style liqueur and the Sigma Margarita is said to have chocolatey notes thanks to the inclusion of palo cortado sherry. The best part of these new-fangled flavours, though, is that all proceeds from the collection will go towards The Drinks Trust, a charity supporting staff from the hospitality industry in these very tough times.  The Margarita Collection is available to order via The Drinks Drop (£35) as part of Patron Tequila’s Margarita Month celebra

Thinking of seeing in the Lunar New Year with a Chinese takeaway? Yeah, you are! It’s a pretty great way to show some love to struggling restaurants – after all, this is the second year that celebrations of Chinese New Year have been impacted by Covid. If you need further convincing before placing an order this weekend, though, know this: Deliveroo is sneaking red envelopes inside selected food deliveries. (They actually look decidedly pink to us, but we’re not complaining!) For those who don’t know, these ‘red pockets’ are typically filled with money and given as good luck gifts around the New Year. And while Deliveroo isn’t stuffing actual wads inside your takeaway, it will be littering orders with credit vouchers so you can order even more food from the delivery platform throughout The Year of the Ox.      Ten London restaurants are taking part in the promotion – and a total of 25 across the UK – and there will be five ‘gold card’ prizes in the mix. These hold £1,000-worth of credit each (just imagine how many dumplings that equals!) as well as vouchers for smaller credit values. The restaurants in London taking part include a couple of Chinatown faves, and a spread of locations across the capital. Here’s a full list:  Din Tai Fung, Covent GardenFour Seasons, BayswaterHakkasan, MayfairJin Jiang, DeptfordMurger Han, EustonPlum Valley, ChinatownRoyal China, HarrowShikumen, Shepherd's BushSichuan Grand, StratfordTao Tao Ju, Chinatown To get lucky, you’ll need to place an ord

Piping hot rice, fragrant spices and crusty pastry: the precise formula to combat this cold snap. And exactly what you can expect from new delivery service Empire Biryani. Take that, Beast from the East!  Launching today (Thursday February 11), Empire Biryani promises London-wide delivery on traditional biryani dishes that are 36 hours in the making and come fresh from the kitchen of London’s top Indian restaurant Gunpowder (which has branches in Spitalfields and Tower Bridge). The service will centre around Northern Indian dum biryani, with rice and meat steam-cooked on a low heat before being topped with a shortcrust pastry lid. Punters can pick from one made with lamb shank or a very impressive veggie alt filled with shahi mushroom.  That’s not all. There are sides, too! (But they don’t come with pastry on top. You’ve been warned.) You can add the likes of paneer butter masala, aloo gobi, beef boti kebab or Hyderabadi egg curry to your order to really up the ‘winter warmer’ factor.   There’s the option of a biryani for one, for two, or to share between four. And you can either have it delivered hot and fresh out the kitchen (via Deliveroo) or as part of a finish-at-home meal kit – where all you have to do is bung it in the oven until that lid turns golden brown. Lockdown just got spicy.    Find out more about Empire Biryani and order in the goods right here. We tried all of London’s most hyped meal kits – these were the best. Here’s a load of top Indian restaurants doing t