How To Feel On Holiday In The City: London

For those who can’t get away, here’s our best tips for how to feel on holiday in this big bustling city. Starting you off with her most transportive tip, is Robyn Smith, one of our brilliant London-based jewellers. 

“I reminisce most about the food on my holidays, and for me recreating these meals is a way to transport myself out of London without physically leaving. My favourite dishes on previous holidays have been stuffed peppers in Bulgaria. I was staying with a Bulgarian woman who would slow cook these amazing trays of food in a mini oven outside. She stuffed the long, very pale green peppers with rice and meat and spices, with a tray of green beans sliced and arranged in layers in a tomato sauce. I have spent a long time trying to find a recipe that tasted the same – but the physical process of trying to recreate this dish connects me to the feeling of being outdoors and free. My nearest market is in Lewisham, so I buy a £1 bowl of peppers and cook this for friends. Roasting a whole fish somehow feels quite holiday too. They’re both a nice escape.”

And now, here’s ours:

1.  Go to Campania & Jones in East London if you want to feel as if on holiday in Italy. Book a table in advance and request a table outside, preferably not in front, but rather on the narrow cobblestone street running alongside the restaurant. Here, if the sun is casting a golden glow upon surfaces, it’s easy to forget that you’re in London.

2. Go and sit on the steps in front of Tate Britain. It’s the closest thing London’s got to The Met in New York City and it’s a great place for people-watching. Whilst here, go to Regency Cafe – not quite holiday vibes but FANTASTIC. Iconic greasy spoon, opened in 1946. You will be inspired by the glossy black tiled exterior and the gingham window curtains. Let alone scoffing a full English surrounded by London cabbies.

3. Head to your closest Turkish supermarket, raid the tropical fruits, and go straight to the park. If you live in South East London, Ollie’s on Walworth road is the best. There is a corner of Burgess Park where you can sit around a mosaic fountain surrounded by palm trees. Take a flask and settle in.

4.  Pick up three scoops from Gelupo Gelato in Soho. That’s it, that’s all you need to know. 

P.S. It’s great for vegans as well, they’ve got a range of sorbets! 

5. The best place to swim on a warm summer’s day is Hampstead Heath. There are three ponds: The Men’s Pond, The Ladies Pond and The Mixed Pond. Depending on who you are and who you’re going with, have your pick. If you’re a lady, you’re lucky, for the Ladies Pond is London’s most magical hidden haven. Surrounded by trees and bushes, no one can peek in or watch from the sidelines, and the best part, really, is that there’s no reception. After you’ve gone for a swim, you can sunbathe and read freely on the meadow. While you’re there, at the park, spread out a big picnic blanket on one of the fields atop a hill and enjoy something frisky to drink amid tall grass and rolling surroundings. The best time to do so is at sunset so you can watch the sky change colours, and the best hill is the one beyond the Model Boating Pond (go far), where there’s no city in sight, only green. 

6. Pick up a kayak from Moo Canoes and kayak along the canal from Limehouse to Hackney Wick. 

7. Towpath Cafe is the best canalside café in London, situated right on the water so that all you can see from where you’re sitting is glistening gleams or the reflection of clouds upon the glossy water surface, and people passing and kayaking by on their way from one thing to the next. Have a flick through their blue cookbook (it lies on the table with the water jugs) while you wait for your food and you will get immensely inspired by Lori and Laura’s way with words. 

8. Buy ingredients for margaritas at your local corner shop, make them at home and pour into reusable cups, wear your most colourful clothing and invite a few friends to your nearest park for a celebration. Celebrating what? you ask. Well, summer of course! 

9. Pack a bag and go spend a day somewhere in London you’ve never been before. Do things you’d do if on holiday abroad – have a massive pizza for lunch and have a glass of wine with it, explore a new gallery, wander streets you’ve never wandered before, and soak up the feel of somewhere new. Bring a camera and take some photographs. London is so big, there’s got to be places you haven’t seen, even if you’ve lived here for years and years. And it’s that element of exploring the unknown and soaking up new impressions which makes us feel the very most as if on holiday, we think!