The Other London: 33 Local Spots With Stories

This week feels a little special because, after monthssss of writing, I finally put the finishing touches on my local London guide. And it’s been so, so heart-warming to write.

But don’t let its front cover fool you. This is not a guide to London’s famous, recognisable landmarks. Big Ben and Buckingham Palace need no introduction from me.

This is about the other London.

The properly local cafés, hidden restaurants, peaceful gardens, quiet courtyards, neighbourhood markets, old bookshops and quirky spots with interesting stories that most visitors would simply never know about.

Table of Contents

The first big move somewhere new

London was actually the first city I ever called home outside of where I grew up. I moved there in my very early twenties, into an apartment I rented with my first boyfriend and started working at the Disney office in Hammersmith.

At first, I was so sure that London was the only place I ever wanted to live. I loved it that much. But the more my world expanded, the more I began imagining that there were other cities and countries, and entire versions of myself, waiting to be known.

Those curious trains of thought eventually led to physical planes and I ended up going on to live in New York, then Brazil, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin and all the chapters that followed.

And although I never moved back to London like I once thought I would, it never really disappeared from my life. It is the capital of my home country, after all, and over the years I’ve returned more times than I can count.

Every visit ‘home’ is always a mixture of going back to old and still-loved places and finding new spots that have popped up in between. Perhaps that’s what I love most about it. It’s forever evolving, but there are also little corners I know that have remained almost unchanged for decades.

Not the London everyone already knows

What makes it truly special, in my experience, is how deeply historic stories are woven into everyday places. You’ll find them in local neighbourhood spots and family-run English breakfast caffs (not cafés), where the mum, even at 85, is still cooking in the kitchen.

In peaceful gardens grown from WWII bombsites. In old pubs with crooked wooden beams and tales that go way back. In bookshops where the owner still lives just upstairs, and in buildings that once lived entirely different lives (my favourite kind!). You just have to know where to look.

Over the years, my notebooks, Google Maps and phone notes became filled with these places and their stories ~ conversations with the owners and little things I wanted to remember. And now, finally, 33 of them live together in one place.

As with all of my guides, this isn’t about the London everyone already knows. It’s about the one you begin to know when you truly have one foot in the door.

Recommendations from another human

In a world where it’s easier than ever to ask Google, TikTok or AI where to go, I still think there’s something really special about recommendations that come from another human.

Someone who’s actually lived somewhere, walked its streets, returned over the years and knows which places they’d take you to if you came to visit.

That’s exactly what this guide is. Fifteen years of familiarity, condensed into a personal notebook of 33 places that I think are genuinely worth knowing about ~ many lesser-known, some wonderfully unusual and almost all with a story behind them.

I’ve heard locals say before that London is one of those cities that’s better to live in than to experience as a tourist. With this guide, I hope you get to do a little bit of both 🤍

If you’re planning a trip there soon, feel welcome to read a copy here.