In 1982, the American writer John Updike penned an immortal sentence about the pull of New York City: “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” The very same thing can be said of Londoners. We may audibly agonise over pint prices, Tube strikes, phone snatchers and everything else we can possibly complain about, but we all know in our heart of hearts that there is truly no better place to be than London. Or, to quote a more homegrown talent, Samuel Johnson, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
Granted, the affordability section of that clause is really being stretched to its limits in 2026, but his point remains the same. You could spend an entire lifetime eating, drinking, dancing and mooching your way around London, and there would still be a myriad stones left unturned. In celebration of this (and in response to the increasingly pervasive nature of pessimism about the capital), London entrepreneur Charlie Ward coined the term “Londonmaxxing”.
Londonmaxxing is about squeezing every last drop of enjoyment out of the city, relishing in your proximity to culture and making that astronomical monthly rent or mortgage payment worth it.
Here, we present a detailed guide to Londonmaxxing — whether that be the up-and-coming scenes where you’re most likely to find the trendy Gen Zs (the ones that actually go outside, of course), a rundown of the best chicken shops in a city dominated by chicken shops, or the finest lesser-known museums — for those who have truly exhausted everything that can be gained from the V&A.
As the mercury rises and cherry blossom turns to fruit, it has been officially decreed that dunking on London is out, loving London is in, and most importantly: we are so f***ing back.
What Gen Z are loving in London
By Maddy Mussen
1 Listening bars
There’s been a lot of chat about London embracing Japan’s famous listening bar culture as of late, ushering in a wave of new venues which prioritise music quality above all else. But there’s a real difference between the beautiful-yet-dull listening bars that are mainly focused on getting you to spend £22 on a cocktail and listening bars where we, being Brits, actually get up and boogie. Yes, dancing isn’t exactly in keeping with some Japanese listening bars’ strict “listening rules”, but let’s call it British-Japanese fusion. Jumbi in Peckham and All My Friends, left, in Hackney will sort you out.
2 Women’s football matches
Forget Columbia Road, women’s football games have become the go-to Sunday activity for trendy Londoners across the capital. They’re cheaper than men’s football games and you don’t need to be a football scholar to attend — whisper it, but a lot of attendees are just there for the jolly. Many of the matches are family-friendly, which means young boys and girls can get their first taste of proper football in a less intimidating environment. This casual brand of football viewership might annoy some diehard fans, but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I say.
3 Community saunas
Haven’t you heard? It turns out everyone and their nan is stripping off on the weekends at the local sauna. The most popular (and price-conscious) ones are run by Community Sauna Baths, a not-for-profit outdoor sauna and cold plunge organisation, with spaces in Camberwell, Hackney Wick, Peckham, Stratford and Walthamstow. They also host specialised events, such as queer-focused sauna days, cacao ceremonies, poetry readings, or sauna hangouts for those with bigger bodies. Bonus Londonmaxxing points if you Lime bike there and back with your towel in the basket. MM
A city of firsts
The chef Fergus Henderson once told this paper that mobile phones are verboten at his restaurant, St John, because “they are a barrier to conviviality”. Many of London’s finest institutions have long been screen-free, and those who flout the rules can pay dearly. Anyone caught on their phone at the Academy Club above Andrew Edmunds in Soho must buy a round of champagne for everyone in the room.
A new wave of restaurants and clubs are following suit. Restaurateur Jeremy King decided to ban photography at his restaurant, The Park, after its chic bathroom went viral on TikTok and began attracting hordes of influencers. “We would often be cajoling women out of the loos to eat their meal,” King said.
Space Talk, the uber-chic Japanese listening bar in Farringdon, opted for a no photos policy from the outset. “We wanted to maintain the integrity of the space and the design,” says consultant Riccardo Ambrosio. “There’s also a certain freedom to walking into a place knowing you’re not going to be captured mid awkward dance.”
The weekly supper club at Logma in Hackney is held at communal tables in the dinky dining room, which turns out to be a natural deterrent to scrolling. “You’re pretty exposed because it’s such a small space — if someone were to go on their phone it would be quite rude,” says one of its founders, Ziad Halub.
An iPhone would be an anachronistic sight in The Roses of Elagabalus, below, a “queer clubhouse” in Dalston where the bar looks like a fin de siècle Parisian haunt and the club takes notes from Studio 54. “Phones were never part of those scenes,” explains co-founder Camille Jetzer. All cameras are covered with stickers, which adds to the enigma of an evening there.
The nightclub du jour, lost, dials things up: phones are sealed in black pouches which can only be opened by a bouncer upon exit. The brain behind lost (who prefers to keep a low profile) says it’s all in the name. “We want it to be a place to lose oneself, and you can’t do that with phones,” he says. The idea is to bring back the “unpredictability and spontaneity” of the pre-smartphone era. A night in the labyrinthine club feels like the Sunday of a festival, when phone batteries are dead and time becomes incidental. There is a meeting point, though you’re just as likely to make new friends there as you are to find your old ones. It’s all very 1990s — which is, ironically, an aesthetic that is lusted after on social media.
Where to see theatre’s new big things
By Anya Ryan
Soho Theatre
Want to catch all the joys of the Edinburgh Fringe without leaving London? Then Soho Theatre is the place. With the Fringe’s best exports rolling into its programme of late-night shows, you’ll find some of the boldest new writing and most exciting up-and-coming comedic talent all under one roof. Famously, the theatre hosted the first performance of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. sohotheatre.com
Bush Theatre
When Bush Theatre opened its doors in 1972, it seated just 80 people. Then, in 2010, under the leadership of Josie Rourke, it moved to a former public library, reimagined as two vibrant new performance spaces. Today, the Bush is one of London’s most reliable incubators for new writing, with recent stand-outs including Benedict Lombe’s Shifters, which secured a West End transfer, and The P Word, which returns in May. bushtheatre.co.uk
Finborough Theatre
Playwright James Graham’s name might be everywhere in the West End now, but back in 2005 he was preparing to make his professional debut at this 50-seat theatre above a pub in Earl’s Court. Today, Finborough Theatre remains committed to championing exciting new writing, while also unearthing neglected works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Zoe Hunter Gordon’s recent “1.17am, or until the words run out” was a scathing exploration of friendship and grief. finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Angel Comedy Club
Spread across two locations (The Bill Murray and The Camden Head), if you wanted to watch comedy every night of the week, Angel Comedy Club has you covered with free shows, mixed bills and sets from major names. It’s also where comedians do their work-in-progress, so you might see genius in the making. angelcomedy.co.uk
Battersea Arts Centre
Home to the weird and wonderful, Battersea Arts Centre has become one of London’s most adventurously programmed theatres under the leadership of Tarek Iskander. You might find genre-defying international work, one-person experimental pieces or wildly inventive clowning shows, but you’re bound to leave with something new to think about. With strong links to its local community and plenty of affordable tickets, it’s a place that always feels alive with creativity.
World’s best watering holes
There was a notorious Soho pub crawl prevalent in the old days. The Dean Street Shuffle was dubbed the “lethal triangle” from the 1950s until the 1990s or thereabouts, back when Soho was still roundly bohemian. The routine included such legendary watering holes as Muriel Belcher’s glorious Colony Room Club — now gone — The Groucho Club and The French House.
The Coach & Horses, though not on Dean Street, was also a marked part of the debauchery, so too Gerry’s on occasion, especially for those who wished to carry on into the sultry hours. Many artists, writers, actors and journalists, from Francis Bacon to Lady Rose McLaren, Jeffrey Bernard to Isabella Blow, made the shuffle famous.
In Soho today, you’re just as likely to see an influencer settle down to a smoothie from Joe & The Juice as you are to witness pre-snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan emerge from his father’s old sex shop. But, despite big money landlords who would rather see paint-by-numbers chains than an independent wine bar, the romanticism of this part of town mostly remains. It’s where any big night in London might start and finish. So it’s here I’ll be mostly deliberating how anyone might “Londonmax a night out”.
The sexiest hotels
By Suzannah Ramsdale
The Mandrake, 20-21 Newman Street, W1
Leave your inhibitions at check-in or at the very least don’t forget to sign the waiver declaring you don’t object to being seen in the nuddy during your stay. Some suites have connecting shower screens and the press of the “reveal” button turns them translucent. A peeping tom’s paradise.
The Zetter, clerkenwell, 49-50 St John’s Square, EC1
Nooks and crannies abound here for stolen smooches with ill-suited suitors. There’s live music every Tuesday and Thursday and a no-judgement policy on anyone who’s had too many martinis. Union Jack-canopied four-poster beds set the scene for some good old fashioned rumpy-pumpy.
…At Sloane, 1 Sloane Gardens, SW1
Wearing its sexiness on its sleeve, a stay here comes with smutty pillow talk cards, sumptuous curtained-off snugs and discreet “mistress doors” for nocturnal comings and goings. Pleasingly, rooms have a “Love” lighting setting designed to be ultra-low and supremely flattering.
The Twenty Two, 22 Grosvenor Square, W1
A highly charged members’ club. Knock back suggestive cocktails (like After One Kiss, perhaps) in the sultry bar downstairs before retiring to any of the velvet-drenched rooms upstairs. May we suggest the duplex Heritage Suite with its cheeky nude sketches of couples getting it on for inspiration?
L’Oscar , 2-6 Southampton Row, WC1
Named after one of London’s most notorious hedonists, Oscar Wilde, and perversely set in an old Baptist chapel, mischief oozes from each plum velvet pouffe and dances off its mirrored ceilings. If a potent cocktail from the Seven Deadly Sins menu doesn’t get you going, nothing will.
In Soho, bar the Colony — which exists in a different guise in Mayfair — the aforementioned shuffle is trod, even if not to the same flamboyant, reckless degree. You might start even at Quo Vadis, a time capsule of a place overseen by the great Jeremy Lee, a chef of such repute that diners hang sweetly on his every word. His eel sandwich is a dish obsessed over; his towering meringue and fruit desserts, full of cream and impassioned promise, would make for a dutiful start to any night on the tiles.
Find the great and good of modern Soho there sipping martinis and discussing important matters such as garden parties in Islington. It would be incorrect not to drink pints at the Coach, and halves at the French House, both still as beautifully mad as ever before. There are too many boozers to mention. Be sure to stop by the Blue Posts, the one on the corner of Berwick Street and Broadwick, which is staffed impossibly by models and up-and-coming thespians and once bore witness to an artist who used a cocktail umbrella to shield her cigarette from the rain.
Still in Soho and you might pause for a pick-me-up at Bar Italia — an espresso — or have a bowl of jazzy noodles at the Thai restaurant Khao Bird, which does a cocktail called “I’m Broke” using Lidl vodka. Or else there’s El Camion and the Pink Chihuahua — where the weight of tacos on the ground floor give way to a basement bar of tequila — and the new bar El Siete down the road with its zesty margaritas and mini tuna tostadas for £2 a morsel.
Interesting places to drink
By David Ellis
Saint Monday, 4 Warburton Road, E8
Microbrewery and metal bar, hidden under East End railway arches. Go for thrashing guitars, beers brewed freshly on site, skull’s head taps and, frankly, too many piercings. Besides its own-brewed beers, there are guest pours from across the world, plenty of cocktails and a spirits selection up there with the best of them. Decent smoking area, too.
Renegade Urban Winery, Walthamstow and Bethnal Green
Renegade winery, right, bills itself as breaking the rules, one bottle at a time. Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s just making very decent wine with quirky labelling. Founders buy grapes from across the UK and Europe, and turn them into interesting wines without any added yeast, and without filtering. They try to never repeat a wine: go to either site’s bar to sit in and sip your way through whatever they’re working on. A bottle to takeaway? Rude not to.
The East London Liquor Lab, 382 Mentmore Terrace, E8
Big on spirits? Head to the East London Liquor Co’s white-walled lab, where for £75 drinkers can spend two hours playing about — and, crucially, tasting — the brand’s various whiskies, before blending a 300ml bottle of your own creation. Consider it a scientific way to get smashed.
The Tiroler Hut, 27 Westbourne Grove, W2
One for the schnapps fans (do they exist?) Since 1967, the Tiroler Hut has been serving schnitzel and strudel with a side of clarinet and triumphant cow bell performances. It has attracted the rich, famous and debauched — Kate Moss, ticking all three boxes, was once a regular. It is a London must.
Bimber distillery, 56 Sunbeam Road, NW10
Though its name means “moonshine” in Polish, Bimber is London through and through. Co-founder Ewelina Chruszczyk began the brand more than a decade ago, producing in North Acton extremely high-end single malt whisky with traditional techniques, in notably limited quantities. See how they do it yourself with a two-hour, £40 distillery tour, which includes a tasting.
Anyone who proclaims London to be an “early city” need only know where to go. There are so many places with 2am and 3am licences, especially in Chinatown, where you can go to Noodle & Beer and stay until ungodly hours eating hand-pulled noodles. Some are even later, like The Box (4am), where I once saw Snoop Dogg buy a bottle of Cristal. Looking over at him in drunken awe, I was promptly slapped in the face with a haddock. How could anyone better “Londonmax” than that?
Moving out of Soho’s fishy peril and Le Beaujolais is a point of wistful refuge. Enjoy it. It’s a part of England that is forever France, a place for Toulouse sausages on lentils and passable house wines. And a word must be said for Baudry Greene nearby, home to what might be London’s best negroni; and Bloodsports opposite, owned by Scott Collins, one of the characters of London nightlife today. Have an Austerity Measure there, a savvy combination of Carlsberg and bourbon, or a Turbo Largerita, which would send even the most accomplished drinker into slumping disarray.
Head to sister venue Meatliquor in Oxford Circus if you want to carry on playing pool (both have a table) and stay out until 3 (on the subject of pool tables, that Thai bar and restaurant Speedboat has one, too, and it’s often dormant during the day).
Incidentally I’m nearing my word count and I’ve not even got going. London is just so good for a night out, lads. Consider south London, where you might visit Giuseppe’s in Borough (4am close), a ridiculous Italian restaurant that clears away cream-laden carbonara for glitterball action each evening, or wonderful pubs such as Skehan’s in Peckham. Those in west London have their pick of The Cow, and the Portuguese bar Sporting Clube de Londres, and the Globe, if you can get in, which I’m not sure you would. Head north and it would be futile not to think of Rowans, the cocktail fuelled bowling alley that so many locals love. And east, god, there are too many venues to list — if any, A Bar with Shapes for a Name trades until 4am and serves classics as well as its lab-made libations. Perhaps start at Satan’s Whiskers, or All My Gods in Bethnal Green. I’m out of breath now. On you go.
Finger-lickin’ Chicken shops
By Josh Barrie
Morley’s, Across London
South London and proud, Morley’s is a homing beacon of a brand founded by Sri Lankan Kannalingam Selvendran in 1985. The business is now run by his son Shan, who’s taken a small group of chicken shops to a London-wide, celeb-endorsed enterprise. Cheap and cheerful fried chicken, with a crisp batter that satisfies beyond others.
Good Friend, 14 Little Newport Street, WC2
There’s a reason queues form daily outside Good Friend: it’s the best Taiwanese-style fried chicken in London. Here, dishes are cooked fresh to order and chicken is marinated with near-mystical skill.
La Barra , 147 Eagle Yard Arch, SE1
A little over 20 years ago, Maria Luisa left Colombia and pitched up in Elephant and Castle to cook celentado — a breakfast dish of fried eggs over pork belly and chorizo, red beans and rice — and fried chicken of unfathomable design. People travel for miles to have it — lava-like batter, golden brown, crisp and generous, encases what might be the most moist chicken in the world.
Fowl, 3 Norris Street, SW1
A posh chicken shop might sound oxymoronic, but Fowl, left, gets it right. No wonder — it’s the work of the Fallow team, namely chefs Jack Croft and Will Murray. Expect superb varieties of fried chicken wings, including one made with naga chilli — oh go on. Posh, sure, but only £12.
History everywhere
London’s churches are famously fascinating, and their yards and gardens are tranquil spaces which the godless and godly can visit to eat their sandwiches. Here are six to try.
St Vedast, alias Foster, EC2, is my favourite, a lovely little enclosed courtyard garden, above, accessible through an unlikely door next to the church on Foster Lane. It’s got a nice little cherub on the wall. The church itself was rebuilt after the Blitz and the Great Fire of London (Wren took a hand) but the original foundation is said to date back to the 12th century.
St Dunstan in the East Church Garden, Idol Lane, EC3, below, is set in the ruins of a Wren church which was left unrestored after the Blitz. It’s a lovely place with benches, a fountain and creeper-covered walls where once there would have been stained glass and lancet windows.
St Paul’s Church Garden, Bedford Street, WC2. St Paul’s in Covent Garden is famously the actors’ church and it retains the old burial grounds as a pleasing public garden, minus the headstones, but with sculpture and a maze with an image of the late Queen in the middle. Many of the benches are dedicated to deceased thesps.
St Mary Aldermanbury, Love Lane, EC2. The church itself, alas, was destroyed in the Blitz, but the remains of the building are here as well as, more prominently, a memorial to William Shakespeare and the publishers of the first folio, which you can contemplate in the shade of the knot garden.
St Paul’s Cathedral, EC4. You probably don’t think of St Paul’s in terms of green space, but at the north end there is a pleasing formal garden with large old plane trees, grass and benches. At the south gate there’s a rose garden. Where better to contemplate St Paul’s? St Olave’s, Hart Street, EC3. This was a favourite of Charles Dickens — he called it “my best beloved churchyard” — and Samuel Pepys, who lived across the street in Seething Lane. It’s a hidden, elevated yard entered through a 17th-century gate surmounted with skulls.
Holy Trinity Brompton Churchyard, Ennismore Garden Mews, SW7. A remarkably spacious but secluded public space in Knightsbridge. It’s a lovely for a picnic after a visit to the Oratory.
Top spots for second-hand shopping
By Bay Garnett
Portobello road Market, Portobello Road, W11
Go on a Friday morning if you can, when locals tend to scope things out. There are all sorts of stalls that are like mini decades, from the 1920s and 1930s to amazing 1970s finds by Bill Gibb and Ossie Clark. It’s like a snippet of fashion history. Don’t miss Caroline Turner at Selfish Maids. Open daily.
Frock Me!, Various locations
This is a vintage fair that comes to Chelsea Old Town Hall and other west London venues every month. You’ll find YSL and Schiaparelli, but it’s mostly no labels. There are great accessories too — I once found an amazing Edwardian bag there, and you can get some lovely jewellery pieces as well. frockmevintagefashion.com
Second Life Markets, Various locations
You pay a tenner to get into these curated pop-ups around London, bringing lots of dealers together. If Portobello is vintage, this is more like second-hand. You can buy great sweatshirts, jeans, Y2K — slightly more contemporary pieces. secondlifemarkets.com
Rellik, 8 Golborne Road, W10
I love Rellik — it was one of the first real vintage shops in London. Fiona Stewart, who runs it, has a great eye and sells things at a reasonable price. I found Charles Jourdan boots there, but you also might see a 1970s YSL Cossack coat or some Comme des Garçons: it’s quite expansive. relliklondon.co.uk
Found And Vision, 318 Portobello Road, W10
Stylist Karen Clarkson runs this with two other women, so when you go you’re getting women who have really great taste. You might find amazing 1970s suiting, McQueen from the 1990s and also great original rock T-shirts — I remember seeing a great Bruce Springsteen one in there. foundandvision.com
