There was a time when the NFL rolling into London felt like an exotic novelty act. We turned up in whatever jersey we owned, drank lukewarm pints on Wembley Way, and begrudgingly accepted that the football on display might be a bit of a blowout.

Over forty regular-season games later, things look very different. The UK series has evolved from a promotional roadshow into genuine, high-stakes football. With the Philadelphia Eagles heading across the pond to face the Jacksonville Jaguars this weekend, London is getting another clash between serious playoff contenders.

As an NFL obsessive who has spent the last decade-plus trekking across the capital on autumn Sunday afternoons (or at home watching them live on Sky Sports), I have sat through the bad, the bizarre, and the genuinely brilliant.

Whittling down dozens of contests to just nine is tough, but these are the London games that had fans on their feet until the final whistle.

9. Minnesota Vikings 34, Pittsburgh Steelers 27 (2013, Wembley)

I was in the stands for this one, and you could feel the electricity before kickoff. Adrian Peterson was in peak, terrifying form, ripping through Pittsburgh for 140 yards, including an absurd 60-yard scamper that left defenders grasping at thin air. Big Ben Roethlisberger dragged the Steelers back into contention, driving all the way to Minnesota's six-yard line with under twenty seconds left. Just as Wembley braced for overtime, Everson Griffen broke through for a monster strip-sack to seal the win for the Vikings.

8. Oakland Raiders 24, Chicago Bears 21 (2019, Tottenham)

The debut of NFL football at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium could not have had a better storyline: the Khalil Mack revenge game. Chicago fell behind 17-0, woke up in the third quarter with 21 unanswered points, and looked to have the contest wrapped up. Instead, Oakland mounted a gritty, 97-yard march in the fourth quarter, capped by Josh Jacobs diving over the goal line with two minutes left. It was physical, chaotic, and an ideal housewarming gift for Tottenham's purpose-built NFL pitch.

7. Los Angeles Chargers 20, Tennessee Titans 19 (2018, Wembley)

A textbook example of how one coaching decision can make a game legendary. Philip Rivers opened proceedings by hitting Tyrell Williams for a 75-yard touchdown bomb, but Tennessee ground their way back into it. Down 20-13 with 31 seconds on the clock, the Titans scored. Mike Vrabel decided against playing it safe for overtime and dialled up a gutsy two-point conversion to win it in regulation. The pass was tipped away, handing the Chargers a dramatic escape.

6. Minnesota Vikings 28, New Orleans Saints 25 (2022, Tottenham)

I was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to witness five lead changes / ties in the fourth quarter alone. Justin Jefferson put on a clinic with 147 receiving yards, but Andy Dalton kept New Orleans punching until the very end. After Greg Joseph nailed a 47-yard kick to give Minnesota the lead with 24 seconds left, Saints kicker Wil Lutz lined up for a monster 61-yard equaliser as time expired. The kick looked pure, bounced off the left upright, hit the crossbar, and dropped out. Heartbreak for New Orleans, but pure theatre in N17.

5. New Orleans Saints 37, San Diego Chargers 32 (2008, Wembley)

Only the second regular-season game played in the UK, and the one that silenced critics who thought London would only get defensive slogs. Drew Brees faced his former team for the first time, throwing for 339 yards and three touchdowns in a 69-point shootout. Philip Rivers threw everything he had at a fourth-quarter comeback, but the Saints picked him off late to preserve the win. It set the blueprint for what an overseas spectacle could be.

4. New York Giants 27, Green Bay Packers 22 (2022, Tottenham)

I will be honest: as a Packers fan who had waited years to see Green Bay play a regular-season game in London, this one hurt. Sitting in Tottenham with my jersey on, watching Aaron Rodgers steer us to a 17-3 lead, everything felt right with the world. Then Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley took over. The Giants played flawless, disciplined football in the second half, storming back with 24 unanswered points. Watching two straight Rodgers passes batted down in the end zone in the dying seconds was brutal, but for neutral fans, it was an absolute masterclass in grit.

3. Washington 27, Cincinnati Bengals 27 (2016, Wembley)

The only tie in NFL International Series history, and easily one of the most entertaining afternoons of football I have ever watched in person. Kirk Cousins threw for an eye-watering 458 yards, Andy Dalton traded punches blow-for-blow, and 84,000 of us got treated to a full 75 minutes of breathless drama. The overtime period was pure chaos: Dustin Hopkins pulled a 34-yard chip shot wide left, Cincinnati coughed up a fumble, and both teams walked off completely spent without a winner.

2. Jacksonville Jaguars 34, Buffalo Bills 31 (2015, Wembley)

If you like neat, tidy football, look away. If you love wild momentum swings, this was the pinnacle. Jacksonville looked completely home and dry with a 27-3 lead, before EJ Manuel and the Bills went berserk, rattling off 28 unanswered points to lead late in the fourth quarter. With three minutes to play and the stadium buzzing, Blake Bortles dropped back and fired a 31-yard rainbow to Allen Hurns, who laid out for a diving catch in the end zone. It remains the wildest rollercoaster London has ever hosted, and I was fortunate enough to be in the stadium to witness it.

1. Detroit Lions 22, Atlanta Falcons 21 (2014, Wembley)

The undisputed heavyweight champion of London games. Atlanta took total control early, strolling into halftime with a commanding 21-0 lead. Matthew Stafford then went into full fourth-quarter comeback mode, chipping away at the deficit drive by drive.

The finish was pure Hollywood. Trailing 21-19 with four seconds left, Matt Prater lined up for a 43-yard field goal and sliced it wide right. Falcons players began celebrating, but a Detroit delay-of-game penalty wiped the play out. Given a five-yard penalty and an untimed down, Prater stepped back to the 48-yard mark and drilled it straight through the uprights as the clock read zeroes. You could not script a better ending.

The Philadelphia Eagles face the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday 11 October 2026. You can watch the game live from 2pm on Sky Sports NFL, Sky Sports+, NFL Games Pass on DAZN, and Channel 5.

The third and final London game of the year takes place on Sunday 18 October 2026 when the Houston Texans take on the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium. It will be available to watch live on Sky Sports NFL, NFL Games Pass on DAZN, and Channel 5.

London is world-famous for its night clubs. It’s home to some of the world’s most renowned clubs and venues, and each weekend sees spaces booked out with events for every crowd and culture.

After a fantastic festival season, Londoners are heading back to the club to dance the night (and sometimes the next day) away. And with the opening of new venues like Radial in Tottenham and Coven in Soho, there’s some light on the horizon for the city’s embattled nightlife industry.

We’ve teamed up with Faithless co-founder and dancefloor legend Sister Bliss for this list, with some extra picks from Shortlist-reading ravers. Be sure to let us know if we’re missing any essential clubs in the comments below.

Without further ado, let’s get into the groove with the best night clubs in London:

The best nightclubs in London: Sister Bliss’ picks

1. Koko Camden

1A Camden High Street, NW1 7JE
"I’ve been going to Koko since I was a teenager in the 80’s, back when it was in its previous guise as Camden Palace – and I was a goth! It’s such an iconic space, now reimagined as Koko.

"Koko has hosted some of the biggest names in music, and has been revamped with a 360 degree set up with the world's biggest electronic music acts booked every weekend. It basically turns into a giant fabulous disco – I’ve enjoyed throwing shapes here to everyone from The Blessed Madonna to Chris Stussy and Anthony Smierek, to name but a few!"

2. The Cross

2-4 Wharfdale Road, N1 9RY
"The Cross is a 90’s classic, a venue I had some formative and wonderful nights DJing at. It’s moved from its original site at Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross, to a 6 storey former pub (formerly The Driver) on the Cally Road.

"It’s still run by Billy Reilly & Gemma, but totally reimagined with an amazing roof terrace, a fabulous cocktail bar and, my favourite space to DJ in, the dirty dark basement below.

"No gimmicks, no pixel walls, guest list entry and a banging sound system, plus an over 25’s door policy. It’s especially fun when some of the parties in the private rooms mingle with the club nights – anything can happen. I’m playing here for their birthday party on Saturday 7th November – come join me in the basement!"

3. Number 90

90 Wallis Road, E9 5LN
"I played a Mixmag Lab set at Number 90’s Hideout room, and enjoyed it so much that we booked it a couple of months later to celebrate the release of our recent Faithless album 'Champion Sound'.

"It’s such a cool venue with terraces backing onto the lovely waterside areas, and 3 distinct spaces; Lock and Hideout are inside with amazing sound systems, all built with real love and understanding of what makes a great punter and DJ experience.

"It really feels like a proper community cultural hub, with inclusive programming supporting local DJ’s and bringing underground nights, open mic nights, and live gigs alongside electronic DJ sets. Not too cool for school!"

4. Jazz Cafe

NW1 7PG
"There’s a special place in my heart for this place - it was the first venue to host a Faithless live show, and we were later awarded a special PRS plaque to commemorate that little moment in time, which hung proudly on the wall outside (until it got repainted! It’s now on my mantlepiece).

"So many great global artists have passed through the doors at Jazz Cafe - the vibe is relaxed, unpretentious and every single night of the week there’s so much great music to choose from, from the jazzier end to gospel to latin, reggae, soul, and house. Their club nights that start after the live acts have finished are also brilliantly programmed, with recent residencies from the likes of Joy Anonymous and Greg Wilson. A truly great place to discover new music and dance non-stop.

"I’ve been a punter here forever… I don’t think we would fit on that stage again, but hope to carry on throwing shapes on the dancefloor as much as humanly possible."

The best nightclubs in London: Shortlist selects

5. Fabric

77A Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6HJ
No list of London clubs is complete without Fabric. A survivor through turbulent times, Fabric has stayed open since 1999 thanks to its best-in-class bookings, creative clout, and cutting-edge sound system (which, since opening, has included under-floor transducers for extra oomph).

Though the Fabric brand has grown far beyond its subterranean walls, with a legendary series of DJ mix CDs, festival collaborations, and filmed performances, its three rooms are still considered a premier option for visiting and local clubbers alike.

6. Dalston Superstore

117 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB
Essential and eclectic, Dalston Superstore is London’s premier queer nightlife destination. Since 2009, Superstore has been a haven for LGBTQ+ folks and their allies – Its basement club is compact and candid, playing host to dozens of genres in a given month, while the upstairs bar is roomier, brighter, and soundtracked by a separate DJ booth. Dance music owes so much to queer culture, and indeed Superstore is more than just a club – its drag brunches, karaoke nights and film screenings make it a valued community hub for chillers and ravers alike.

7. Phonox

418 Brixton Road, London SW9 7AY
Ever-popular and unpretentious, Phonox occupies a crucial place in the middle ground of UK club culture. It’s a meeting place for vinyl-heads and birthday bashes, deep house defenders and post-pub punters. In a scene dominated by algorithmic influences, Phonox is a public sphere with a disco ball.

Phonox’s high-street location makes it easier to get to than some of the city’s more remote rave spots, making it a top pick for chart-topping DJs and producers and an easier sell for group outings. Programming balances that commercial appeal with up-and-comers and scene legends, with month-long Friday residencies from names like Leon Vynehall, Elkka, and DJ EZ.

8. Venue M.O.T

Unit 18/20, Orion Business Centre, Surrey Canal Road, SE14 5RT
Once an underdog, Venue M.O.T has grown to become a club recognised across the capital for daring programming and creative flexibility. Situated in the null zone between New Cross and Bermondsey, MOT’s two converted industrial units host local techno linkups, experimental electronica, and big-name blockbusters. It’s a compact space, but one buoyed by a genuinely fantastic sound system and undeniable industrial vibe. The venue was granted a rare outdoor license this year, converting the courtyard out front into a spot for open-air parties.

9. Palais

1a Rye Lane, SE15 5EW
Some clubs have a vibe – Palais has class. The Peckham venue, split across three stories at the top of Rye Lane, reopened in 2026 following a 15-year hiatus and a redesign from London studio Fare Inc. The result is a decidedly fashionable space that doesn’t skip the essentials – an excellent sound system, a dancefloor that both frees and focuses your movement, and top-tier bookings from day one.

The crown jewel, however, is Palais’ Ballroom, situated two floors above the basement club. Though it’s free to enter, the Ballroom is the only club space in London I’d call luxurious, with a blended art-deco and contemporary aesthetic, warm lighting, comfortable booths, and a relaxed dance floor.

10. AAJA

Comet Place, SE8 4EP
Tucked away behind Deptford High Street, AAJA is the people’s champ of London night clubs. Cheap entry, cheap drinks, and a sound system tuned by on-site bass obsessives have made this mixed-use community space a spot for movers and shakers in London’s underground club scene. Two online radio broadcast rooms compliment AAJA’s club room, making it a brilliant place to find your next favorite DJ or experimental act at any time of day.

Reader picks

11. Fold

Gillian House, Stephenson Street, E16 4SA
As chosen by: Leo Wynne Williams, Tooting:

"It’s pretty easy to assume that the things that make a good club good are tangible assets, like a world-renowned Funktion 1 sound system, world-class DJ bookings and a well-planned layout. Fold has all three, but they aren’t what separate it from other London clubs – that’d be its sense of community and ethos of acceptance for people who enjoy authentic techno parties."

As also chosen by: Jacqueline Akram, Southwark:

"Fold - especially the Sunday Unfold parties. I go to get entranced and dance for hours, and leaving the club feels like my soul took a deep breath of fresh air. The lineup is always solid, the sound system is amazing, and people actually dance hard! The community feels so safe compared to other London clubs."

12. Dalston Den

91-93 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB
As chosen by: Seun Ige, Greenwich:

"A night at Dalston den has it all. Nestled in a basement on Kingsland High Street, it’s one of the only spaces that has consistently provided me with an amazing (and sweaty) time.

"Dalston Den has an intimate capacity of about 200, and attracts the liveliest dancers. It also offers some of the best music that the UK’s underground DnB scene has to offer. If you arrive before midnight it’s free entry, and standard pricing will only set you back about a fiver. The enclosed space means that the amazing sound system hits all the harder, and if you’re lucky there might even be an MC present to guide you through the night!"

13. Vespers

133A Rye Lane, SE15 4BQ
As chosen by: Harry Newgas, Greenwich:

"Vespers is in the heart of Peckham, running a variety of events from midweek gigs to late night raves. It's a club which champions grassroots and queer events as all should. It also boasts a great sound system, fitting for the hard dance music that often plays there.

"Edith, who runs the venue, is themselves very much engrained into the scene, often going to the same events and festivals as those that would attend the club. Vespers isn’t all about turning a profit and squeezing as much money out of the scene as possible, but actually supporting those grassroots events and artists, leading to a stronger sense of community in the rave scene."

14. Ormside Projects

Penarth Centre, 32 Ormside Street, SE15 1TR
As chosen by: Anita Polizzi, New Cross:

"You might think the most exciting features of Ormside Street are the ghost kitchens that line the back end of the road. You would be mistaken.

"Part of the ‘Bermondsey Triad’ (alongside Avalon Cafe and Venue MOT), Ormside Projects is one of the greatest clubs in London. It’s hidden behind unlabelled shutters in the unassuming Old Kent Road area, but offers an eclectic and exciting mix of everything one might desire from London’s underground music scene. Host to names like XT1ANA, Jadasea, Patch +, Tim Reaper, MC ZKW, Lord Tusk and Mica Levi, it’s a space co-signed by those who are new to this and those who are true to this."

• Faithless’ new album Champion Sound is out now and available on all platforms

Perhaps more than any other place outside of South Asia, Londoners are spoilt for choice when it comes to getting a good curry. Whether you’re hitting up a top-tier biryani at Sheba on Brick Lane or tucking into Tayyab's lamb chops (so good that even The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal, is a patron), you can walk down almost any London — or UK, for that matter — high street and come away with a tasty curry.

Bulbul isn’t interested in serving up ‘just’ a good curry, though. It wants to take you on a tasting odyssey across India’s wider culinary heritage.

Hidden beneath Tudor Street, this new heart-of-the-City restaurant takes inspiration from home kitchens, regional cooking and dishes that don’t get a look in on your local’s Deliveroo offering. The result is an ambitious menu that can take even go-to staples and turn them into something extraordinary.

WHERE IS IT?

Bulbul is at 25 Tudor Street, tucked between Blackfriars, Temple and St Paul's, making it a particularly handy option for city workers and Fleet Street-ers looking to down tools for something a bit special.

The space has been designed with an eye for visual drama: lounge-style booths surround an open central dining area, with a fountain in front of the bar and plenty of bold, opulent detailing. There's a thoughtful authenticity underneath all the bling, with furniture sourced from India, and a wider design taking inspiration from Indian forests and regional landscapes — all while giving a nod to the local area’s publishing trade, with the building formerly housing a printing press.

WHAT'S SPECIAL?

Bulbul describes itself as focussed on micro-regional Indian cuisine, with chef and restaurateur Rohan Dsouza and restaurateur Twinkle Keswani using the site to shine a light on dishes that don’t always make their way to British shores. The pair have already opened restaurants across India, but Bulbul is their first international outpost.

Rather than reducing India to the greatest hits – butter chicken, tikka, biryani and a naan or two – the team has travelled through different regions, absorbing local food to find some brilliant food stories. The Bohri Lamb Kheema, for example, draws on the cooking of the Bohra Muslim trading community, while the Forest Pepper Crab Dosa takes its cues from Tamil Nadu.

It’s a considered concept then, but don’t worry about needing to touch up on your geography before turning up, as the staff are excellent at explaining it all. Expect not just a description of what's on the plate, but where it comes from and why it tastes the way it does.

WHAT'S NEW?

Bulbul only opened in summer 2026 so the whole thing is still very fresh. Even just six or so weeks in, the restaurant is already attracting a lively crowd, becoming somewhere people go to hang out rather than simply eat and leave. Indeed, one couple during our visit were simply there to prop the bar up with some cocktails — a testament to how complete a package Bulbul is.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

Friends, dates, visiting food nerds and anyone who thinks they've already tried every Indian dish going. Provided you’ve got a stomach for spice (rest assured there are milder dishes too), you’re going to enjoy yourself here.

The sharing format makes Bulbul particularly well suited to groups. You want several things on the table so you can jump around the regions and styles, rather than committing yourself to one curry and some rice.

It also works for a date, particularly if your idea of romance involves cocktails, plenty of food and a more rambunctious atmosphere. That also acts as a caveat though — this isn't the place for a serious catch-up where you need to hear every word your companion says. The music is relatively loud and the room is chatty, busy and energetic.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WEAR?

Bulbul is one to make an effort for. The surroundings are opulent, the clientele is relatively wealthy and there's enough theatricality to the place that you won't feel overdressed if you turn up looking sharp.

That said, it's not formal fine dining, so you won’t be turned away in a pair of tidy trainers.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

Bulbul isn't cheap —you’re not paying local curry-house prices. But you’re getting an elevated experience too.

Starters tend to sit around the £15 – £25 mark, while substantial dishes can push towards £30 and beyond, with premium seafood and meat considerably higher. The lobster ghee roast, for example, is £50.

For two people sharing a few starters, two mains and a dessert, you're looking at roughly £65–£75 per head before drinks and service, depending on what you order. Add a couple of cocktails and you're more realistically in the £90–£110+ per person territory.

That's a significant night out, but the quality of the cooking, the setting and the level of service means it earns its keep.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DRINK?

The cocktails are worth taking seriously, and Bulbul knows it, presenting the menu theatrically in a spice box.

I tried the Raw Mango & Malt Highball (£17) and the Guava & Mogra Martini (£17), both of which fit neatly into Bulbul's broader approach: recognisable cocktail formats given a distinctly Indian personality, and a good dose of flair. Mango caviar as a highball chaser? Don't mind if I do. The drinks menu follows the restaurant's regional philosophy, with Indian ingredients and spirits getting considerably more attention than they usually do on a London restaurant list.

Ask the staff what works with what you're ordering. Their knowledge of the food is one of Bulbul's strengths, and the drinks are clearly intended to be part of the experience rather than an afterthought.

4 MUST-TRY DISHES

1. Dhaabe Ka Butter Chicken – £26

This was the standout. Yes — the humble Butter Chicken, here lifted to new heights through a careful balance of spice and superb chicken.

Butter chicken can be a difficult dish to get excited about because we've all eaten enough versions drowned in sweet, creamy tomato sauce to last several lifetimes. Bulbul's is different. The tandoori chicken is excellent in its own right, with genuinely good meat and plenty of flavour that’s never overwhelmed by the sauce, that tomatoey creamy topping complimenting the meat rather than snuffing it out.

2. Bohri Lamb Kheema with Truffle Butter Pao – £19

Another highlight. The slow-braised minced lamb is rich and deeply spiced, with the green spice paste, lamb stock and lime giving it layers of flavour to unpack. And that's before you get to the egg on top — you’ll want to order two to really pore over its details. The warm, pillowy pao with truffle butter let’s you get handsy with the meal, so be prepared to ward off the fingers of your dining mates.

3. Tamil Nadu Forest Pepper Crab Dosa – £19

One of the dishes that best captures what Bulbul is about. A crisp cheesy dosa, half-shell crab stuffed with robust pepper masala, then served with fresh coconut chutney. One of the restaurant's signature examples of its regional approach, with the menu drawing directly on Tamil Nadu's spice traditions. You just won’t find anything like this anywhere else.

4. Lobster Ghee Roast – £50

This is the big-ticket order, and it's a serious piece of cooking. The lobster is paired with a Mangalorean-style ghee roast masala and a cauliflower, mustard and coconut purée, bringing together the richness of the roast spices with something lighter and more aromatic underneath.

At £50, it's not an impulse order, and if you’re sharing it doesn’t go very far. But if you're celebrating it’s a real revel-in-it dish.

Room for dessert? Also leave space for the Coorg Chocolate Pavé with tulsi ice cream and orange granita. Rich, dark chocolate gets a lift from the fragrant herbaceous ice cream and sharp citrus, making it a considerably less heavy finale than the chocolate might suggest.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Yes – particularly if you think you’ve seen all Indian dining has to offer. Despite the lofty concept, it doesn't treat regional Indian food like a museum exhibit. The stories and provenance matter (and the staff are rightfully proud to share them), but the end result is still supposed to be delicious – and on my visit, it very much was.

The Butter Chicken alone is worth a reservation, while the lamb kheema and crab dosa show just how much further the restaurant's culinary ambitions go. I can’t wait to see what smart spins the team put on some of my other go-to Indian favourites, and I’m already planning a return visit.

Bulbul is found at 25 Tudor St, Temple Avenue, London EC4Y 0DD. Reservations are available through Sevenrooms.

Soho has always felt like the beating heart of London after dark. But in 2026, that cornucopia of many a great night out has never felt more on the brink of changing into something completely unrecognisable.

Although Soho is home to no shortage of chain restaurants and theatres with franchise-friendly names above their marquees, the real heart of Soho is in its independent venues. We’re talking about the ones often run by those who live in the area (or not too far afield) and that have long given the area its identity, being a haven for creatives and the LGBTQ+ community.

However, Soho’s independent venues have been shuttering their doors at an alarming rate. CIRCA, G-A-Y and Underbelly Boulevard are just some of the local staples that have suffered this fate, brought about by the sheer financial weight of trying to operate in the nation’s capital.

Amidst this economic turmoil, there are still a few holdouts that are doing all they can to beat back the tide, one of which is the Phoenix Arts Club. This unassuming venue which is far too easy to miss when making your way to the Phoenix Theatre (and as such is often mistaken for the box office), is a thriving underground hub of cabaret, comedy, drag and more.

As one of the last remaining bastions of Soho’s bohemian spirit, we sat down with the Phoenix’s Marketing Director, Peter Dunbar, to understand what makes the Phoenix so endearing, the realities of running a London venue and what the future has in store for the club.

A home for all (but not the Arctic Monkeys)

In his own words, Peter describes the Phoenix Arts Club as one of the “last remaining independent venues in Soho dedicated to the arts… a venue that is made for artists of all demographics and earnings... for people from all walks of life, but it’s also a great space if you're not an actor and just love theatre. It's sort of where your absolute die-hard theatre fans congregate; that's the main community.”

That variety is something I can attest to after my own time spent frequenting the venue as a patron. I’ve seen everything from a comedy act where a man covered himself from head to toe in sticky tape (now a fairly serious actor if you can believe it) to Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics.

Not only are you likely to see something vastly different from one night to another, but there’s a good chance that you might run into a celebrity while you’re there. The likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Neil Patrick Harris have popped their heads through the door, and the venue even featured as one of Anthony Bourdain’s go-to spots in his spectacular London-focused episode of The Layover.

It’s a welcome destination for all, with the only name of note not to be allowed entry being none other than the Arctic Monkeys. In what is now a legendary exchange, the venue’s previous owner, Maurice Huggett, who sadly passed away in 2011, decided to show the band the pavement after deeming their appearance to be unkempt.

Still, for all the many stories that have come out of the venue since it opened its doors way back in 1988, the Phoenix has stood the test of time, but the struggle to remain independent has never felt more real than in a post-pandemic world.

The new London reality

It’s no secret to anyone that, thanks to the pandemic and the various global conflicts that have taken place since, the cost of living is very much out of control. When you throw in a general lack of enthusiasm for nights out on the town, those knock-on effects have been exacerbated for bar and venue owners.

“It’s an incredibly tough climate to operate in,” Peter admitted when asked about the realities of running a venue in 2026, but added, “I'm personally bored of talking about it because you do end up driving yourself into a bit of a rut… having a finger on the pulse on the numbers is really important and keeping a really good line of communication with our landlord is pivotal. But what we really focus on is the community, and we know that in times of need, the community will come forward.”

Earlier this year, the Phoenix held a fundraising gala at the nearby Phoenix Theatre, showing how potent that community spirit can be with £100,000 raised from the event.

As a vocal fan of live music, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has already committed to reducing the business rates for venues up and down the country, and while Peter feels that it’s certainly a step in the right direction, he argues that it’s not quite enough to overcome years of mounting costs.

“Could you imagine how many more independents we would have if there was some form of complete business rates wipe for companies when they hit a certain amount of years of operating? You could perhaps have [a system that says] 'you've operated for 10 years, let's give you something back, something back to the community. Let's give you a year for free, or if you're just starting up, let's give you a couple of years of business rates for free.”

Rising from the ashes

While one can only hope that London’s nightlife will return to its former glory, it’s impressive that even with the economic headwinds working against it that everyone, from the hardworking bar staff to the management team and the thriving community that sees the Phoenix as its second home, has played a part in keeping the venue afloat.

If you’ve yet to visit the Phoenix and would like to see the club’s spirit distilled into a single show, you may want to check out its latest venture: Soho Electric.

Peter details, “it's a rock cabaret show [featuring] electric guitar [and] all of the amazing pop rock songs that people have come to know and love… [it] features everything from cabaret to circus, fire, aerial, and obviously it has these live band elements as well. I'm so proud of it because it's probably the last cabaret show there is launching [in Soho], and it's set to be a killer night and it's running four performances a week, so for the foreseeable it's an open-ended show.”

The Phoenix Arts Club can be found at 1 Phoenix Street in London, just a few yards away from Tottenham Court Road Station.

• How a tiny church night became one of London's most influential music institutions

Despite being just a short walk from the station in Farringdon, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's members room on Greville Street is discreetly tucked away. We're invited along for a newcomer-friendly tasting experience on a weekday afternoon, which predictably ends with a sozzled yet satisfied stagger back to the tube.

Obviously London isn't short of great whisky bars, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is distinguished in a few ways: one, they get around 250 bottles of each cask, so there's a finite nature to everything you can drink. Two, they independently bottle and label their own whiskies, meaning that the product is primarily designed to make you think about taste and not distilleries, region, branding or anything else.

Their tasting panel matches each whisky to a flavour profile. These eight flavour profiles include such variations as Flagrant & Floral, Smoky & Fruity and Toasted Oak & Vanilla. The point is to find a whisky that matches your sensibilities, and if that profile works for you, there will always be something new to try on a repeat visit.

A warming introduction

The staff at the members room clearly pride themselves on being novice-friendly. Up to 80% of the flavour comes from wood, they remind us. And most of the tasting is smelling the whisky. They presented us with three bottles initially: one called Sweet & Zesty, one Dried Fruit & Spices and one Bold & Peaty.

Travelling across these three flavour profiles in that order was the right way to do it. The Sweet & Zesty option ('The Village Patisserie at Dawn') helps our palate adjust and breaks us in – it's the most familiar kind of taste if your primary exposure to whisky is sweeter off-the-shelf supermarket stuff.

Following this, the Dried Fruit & Spices choice ('A Roly Poly in the Hay Loft') smells richer, and deepens the impact on our taste buds with a spicy orange aftertaste.

By the time we've reached the Bold & Peaty option, though (the filthily named 'Ointment on Roasted Nuts'), the other flavours prove hard to go back to. At first, this is an almost confrontationally smoky whisky, especially for a relative newcomer. But once the palate adjusts, the darker aftertaste is extremely pleasing.

Again, given the finite nature of what the SMWS does, you won't even be able to try these exact flavours for yourself. As one customer tells us, though, that's part of the appeal – you might buy a bottle of something in the moment because you know it's not going to come around again.

Plus, the flavour profiles mean you'll always find something else in that proximity next time you visit the members room.

'Eventised' whisky

To cap it off, the staff bring out a pair of bottles they'd recently launched as part of a Whisky Equinox event: one representing light ('Riesling Spritz in the Sun'), one representing dark ('Spice it Up After Dark'). Both nicely complement each other, even if once again the deeper and darker tastes of the latter win out for us.

The idea of 'eventised' whisky based on the calendar is a fun notion and no doubt the kind of initiative that keeps members coming back.

At this point, five drinks in, the bartender senses our increasing enthusiasm for the smokier side of things. Stopping just short of saying "let me show you the real shit", he reaches for something special from behind the bar.

The final whisky we try is called 'Smouldering Mojo'. It's an "experimental" small batch blended malt that's been matured in Mezcal casks. This comes under the society's more provocative 'Heresy' label and hasn't been available since last summer – this was from the bartender's own personal stash. He tells me that peaty whiskies were what he grew up with, and therefore his preferences are skewed as a result.

Smouldering Mojo is the extraordinary-tasting final boss of smoky whiskies, and it no doubt won't be to the taste of some traditionalists because of how it was made. But it summarises the mission of the society: to enjoy the drink however you want. If you want one of these fancy whiskies served with Coke, they won't mind.

Getting involved

The SMWS could fairly be called attainable luxury – membership starts from a reasonable £100 online (with a £75 option in-person that offers a smaller bottle freebie). The most enticing part of that proposition is surely having exclusive access to the members' rooms of each venue, with three other locations in Scotland.

The possibility of a quiet drink out of the way in central London with familiar bar staff and accessible flavour profiles is a nice pitch, even if you're a whisky novice and this isn't a world you've really dipped into before. It's no surprise that some regulars visit up to four times a week, according to the staff there.

It's also a comforting retreat if you're working from home and need a break from your computer. The age range of clientele on our weekday visit was incredibly wide, and members can sign in up to three visitors, too. The extra cost, of course, comes in ticketed tasting events, and the mild threat that you'll find a drink you like and leave with a hundred quid bottle of it.

As ever with the extensive tasting notes for each whisky, your actual ability to detect jam roly-poly, cinnamon danish or any other dessert in what you're imbibing may vary.

But even if your vocabulary to describe whisky only extends to basic adjectives like 'sweet', 'smoky' and 'spicy' barked out in Partridge-like fashion, you'll find something to like here. Alcohol branding can be incredibly cynical, but at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society you can only make decisions based on taste, not graphic design or fonts. There's something refreshingly accessible about flavour being the only real pitch.

• The 11 best craft beer bars and pubs in London

Rachel Zegler, Broadway baby and Hollywood star, is officially coming back to London for a new show.

If securing a Golden Globe, an Olivier Award, and a Critics Choice by the age of twenty-five wasn’t (sickeningly) impressive enough, Zegler will be performing at the Soho Place theatre for a concert residency that’s “unlike anything she’s done before”. Suck on that, Vegas — you’re not the only place that gets epic residencies anymore.

The actress has described her shows, which will run from January 5th until January 17th, as “her most intimate shows to date”, no doubt putting her “sublime vocals and extraordinary stage presence” in the well-earned spotlight. Anyone who has been to Soho Place Theatre will be familiar with its intimate staging, where the audience is fairly snug with the stage, and it’s laid out so that the audience feels immersed in the production rather than just watching it.

Back to the Big Smoke

Zegler is no stranger to London’s West End, starring in the hit revival of Sir Tim Rice and Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita as the lead character, the former first lady of Argentina. The role earned Zegler her first Olivier award. The performance became incredibly popular thanks in part to her rendition of the musical’s most famous number, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, which she performed from the balcony of the Palladium theatre to passers-by on the street. Crowds of excited theatre lovers who couldn’t quite shell out for the full ticket turned up each night. She also appeared in the West End earlier this year, starring as Cathy Hiatt in the musical The Last Five Years, opposite fellow US actor and broadway legend Ben Platt.

Whilst this is a new show, it isn’t the first time Zegler has done a solo concert in the capital’s theatre district; in October 2025, Zegler returned to the Palladium for a one-night-only concert full of story-telling and songs.

This upcoming series of shows mark Zegler’s residency debut, and more details are expected to be revealed soon about the show. On Instagram, the star said she was “so excited” to announce her first ever concert residency.

The concert residency has been produced by Lambert Jackson with musical supervision and arrangements by Adam Hoskins and follows her wildly successful West End debut last year.

Jamie Lambert, the chief executive officer of Lambert Jackson, said: “Being able to bring Rachel back to London, the city that showed her so much love during Evita, her solo shows and The Last Five Years, is a wonderful next step in our partnership.

“We are thrilled to be presenting Rachel in her first residency, a landmark moment for any artist and one which demonstrates the extraordinary connection she has built with audiences.

“It is richly deserved – she is a rare talent.”

Tickets for all 14 performances will be going on sale on Wednesday 30th via Soho Place.

• Ronnie Scott’s is heading to a new London location for a jazz residency this October

A South London Odeon cinemas branch is set to close within weeks, ahead of plans to turn the site into a church.

Odeon Beckenham will close at the end of November, the cinema chain has now confirmed. Its grade-2 listed building was acquired by Citygate Chuch, which currently inhabits the site over the road from the cinema, in July 2026 according to Land Registry records.

Unsurprisingly, many local residents aren’t too keen on the plan.

“Hundreds of you have been in touch,” says local MP Liam Conlon.

“As the MP for Beckenham and Penge, I'm meeting City Gate Church and Odeon next week and want to represent the strength of local feeling about this proposed change.”

Those who would rather see Odeon Becknenham remain open are invited to fill in a form hosted at Action Network.

“I will be reading every response, and putting them to City Gate and Odeon when I meet them – so please do fill out the survey, and share with friends, neighbours, and family,” writes Liam Conlon.

The other side of this drama, Citygate Church, is also holding a consultation at its current church, found at the site of Beckenham’s former post office, on 10th October.

“The proposals seek to return the Art Deco cinema to a single auditorium and uncover the original internal decoration, better revealing the significant features of the listed building,” reads a mailer sent to local residents from Your Shout “on behalf of Citygate Church.”

The site has operated as a cinema since 1930, initially as The Regal Cinema. Over the years it has been run by County Cinemas, Union Cinemas, ABC and Cannon, before Odeon took over the lease in 2000. After that point it was converted into the six screening room space it is today. For now anyway.

Odeon Beckenham offers audience-friendly perks like £5 tickets on Mondays and Silver Cinema screenings intended for the over-60s for just £2.

Citygate Church was investigated by the Charity Commission in 2021 for its investment of almost a £1 million with a Dubai property developer. Lead pastor Julian Melfi was implicated in the findings’ conclusion that “former trustees had demonstrated poor judgement and inadequate decision making.”

“This is serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity over several years,” the summary reads. Melfi is no longer a trustee of the charity.

It doesn’t appear to have stopped Citygate Church from drumming up the funds to take over the “most iconic venue” in the area, though, as MP Lian Conlon puts it.

• The BIG London Cinema List 2026: Film festivals, seasons, Q&As and rep screenings

Arguably the rot set in some 25 years ago, when rockstar chef Marco Pierre White claimed that he was ‘giving back’ his three Michelin stars. White said he was over Michelin; that the acclaimed restaurant ranking guide had lost touch with reality and wasn’t consistent in its somewhat cryptic judgements. And he was only the first, too: over the years since a spate of high profile chefs have effectively renounced Michelin — even if, technically, stars are awarded not to an individual chef but to a dining establishment. The late, acclaimed chef Skye Gyngell, of London’s Petersham Nurseries, for example, said she prayed never to be awarded another star.

And still the rebellion grows. Last year Giglio, an Italian restaurant in Lucca, asked for its star to be removed from Michelin’s famous ‘red book’ guide. It had become more of a deterrent to diners than a lure. And then the acclaimed French chef Marc Veyrat went so far as to ban Michelin’s mystery diners-cum-inspectors from his restaurant in Megeve altogether. In 2019 he’d lost a star at one of his other restaurants because — shock! — he’d allegedly used cheddar in a soufflé. He called Michelin “the gravediggers of French gastronomy”.

Certainly chefs have suggested that, for many of them, Michelin is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, working for an establishment that’s awarded a star — let alone two or three — undoubtedly remains the ultimate accolade in their line of work, especially if it’s their name over the door. A chef with a Michelin star will forever after be referred to as ‘Michelin-starred chef Insert name here...’. Some have suggested that there are financial advantages too, with takings said to increase 20% for one star, 40% for two and 100% for three.

And yet, on the other hand, there’s talk of what Gyngell called the ‘curse of Michelin’: that a star comes with a huge increase in pressure, both to maintain that star (each establishment with one is, in theory, reassessed on an annual basis to gauge whether they should keep it, or, indeed, be awarded another) but also to meet the expectations of diners, which are also inevitably amped up.

'A stick to beat yourself with'

While a Michelin star is meant to be a judgement of nothing else but a restaurant’s food — the quality of ingredients, the skill and personality of the cooking, its consistency and, less believably these days, its value for money — invariably the kind of diners drawn to a Michelin starred place tend to want a certain formality in the setting and spectacle in the dishes. Conversely, as many people are also turned off by their notion of what a scary Michelin-starred restaurant must be like even when it isn’t.

No wonder Michael Deane, who held a single star for 30 years (eventually ‘handing his back’ when he decided he wanted to take his business in a new direction, effectively wiping his Michelin slate clean) would note how some chefs think of the award as “just a stick to beat yourself with”.

Certainly Michelin’s reputation has at times faltered, such that many an aspiring chef might wonder if the whole scheme isn’t more a kind of useful propaganda rather than a genuine reflection of greatness in the kitchen. Thanks to a handful of whistle blowers, Michelin has been beset with bad PR about its practices, with certain among its inspectors — who pay to eat at restaurants anonymously, and spend most of their year on the road, eating heavy meal after heavy meal — suggesting that actually it’s a rare thing for a restaurant to undergo regular assessment. There just aren’t enough inspectors to go around. They’d also claim that around a third of restaurants in Michelin’s guide were deemed ‘untouchable’, something Michelin would deny. Michelin has also been accused of bias towards younger chefs, and male ones.

There has been what some would call poor management, too. In 2020 Michelin introduced a green star as an accolade for those restaurants that showed exemplary sustainability. Last year it unceremoniously withdrew the award — much to the ire of those chef/owners who had striven to win it and who were now barred from advertising as much. This was all because, it’s assumed (Michelin isn’t saying why) too many diners were confusing green star restaurants with one star restaurants.

Worth a 20 mile diversion

Then there’s Michelin’s limited scope: it’s only in recent years that Michelin has extended beyond its heartlands of Europe and the big American cities, into, for example, Asia, where the culinary scene was world-class long before Michelin recognised it as such. The bigger problem in this? To offset declining sales of its printed guide, Michelin has struck deals with national tourist boards in the likes of China and South Korea — somewhat compromising any assessment its inspectors might subsequently make.

This is, at least, in keeping with the origins of the Michelin Guide. It was created in 1900 by Andre and Edouard Michelin, founders of the French tyre manufacturing giant that takes their surname, who saw it as a way of getting the few people who owned a car at the time to travel further afield. It started awarding stars a century ago this year, in 1936 introducing the multi-star system, one meaning ‘this is a safe place for travellers to eat at’, through to three, which meant ‘this is worth a 20 mile diversion’.

It would sell a lot of guides — way, way more than there were cars in France. But then, historically, Michelin wasn’t above promoting anything if it boosted demand for its tyres: within a year of WW1 ending, it was publishing a guide to the best battlefields to visit. This continued to be published annually, and to great success, all the way up until 1938 when, erm, events would soon make its poor taste somewhat more obvious.

Changing tastes

But perhaps the biggest problem for Michelin is that it simply hasn’t kept pace with the times. That popular misconception of what a Michelin-starred restaurant is like — a bit stiff, with a dress code, a lot of white linen and fussy staff — cuts against the way people dine in the 21st century, especially younger people, and especially during what’s proving to be a rather extended ‘cost of living crisis’. In fairness to Michelin, it has broadened its remit: street food vendors can now, officially at least, win a Michelin star, but this is a rare event.

“We now get very few enquiries from chefs wanting to open a restaurant that’s really premium. Eating habits have just changed. People are more excited about simple food done well, served in a more casual environment,” argues Ben Floyd, founder of hospitality consultancy Lumiere, which counts Harrods among its clients and which soon opens its own Covent Garden restaurant, Subsume.

“Of course chefs still want a star on their CV, for all of the emotional and physical toll it takes to get one. But I don’t think Michelin resonates with customers as it used to.”

It’s not just attitudes to what constitutes a great dining experience that have changed radically. So have our means of assessing whether a restaurant is worth our heavy expenditure. Arguably Michelin wins publicity way out of proportion to its actual relevance: how many people really consult the Michelin Guide to work out where to dine next? Rather, most now rely if not on personal recommendation, then on social media, or one of the multitude of other guides online that might be more in tune with their tastes. It surely doesn’t help that online commentary so often suggests people leave their Michelin experience decidedly underwhelmed, at least for what they’ve been charged.

Sure, Michelin may still count for much within the hospitality industry. Outside of it, among diners, not so much. And, some say, even less so among actual foodies, at least compared with those who see their restaurant choices as more about status signalling than the culinary excellence they’d otherwise struggle to identify. Perhaps a parallel might be drawn here with the Oscars. Who won what used to be a topic of enthusiastic interest in popular culture. Now it’s a brief headline and we all move on to watch what our mates suggest is worth watching, statuette or not.

“In my experience Michelin inspectors were always thorough and fair — and much better than any self-taught food blogger,” says Michael Deane.

“I’d always believed [the high-end restaurant business] was all about the food but started to want the kind of place that paid more attention to the feel good factor, not the kind of place where if you drop your fork 10 waiters come rushing over.

"I’m not sure who wants that now,” he adds. “It’s a big enough struggle out there as it is, with staff and food prices having to go up, with staff suffering a lot of burn out. So maybe Michelin has lost its point.

"And yet I still think every city needs at least one Michelin-starred restaurant — it’s a magnet. And for chefs a star is still the holy grail. The fact is that you still have to be able to really fucking cook to get one. That must count for something”.

• 7 London restaurants added to the Michelin guide this September

London’s latest immersive experience opens this week — Everest: The First Ascent.

You’ll don a VR headset and, for around 40 minutes, will get to experience a virtual version of the first ascent of Everest, the highest mountain in the world. It's the famous and historic trek by explorer Edmund Hillary and his guide Tenzing Norgay, from 1953.

“In 1953, Everest was still uncharted territory. Relive the first ascent of Everest, all the way to the summit,” says Eclipso Cultural Adventures, the company behind this experience.

Everest: The First Ascent is a free-roam VR experience. You walk around immersive 3D scenes, which include base camp and a monastery as well as the mountaintop vistas you may already be picturing. It takes place in a 400 square metre set, and there are physical special effects to amp up the immersion factor.

“Cold air, wind, vibration and pressure cues your body reads as real,” reads the website.

Sound up your street/mountainside? The review of Everest: The First Ascent by Immersive Rumours is worth a read, as it goes into a bit more detail than you’ll get from the official website. It'll give you a better idea of what to expect than the wealth of what look a bit like AI-generated images on the official website.

The claim is we get a legit and properly researched view of the historic expedition, with input from Katia Buffetrille, “professor and specialist in the sacred mountains of Tibetan Buddhism.”

“Each sequence has been checked and enhanced to ensure a faithful historical, cultural and human reconstruction,” says Eclipso.

This is the same company that gave us Colosseum: The Legendary Arena, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience and Titanic: Echoes From the Past.

According to Immersive Rumours, this new experience sees the team upgrade their hardware too. It uses Pico 4 Ultra headsets rather Than the HTC Vive ones employed previously, with a 2160 x 2160 display per eye, similar to that of the Meta Quest 3.

Everest: The First Ascent is found at Eclipso London, at 213-219 Camden High Street. It’s right next to Camden Town Underground station.

Adult tickets cost £27.50, kids and students pay £21.50. It’s suitable for ages eight and up. There are also London resident tickets for £22.50 — make sure to bring some form of proof of address for that one.

The earliest slot you can currently book for Everest: The First Ascent is Thursday, 1st October.

• The best exhibitions in London this autumn: From Bayeux to Picasso and America’s scientific history

The world’s first Minecraft hotel is coming to Greater London next year, and we’ve been given a first look at what we can expect.

The Minecraft hotel will be part of Chessington World of Adventures, where a Minecraft World area opens next year.

This project appears to be a repurposing of the current Azteca hotel, found within the Chessington World of Adventures wider grounds. It features rooms themed around The Gruffalo as well as “Monkey Temple” designs.

The Minecraft hotel will feature 69 rooms spread across four floors, with the decor of both those rooms and the reception area drenched in Minecraft-inspired colourful and blocky visuals. Expect wood block-style bunk beds, walls luridly attired with game visuals, Minecraft bed spreads and a stool that looks like a TNT block.

Don’t let the kids see the concept images unless you want them to be begging you for a visit for the rest of the year — and it may be enough to induce a migraine in some adults. The current Azteca hotel does feature some non-themed rooms but there’s no word of that for the Minecraft revamp’s more grumpy visitors.

The hotel will feature a restaurant with “game inspired” meals, replacing the Temple Restaurant & Bar found there today. It will have an underwater theme, while the bar area will be decked out in Woodland Mansion style.

“Every room, corridor and detail has been crafted with immense love for this game, the stories made within it and its community,” says Daisy Mercedes, Creative Producer at Merlin Entertainments.

This is a part of a £50 million project to bring Minecraft World to the park. It replaces the Wild Asia area, which opened in 2010. The unusual Kobra rollercoaster(ish) experience from that zone will reportedly be repurposed in Minecraft World, but the main attraction of the new area is a rollercoaster called Escape the Nether.

It’s dubbed an “indoor-outdoor” ride, and an early visualisation suggests we’ll sit in a four-a-row blocky Minecraft cart. Height requirements for the ride are yet to be revealed, but there is a little time for the kids to sprout up.

Minecraft World’s opening date is yet to be revealed beyond being some time in 2027. Peak season for the park is, of course, during school holidays so the team will want the area, and the hotel, open by July 2027.

The last new major park area was World of Paw Patrol, which opened in May 2026.

• Universal Studios UK theme park gets go-ahead for development — and thrill seekers are in for a treat

London’s Oxford Street is probably not the first place you’d expect to stumble across a contemporary art exhibition. But that’s rather the point. This October, W1 Curates is bringing together the worlds of art, music, nightlife and technology, transforming its Oxford Street public art platform into an immersive cultural experience as part of Frieze London.

The centrepiece is MUSIC by Sir Michael Craig-Martin, running from 5th October to 4th November. Following its debut in Ibiza, the exhibition brings three decades of Craig-Martin’s instantly recognisable paintings of musical instruments to W1 Curates, with the works blown up to monumental scale across its digital screens.

For its London outing, MUSIC will also feature a specially curated audio component, turning the exhibition into an audio-visual experience and further blurring the boundaries between visual art, sound and live performance.

It’s an idea that W1 Curates has already been exploring in Ibiza. Its second Culture Collective: Ibiza Art Weekend, held in September, brought 70 international artists together with figures from music, fashion and culture across . The programme deliberately placed contemporary art inside spaces better known for DJs and dancefloors. Now that same philosophy is heading back to London.

Frieze week specials

There are two particularly important dates during Frieze week. On 15th October, W1 Curates will host Craig-Martin in conversation with Gagosian, exploring the development of MUSIC and the artist's career, as well as the possibilities of taking art beyond conventional galleries.

Then, on 16th October, things get a bit louder. W1 Curates and The Night League will host a special event featuring headline DJs and live programming incorporated directly into the exhibition. For one night, MUSIC becomes part art exhibition, part club night and part live cultural experience. W1 Curates will also host an October launch party for Tinie Tempah’s forthcoming album The Night’s Not Dead, alongside an exhibition of its album-cover artwork by David King Reuben — another collaboration born from the conversations and connections made during Culture Collective in Ibiza.

For W1 Curates, it’s all part of a bigger idea: getting art out of the gallery and into the places where people actually spend their time. So, whether you’re heading to Frieze specifically for the art or simply passing through Oxford Street on your way somewhere else, this October offers a rather different way to experience it. Just don't forget to bring your ears.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

This November, Church of Sound, a pioneering grassroots jazz night, will step out of its usual home at St James the Great church in Clapton to take over Barbican Hall for a celebration of the night’s 10^th anniversary.

On Friday 20th November, as part of the prestigious EFG London Jazz Festival, a specially assembled band led by trumpeter and musical director Byron Wallen will celebrate the impact of UK jazz of the 60s and 70s, while also showcasing the scene of today. The band will feature contemporary figures such as saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, guitarist Oscar Jerome, saxophonist and flautist Tamar Osborn, singer Norma Winstone and drummer Jas Kayser among others.

Byron Wallen bursts with enthusiasm as he discusses plans for the anniversary gig.

“It's about honouring a specific period but also showing the movement forward from there," he tells Shortlist.

"It represents various aspects of the music community, from the more improvised free scene to the groove scene, which in some ways are polar opposites but are actually quite united.

"It will explore the legacy of British jazz, which is inspired by American jazz but came up with a sound of its own. From there it will show how the current musicians and younger musicians are working today”.

At the inception of the night, founders Lex Blondin of legendary studio and cultural space Total Refreshment Centre and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Martin couldn’t have predicted where their project would take them, or that they’d be celebrating this anniversary at the Barbican.

Establishing the night and in fact finding a suitable venue was a challenge from the get-go, as Martin recalls.

"We considered doing a show at one church, but we could never quite convince them to get on board, so after about six months we gave up," he says.

"They then directed us to St James the Great, to the reverend there, Rosemarie Mallett who was Area Dean of Hackney at the time – a charismatic, relaxed and convivial woman. What had felt like an impossible task at the first church suddenly wasn't. We turned up at St James and she basically said, 'When's the first date? Let's go.'"

A unique format

One of the hallmarks of Church of Sound since its inception has been its format. The band on the night plays twice – first performing a ‘song book’ set where they honour a particular artist, period or influence and the second being a showcase of their own music. One particularly notable show saw Ezra Collective pay tribute to the legendary afro-beat originator Fela Kuti.

For Blondin, the format has always been central to what is special about Church of Sound.

“The songbook thing started when we launched. It was an incredible time for the scene and a lot of the artists like Shabaka [Hutchings] were hanging around at Total Refreshment Centre," he recalls.

"I realised at one of Spencer’s nights that [drummer and band leader] Yussef Dayes sounds like Idris Muhammad. I mentioned it to him and the songbook idea germinated from there. I’m a big fan of all this music, but I’d rarely experienced it live because many of the artists had passed away or it was just a personal listening experience. Being able to translate that into the live realm and share it with 400 people in a beautiful way, set the tone going forward."

The founders wanted the night to be a celebration of musical history, but also crucially a forward-looking event that gave space for innovation that is happening now.

As Martin puts it – “It was a really natural and useful way of contextualising music that was happening now, and placing it in a certain lineage, recognising similarities and things that have been inherited. It's nice to pay tribute, but also to use that tribute as a way of showcasing the new music as well. It also allowed us to naturally split things into two sets, which turned out to be a huge part of Church of Sound."

New blood, new sounds

At the heart of the night’s ethos is fostering talent and supporting the jazz scene here in London, to help it continue going from strength to strength — Wallen is unequivocal when talking about the event’s role for the music.

“One of the interesting things about Church of Sound is the building of the community," he says.

"As an artist working there, you're bringing in all facets of the community and especially music that is marginalised. To see that vibrancy of it and young people coming out who haven't necessarily been versed in jazz is incredible. They want to come because they know something special is going to happen and they trust that the music they hear is going to be great. As an artist coming into that situation is a real blessing”.

The list of artists who have played at Church of Sound reads like a who’s who of contemporary UK jazz from the aforementioned Ezra Collective and Shabaka to Moses Boyd, Emma-Jean Thackray and many more.

Blondin and Martin have also managed to bring in many international musicians too, including the late great Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen and legendary saxophonist Gary Bartz. A “pinch me” moment as Lex puts it, came when they booked The Cookers – an extraordinary American jazz super group featuring legends such as saxophonist Donald Harrison and Eddie Henderson on trumpet.

There are huge plans for the future of Church of Sound as it continues to be a significant cultural showcase for London’s jazz scene. As an event that has always celebrated lineage and history while looking to the future, it can now have a moment to reflect on its own history and contribution.

• The ‘Church of Sound 10^th Birthday/ British Jazz Songbook’ show comes to the Barbican on 20 November 2026. It is part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Usually Ronnie Scott’s is associated with a suave kind of sultry Soho where people are out past 11pm, with saxy jazz music playing away whilst people sip on Sazeracs. And whilst that’s not changing, the legendary live music is heading on a little sojourn, popping over to a bar right beside London’s St Paul’s Cathedral for a month of music.

The Anthologist over in Bank is welcoming in Ronnie Scott’s for a month of Friday night fun across October. The bar will be hosting the London institution for four evenings of live entertainment from some of the jazz club’s most exciting performers. To go alongside all this sophistication, there will be an exclusive menu created for the evenings, consisting of bourbon based cocktails from Maker’s Mark, bringing the taste of vintage New Orleans as well as its sounds and influence.

There are two speciality cocktails on the menu – a Mango Spiced Whiskey Sour & Salted Caramel Popcorn Old Fashioned. If you want some good news, a welcome cocktail is included in the ticket price, so you won’t be shelling out £££ on top of tickets. At least for the first round anyway.

Doors open at 8pm, with tickets priced at £20 including a welcome cocktail and an evening of live entertainment from the likes of Acantha Lang, Marcus Bofanti, Louise Marshall, and Jo Harrop. Lang is a New Orleans-born soul singer, whilst Bofanti is a two-time British Blues Award winner. Meanwhile Marshall is a long-standing vocalist with Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, who has performed alongside David Gilmour, Chaka Khan and Beverley Knight, and Harrop, rounding off the residency, who is an acclaimed jazz vocalist and has won Jazz Album of the Year.

TLDR: it’s a pretty fab lineup, and your Friday nights are in good hands – or rather, good bands.

You can book tickets here.

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Apple Music Hall has only just announced its arrival as a new venue at Battersea Power Station, but it already has one hell of a gig diary.

Apple has announced the first run of artists set to perform at its new 600-capacity London space, with Elton John, Baby Keem, Skye Newman, Troye Sivan, Arlo Parks, Burna Boy, Chase & Status and Charli xcx all booked to take the stage.

And the first name through the door is a pretty big one. Elton John will officially open Apple Music Hall on Monday 28th September, followed by Baby Keem on 2nd October and Skye Newman on 7th October.

The rest of the initial schedule runs through the autumn and into December, with Troye Sivan on 13th October, Arlo Parks on 22nd October, Burna Boy on 29th October, Chase & Status on 26th November and Charli xcx on 2nd December.

Big names incoming

The first three shows are particularly imminent, with tickets for Elton John, Baby Keem and Skye Newman going on sale at 9am BST on Monday 28th September. Yep — tickets for the Elton show are being released the same day as the actual performance itself. Keep in mind that Elton has also retired from large-scale global tour schedules, making this an extremely rare hot ticket.

But refreshingly, the tickets are at very accessible prices — none are listed for more than £40 at present, across all shows.

Tickets for the remaining shows will be released at a later date, with Dice the partnering ticket service to book through.

So what makes Apple Music Hall different from London's other gig venues? For starters, this isn't a massive arena where you'll need binoculars to see the artist. The purpose-built venue holds just 600 people, with Apple specifically designing it to combine the intimacy of a small gig with the production capabilities of a much bigger show.

There's a 38-foot-wide stage that can be rearranged for traditional or in-the-round performances, while a 48-speaker Spatial Audio system surrounds the audience.

Behind the scenes, things get even more Apple-y. The venue has two recording and mixing studios, infrastructure for 16 or more cameras and a dedicated broadcast control room. That means performances can be recorded in Spatial Audio, turned into broadcast-ready productions and captured on multicamera video – all from the same gig. Shows will also be livestreamed globally, so that 600-person capacity doesn't necessarily mean only 600 people get to experience them.

Apple Music Hall might be one of London's smallest new venues – but its ambitions match the scale of the tech giant behind the curtains.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

The Michelin Guide has announced its September 2026 additions, and they include six featured restaurants in London.

As is often the case with these Michelin picks, Mayfair has outsize importance relative to its geographic size. Five of the seven guide additions are in the area, so let’s start with the ones found elsewhere.

Simpson’s in The Strand gets a featured position in the guide. It has, of course, been around for decades at this point, but only reopened in March 2026 after its 2020 closure during the pandemic.

It has its own slice of Michelin history too, having been granted one in the first Michelin Guide from 1974. Simpson’s in The Strand does not hold a star today, but the reception to its 2026 opening was a strong one.

“It’s a place I will lean on when I simply need to be fed, nurtured and taken care of,” said Grace Dent in her review for The Guardian.

Next up is a steakhouse in the City of London area, MRBL, which also opened in March. Steaks are available from £20, while the veggies can try out a cauliflower steak for £18.

“Our steaks are dry-aged for a minimum of 35 days and cooked over charcoal. We use only selected native breeds: English Longhorn, Hereford, and Aberdeen Angus cattle, grass-fed and reared on farms in Yorkshire and Norfolk,” says MRBL.

The restaurant also offers Sunday roasts, topped off by the £32 Roast Hereford, served with potatoes, carrots, hispi cabbage, cauliflower cheese croquette and a Yorkshire pudding.

Mayfair massive

Now it’s time to take a trip to Mayfair for the rest of this month’s Michelin Guide additions:

Chez Rose: A French bistro whose eye-catching menu items include a t-bone steak for two (£145), dover sole with meuniere sauce and lemon (£58) and veal cutlet with salsa verde.

DakaDaka: Georgian restaurant that serves classic Khachapuri — like a Georgian pizza cheese boat — as well as Khinkali dumplings, stews and more meaty fare.

Dante: An Italian restaurant offering a mix of fish, meat and pasta dishes, plus salads, but no pizzas. Because it’s classy. A whole lobster for £96.

Sushi Amamoto: Just 16 seats in this upmarket sushi restaurant, which offers omakase testing menus. £180 off-peak for the 17-course deal, £380 for the 22-course banquet.

Bar Des Pres: French-Japanese fusion, with a notable cocktail list to boot. Headed by chef Cyril Lignac, you can look forward to maki, raw and grilled seafood. And even a wagyu beef sando £89).

• 9 international menu items are coming to London McDonald's restaurants this week

Leytonstone is getting a new music venue and bar next month, dubbed Altar.

The site is set to open on 23rd October, and we’re promised live music at least three times a week, according to a preview by the Leytonstoner blog.

Altar is planned as a multi-identity kind of venue. It’s a cocktail bar, a place to check out new vinyl releases and a place for after-work drinks as well as a gig venue with room for around 100 revellers.

There are no live music listings just yet, but the programme is to be curated by Transgressive Records founder Toby L and the team behind Leytonstone’s Shake the High Road local festival.

Acts at the 2026 edition of the festival included Gold Panda, Pan Amsterdam and Sholto.

Reviving a much-loved space

For now, though, you’ll have to make do with some teasers as to what else you can expect when you step into Altar.

The ground floor seating is decked out in moody velvet, offset by the shiny tiled bar. We expect this area to feel quite different to the sweat-box-ready lower room where you’ll get to see bands and DJs perform.

Altar’s drinks menu is designed by Chop Shop Tavern, and includes unusual picks like the Caprese gimlet, a gin cocktail with flavours of tomato, basil and black pepper. Some of your food options will come with an off-kilter approach too, like the banh mi hot dog, which brings spiced kachumber and sharp pickled carrot flavours to a fast food classic.

Altar takes over the space once inhabited by Luna Lounge. It too was a big live music hub for the area, but closed in 2024 following rising costs and a failed crowdfunding campaign.

Hopefully Altar will have better luck when it opens next month. You’ll find the venue at 7 Church Lane, just a couple of hundred metres away from Leytonstone tube station.

• First two London bars in the worldwide top 100 best revealed

You must have been actively avoiding music news over the last couple of weeks if you’ve missed the Macklemore saga, and the rapper has now announced his own mini tour including a date in London.

There’s not long to wait either. Macklemore’s Free Palestine Tour will land in London on 30th October, at the 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena.

This date follows concerts in Paris on 29th October and Dublin on 26th October, all at sizeable arenas.

“All proceeds benefiting organisations supporting Palestine and the Palestinian movement,” reads the tour poster.

To sign up for ticket availability details, you can enter your number over at the Macklemore website. And given the timescale we’re working with, it can’t be long before tickets go on sale.

Pop problems

This announcement follows Macklemore’s departure from the Ed Sheeran Loop tour following his pro-Palestine statements made during a performance. As Macklemore explained in a a statement, Sheeran was threatened with being blocked from performing at all if he did not remove the rapper from the tour.

Sheeran has said the decision to remove Macklemore was the “promoter’s decision,” rather than his own. He played two dates with Sheeran at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, on 4th and 5th September, and was initially signed-up to perform at most dates until the US leg’s end in November.

Since then, Sheeran’s own self-labelled “apolitical” stance has been criticised widely, while other support acts Aaron Rowe, Beoga and Lukas Graham have also left the tour.

To add to Sheeran’s — a pop star with net worth of upwards of £400 million — woes, there’s word his Gilette Stadium shows in New England this weekend may have to be cancelled thanks to a major incoming storm.

Ed Sheeran last played in London at The O2 Arena’s Capital FM Jingle Bell Ball in December 2025, while the Loop tour is yet to have a single London date announced.

• The BIG London gig list 2026

The latest release of the Top 50 Bars in the World list is out, and London has snagged a respectable number of entries in the list.

Yes — despite the headline here, Top 50 is correct. In a slightly odd move, the Top 50 Bars team has actually only released numbers 51-100 in this latest update, with the actual top 50 due on 7th October.

It’s a teaser announcement, ahead of the big day. But there are still a couple of London highlights to sip over.

Our London picks sit at number 73, with Three Sheets’s Soho bar, and Scarfes Bar in Holborn at number 77.

This represents a bit of a fall for one of these in the rankings, compared to last year’s results. Scarfes Bar tumbles from number 31 to 77, but Three Sheets Soho has actually risen slightly, from 81 to 73.

The full list of top bars will be revealed as part of a ceremony in Milan — and the judging panel consists of upwards of 800 folks in the industry, including cocktail experts and journalists.

In last year’s rankings, London locales took up four slots in the top 50 positions, an additional three in places 51 to 100.

The top-billing establishment was Tayēr + Elementary at number five, an Old Street cocktail bar that was tragically forced to close following a fire in the building earlier this year.

Just last week the team confirmed the bar will not re-open in 2026.

“Being unable to open our doors for reasons completely outside of our control has been difficult, and we miss the bar, our routine, our regulars and the everyday rhythm of sharing our space with all of you more than we can say,” the team wrote on Instagram. But Tayēr + Elementary still plan to re-open, and it’s clearer than ever they still plan to.

Presumably, the bar will no longer be a valid contender for the list.

London’s other highest rated spots last year were Connaught Bar at number six — which is very much still open — and Satan’s Whiskers at number 21.

We expect to see that bar do well once more. Just a couple of months ago it won the Best International Cocktail bar at the 2026 Spirited awards, so clearly hasn't dropped off after a strong opening — it has been around since 2013, but had grown in reputation over the last couple of years.

• A huge new bar from the Inception Group is opening up inside one of London’s largest landmarks

Have a hankering for fish and chips? There are three London eateries you absolutely need to consider according to the Fish & Chip Takeaway of the Year Award team.

The 40-strong long list of potential overall winners across the nation has been revealed, and three of them are in London. Not bad going considering it’s not as if anyone’s pulling fish straight out of the Thames and putting them into the fryer.

First up is Southwark’s Fish! Kitchen, which has been around since 1999. It serves some dishes far outside of the chip shop norm, end even ribeye steak. But on the classic fried fish front you can choose from cod, haddock, halibut, plaice, skate, or hake. You’l pay £24-34 for the meal, which includes chips, mushy peas and tartare sauce.

Slightly less pricey is Chipping Wharf Fish & Chips, whose meal deals land at just under £20 for a classic cod, haddock or plaice combo. It’s found in Bow, nearby Victoria Park. And you can even get it via delivery services like Uber Eats — although with every second of steam likely to affect the battery crunch we think it’s best experienced fresh out of the fryer.

Our third chippie is the longest-standing and perhaps most traditional of the lot, Harrow’s Skipjacks. It has been around since 1969, and serves kebab shop fare as well as classic fried and grilled fish.

You’ll pay £15.95 for a smaller serving of cod and chips, according to the place’s Just Eat listing. Skipjacks is found in Harrow, not far from the Queensbury tube station.

Big winner to be announced

Top marks all-round for these fish fryers, but it’s not the end of the story of the Takeaway of the Year awards. Not even close.

These three have made it into the top 40 long list, which will then be whittled down to 20. Then a final ten, revealed in “a couple of months’ time” according to Fry Magazine.

The National Fish & Chip awards will then be held in London on 24th February next year. The Takeaway of the Year final winner will be one of 14 awards revealed at that event.

• Four London restaurants added to the Michelin Guide in globe-trotting update

Fancy adding some real art to your walls without spending a small fortune? The Other Art Fair is returning to East London this October, bringing more than 135 independent artists to Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery for four days of exhibitions, live events and creative happenings.

Running from 8th - 11th October, the fair is designed to make buying art feel less intimidating for those more accustomed to blue tacking a poster to their walls. Visitors will be able to meet artists, hear the stories behind their work and buy directly from the people who made it. Almost 80% of the artists taking part are based in the UK.

There’s plenty of new talent to discover, too. Four artists will be making their London debuts, including London-based oil painter Holly Garbett, Korean-American painter Courtney Bae, hyperrealistic pastel artist Danielle Verbeeten and painter Emmanuelle Walker, whose work finds beauty in everyday scenes through grids, repetition and abstraction.

British photographer Amelia Troubridge is the fair's 2026 Guest Artist, showcasing photographs from her England archive spanning 1995 to 2023, including portraits of Steve Coogan, Nick Cave and Olivia Colman. She'll also be at the fair throughout the weekend, giving visitors the chance to meet her and hear more about her work.

Friday night gets an Ibiza twist, meanwhile, as legendary club institution Manumission takes over for a special evening of DJs, conversation and culture, including a discussion around its new book, The Motel. Saturday will be soundtracked by London collective Club Lune Bleue, which champions women DJs and producers.

There are plenty of hands-on bits, too. You can get a poem written for you on the spot by resident typewriter poet Luke, contribute to the evolving Creative Corner display, or simply browse the Under £300 Collection, which brings together original works priced at £300 or less.

Tickets and further information are available via The Other Art Fair website.

• The best exhibitions in London this autumn: From Bayeux to Picasso and America’s scientific history

Two decades after Amy Winehouse released Back to Black, the seminal album is coming home to Camden for a very special one-night-only concert.

The Amy Winehouse Band will perform the album in full at Camden’s Roundhouse on Wednesday 21st October, with original producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi reunited for the celebration.

And they won't be doing it alone. A seriously impressive collection of artists and friends of the late star will take on Amy's songs, with Corinne Bailey Rae, Jorja Smith, Lianne La Havas, Yebba, FLO, Jessie Reyez, Baby Rose, Nia Smith, Sasha Keable and Skye Newman among the special guests.

The event’s music will be masterminded by Ronson and Remi alongside Amy's long-term musical director Dale Davis, producers Paul O'Duffy and p*nut, and Darcus Beese.

“I’m honoured to be asked to come celebrate Amy alongside Salaam and some amazing artists worthy of singing her songs,” said Ronson. “Doing justice to the legacy of Back to Black is the order of the night.”

Released in October 2006, Back to Black remains a much-loved, landmark album, earning Winehouse five Grammy Awards and selling more than 25 million copies worldwide. Its combination of brutally honest songwriting, retro soul, with Winehouse's unmistakable voice cementing her place as one of the defining artists of her generation. The creative partnership with Ronson also gave us a perennial wedding party classic in the shape of her cover of ‘Valerie’, found on Ronson's Version album and also as a live bonus track on Back to Black in some territories:

What sort of anniversary would it be without a reissue though? A deluxe version of Back to Black will arrive on 23rd October, featuring unreleased demos, rare B-sides and a live performance recorded at Amsterdam's Paradiso in 2007. It will also include previously unseen photography and new liner notes from Ronson and Remi.

And if you can't make it to Camden, the concert will be broadcast on BBC Two in late October, with BBC Radio 2 also airing the show during Jo Whiley's programme on Monday 26th October from 7pm.

How to get tickets for Back to Black 20

An official artist pre-sale is available to fans who pre-order a 20th Anniversary edition of Back to Black from the Amy Winehouse Official Artist Store by 12pm on Monday 28th September.

General ticket sales open at 10am on Thursday 1st October, with tickets available via Metropolis Music.

Twenty years on, it feels particularly fitting that Back to Black is being celebrated in Camden – the London neighbourhood that was so closely intertwined with Amy's life and music. Expect this one to be very hard to get tickets for.

• Inside Blue Note London: 10 star-studded shows to catch during the jazz club’s opening season

Harrods has given its menswear department a major refresh, unveiling a newly redesigned Designer Collections room on the second floor of its luxury Knightsbridge store.

The reasoning behind the revamp is pretty simple: according to Harrod’s buyers, the average moneyed bloke isn't necessarily looking for one big-ticket fashion flex any more. Instead, they're increasingly looking for clothes that can form a complete wardrobe, and work across everything from lazy weekends to slightly smarter occasions. It’s about convenience, taking the stress out of finding the perfect full fit.

The new space puts that idea front and centre, with a particular focus on the modern weekend wardrobe. That means greater prominence for the sorts of pieces that can do a bit of heavy lifting in your wardrobe, including outerwear, knitwear and gilets.

Big name brands

As you’d expect from the store for big spenders, there are plenty of big names to browse. The Designer Collections room brings together brands including Herno, Purdey, Barbour, Sease, Orlebar Brown, Paul & Shark and Vilebrequin, alongside an area curated by Harrods itself. A new dedicated pop-up space will also allow Harrods to host exclusive launches, seasonal collections and events to attract window shoppers across the year..

"The new Designer Collections room marks a significant expansion of our lifestyle

category and reflects how our customers are increasingly shopping for a complete

Wardrobe,” says Yasmin Mehmet, Menswear Buying Manager at Harrods.

“We are seeing growing demand for versatile pieces that seamlessly transition across different occasions, particularly within categories such as outerwear, knitwear and gilets. By bringing together a carefully curated selection of brands and creating an environment dedicated to discovery and inspiration, we are further strengthening our offer for the modern menswear customer."

The new Designer Collections department is now open, so if you’re in a fix for a fit for Friday, take a look.

• As a 36-year-old father who needs both style and comfort, these are Autumn’s most wearable menswear trends

Autumn officially kicks off on 23 September, but you don’t need to consult your meteorological calendar to tell you that. The nights are starting to draw in, and it’s now possible to go out before dinner time without the risk of your shoes melting into the pavement.

Of course, while the ambient temperature might be starting to drop, London’s art scene is really heating up. As well as being able to catch the end of some of our top picks from the summer, the autumn exhibition line-up for the capital is also starting to take shape.

We’ve got a great selection of artistic showcases for you to check out across London during the latter part of the year, some of which are completely free.

With the weather predicted to be both warmer and wetter than usual this autumn, moving between the dry, temperature-controlled venues on this list sounds like a particularly good idea.

And if you manage to capture London on one of its brighter days, we have a couple of outdoors events to help you make the most of it.

Bayeux Tapestry

Where: British Museum
When: September 10th to July 11th
Price: From £25

We seriously ummed and ahhed about including this one, because the simple truth is that if you don’t have tickets already, you’re not getting in to see the Bayeux Tapestry this autumn. More tickets are set to be made available on October 21st (that’s autumn!), but these will be for the winter and early spring (that’s not). Still, the exhibition is technically taking place right now, and the chance to see this 1,000-year-old and 70-metre-long piece of embroidery on home turf makes it one of the hottest tickets in town. Still can’t go? Check out some of these alternatives..

Henry Moore: Monumental Nature

Where: Kew Gardens
When: Until January 31st
Price: Entry to Kew (From £25)

English sculptor Henry Moore gained acclaim across his 70-year career by creating huge, curvaceous sculptures that frequently wound up on display in public spaces across the globe. Kew has assembled 30 of his works, which have been scattered thoughtfully throughout London’s world-famous botanical gardens. There’s also an indoor exhibition at the on-site Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, which showcases 90 of the late artist’s smaller works, including some of his drawings and sketchbooks. All are viewable for the price of a standard Kew Gardens entry ticket.

Es Devlin: Other Worlds

Where: Design Museum
When: October 9th to April 4th
Price: From £21

London-born Es Devlin has designed sets for some of the world’s biggest musical acts (Beyoncé, Adele, Kanye West), sports events, and major theatrical productions. She’s also the creator of large-scale immersive art installations. This Design Museum exhibition will mark the first retrospective in Europe celebrating the artist’s 30-year career, and the largest anywhere to date. It seeks to place you inside of Devlin’s head, starting with a complete replica of her London studio, running through her early sketches and school works, and centring on a large ’30-Year Desk’ that’s been specifically designed for the space.

Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and Legends

Where: National Portrait Gallery
When: October 8th to January 31st
Price: From £23

Tim Walker first came to prominence as a fashion photographer in the ‘90s, and his work has since appeared in the likes of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and iD. He also supplied the album artwork for Harry Styles’s second album in 2019. His photographic work is known for being extremely theatrical in nature, inspired by fairytales and surreal imagery. This latest exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery highlights his work around queer identity, with the artist having spent the past five years photographing various activists, performers, artists, and other queer trailblazers.

Korea

Where: British Museum
When: October 1st to January 31st
Price: From £18

Beat those no-Bayeux blues by popping around the corner and checking out The British Museum’s new Korea exhibition, based on works taken from the collection of late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee. It’ll take you on a trip through some 2,000 years of artistic output from an East Asian country that’s having a bit of a moment on the global stage, with the oldest pieces (bronze ritual implements) dating back as far as 300 BC. Elsewhere expect luminous ceramics, delicate porcelain objects, and rare Buddhist paintings. It’s the most consequential collection of its kind to hit the UK in 40 years.

Frieze Sculpture

Where: Regent's Park
When: September 16th to November 1st
Price: Free

And now for something completely free. The 14th edition of Frieze Sculpture has arrived in London’s Regent’s Park, with 11 leading international artists supplying works. Wander around this most stately of London’s green spaces this autumn and you’ll spot sculptures from Angelo Otero, Conrad Shawcross, Carolina Aguirre and more. If you’d like further insight into this year’s selection, then curator Fatoş Üstek is offering a one hour free public tour on the last Sunday of the exhibition in the south-east corner of the park at midday.

Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation

Where: The Science Museum
When: October 23rd to April 25th
Price: Free

As the United States of America celebrates 250 years since it declared independence from Great Britain, and with the pre-eminent global superpower enduring a prolonged period of political turmoil, what better time to reflect on the nation’s historical achievements and pitfalls? The Science Museum will be running a free exhibit this autumn containing a number of maps, paintings, instruments and artefacts illustrating America’s scientific endeavours from the 1760s to today – for better and for worse. Among them, an undoubted highlight has to be a rare surviving 1776 print of the Declaration of Independence.

Painting the French Riviera

Where: Royal Academy of Arts
When: October 2nd to January 31st
Price: From £26.50

This ode to the French Riviera features more than 160 works from a number of 19th and 20th century artists that were directly inspired by the region’s azure seas. With works from the likes of Monet, Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, it makes a compelling claim to be central to the development of modern art. Hand in hand with this artistic side, the exhibit also explores how the region became the go-to destination for the great and good of the music and movie scenes in the mid-20th century. Perfect viewing as things become a whole lot greyer in the UK.

• The Barbican has unveiled its 2027 programme – and it’s an artsy tour de force

Crazy golf can sometimes be a little of a disappointment as the only crazy part of it is the price or the queues or the amount of times you miss the hole on the supposedly ‘easy’ course. However, a new course opening up in Shoreditch is set to remedy this, being a completely bonkers take on a standard crazy golf circuit, entirely decked out in 80s Americana with a horror film twist.

Called Ted’s Crazy Golf, the east London spot is set to open up at the end of October, just in time with spooky season’s big day. If the name sounds somewhat familiar it might be because Ted has another venue, although this one is a tad further away in Oxford and only opened up last month. Both the Oxford venue and the upcoming London one have taken over from former Junkyard Golf outposts. Aloso both of Ted’s courses are downright extra, drenched in old-school Americana props, paying homage to cult film favourites and serving up a good dose of proper comedy horror.

Luckily we already have an idea of what house of horrors treats we’re in for at the new spot. Ted's “twisted world” will see visitors take on two fun and creepy 9-hole crazy golf courses. The expansive location will be completely littered with a whole host of crazy creatures like gargoyles, vampire robots and jumping jack in the boxes and plenty more spooky sights. Those won’t be the only ghoulish things to gawp at; the first course is called Bad Bones which will take players through a gothic graveyard. The other course is called Toy Bites and according to Ted’s, it’s ‘part toyshop, part vampire nightmare’. Whilst the first course will feature huge Venus fly traps, snakes, zombies and more, the latter will be packed with mutated toys and scary scenes that will feel straight out of a horror-comedy flick.

If all that sporting (well, more like gaming), works up a thirst, you’ll be able to head to the aptly named Deadbeat Diner, a Ted-ian twist on a retro American joint. You’ll be able to stock up on pizzas, hot dogs, milkshakes, ice blasts, coke floats, themed cocktails, and a bar well stocked enough to help get rid of any jitters.

Co-founder Larissa Houghton said: ‘Bringing Ted’s to London was always something we wanted to do, but we knew that if we were going to do it, we had to go big. We want people to walk through the doors and immediately feel like they’ve left London behind and stepped into another world. It’s weird, nostalgic, funny, a little bit creepy and completely immersive. There really isn’t anything quite like Ted’s Crazy Golf and we can’t wait for people to see what we’ve been creating.’

Whilst the course opens up at the end of October, bookings will open up on 22nd September. Whilst ticket prices haven't been confirmed yet, judging by the Oxford ones, it will cost around £12.50 for 9 holes, and £21.50 18 holes.

• London is hosting a huge Surrealist exhibition with works from Magritte

UK jazz has been having somewhat of a renaissance for a good few years now. Torchbearers Ezra Collective have repeatedly achieved feats previously thought impossible for bands from the scene, such as winning the Mercury Prize, bagging a Brit Award for Group of the Year and now scoring a number one album.

It seems a perfect time for a new jazz venue to be stirring things up in London, drawing in some of the biggest names from the UK and globally. But this isn’t just any venue – it’s Blue Note, a name synonymous with high class jazz clubs and the best music the contemporary scene has to offer.

• The 10 greatest jazz albums of all time

The original Blue Note jazz club opened its doors in New York in 1981 and since then sister venues have popped up around the world, in cities from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo to Milan. Blue Note London finds its home on St Martin’s Lane Covent Garden – becoming the group’s ninth venue.

Nick Lewis, Director of Music and Programming at the venue buzzes with excitement as he discusses Blue Note London’s vision for its opening season and beyond.

“We’re going to bring a big vibe and a contemporary flavour to seated live jazz and jazz-adjacent gigs in the city! The Blue Note room itself is looking absolutely gorgeous and I’ve no doubt artists are going to love performing there, while music fans are going to love being in the room.”

For Lewis, it was important to support and promote talent from the burgeoning UK scene as well as bringing in the international acts.

“I wanted to feature as many of the big names in our brilliant UK jazz scene as possible to really represent the fact that Blue Note, an American brand, is coming to London and recognises our scene loud and clear.”

With a classic jazz-club feel, extraordinary artists and a fine selection of food and drink, the venue is sure to quickly establish itself in the hearts of London jazz fans. With a stellar opening season this autumn and winter – we pick ten not to be missed shows.

1. Nik West

• 30th Sept + 1st Oct
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Described by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics as “The female Lenny Kravitz”, Nik West has become known for her gutsy fusions of funk, soul and rock. A virtuosic bassist and highly distinctive singer – West has a commanding stage presence and is bound to light up Blue Note across this four-show run.

2. Baaba Maal

• 4th-6th October
• Two shows per day at 7pm and 9.30pm

A true legend of West African music, Baaba Maal has been fusing the traditional sounds of Senegal with influences from the wider world for over four decades. Throughout his career, he has incorporated everything from the blues to electronic elements with traditional sounds. He will debut a brand-new quintet at this show. A perfect chance to see a genuine pioneer in an intimate setting.

3. IMEHO – An Intimate Experience with Erykah Badu

• 10th + 11th October. Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

A true original, a five-time Grammy winner and genre defying creative force – there are many ways to describe Erykah Badu. Nick Lewis has called booking her “literally a dream come true” and has noted that these shows “will be her most intimate to date”. Most well-known for legendary albums such as 1997’s Baduizm and 2000’s Mama’s Gun, Badu is bound to delight London audiences as she takes to the Blue Note stage backed by a full live band. If you fancy going, be quick as these shows are bound to sell out.

4. Nubya Garcia

• 15th-17th October
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Playing six sets across three days, Nubya Garcia will light up the stage with her soaring tenor sax work and fiery compositions. Over many years and with the release of albums such as her much-lauded debut Source and 2024’s Odyssey, she has occupied a position as one of the true trailblazers of contemporary UK jazz. Her mastery of the music sees her create pieces that draw on everything from dub to RnB and classical influences.

5. Hak Baker

• 18th October
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Hak Baker has quickly become one of the most distinctive and intriguing voices within London’s music scene. A soulful singer and storyteller, he combines elements of everything from folk to post-punk and reggae. His genre smashing approach has earnt him fans from Mike Skinner to Pete Doherty. Why not grab this chance to see a fascinating artist at this early point in his career as he takes to the Blue Note stage.

6. Shabaka

• 19th + 20th October
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

From his punchy high-energy sax work with bands such as Sons of Kemet and the Comet is Coming, to his embrace of flutes and electronics on his solo work, Shabaka is an artist who never stays still for long. With his most recent album Of The Earth, he made every sound, handled production duties and even rapped on two tracks. It’s a set that simply couldn’t have come from any other artist. It’s distinctive, enthralling and exists firmly in its own lane. For these shows he will be joined by guitarist Dave Okumu and drummer Austin Williamson.

7. Brandee Younger

• November 8th
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Decades ago, legendary figures such as Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby helped establish the harp as a jazz instrument. Now, it’s making a return and demonstrating its role in the contemporary musical landscape. One of the leading proponents is the ever-engaging Brandee Younger whose playing honours those that came before her, but establishes the instrument firmly in a contemporary context.

8. Jazzanova Live feat Wayne Snow

• 27th November
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

During the 1990s Berlin Collective Jazzanova forged a distinctive path making electronic music that drew on jazz. Finding commonality between the fast-developing sound of broken beat and classic jazz instrumentation – this was music born of sample culture. Now with a full live band in tow, Jazzanova will reimagine their boundary pushing classic In Between – reconfiguring music built from samples in the live space.

9. The Brand New Heavies

• 13th - 15th, 20th - 22nd December
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Formed in 1985, The Brand New Heavies developed a loyal following for their blends of soul and funk. Going on to become a leading light of the UK’s acid jazz scene, they remain a force to be reckoned with in a live setting. The band’s sound is grounded in influences from the 1970s funk of Parliament-Funkadelic and James Brown alongside everything from rare-groove to early hip-hop.

10. Digable Planets

• 18th + 19th December
• Shows at 7pm and 9.30pm

Founded in the late 1980s, Digable Planets helped establish the blue-print for the emerging jazz-rap sound. The trio bring together sharp flows and socially conscious lyrics with beats that sample everything from Herbie Hancock to Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins. Their shows will be backed by a full live band.

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Though London has plenty of brilliant places to see live music, from tiny pub back rooms to enormous arenas, it’s an area of the capital under fire. For every great venue Londoners can enjoy, there’s a handful more either closed or under threat of closure from rising costs — especially in the grassroots space where up-and-coming artists build a name for themselves outside of record label prep schools.

Entering into the fray is Apple — yes, the Apple behind your iPhone. Having changed the way the world consumes music with the iPod, iTunes, and now purveyor of the Apple Music streaming service, Apple is hoping to carve out a rather different niche with its brand-new Apple Music Hall, which opens this month inside Battersea Power Station.

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The 600-capacity venue has been designed to bring the intimacy of a small gig together with the production capabilities you'd normally expect from a much larger concert space. And, naturally, because this is Apple we're talking about, there is a serious amount of technology hiding behind the scenes.

Apple Music Hall takes plenty of visual cues from its iconic surroundings, with heritage brickwork, fluted arches and bronze balconies echoing the architecture of Battersea Power Station. It’s slick — this is a venue more in the vein of the Royal Festival Hall or Barbican than, say, the sticky floors of the Brixton Academy.

But it's what's happening behind the stage that makes the new venue particularly interesting.

Small venue, big tech

Apple says the 600-capacity space has been deliberately designed to “close the gap between intimacy and production value”.

The 38-foot-wide stage can be configured for a conventional front-facing performance or an in-the-round setup, while a 48-speaker Spatial Audio system surrounds the audience. That means you could be watching an artist from relatively close range while experiencing the sort of audio and staging production normally associated with a much larger show.

You won’t necessarily need to be in the room to enjoy the performances taking place at Apple Music Hall, either. Behind the stage are two professional recording and mixing studios, allowing performances to be captured as multitrack recordings and mixed in Spatial Audio either during or after the show.

The venue is also wired for 16 or more cameras, feeding into a dedicated broadcast control room. Apple says iPhone video capture can run alongside conventional broadcast cameras, meaning an artist can perform a relatively intimate London gig and leave with a broadcast-ready mix and multicamera footage. It’s all set for capturing a full concert movie, ready to be shared with fans — presumably through Apple’s own platforms.

ITunes Festival: The Sophomore Album?

The opening also marks something of a return to Apple's long-running relationship with London's live music scene.

Apple previously brought its Apple Music Festival (née iTunes Festival) to venues across London (with a long-standing stint at the Roundhouse). Massive acts like Oasis, Amy Winehouse, Elton John, Coldplay, Charli XCX and dozens more household names played. The line-ups really were impressive.

Apple Music Hall takes that idea in a rather different direction: rather than temporarily taking over an existing venue, Apple now has a permanent London home specifically designed around live performance, recording and broadcasting.

According to Apple Music's global creative director and Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe, the intention is to make the connection between artists and fans the centre of it.

“We’re always looking for new opportunities to connect the artists and the fans because we are fans,” he said of the opening.

“What better way to celebrate this relationship than a new music venue where we get to experience amazing music in an amazing space and share it with the world. Great music and memories will be made at Apple Music Hall.”

There are still some questions to be answered. Apple has yet to announce the full programme of artists who will take to its new stage, how ticketing will work, and how much shows will cost. Given the company's track record of landing some seriously big names for its London music events, that's the bit we're particularly interested in seeing — could Apple subsidise the cost of seeing the mega-stars it pulls into its orbit? And will there be space for unsigned artists whose live music performance options are dwindling? It’ll be exciting to see how the Battersea spot evolves, but consider us very excited indeed.

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A sure-fire hit for kids and adults alike — aside from the few who find them unfathomably creepy — a Moomins exhibition is set to open in London this November.

The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has announced the exhibition, which begins on 21st November, but it’s clear this one won’t entirely focus on the beloved cartoony characters.

Tove Jansson and her Families is the title of the exhibition, which hopes to shine a light on “the personal relationships behind the celebrated artist,” through more than 100 illustrations and other artefacts, including those featuring — of course — the Moomins characters.

Finnish finesse

If you’ve read up on Jansson at all, you may well have heard about how the author and illustrator spent many summers living in a small cabin on a tiny rocky island in Finland with her partner Tuulikki Pietilä. It’s an evocative idea we’re likely to hear more about in the upcoming exhibition.

“Tove’s extended Moomin cast are intimately inspired by her family, friends and lovers in Helsinki’s cultural circles and lesbian community,” says curator Paul Gravett.

“Her lifelong celebration of inclusivity and individuality has never been more inspiring and necessary."

Alongside some of the earliest illustrations featuring the Moomins characters, through drawings surrounding her first book, we’ll see pieces of work Jansson created for “satirical magazine” Garm and those from her mother, who was a graphic designer.

A bit of an eye-opener, this is the “UK’s first ever exhibition to focus on Tove Jansson’s work as an illustrator,” according to the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration.

However, in 2016 and 2017 the Southbank Centre held an Adventures in Moominland exhibition-slash-immersive-experience. And there was a Moomin-related exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2017, should you swear you’ve seen Moomins exhibits in London before.

How to visit

Tickets for the upcoming Tove Jansson and her Families cost £15 for adults, and go on sale from 10am on 22nd September. The show will be on at the centre until 9th May, 2027.

It’s one of two exhibitions announced for the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration's winter season, alongside Faerdom: Now, As Ever.

That’s an exhibition from Fromm Studio, whose work combines modern techniques like 3D printing with tales of folklore.

Faerdom: Now, As Ever opens on 23rd October and runs until 29th March 2027 — tickets are also £15, and go on sale from 22nd September too.

Not heard of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration before? It only opened earlier this year, in June, and is found in Clerkenwell nearby the Angel tube station. Memberships start at £45 a year, which grant access to all exhibitions, plus a 10 per cent discount in the shop and cafe.

• The best exhibitions in London: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

From this week, new items will start appearing on McDonald’s menus across the country thanks to the World Menu Heist.

Less dramatic than it sounds, this involves a fistful of McDonald's picks from other countries coming to our local Maccies — including ones from Germany, Canada and China.

There are nine of these international interlopers, and all will arrive in UK McDonald’s locations from 22nd September.

Before you get too excited, there are just two mains.

First up is the Big Rösti from Germany, a beef burger with a potato rosti layer alongside bacon, cheese and both baconnaise and cheese sauces.

Or from Canada there’s the Maple & Cheddar Chicken, a crispy chicken burger given a Canadian twist with mustard maple sauce and citrus mayo.

Both of these will be available until 19th October.

Here’s the full list of World Menu Heist items, and how much you can expect to pay at a typical McDonald’s.

• Big Rösti (Germany) - £6.99
• Maple & Cheddar Chicken (Canada) - £7.29
• Mac and Cheese Triangles (UAE) - £2.89
• Paprika McShaker Fries (The Netherlands) - £2.29
• S’mores McFlurry (Canada) - £2.69
• Szechuan sauce (China) - 70p
• Guava x Sprite (India) - £2.39
• Chicken and Egg McMuffin (Australia) - £4.39
• Chicken and Bacon McMuffin (Australia) - £4.59

This World Menu Heist promotion also took place last year, bringing us treats like the Pineapple McSpicy from Australia, Garlic & Black Pepper nuggets from Japan and the Choco Caramel Pie from Indonesia.

Only one of this year’s picks is a returning hero, the Mac and Cheese Triangles from UAE, which McDonald’s describes as “crispy golden triangles of macaroni pasta filled with a rich cheddar cheese sauce and served with a classic Tomato Ketchup dip.”

Not exactly exotic, but we wouldn’t say no to a serving.

In other McDonald’s news, Shoreditch had a rather unusual pop-up at the end of last week, called The Counter. The idea is you’d be able to prepare and press your own burger patty, in a marketing scheme designed to promote that McDonald’s burgers are indeed made of beef. However, it was only open on 18th and 19th September.

Thankfully the World Menu Heist isn’t quite as fleeting, with items available until at least 19th October — and many well into November.

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If your idea of a good Sunday involves eating your way through a Japanese street-food market while watching sumo, taiko drumming and dreaming of becoming a ninja, we've got some very good news.

Japan Matsuri is returning to London’s Trafalgar Square on Sunday 4th October, bringing a huge celebration of Japanese culture, food and entertainment to the city centre landmark. This year there's an added reason for Nintendo fans to turn up to the annual event: Pikmin are coming to the party.

The festival, which has been running since 2009 and has been held at Trafalgar Square since 2012, is free to attend and runs from 10am until 8pm.

Here's everything you need to know.

Japan Matsuri 2026: In short…

• What: A one-day celebration of all things Japanese culture, including food, music, art and entertainment in the heart of Central London
• When: Sunday 4th October 2026, 10am–8pm
• Where: Trafalgar Square, London
• How much: Free entry

The event is spread throughout Trafalgar Square, with food stalls around the fountains and further stalls and activities dotted around the front of the National Gallery.

The nearest Tube station is Charing Cross, although Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Embankment are also within walking distance.

It's worth getting there early, though. If Trafalgar Square reaches capacity, organisers will operate a one-in, one-out system. Bags larger than A4 size, bikes, scooters, e-scooters and weapons are among the things prohibited from the site — so leave your katanas and sake at home.

What’s on?

The main stage will host entertainment acts throughout the day, beginning with traditional taiko drumming and a performance of the event’s Japan Matsuri song "IBUKI" with Naomi Suzuki — kinda like a theme tune for the festival. The opening ceremony will feature a mikoshi procession (a spiritual event where a shinto shrine is paraded), while later performances include Yosakoi dance, Eisa dance (a kind of folk dance usually performed by children), a ‘Samurai Rock Band’ and a ninja show.

You’ll also get to limber up with Radio Taiso (Japan’s popular morning calisthenics routine), quizzes, traditional Japanese music, dance and martial arts, with more performances scheduled throughout the afternoon and evening.

You can see the entire day’s performance schedule at the Matsuri website.

What’s cooking?

The food offering might be reason enough to make the trip. The square will be packed with Japanese food and drink stalls, with options including ramen, takoyaki, karaage, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, Japanese curry, donburi, gyoza and onigiri.

Among the traders are Shoryu Ramen, IPPUDO, Japan Centre, Okan & Oton, Hiden Curry, Tsujiri and Matchado, alongside a host of smaller food businesses.

And it isn't just savoury food. There'll be Japanese sweets, wagashi, mochi, matcha drinks and ice cream, while belly-loving yoghurt drink Yakult is also going to have a stall. Yakult’s presence isn’t as odd as you might think — it’s actually a Japanese invention.

Pop culture shopping

Japan Matsuri also has plenty for fans of Japanese pop culture.

The stalls include Otaky, with Pokémon, ONE PIECE, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball and other anime and manga merchandise, alongside Japanese toys, figures and trading cards.

Elsewhere you'll find everything from ukiyo-e prints and vintage kimono to Japanese ceramics, calligraphy, jewellery and handmade accessories.

There are also plenty of opportunities to learn more about Japan itself, with tourism organisations representing destinations including Tokyo, Hokkaido, Oita, Tohoku and Central Japan, as well as Japan's railway network and travel companies.

Pikmin are coming to Trafalgar Square

Mario makers Nintendo are returning to Japan Matsuri with a collection of free Pikmin activities and goodies — you know, the colourful little lads that have the plants sprouting out of their heads.

Nintendo is using its Pikmin Bloom app — the walking game that turns your everyday strolls into a Pikmin-collecting adventure — into a special Japan Matsuri Party Walk, running from 28th September until 7th October, meaning you don't actually have to be in Trafalgar Square to participate.

If you're heading to the festival itself, visit the Nintendo stall to find a pop-up Pikmin Bloom ‘Special Spot’. Players can receive a Gold Seedling which grows into an exclusive Red Photo Button Badge Decor Pikmin, as well as a postcard. Only one seedling is available per player.

Those taking part in the Party Walk can also show their screen at the Nintendo stand to receive a Pikmin-themed gift, such as a smartphone lanyard. Nintendo will also have a Pikmin photo opportunity and — more exciting than that lanyard — free Pikmin headwear to give away at its stall.

The Party Walk can be registered for in advance through the Pikmin Bloom app, which should save you having to sort everything out when you arrive.

Irasshaimase! (That means ‘Welcome!’)

If you've got even a passing interest in Japanese food, gaming, anime, travel, music or culture, there's a lot to get stuck into.

The best bit is that it's completely free, so you can dip in for an hour, spend the afternoon eating your way around the stalls, or make a full day of it.

And if you're a Pikmin fan, this year's Nintendo presence gives you an extra reason to visit – particularly if you want to pick up the limited-edition goodies and exclusive Pikmin app treats.

For more info, visit the Japan Matsuri festival website.

• The Bayeux Tapestry and the 8 most important historical artefacts you can see in London right now

Luckily, London’s art scene is not reserved for those with an art history degree nor a toothbrush moustache and pinstripe trouser suit. Instead, there are plenty of free glorious galleries and museums dotted across the city which regularly host displays of some of the biggest and most celebrated names. One of which is the Gagosian Gallery who will be hosting a huge new surrealist exhibition this month.

“This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte” will show around 70 works by the Belgian Surrealist and dozens of contemporary artists inspired by him.

The exhibition will be on view at the Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill outpost in London from 24th September until 12th December, showing a collection of some of the most celebrated surrealist works, as well as new works which are being made especially for the show. The location for the exhibition is a nod to the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition which was staged just down the road at the New Burlington Galleries, marking a key moment for the surrealist movement and in making Magritte’s name.

Gagosian has not yet released a full list of artworks or the names of the contemporary figures who will be involved in the exhibition. However it has confirmed that the show will include more than 20 Magrittes, some for sale and some on loan from major collections.

One of the paintings includes La Lampe philosophique, which the artist made just ahead of the 1936 Surrealist exhibition. It’s the one you’ll probably recognise from a postcard someone in your family got in a museum gift shop or a jaunty teatowel that has been slung over the oven for half a decade. The painting depicts Magritte smoking a pipe by candlelight, his overgrown nose snaking into the pipe’s bowl. He wrote of it: “The meditations of an absent-minded, obsessive philosopher may conjure up the image of a mental world closed in upon itself as, in this case, the smoker is the prisoner of his pipe.”

Other Magrittes with his most iconic motifs—apples, bowler hats, clouds, and of course more pipes—will be peppered throughout.

The show comes 20 years after “Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images” (2006–07), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art‘s landmark group exhibition designed by artist John Baldessari that traced the Surrealist’s influence on postwar American and European artists.

Larry Gagosian, owner of the Gagosian, said: ‘It is difficult to imagine a world today without Magritte. Almost six decades after his death, his influence continues to resonate within contemporary artistic production, and beyond into the broader landscape of visual culture – shaping advertising, design, fashion, and even music.

‘I am delighted to be presenting his work at the gallery once again, and to offer audiences a renewed opportunity to engage with the poetry, wit, and mystery that define his vision.’

The exhibition is free to look around, although if you did want to buy one of the pieces for sale, just a heads up, his last pieces that were up for auction went for for £16 million (La Belle Promenade) and $121.2 million (Empire of Light) the last couple of years.

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Sure, London might have an epidemic of pubs closing across the capital, but for some, it’s less of a simple shut down and more of the caterpillar-to-butterfly arc, reopening as something more glamorous and glorious. One such spot is a beloved North London boozer which is set to reopen as a pop-up comedy and cabaret venue.

The Old Dairy on Crouch Hill will relaunch with a series of Saturday night events, starting in October. It’s a Crouch End local who is taking over the spot for the initial run – Martin Besserman, who runs the Monkey Business Comedy Club will be hosting comedy nights for at least three shows this autumn. The first events will take place on October 31, November 28 and December 12 - currently the lineups are firmly under wraps as they finalise details, but more dates are expected to be announced.

The Old Dairy itself is a Grade II listed pub which unfortunately closed during lockdown and was taken over by squatters. Greene King who owned the establishment sold it in 2023 but it has been closed since. Originally built in 1890, the building gets its name from its history – it was once stables and cowsheds, with the outside wall sporting large panels depicting all stages of the milk production process, from cows grazing to the milk being delivered. It was sold and transformed into a pub in 1997, after ceasing work as a dairy in the 1960s.

Mr Besserman wrote on Facebook: "We’re incredibly excited to announce that Finsbury Park Cabaret will be taking over the whole pub at The Dairy.

"We’ll be bringing you a series of exciting Saturday night pop-up comedy and cabaret shows, with fabulous performers, great entertainment, food and a fully stocked bar.

"The Dairy has been closed for the past few weeks, so we’re thrilled to be bringing this fantastic space back to life with a series of one-off pop-up nights."

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A lofty number of impressive, and even historical buildings in London are actually plush old pads that weary travellers can stop at, resting their heads on 4,000 threadcount pillows. And a couple of heavenly hotels have been recognised by the international bigwigs over at 50 Best who are quite literal experts in luxury.

Head into our fair capital and you’ll find three of the best hotels in the world, dotted across Whitehall, and Mayfair. Sliding into the highest spot for the UK was Claridge’s in Mayfair, which snapped up the 13th place overall. As soon as you step inside the glitzy interiors, it will become pretty clear as to why it makes it on the list at such a lofty position. It opens with an art deco lobby, huge glittering chandeliers, and plenty of brilliant bars and dining spots which are drenched in the kind of old school, vintage Hollywood-esque glamour you long for every time you go back to watch an Audrey Hepburn flick.

The next London entry on the list was Raffles London at the OWO which landed in the 28th spot. If you’ve ever wondered why it’s called OWO, that just stands for the Old War Office, as that’s precisely what the hotel used to be – Whitehall’s staggering and opulent former War Office. The whole interior feels equally cinematic to Claridge’s, but whereas Claridge’s leans more into that Golden Era of the Silver Screen, Raffles is more smooth talking martini-sipping spy movies. It’s Bond meets Operation Mincemeat but with nine stunning restaurants, three highly rated bars, and a subterraneous spa and pool reminding you that whilst it may have impressive provenance, it has all the luxury amenities you’d want.

The final entry on the list for London was The Connaught which landed at the 49th spot – and it's a happily recognisable name for plenty of Londoners who regularly flock to the beloved Connaught bar (which has swept up its fair share of awards too) and sip on its trolley wheeled martinis, served up ice cold tableside. But the bar isn’t the only draw in the hotel; it boasts 31 beautiful rooms and sumptuous suites, an art collection from Damien Hirst, and a luxury hidden spa.

Only one other UK spot made the list, including the magical Estelle Manor in Witney, the sister property to London’s Maison Estelle.

You can browse the full 50 Best hotels here.

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Even if you’re an art luddite and the closest you got to galleries was watching reruns of Art Attack on CBBC, you’ll probably be au fait with Monet. The French painter pops up everywhere from Parisian Galleries to Emily in Paris (his work that is, not him, although what a cameo that would be). London’s Tate Modern however has never hosted a solo exhibition dedicated to Monet – until now.

After 26 years welcoming in both art aficionados, school trips and people finding a free spot to shelter from the rain, the Tate Modern has confirmed a huge new exhibition featuring 60 paintings from the French Impressionist painter. The exhibition comes in time with the 100th anniversary since the artist’s death, and it will be the UK’s biggest display of his work in almost a decade.

The landmark Monet exhibition was teased back in March when it appeared on the Tate’s 2027 programme. Now, we finally have more details, including its opening date and the sheer scale of the exhibition. It will be opening up 25th February and running until 27th June.

According to the Tate, it will “bring together breathtaking paintings from lenders across the globe, including rarely seen works from private collections” meaning you could be gawping at rarely seen works and adding a new layer of smugness to your cultural conversations (boasting) at the office. The exhibition centres on Monet’s profound and evolving relationship with time. According to the Tate, in the collection, we see how he echoed the rapid pace of modern life by capturing the fleeting, instantaneous ‘impressionist’ moment, through works such as Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). We are also shown, in celebrated series such as Poplars on the Epte (1891–1897), Monet’s attempts, through variations of the same subject, to capture a specific, transient instant in time. It will also explore the artist’s “enduring relationship with nature and how, as a subject in perpetual movement, it shifts with the passing years and seasons.”

Based mainly in France, Monet worked from around 1860 until his death in 1926, living through an era which saw the rise of railways, industrialisation, the modern city, and the adoption of standardised timekeeping, all of which massively influenced his work. Drawing on new research, the show explores how Monet responded to these seismic changes through his work. Whilst he’s known as a founder of impressionism, his influence is also central to modernism, and his portrayal of the natural world as he saw it around him still has huge influence today.

Although it won’t be opening until late February, tickets are already on sale, priced at £26, although it’s free for Tate members, with the usual £5 tickets if you’re 25 and under. You can find out more and book tickets via the Tate Modern's website.

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A sad amount of old school rocker London has gone to the graveyard of good times, being priced out of staying open thanks to the new cost of living crisis and the anti-raving probiotic Gen Z. One victim of this was club night Trash, which closed nearly 20 years ago, but thanks to Erol Alkan, it could be getting a new lease of life…

“January 2027 will mark 20 years since we closed our doors forever," Alkan – who founded the club back in 1997 – teased on Instagram. "But there is a light that never goes out. Got somethings to share with you, let's stay in touch." The North London DJ also posted a link to sign up in his bio for the first announcements, encouraging readers to sign up to a new Trash mailing list.

For those not in the know, Trash was a weekly club night in London, known for its indie kid credentials, and celebrated for its genre-defying blend of indie, electro, rock and bootleg mash-ups, hosting early performances from acts including LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bloc Party. It was basically the kind of alternative sub-culture night out which would get casually referenced by cool people in Camden, and now gets talked about (well, lamented) by the same Camden cool kids who you’ll overhear in a natural wine bar talking about gentrification. Trash was the kind of night that shaped the identity of the city’s nightlife, influencing the electroclash and nu rave movements that followed.

It first appeared at the original Plastic People in Soho, then at neighbouring venue The Annexe on Dean St, before finally heading to a new home at The End off New Oxford Street. When the club moved and expanded to The End they were joined by Rory Phillips and in the years that followed, Mavs and The Lovely Jonjo.

For the latter 5 years of the club, the last two tracks played were always the same. "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths (which is referenced in the revamped Trash’s Instagram bio) and then "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" by David Bowie. Erol Alkan believed "they are the two songs that best reflect club culture, its people and places, highs and lows and bring people together".

Trash joined the likes of The Blitz Club, Plastic People, Turnmills, and Bagley's, all legendary nightclubs which have since closed and become various developments, including forming part of King's Cross' Coal Drops Yard. It's a similar arc to the indie goth kid in your year at school who lost the black eyeliner and is now an accountant with two kids. But maybe, as Trash might be about to prove, there's life in the old dog battered leather jacket yet.

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There are plenty of landmarks littered across London and in fairness, quite a few of them now have bars inside, in keeping with the British tradition of getting lightly trollied at any given point. London’s Admiralty Arch is the latest historical hotspot to be getting a boozy revamp, as Inception Group – the lads behind popular spots like Mr Fogg’s and Bunga 90 - are set to open up The Admiral’s Mess.

The Arch itself is located in central London, overlooking Trafalgar Square and was created to provide a road (and pedestrian access) between The Mall and Trafalgar Sq. It was built back in 1912 and since then it has seen hundreds of thousands of people posing in front of it. It used to house Government offices up until 2011 but the government sold the building in 2012 for a super chill £60m for the hotel redevelopment.

The Inception Group isn’t the only new resident of the old arch, as it is going to be forming part of the The Waldorf Astoria London. The hotel is also going to be the main site opening up inside this Grade-I listed landmark, set to open its (presumably grand) doors in Autumn 2026, marking the famous brand’s London debut. With a name like Waldorf Astoria and a location like the Admiralty Arch, it’s not exactly surprising that the current lineup of foodie establishments is already stellar. And by stellar we do mean Michelin starred; Clare Smyth MBE will also be one of the new inhabitants with her dining spot Coreus, joined by fellow star holder Daniel Boulud who will be bringing Café Boulud to the site.

If you're familiar with any of Inception Group's sites like Cahooots, Bunga 90 or Control Room B then you'll know the gang like to go big. Each venue is completely decked out in keeping with its themed, whether it's cocktails delivered via hydraulic chutes in a former Post Office, loo-lobby karaoke in a 90s themed bar, or cocktails served up in a Winston Churchill bust in a former tube station. So, hopes are high for the kind of bells and whistles The Admiral's Mess might have – personally, we're picturing waiters in full naval gear à la Regency era (wigs, hats, and all) but so far Inception Group have been tight lipped on details for the venue. So far all we do know is that it will span 2,400 square feet with a 60-seat capacity. It will be an immersive bar (as per their MO) offering guests the opportunity to ‘discover something distinctive and unexpected’.

Charlie Gilkes, co-founder of Inception Group, said: ‘We are honoured to have the opportunity to open within such an iconic London location and are excited to have created a totally unique concept fitting for such a historic site.’

The Waldorf Astoria London Admiralty Arch is billed to open in autumn 2026.

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London Fashion Week is back - and it’s shaping up to be a very good week for menswear. Where other fashion capitals trade on heritage and A-list designer names, London’s superpower is throwing household names, cult labels and the next generation of designers into the same five day fashion extranvangaza.

So, which shows should you turn your attention to?

From Burberry and McQueen to M&S, Fashion Scout and some seriously exciting new menswear talent, the September 2026 schedule is particularly stacked for men - whether you’re looking for inspo on what you’ll actually be wearing next summer or simply want to know the names worth dropping before everyone else does.

And you don’t need a front row seat to follow it. LFW runs from 17th to 21st September, while its official digital hub is freely accessible to everyone, with collections, designer content and digital fashion shows available online.

Consider this your FROW ticket: Here are the menswear shows you need to know about and the designers to follow right now…

McQueen

McQueen coming home is a big deal. This LFW, the house returns to London for the first time since 2022, with Seán McGirr staging his first London show as creative director and unveiling both men’s and womenswear for SS27. Founder Lee Alexander McQueen built his fashion icon status on gloriously theatrical London shows before the label moved to Paris - so what McGirr does with that home advantage is one of the week’s most exciting questions.

• Sunday 20 September, 8pm

Burberry

Someone has to shut the doors on London Fashion Week, and this year it’s Burberry. Daniel Lee’s menswear and womenswear show takes the final 7pm slot on Monday, after a year in which the designer has doubled down on the brand’s relationship with its close relationship to the capital. February’s collection turned Old Billingsgate into a nocturnal London fantasy, complete with an indoor replica of Tower Bridge. Expect plenty of eyes on what one of Britain’s biggest luxury fashion house does for the follow up.

• Monday 21 September, 7pm

Labrum

Foday Dumbuya’s Labrum blends West African culture with British tailoring, tackling migration, identity and the meeting of cultures without forgetting that the clothes still need to look very good. This year, Dumbuya finally won the prestigious 2026 BFC & GQ Designer Fashion Fund, landing £100,000 after being shortlisted twice before. Previous collaborators include Adidas, Arsenal and John Lewis. Third time lucky indeed.

• Sunday 20 September, 2pm

H&M

H&M is not coming to London Fashion Week simply to send some basics down the catwalk. The high street giant has recruited legendary fashion photographer Nick Knight and SHOWstudio for what the British Fashion Council describes as a “bold reconceptualisation of the fashion show experience”. Intriguingly, that’s about all they’re telling us for now. Both menswear and womenswear are on the billing, but exactly what Knight and co have cooked up remains under wraps. Consider our curiosity piqued.

• Thursday 17 September, 8pm

M&S

Yes, that M&S. After 100 years in fashion, Marks & Spencer is making its first ever London Fashion Week catwalk appearance - and it’s making an entrance. The show will mix menswear and womenswear from Collection, Per Una and Autograph, reworking moments from the retailer’s fashion history. Better still, this will be a see-now-buy-now affair: everything on the runway becomes available to buy from 12.30pm that day. Think Fashion Week, but with considerably fewer six month-long waiting lists.

• Friday 18 September, 12pm

Aaron Esh

Aaron Esh suddenly has two fashion empires to take care of. Alongside his acclaimed namesake label, the London designer is now chief creative officer of AllSaints, where his first collection landed this month as part of an ambitious attempt to revamp the iconic indie uniform purveyors. His own label remains the more experimental playground, however, and returns to LFW with menswear and womenswear. For a designer currently being trusted with reinventing one British institution, this should be an especially exciting watch.

• Friday 18 September, 7pm

Barbour

The wax jacket has escaped the countryside. Barbour returns to the official LFW schedule with a menswear and womenswear presentation, while simultaneously celebrating its history with Tartan Reimagined: The Barbour Way at the Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition dives into the brand’s Scottish roots, its 130 year history and the tartan that has lined countless jackets, alongside one-off Re-Loved pieces involving everyone from Gucci and Paul Smith to Glastonbury and Aardman. Heritage, yes. Farm mud, absolutely not.

• Thursday 17 September, 4.30 pm

INFdark

Before he was cutting clothes, INFdark founder Kuo Wei was a competitive breakdancer - which perhaps explains why his clothes rarely sit still. The Taiwanese label specialises in structural, transformable pieces that can be worn multiple ways, mixing sharp tailoring with deconstruction and streetwear. Officially classed as both menswear and womenswear, with a unisex style, INFdark returns to London after regular appearances at Taipei Fashion Week. Clothes for people who consider one way of wearing a jacket deeply insufficient.

• Sunday 20 September, 4pm

Fashion Scout Ones to Watch

Twenty years after Fashion Scout began hunting out fashion’s next big things, its Ones to Watch programme is going supersized: three showcases across the weekend introduce 23 emerging designers. For menswear, circle Adolf Maldonado, whose leather heavy work has been described as “menswear couture”; Savile Row trained CHATCHAI C., a dedicated luxury menswear label; and BAM-BAM, whose hand sketched artwork becomes brilliantly loud tailored streetwear. Consider this fashion’s extremely stylish scouting syndicate.

• Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th September

Ray Chu

Menswear, but make it considerably less uptight. Taiwanese designer Ray Chu returns to the official LFW schedule with another mixed menswear and womenswear presentation, continuing a run at London Fashion Week that began in 2022. The label champions body positivity and sustainability alongside playful crossover collaborations; its SS26 menswear collection included loose silk shirts, printed shorts and matching sets, with fabrics made using plant based materials including mint and crystalline ice plants. Finally, tailoring that’s not afraid to have a personality.

• Friday 18 September, 2.30 pm

• The Bayeux Tapestry and the 8 most important historical artefacts you can see in London right now

It’s hard to imagine a gallery dedicated to one of Britain’s biggest designers as one in need of a little revamp and touch up but that is exactly what Walthamstow’s William Morris Gallery has done. The east London spot which has been closed across summer (for said revamp, not because they gave themselves a maximum working temperature) is unveiling a rehang of its major collection.

The gallery is homed over Walthamstow’s Water House – a Grade II* listed Georgian pad which backs onto the expansive and lush Lloyd Park. A young Morris actually lived in the building between 1848 and 1856, so it’s only fitting that it’s the home of his largest collection of work. The unveiling ties in with 130 years since the designer’s death, and the new style has been created alongside Sam Jacob Studio.

Whilst the gallery is undergoing a glow-up, it’s not a complete overhaul, with the newly revamped galleries keeping their beloved staples, like the Morris-own wallpaper and designs in its decor. There will be a couple of new additions alongside the traditional pieces, including some of Morris’ earliest works.

The new spaces have been devised with local residents and local community groups, with a focus on feeling more welcoming, accessible and homely, championing stories which haven’t had the spotlight they deserved. One of these is celebrating May Morris – William’s daughter who was also a designer and ran the gang’s embroidery biz. Joining her in the exhibitions will be pieces examining the influence of South Asian and Islamic art, looking at how it influenced Morris’ own work, through motifs, patterns and blocking.

Excitingly for art nerds fans, there will be plenty of items that have been kept firmly under wraps until now. Pieces like Morris’s original Hammersmith Socialist League banner will be heading to the gallery (on loan from Manchester), alongside his personal copy of beloved book One Thousand and One Nights (a collection of folklore and fairy tales from the Middle East) which heavily inspired his writing and love for Asian decorative arts. These aren't the only new additions to the gallery, as an entirely brand-new space called Morris Today is set to open in 2027. It will be a dedicated hub for contemporary artists to put their own spin on Morris' original ideas, with wood-turners, glass blowers, and furniture makers coming together to create and share their work. This will open alongside a major new exhibition which will explore and celebrate 200 years of British art and activism, called Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK.

Essentially a lot of newness is heading to the gallery, with new exhibitions, new artworks, and even a new space, so it's good news for anyone who loves a good gawp and a lovely (and fancy) house. And a gift shop, obviously there's a great gift shop.

• Oasis confirm 2027 world tour: Here's how to definitely (maybe) get tickets

Whether it’s our strong genetic and cultural links to Germany, our shared love of beer and sausages, or just a weird lederhosen kink, Britain has taken to Oktoberfest like a pretzel to mustard.

London, in particular, seems to turn into Munich-on-Thames for a few mad weeks in early autumn.

If you’re looking for an opportunity to sink some steins, partake of copious quantities of cooked pork, and listen to a spot of live oompah music (ironically or otherwise), the UK capital has you sorted.

The first ever Oktoberfest was held in Munich on 12th October 1810 as a celebration of the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. But never mind about all that.

These days Oktoberfest is an excuse to sit on a vast communal table, glug beer from a ginormous handled glass (actually a Maß/mass, but erroneously referred to by us Brits as a stein), and generally act a bit silly.

The following venues are throwing special Oktoberfest-themed events in the capital over the next month or so, kicking off in mid September. There’s plenty in there for those seeking an authentic Oktoberfest experience, with a couple of the venues serving all six of the special Oktoberfest Festbiers.

For those who just want to enjoy a big boozy get-together as the UK nights start to grow colder and darker, well, we’ve got plenty for you too, whatever your budget.

All will be serving up classic Bavarian food, but several of the venues are accustomed to supplying such sustenance all year round. They’re probably your best bet if you’re after a proper authentic Munich-style feast.

With all that said, let’s get on with the show. Prost!

1, 2, 3. Boxpark (Shoreditch, Camden, Croydon)

The popular London street food hubs are throwing big Oktoberfest parties at all three of its outlets. Between 25th September and 10th October they’ll be putting on live oompah party bands, mass singalongs and interactive games – all served up alongside their usual diverse street food offering, making it the pick for those who don’t necessarily get on with sausages and schweinshaxe. Czech brewer Staropramen is laying on the beer, which will doubtless make the purists frown into their Augustiners, but at least it’s bottomless during select sessions. Check the website for more details.

4. Oktoberfest on the Common (Clapham)

The biggest outdoor Oktoberfest celebration in the capital – and quite possibly the country – is once again set to take place on Clapham Common in South London. With a level of efficiency that could be described as Teutonic, the festivities have been spread across nine sessions and six days between 9th and 24th October, each lasting between five and six hours. Expect all the usual frothy steins and hearty food, plus live brass bands, Bavarian games and funfair rides. General entry tickets start from £30, but the slots are already starting to sell out.

5. London Oktoberfest (Finsbury Park)

If you’re looking for more North London vibes with your Oktoberfest celebrations, head to Finsbury Park from 1st to 3rd October. Expect “long tables, Bavarian FestBeer, German food and a live band”. Yep, sounds like Oktoberfest to us. The organisers are actively encouraging the donning of Lederhosen and Dirndl, and have supplied a link to a Bavarian outfitter on their website. General admission only costs a tenner, but a special Bavarian Ticket will add one Mass (1.5 pints) of Bavarian FestBeer, a Bavarian Bratwurst roll with Sauerkraut, and a shot of Underberg for £35.

6. Bermondsey Bierkeller (Bermondsey)

Bermondsey already has a reputation as one of the best neighbourhoods in the capital for beer consumption. Between 19th September and 31st October, however, attention will shift from the district’s enviable craft beer scene to something more Germanic, as the Bermondsey Bierkeller puts on “London's wildest Oktoberfest”. How wild? The website positively encourages bench standing, while the Saturday night programme features stilt walkers and “fire acts”. Jessas na! This one’s got one of the widest ranges of ticketing options of them all, from a basic £6.60 entry fee to the gluttonous £111.30 Youtopia Oktober-Feast package.

7. Between the Bridges (South Bank)

Situated between the London Eye and the Southbank Centre, this Thameside venue seems like the ideal place to sink a few autumnal steins. It’s got two huge beerhall tents (very Bavarian), a large central courtyard lined with street food kiosks, and plenty of additional outdoors seating. For entertainment, Old Dirty Brasstards will lay on “a ten-piece tweed-clad ‘drum and brass’ band”. If you’re not all brassed out, Atomic Brass will parp through a string of pop and rock hits. Drag hostess Miss Leigh Ding will oversee proceedings.

8. Steins (Kingston on Thames)

Steins has been serving up mounds of excellent Bavarian food in leafy South West London for years now, starting at its beautiful riverside Richmond venue. It’s the mini-group’s second opening a little further down the Thames that’s going all in on Oktoberfest this year, however, with a special 7th October event. They’re promising to serve all six official Oktoberfest beers alongside their usual impeccable food, along with accompanying live music. Note that online bookings aren’t available, so you’ll need to ping them an email, give them a call, or swing by in person. How alte schule.

9. Albert’s Schloss (Soho)

This cavernous Soho venue (which also has outlets in Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham) offers kitschy Bavarian vibes all year round, but it’s going the extra mile for Oktoberfest. Running from 19th September to 25th October 2026, Albert’s Schloss promises “Bavarian feasting, seven days of live entertainment, and festival biers galore, available ‘til the taps run dry”. On the latter front, it’s one of few places outside of Munich to offer all six Oktoberfest beers, while it’s also a rare British venue that serves top Czech tipple Pilsner Urquell in the proper way — straight from the tank.

• London’s 10 best craft beer bottle shops

Alien: Earth, the Disney Plus streaming hit set in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror universe, has a simple premise: What if the chest-bursting xenomorph crash landed on Earth? A great scary concept — but I’m not sure how I feel about one of the all-time great horror creations stalking around the corner from Shortlist towers in London.

That’s a fear I’m going to have to get over, as it seems that season 2 of Alien: Earth has kicked off filming in London’s East End — in the financial heart of Canary Wharf, to be precise.

Eagle-eyed fans on Reddit spotted vehicles bearing the ‘Weyland Yutani’ name — the show’s shady mega-corporation — near the glossy Docklands district over the weekend. It suggests the site might double as Weyland Yutani’s HQ — fitting, seeing as Canary Wharf regularly doubles onscreen as New York’s mega-bucks Wall Street area.

The truck bearing the logo is particularly exciting for fans of the series: it looks very much like the Colonial Marines Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), first seen in James Cameron’s 1986 ‘Aliens’ sequel. Could the most badass bug-squashing soldiers in the galaxy be about to make their Alien: Earth debut?

A cast of new face-huggable stars

Those details remain underwraps, but what we do know is that there’s a whole host of new faces set to be on the run from the formidable alien foes.

Tracey Ullman and Sam Spruell will be joining the cast, while there will be something of a Game of Thrones reunion next season too, with Peter Dinklage and Jerome Flynn also joining the show.

Returning cast members include Sydney Changler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Samuel Blenkin, Adarsh Gourav and Essie Davis. Noah Hawley remains show runner, with further filming taking place at Pinewood Studios.

• Alien: Earth cast on the ‘unrelentingly fascinating’ Xenomorph, brand new species, and why now is the right time for the first-ever Alien series

London is no stranger to movie magic, with many parts of the city being earmarked by big Hollywood directors as the perfect backdrop for their cinematic escapades. Just think about Alex Garland's Elden Ring spotted in Greenwich or the number of times Bond runs across a very scenic London. Now, it’s DC’s latest Batman flick which has headed to the big smoke for some Gotham-esque scenes – and fans just spotted a huge story spoiler.

Over the weekend, eagle-eyed batheads were gathered around the historic St Paul’s Cathedral in central London as it was transformed into a set for a scene from the upcoming The Batman: Part II — the next entry in Robert Pattinson's take on the cape and cowl hero.

From the videos online, it looks as though St Paul’s was the home for some kind of huge, very official Governmental Courts of Justice where people are protesting and gathering with plenty of placards. However, the big news is a sign that states "Court of Fowls," potentially confirming that the villainous Court of Owls will appear in the sequel. Either that, or it's a hell of an Easter Egg…

The signs held by the extras in shot said things like “One day the Poor will have Nothing” and “The Rich are getting Richer” as well as “Court of Fowls”, all pointing to the villainous Court of Owls.

For those as yet unacquainted, the enigmatic Court of Owls is a criminal organisation and secret society in some of the more modern Batman tales. It is described as a group of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Gotham City, and has existed since the city's founding. They are completely unknown among its general population outside of an urban legend centered around their reputation for grisly assassinations carried out by indoctrinated agents known as Talons. The group was also referred to as the Parliament of Owls, renaming themselves in a story line about their international expansion from the 2015 comic titled Robin War.

If the latest flick is featuring the Court of Owls as one of the main adversaries, it won’t be the first time they have appeared on screen. The Court of Owls made their on-screen debut in 2015's animated Batman vs. Robin, making their live-action debut later that same year in the Gotham TV series.

In the New 51 comic arc, The Court of Owls is shown as a violent cabal of some of Gotham City's oldest and wealthiest families who use murder and money to wield political influence throughout history. So far, so completely unrealistic, we can’t imagine that happening in the real world at all... One of the interesting things is the way they are portrayed, with the leaders of the organisation seen wearing white owl masks on their faces — will their style remain unchanged in the upcoming film?

In the comic Nightwing, the gang were seen wearing black owl masks, so there’s a bit of choice to be had. The gang have previously been connected with other characters including Lincoln March, the Raptor, and Dick Grayson – all of which we *might* see in the next Batman sequel.

The Batman Part II is set to be released in December 2028 (after a couple of delays and pushbacks), and so far the plot has been firmly under wraps. In addition to this new easter egg from the filming in London, all we really know is the returning cast, which includes Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Sebastian Stan as Harvey Dent (Gotham's district attorney who later becomes Batman’s adversary, the villain Two-Face), Scarlett Johansson as Gilda Dent, his wife, and Charles Dance as Charles Dent: Harvey's abusive father.

Supporting cast members returning from The Batman include Jayme Lawson as Bella Reál, the new mayor of Gotham City, and Gil Perez-Abraham as Martinez, a GCPD officer. Sebastian Koch and Brian Tyree Henry have also been cast in undisclosed roles. Barry Keoghan is also expected to reprise his role as the Joker, momentarily teased at the end of Part I.

• Batman actors, ranked: who’s the best Batman?

At the creme de la creme intersection of aesthetic and artsy (with just a hint of art-school-smugness) you’ll find London’s Design Museum in Kensington, the world’s leading museum devoted to hailing contemporary design in every form. Amongst their usual roster of installations which cover everything from avant garde statues to something resembling a piece of IKEA furniture mid assembly, a new animated exhibition is opening up next month, from the makers behind the cult classic films Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings.

Titled LAIKA presents Wildwood: The Exhibition, it’s set to open up on 15th October, throwing open the doors to the epic world of the stop-motion animators’ new film Wildwood, taking you behind the scenes how some of its most intricate moments were captured. It’s joining the ranks of the increasingly popular behind-the-scenes, making-of exhibitions and shows which the likes of Aardman and Wes Anderson have already got stuck into.

The Wildwood exhibition will have a whole host of props, costumes, and set design behind making the detailed films. Guests will be able to look at interactive installations, original props, sketches, puppets, and miniature sets which showcase the work of the model makers, scenic painters, and the wider creative team. Plus, there will be audiovisual content to help bring the world to life.

The new film from the LAIKA Studios team follows a teenager named Prue McKeel who ventures into a secret, enchanted forest outside of Portland to rescue her baby brother after he is abducted by a murder of crows. It has been adapted from the dark fantasy novel by Colin Meloy and boasts an incredible cast including Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, and Angela Bassett. If you didn’t already get the sheer scale and ambition behind the new movie, then the fact it’s premiering at London’s BFI Film Festival probably will. It will be debuting on October 11th before heading to cinemas on October 23rd.

‘We are delighted that Laika has chosen the Design Museum to host this exhibition, following in the footsteps of our previous exhibitions on the craft of film-making dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton and Wes Anderson,’ says Tim Marlow, director and CEO of the Design Museum.

'Wildwood is a compelling case study in contemporary design, demonstrating how creative vision, craft, engineering and technology come together through a highly collaborative process.’

The exhibition will be running from October 15th until 10th January and tickets are already available, priced at £19 for general admission.

• The Bayeux Tapestry and the 8 most important historical artefacts you can see in London right now

One of the most important artefacts in British history is now available to view in London, but securing tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry is proving tricky. Thankfully, there are plenty of amazing alternatives.

The 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry is currently on loan from France to The British Museum until 11th July, but the initial run of 100,000 tickets turned out to be heavily oversubscribed. Another batch of tickets will be dropping on 21st October, but these are for dates in the New Year, and are likely to be similarly challenging to procure.

It’s no great mystery as to why this might be the case. We’re talking about a 70-metre-long piece of embroidered cloth, portraying the lead up to the hugely consequential Norman Conquest of 1066, which has had to be housed in a bespoke case.

What’s more, the tapestry can only be exposed to a certain number of hours of light in any day in order to preserve the delicate material.

In other words, the Bayeux Tapestry’s trip to London was always going to be popular, and access was always going to be limited.

Still, there’s a fair chance that this is going to scupper the plans of many hoping to visit London for a spot of culture over the coming months. It’s a good job our beautiful capital isn’t short of priceless relics, which have been curated and presented for your perusal.

Here are eight important historical artefacts that you can see in London right now.

1. The Rosetta Stone

The British Museum is a literal treasure trove of important artefacts, even without the Bayeux Tapestry. Perhaps the most venerated of all is The Rosetta Stone, a 2,200-year-old fragment of a slab that proved crucial to the initial translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics in the early 19th century. It’s only a partial text, taken from a fairly dry official decree about Ptolemy V, but the key here is that it’s inscribed in three separate scripts – hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek – which enabled scholars to finally crack the code.

• Where to see it: The British Museum

2. The Crown Jewels

If you were to assemble a list of old London tourism cliches, then a mention of the Tower of London, the precious baubles housed within, and the tall-hatted guards commissioned to protect them would probably all feature somewhere near the top. It’s easy to take these things for granted, but The Crown Jewels are well worth seeing at least once in your life. They take the form of a collection of 140 royal ceremonial objects, inlaid with some 23,000 precious stones. These include the crown, orb and sceptre used in British royal coronations.

• Where to see them: The Tower of London

3. The Coffin of Ramses II

Head over to the iconic Battersea Power Station, dodge the obnoxious nouveau riche residents, and ignore the more soulless aspects of the project’s multi-billion-dollar revamp, and you can catch a genuinely world class exhibition. At the heart of the 180 assembled ancient Egyptian artefacts sits the 3,000-year-old coffin of Ramses II, arguably the greatest (and certainly the most self-aggrandising) pharaoh of them all. These artefacts are on loan from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and have never been seen in the UK before, so this is a rare opportunity.

• Where to see it: Ramses and the Pharaohs' Gold exhibition, Battersea

4. The Abraham Tapestries

If you’re specifically in the market for a big old tapestry (how very specific of you) then head on down to Hampton Court Palace in Richmond. There you’ll find ten of the suckers, all hanging on the wall of the Great Hall. This is probably exactly where they were always intended to live, given that they were commissioned by Henry VIII around 1540. True, that means these tapestries are ‘only’ 500 years old, but they stretch out an impressive 84 metres in total, and they offer a remarkable depiction of the life and deeds of the fabled Bible prophet.

• Where to see them: Hampton Court Palace

5. The Tarkhan Dress

I’ll see your 1,000-year-old length of cloth and raise you a 5,000-year-old linen garment. The Tarkhan Dress is thought to be the oldest surviving piece of woven clothing in the world, and you can view it for free at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology on the UCL campus. The garment was excavated south of Cairo in 1913, but was only discovered among a larger pile of linen in 1977, when the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Conservation Workshop was commissioned to clean it all up.

• Where to see it: Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology

6. Cleopatra’s Needle

One of the oldest and grandest artefacts in London is free to see at any time. Cleopatra’s Needle is right there on the Embankment, with thousands of commuters and visitors marching past it every day – possibly quite oblivious as to its history. This is no replica, but rather a genuine 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk, made for Pharaoh Thotmes III. The story of how it came to rest by the Thames in 1878 is an epic story in itself, involving a traumatic voyage in a specially designed ship called – you guessed it – the Cleopatra.

• Where to see it: London WC2N, 6NU (near Embankment station)

7. Bloomberg Tablets

The London Mithraeum is built around a restored third-century Roman temple situated in the basement of Bloomberg Europe’s headquarters. Around 14,000 objects were dug up between 2012 and 2014, and around 600 of those are on display here. Among them are the Bloomberg tablets – a collection of some 405 wooden writing slates that were discovered underneath London’s gleaming financial district. They’re the oldest written documents found in Britain, dating as far back as 50 AD, which places their writing to some time soon after London’s establishment as a Roman settlement.

• Where to see them: London Mithraeum

8. Parthenon Sculptures

These Ancient Greek sculptures have been central to a heated debate over the continued postcolonial ownership of historical artefacts. They were removed from Ottoman-ruled Greece by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, in the early 19th century, earning them the informal name of the Elgin Marbles. For now, you can check out the Parthenon Sculptures in the very same building as the Bayeux Tapestry, in Room 18 of The British Museum. These impressive Ancient Greek sculptures were carved 2,500 years ago, and would once have adorned a temple on the Athenian Acropolis.

• Where to see them: The British Museum

• St Paul's Cathedral to host Fabric club raves this Autumn

Watching a concert film in the cinema is all very well, but there's one obvious problem: you're generally expected to sit down and keep quiet. That, however, won't be an issue when Queen Budapest rocks London's Roundhouse this October.

The legendary 1986 Queen concert film is being transformed into a full-on gig experience for one day only, with the Roundhouse hosting a show where fans can stand, dance, sing along and generally behave as though Freddie Mercury and the band are actually on stage in front of them.

Taking place on Saturday 3rd October 2026, with afternoon and evening performances, the ‘is-it-a-gig?’ event comes just before the new Queen Budapest concert film, remastered by Peter Jackson, gets its worldwide cinema and IMAX release on 7th October.

So what sets this apart from just popping some vintage live Queen on YouTube? We sat down with the team behind the event to find.

One vision (with some AC/DC inspiration)

Queen Budapest: The Concert Film Experience is a fresh take on the live gig experience from the production team at Playback Live, who had a eureka moment whilst working with another rock-royalty group — AC/DC.

“We'd been working with Sony on AC/DC when they were on tour in Europe and the States last year and the year before, and we were doing pop-up fan zones for them,” explains Caroline Lockyer Nibs, CEO of Playback Live.

“We had a large screen where we were playing footage from concerts, and it was just interesting to watch all the fans who were coming — basically initially to buy merch, if we're honest — spending time in front of the screens, and having that shared experience. We were getting approximately 5,000 people a day across all of those sites, so it was a big volume of people who were engaging with the screens and the concert and the footage. So we thought there's got to be something in this.”

“We created these beautiful places for fans to sit and chill out, and all they wanted to do is stand at these screens and just sing their hearts out and dance around together!” adds Rebecca Margariti-Smith, Production and Operations Director at Playback Live.

“Everyone's seen so many of the music biopics now, or Taylor Swift's era's tour in the cinemas. But we've always felt personally that it's a bit of a square peg / round hole situation where, sure, it brings fans the opportunity to connect more with the bands and with the artists they love, but films are very much more of an individual experience. No-one wants any talking during a film in a standard cinema.”

Rather than sitting in a cinema watching a concert on a conventional screen then, the Roundhouse will turn its main space into something much closer to a Queen gig.

The restored concert will be projected onto a giant LED screen, accompanied by full surround sound and synchronised concert lighting. The idea is to recreate some of the scale and atmosphere of being in the crowd at a Queen show, rather than simply watching one.

“The bigger concept of Queen Budapest is that it takes that cinema screening problem and just provides the solution,” says Margariti-Smith, “because, at the end of the day, you're reliving the experience, but in a professional live music setting — big surround sound, and lighting that cinemas just can't do.”

And yes, you're actually allowed to get out of your seat. The organisers say fans can move, dance and sing throughout the screening – so if you've ever found yourself wanting to belt out We Are The Champions beyond a karaoke booth or a football terrace, here’s your chance.

Days of our lives

The footage comes from Queen's legendary 27th July 1986 concert at Budapest's Népstadion, performed during the band's enormous Magic Tour.

Around 80,000 people packed into the stadium to see the band, making the show a landmark moment: Queen became the first Western stadium rock band to perform behind the Iron Curtain.

It also has an added poignancy for Queen fans: This was the band's final filmed live performance, captured just three years before Freddie Mercury's death in 1991. It therefore offers a remarkable document of Queen at the height of its stadium-rock powers – with Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon performing together.

The setlist is suitably stacked, a greatest hits show including We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, A Kind of Magic, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Under Pressure, Who Wants To Live Forever, Hammer To Fall and Bohemian Rhapsody — all primed for mass-singalong potential at the Roundhouse.

The team are more than aware of the reverential love for the gig that fans have, and are striving to do it justice in the production — not just for the fans, but for the surviving band members, too.

“We want to do it to a high quality, that's important, and that is signed off by the band themselves,” says Margariti-Smith.

“The only reason they were doing it is because Sony went to Brian May and Roger Taylor. They were both really excited by it, which is great. And obviously, as soon as we heard that and learnt that they'd given their nod, we were like, right, we're onto something here.”

It’s an important show for Sony too — it spent $1 billion in securing the rights to the Queen back catalogue, and while the remaining members still tour (with Adam Lambert now in front of the mic), that purchase will only pay for itself over decades, not years. As the band grows older, events like Playback Live’s show will give fresh generations of fans reason to splash the cash on Queen’s music for years to come.

A magic makeover

If you've seen Queen Budapest before, this isn't simply a re-release with a new poster. The original 35mm footage has been restored and rescanned in 4K by Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production facility (the team that worked wonders on all that archive footage of The Beatles for Disney), while the original multitrack recordings have been given newly remixed audio.

The production team are taking full advantage of the technical wizardry at the heart of the remaster.

“We've got the main audio production team that were involved in Peter Jackson’s remastering,” explains Margariti-Smith.

“We’re working really carefully together, collaborating. They’re very much a post-production film, audio, and visual team. But then we're coming at it as a live events team. This is our bread and butter. This is what we know, and we have our experts, from audio designers to lighting designers that work in the live space. They're top of their game, doing shows across the West End.”

As well as live lighting to mimic a concert experience and 360-degree sound, the show will also benefit from a live-on-the-night mix, tuned to match the atmosphere in the venue.

“We've really gotten into the weeds of how the original '86 recording was made, what stems were there, what's then delivered in the film, how we can then take it as a live event, as if they were the band on the stage,” says Margariti-Smith.

“We've got our audio front of house engineer who'll be doing that live mix, and that comes in play as well with the 5.1 surround sound.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to get stems, which are almost like the audio files of a film, as separate files. That's not just pre-delivered as part of the reel like in the cinemas. We can adjust [the mix], temper it in a live space — when you're hearing the audience track on the film, we can adjust that in the main space because we've got real audience participation, too.”

From Budapest to the Roundhouse

There'll also be an 80s DJ set before the film, while original Queen memorabilia from the band's archive will be displayed around the venue. Photo opportunities, bars and an exclusive Queen Budapest merchandise pop-up complete the line-up — but the glorious Roundhouse venue itself, with its circular shape and skeletal interior leftovers from its former days as railway turntable, will be just as key to shaping the atmosphere on the night.

“It's a great, iconic music venue, which is what we wanted,” says Lockyer Nibs. “That was really important for the idea, that we went to somewhere that was known as a gig space. And it's a good capacity number as well for this kind of event, as it's not too big.”

Fancy belting out Radio Ga-Ga in the heart of Camden? Tickets are available for two performances on Saturday 3rd October 2026, with the matinee opening at 2pm, and the evening performance opening at 7pm.

And there's a nice bit of timing to it all: the Roundhouse event comes just weeks after what would have been Freddie Mercury's 80th birthday, making the screening something of a celebration of the singer's enduring legacy as well as Queen's extraordinary live career.

“To be up on level two during Bohemian Rhapsody, and just looking down on the audience and their engagement, I think I’m going to cry,” smiles Lockyer Nibs.

Hankies at the ready all round then.

Tickets for the Roundhouse performances are available now.

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The NQ64 team, the brains behind London’s top retro-gaming themed bars packed with old-school arcade machines, must have been munching on the Mario Super Mushrooms when putting together its latest venue.

NQ64 has opened the doors to its biggest spot yet at Orange Yard on Manette Street in Soho, bringing two floors of neon-soaked arcade gaming and bar-room distractions to one of the capital’s busiest night spots.

The new venue officially opens today (11th September) and expands on the retro arcade bar group’s familiar formula, with a larger collection of games alongside several new experiences that go beyond the traditional arcade cabinet.

For starters, there’s an expanded line-up of classic arcade machines, including Guitar Hero, PAC-MAN Battle Royale, Mario Kart Arcade GP and pinball machines — a pair themed around Jaws and the Marvel movies. There’s also a serious selection of free-play consoles, covering multiple generations from the Nintendo 64 and original PlayStation through to the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360.

It’s a surefire nostalgia hit for anyone who remembers cramming four people around a telly for a ‘Slappers Only’ GoldenEye session.

The real gems though are among the lovingly-restored stand-up arcade cabinets of yesteryear. Four player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Check. Four player Outrun SP? Check. There’s even a super-rare version of The Simpsons beat-em-up (again in its four player variant) in a lavish large-scale cabinet that mimics the Simpsons’ family’s own CRT telly. It’s like the heady days of the Trocadero never ended.

High scoring cocktails

But the Soho venue isn’t just about retro gaming. NQ64 has UV pool tables and augmented-reality darts, claw machines and an extensive cocktail list.

NQ64’s arcade-inspired cocktail menu includes the Quick Revive No.5, inspired by the Call of Duty perk and described as the existing venues’ best-selling cocktail, alongside the Frozen Deadshot Daiquiri. There are alcohol-free options too, including CBD-infused Hits From The Pong, as well as craft beers and spirits.

Visually, it sticks firmly to the NQ64 playbook: expect neon artwork, graffiti-covered walls, immersive lighting and a Hip Hop and R&B soundtrack. We may be about to out ourselves as older than some of the retro games on show but, having attended opening night, hopefully the soundsystem volume… gets turned down a little? It was a shame not being able to hear all the charming chiptunes, bleeps and bloops of these classic games under the bass-heavy boom.

The new Soho site is the latest expansion for NQ64, which was founded in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in 2019 and now has venues across the UK, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham and Newcastle.

According to co-founders Andy Haygarth and Matt Robson, the Soho site is designed to give visitors even more reasons to stick around for “one more round” — which, as anyone who has ever played Mario Kart with friends knows, is an extremely dangerous promise to make.

If the thought of another round of ‘Three Small Plates’ at Wetherspoons or the sight of a chin-stroking real-ale fanatic fills you with dread, NQ64 Soho makes for a great score-chasing night out.

You’ll find NQ64 Soho at Orange Yard, Manette Street, London, W1D 4JB, a couple of minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road station. It’s walk-in friendly, but if there’s a big gang of you looking for a table or to secure a round on the dart boards, you can make a booking here.

• 8 tips to eat like a king in London without breaking the bank

Dishoom has announced exactly when its next London restaurant will open, and there’s a killer deal on offer for the first batch of diners too.

Dishoom Borough will open its doors on 12th October, and as part of the “soft launch” you’ll get 50 per cent off food until 20th October.

The Indian restaurant chain never seems to struggle to fill its tables, but the pitch is we should expect the odd service flub as the staff get settled in during these first few days.

“Our soft launch runs from 12th – 20th October, where we invite all to enjoy 50% off food as our team finalises their training,” says Dishoom.

There’s no booking available for Dishoom Borough just yet, and you are instead invited to sign up for updates over at the website.

Mains at Dishoom cost in the region of £20, so the launch discount will bring prices down closer to those of a local independent curry house. Or for even less you can try Dishoom’s signature Black Daal, which is £11.70 before the discount and absolutely delicious.

Borough exclusives

The Borough site will also get an exclusive dish, Keralan pepper chicken. This features slow roasted butterflied chicken with a pepper, coconut and curry leaf sauce.

Dishoom Borough is found at 24 Southwark Street, The Hop Exchange, SE1 1TY, nearby London Bridge station and close to Borough Market.

It’s not going to be a pokey place either. Spread across 8000-odd square feet and two floors, the restaurant will be one of the chain's larger spots.

“We’ve waited a long time to find a building we really love here, and I’m incredibly excited that we finally have. We think we can create something genuinely special in it, and hopefully add a little more to a part of London that is already unbelievably brilliant,” says Dishoom CEO Brian Trollip.

This will be Dishoom’s eighth London restaurant, with others in Battersea, Carnaby, Canary Wharf, Covent Garden, Kensington, King’s Cross and Shoreditch.

There are already plans for the ninth too, on the South Bank. It has applied for council permission to make changes to the old site of Las Iguanas by the Royal Festival Hall, which you’ll pass if you travel to Waterloo and make your way across the river by foot. We don’t expect to see that site up an running any time soon, though.

• 8 tips to eat like a king in London without breaking the bank

After his mega Wembley Stadium run of concerts this year, Harry Styles has announced another batch for 2027.

Styles will play the stadium once more on 25th, 26th and 27th August, 2027, with support from the iconic Tears for Fears on all three dates.

The shows are part of a second leg of his Together, Together tour, which sees him dart across the US and Europe from April 2027, before landing in the UK and Ireland to finish off the job. There are two shows at Dublin’s Croke Park on 18th and 20th August.

His list of support acts is pretty fantastic too. LCD Soundsystem joins for the Rome shows, while Kylie Minogue will play the Los Angeles dates. Minehead’s own Getdown Services are out for the Berlin gigs too.

How to get tickets

Want tickets? The London tickets go on sale from 17th September, at 11am. And to help counter the fact these shows’ tickets will probably cost a small fortune, an “unpredictable fun tickets” scheme is planned.

This will let a lucky few get hold of £20 tickets. We’re told more details on these cheapies will be released soon.

Harry Styles fans probably shouldn’t rely on getting those, and should instead consider presale periods too. There are two of ‘em. The first requires an AMEX, American Express, card. That presale begins on 15th September at 11am.

The “artist” presale starts a day later on 16th September, at 11am, and you simply have to sign up for access over at Ticketmaster’s website. Sign-up closes at 14th September at 5am.

Harry Styles’s original Wembley batch of concerts ran from 23rd June to 4th July this year, a 12-concert series that was granted a Guinness World Record for the longest run at the venue to date. Coldplay previously held the record, following their 10-date run in 2025.

The 2026 Wembley Stadium concerts were supported by Shania Twain, and tickets went for anything from around £45 to £500. All 12 nights were sell-outs, and we doubt he’ll have much trouble selling out these final three Wembley Stadium dates.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

“I remember one night in this squat in South London when a really early version of Foals played in the basement,” recalls Blaine Harrison, frontman of stalwart UK indie band Mystery Jets.

“During the set this wall was destroyed and everyone got covered in brick dust and blood. I was chatting to these people over a tinny in the garden and they were TV researchers, and then a few months later, I remember watching Skins and being like, ‘Oh shit, you're creating characters based on all of our friends’. What was going on on screen was basically a replication of what us and all our friends were doing, being sold to the younger generation.”

When Skins first appeared on TV screens at the start of 2007, it pointed towards a change in the temperature of ‘00s alternative British culture. The Libertines frontman Pete Doherty would announce his short-lived engagement to the country’s most famous supermodel Kate Moss a few months later. The seismic youthquake of guitar bands that began with The Strokes and soon travelled across the Atlantic with The Libertines, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and more had already begun to yield a slew of second wave major label signings like The Kooks. Soon, social media would mutate from a nascent, rose-tinted place of Myspace and rudimentary, fan-centric message boards to another means for the industry to regain total control. What had begun as a sexy, hedonistic antidote to the turn-of-the-century beige wave of Starsailor, Travis et al had gone commercial.

But for a pivotal window at the start of the decade, says author Janine Warren, “it felt like there was a really exciting energy. For a while, it really did feel as if culture was something young people could make for themselves.”

It’s this rise and fall-out of the last great British indie boom that Warren - who worked directly as a PR with bands including The Strokes and The Libertines - has documented in The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect: a new book compiling first-hand testimonies from artists and key players, looking back on the period now often affectionately known as ‘indie sleaze’.

Like Meet Me In The Bathroom before it, it walks readers through the scene via memories and anecdotes told directly by those who were there. But where Meet Me In The Bathroom’s eulogy of noughties New York still contains a sort of sketchy, underground glamour, there is something infinitely more homespun and charmingly haphazard about its British equivalent. Here, we get Wakefield sibling trio The Cribs throwing up in a plant pot after taking a meeting with Tom from Myspace, and The Libertines turning up to early gigs with their first drummer - a 70-year-old pensioner nicknamed Mr. Razzcocks.

Glorious, noisy, drunken

Crucial to the atmosphere of The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect (named after a track by London post-punks The Rakes) is the London nightlife at its centre: club nights like Trash, AfterSkool, White Heat and Frog, where you could dance most nights of the week with like-minded souls, get pissed for a tenner, and very possibly bump into someone who’d be on the cover of the NME the next month. If those sticky walls could talk, they would doubtless need their own, even heftier biography.

“There was this brief period where [the trends] felt like they were coming from the young people in the clubs and it was them making the decisions about what was cool,” says Warren.

Leonie Cooper, former NME journalist and current Food and Drink Editor at Time Out, spent her formative years rattling around the capital’s vibrant indie club circuit. “I went to Trash once and Grace Jones was there, she just looked me dead in the eye, lifted up her skirt and then put it back down. I was like ‘All right, decent, just been flashed by Grace Jones’,” she recalls.

“Another time, Kings of Leon were there. My friend Jo was wearing all these bangles that she had made, and she gave some of them to the band and then, two weeks later, they were on the cover of NME wearing the bangles. Nobody ever told us to fuck off, and I don't think it was because we were teenage girls because we were all quite goofy back then. I think everyone was just really open to having a chat. And they knew if you were in this place as well, you were probably on the same wavelength.”

For fans, bands and budding music industry bods alike, these nights became a hub and an entry point to a world that, suddenly, was all around you, in glorious, noisy, drunken technicolour.

“I met journalists from NME at Trash, and I think I got an internship at The Face because I’d see them there. I thought I was just being a slightly annoying teenager shouting at people, but in fact, I was networking,” says Cooper.

Hey scenesters!

“Going out five nights a week was a huge part of it,” agrees Harrison.

“That was how a lot of bands [like Mystery Jets] found an audience in the first place. When you were at school, you maybe had your clique of three or four people that liked the same music as you or dressed like you. But suddenly, when we arrived in London and started going to places like Candybox and AfterSkool and Trash, it was like, ‘Oh shit, it's like the ‘me’ of every town and we're all here’.”

Originating from Twickenham curio Eel Pie Island, it was through their affiliation with Trash that Mystery Jets would form a friendship with DJ Erol Alkan, who would produce their second album ‘21’ and its big hit ‘Two Doors Down’. Almost 20 years later they’re still going strong, having just released their seventh album ‘A Hole To See The Sky Through’.

Up north, meanwhile, Nick Hodgson - original drummer and songwriter of Kaiser Chiefs, and now vocalist in indie supergroup Everyone Says Hi, whose new album ‘Funny ‘Cos It’s True’ lands on October 9th - had spent the early years of the noughties running Leeds club night Pigs. Its community became so integral to Kaiser Chiefs’ story that, following a particularly rowdy gig with fellow Leeds band Black Wire, Hodgson was inspired to write their breakthrough hit ‘I Predict A Riot’.

“Pigs created a big gang of people in Leeds who could be identified by their hair or clothes, and I think that’s my favourite memory of that time - walking about feeling like you were part of something new,” Hodgson recalls.

“I do feel very grateful that I was able to start a band in the early noughties and not now. Despite it being easier now to get your music out there, it feels harder to find an audience.”

Harrison agrees: “I don't think genres really exist or have the same relevance as they did and, in some ways, that's a good thing. But it does mean that it's hard to build a fan base as a new artist because people might know a minute of one viral song, but they won’t have necessarily taken a deep dive if they're not invested in everything that you're about.”

Noughties nostalgia

Pre-Spotify and TikTok, there’s a sense of tribalness to the scenes of The World Was A Mess that seems unlikely to return.

“It was always important to me, that sense of belonging,” says Warren. “It was never just about the bands. It was about the people and the places that allowed those bands to mean something.”

And as the cost of living rises, with the average price of a pint in London sitting at £6.50 according to the British Beer and Pub Association, perhaps even the notion of affording to go out multiple nights a week is the noughties’ biggest cause for nostalgia.

“I had the educational maintenance allowance from the government which was £30 a week so I would stay in secondary education and go to sixth form, and I feel like that got me out for five nights a week,” Cooper remembers.

“Drinks at Cheapskates in Soho were 60p and they were rank but they had alcohol in them. They did work.”

“At White Heat you could get a bottle of Smirnoff Ice or a Becks for two pounds, and you'd already drunk half a bottle of wine on the bus to get there,” Harrison agrees. “Most of our clothes just came from charity shops. It was cheap.”

It’s easy to see why, in a world of Ozempic and photo filters, when people’s digital footprint is more highly curated than their real life existence, a less manicured approach to the world might also appeal. The images in Warren’s book are candid snaps of dancing revellers and backstage photos of bands piled on top of each other, sharing an experience in the moment.

“There's a kind of messy decadence to it: the chaos, the imperfection, the creativity, the optimism. Yes you’d plan your outfit, but by 3am no one was worrying about their eyeliner because no one was going to be seeing you on TikTok the next day,” says Warren.

“Now, when you look at people sharing pictures on Instagram of them in the club, everyone's so polished and they look fucking great. Whereas we sort of looked like sweaty little rats in a 1980s rah-rah dress,” says Cooper.

“We all look sort of dreadful, but we all look so happy.”

The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect is out now via Omnibus Press.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

From the outside theatre can have a slightly dusty reputation, feeling Shakespearean and classical more than young and hip. However, London’s starry West End and historic theatres have been challenging this for years, bringing smash hit productions from old revivals to new works to locals and visitors for years. The National Theatre’s 2027 programme might be the biggest whopper yet.

The stats for the new year’s programme alone are pretty staggering, with eight world premieres, three major revivals, and Paul Mescal, Emma Corrin, Mawaan Rizwan, Emilia Clarke, Harriet Walter, Tracy Letts, Monica Dolan and Anton Du Beke all set to star across a plethora of productions.

Okay, there are a lot of plays, creatives and cast behind them to get through, so these are the main ones you need to know. In terms of the texts, the biggest billings are a major revival of Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim's West Side Story which will be taking the winter 2027 slot. Marianne Elliott - the director behind the (slightly cursed chaotic) Sunday in the Park with George musical revival - will be taking on direction for the production alongside Miranda Cromwell. The two have worked together previously on a hit production of Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic.

Bernadine Evaristo’s novel Mr Loverman is getting the big stage adaptation – well, a middle sized adaptation as it’s heading to the National Theatre’s Lyttleton theatre. Natasha Gordon has helmed the adaptation which will be debuting on February 25th, running until April 17th. Danny Sapiani stars as Barry, a charming pillar of the Black Hackney community who has been in a secret relationship with his best friend Morris (Gary Beadle) for the last 60 years.

The late great Tom Stoppard’s comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is getting a revival too, with Mawaan Rizwan and SNL star George Fouracres in the titular roles. Another major piece on the slate is a fiftieth anniversary revival of the post-World War II drama Plenty which will star PONIES and Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke. It will kick off its run in spring 2027, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead following later in winter 2027.

Paul Mescal will be leading the cast in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, marking Mescal’s West End debut. He’ll be starring as Biff, alongside legendary US playwright Tracy Letts whose play August: Osage County is heading for a West End revival starring Anna Maxwell Martin and Leslie Manville. Mescal will also star in A Whistle In The Dark by Irish playwright Tom Murphy. Award-winning actress Monica Dolan and Irish star Ciaran Hinds will be joining him onstage.

There is also set to be a new drama following Sir John Major’s reign as Prime Minister, detailing his ascent from mere whip to PM post Maggie Thatcher reign. Called Major, the play will be running in spring-summer 2027, written by big wig playwright James Graham who you may remember from This House, Tammy Faye, and Dear England. He’s reuniting with director Jeremy Herrin who also directed This House.

Also on the docket is a rare revival of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer (Feb 19-Apr 24 2027), starring Emma Corrin, Arty Froushan and Harriet Walter, directed by Michael Grandage.

Another notable entry on the programme is an adaptation of Noel Streatfield’s classic 1936 children’s novel Ballet Shoes which stars TV’s twinkle toes Anton Du Beke.

Other shows making their world premiere next year include Glorious Madness, showcasing the music of Joan Armatrading, and a play examining how the 1998 Good Friday Agreement took a big step forward at a meeting in South Africa, titled The Great Indaba. Also, Orange Is The New Black star Uzo Aduba will appear in The Adeyemis – A Family Saga.

It's a show stopping line up all round, with plenty of fantastic shows spanning across 2027. Tickets will be available to book for the upcoming shows from Thursday 24 September via National Theatre where you can also read up more about each of the shows.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Wimbledon has already trickled into that hazy summer cloud of Aperol scented memories from the days when 35 degree temperatures were scarily the norm. In short, the idea of strawberries, cream, and worrying about spilling anything down a mainly white outfit seems a fair while ago. And that can only mean one thing — the 2027 ballot is open.

Wimbledon is one of the only major sporting events in the world which allows spectators to get tickets on the day, and whilst many consider the queue a quintessential part of London life, if you’re less of an early bird you may want to enter the ballot instead.

The ballot allows everyday joes to skip past that snaking queue and head straight for some of the biggest courts. The ballot helps keep the elusive tickets distributed fairly amongst those who are tennis (or picnic) fanatics, whilst avoiding the kind of dynamic price rocketing hot tickets can get.

If you’re wanting to enter, the ballot is run by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (the AELTC) and closes at 11.59pm on Monday 14th September, so you’ve only got a few days to enter. If you’re worried that you won’t be in with a chance because you’re a late entry then fear not as the time or day you enter doesn’t have an effect on your chances.

The ballot is free to enter, although you will need an account to enter. If you are successful in clinching yourself some tickets, the AELTC will contact you after the ballot closes, usually around late October. Even if you get the green light you’ll still have to be fairly on it, as there is a tight window where you’ll have to accept and pay for the tickets to secure them. Basically, keep an eye on your emails so you don’t fumble it.

In keeping with the whole being a very fair kinda opportunity, Wimbledon allows individuals to apply for up to two tickets per household, and the tickets are distributed completely randomly. This randomness does mean that you can’t request a specific date, court, match, or seat. Translation: you take what you can get. Also, if you consider yourself a bit of an entrepreneur / resale connoisseur, it’s worth noting that you cannot resell your ballot tickets.

To enter the Wimbledon Public Ballot, you’ll need to create a myWimbledon account, which you can do via this website. Whilst most of the time round robin marketing emails are to be avoided at all costs, it’s best to opt in to receiving communications from ALTEC so you can stay up to date with all things ballot-related, and not miss if you actually get them.

Wimbledon 2027 will be taking place across 28th June until July 11th, and next year’s competition will mark its 150th anniversary.

Aside from the Tube in summer, there are plenty of (more official) places to sweat in London – the city is simply sauna mad, with dozens of offerings across each borough. These aren’t your usual sweaty boxes either, with rooftop saunas, club style ones with live music, and even a floating one available to stressed out Londoners. Now a former pumping station is going to be heating up.

Hackney’s Grade II listed building, The Stoke Newington Pumping Station is set to become the city’s latest sauna. It's known affectionately as the Castle to locals due to its gothic aesthetic and 1850s architecture. As pumping centres aren’t as common, it found a second lease of life as a climbing centre back in the late 1990s but Community Sauna CIC has other plans for the space.

Community Sauna CIC is the same gang behind some of the best and most affordable sauna sites in the city, with spots in Hackney Wick, Walthamstow, Camberwell, Peckham, and Stratford. It’s a not-for-profit biz, who are trying to make a little self care accessible for everyone. Its sites each offer saunas and cold plunges as well as bespoke events across each location like queer poetry nights, breathwork sessions, and yoga. This latest potential site plans to build a sauna facility which would host up to 16 people per session.

According to the plans submitted by the group, a dry heated timber sauna will be added along with two cold showers in the southern side of the climbing centre. Unlike the other sites, so far there aren’t any visible plans to have a cold plunge pool at the moment, and considering the number of objections by locals already, it may be a while until we see one.

Stephen Moorhouse, representing the non-profit, said: ‘Our vision is quite simple: to bring communities together around an activity that improves wellbeing and to make that experience accessible to as many people as possible.’