Your First Evening in London

You land at four, check in at six, and by half past seven you have that particular flat feeling of being in a city you do not know with an evening you have not planned. Here is what actually works, written for somebody who arrived today.

Getting in from the airport

Heathrow. The Heathrow Express to Paddington in fifteen minutes, the Elizabeth line in about thirty for a fraction of the price and running later. The Piccadilly line takes an hour and is only worth it if your hotel sits on it.

Gatwick. The Gatwick Express to Victoria in half an hour, or Thameslink to St Pancras. Both are straightforward.

Avoid a cab from either unless somebody else is paying. Heathrow to central London is upwards of £70 and slower than the train at almost every hour of the day.

Where to stay, if it is not decided

The honest answer depends on why you are here.

Business, meetings in the City. Stay west anyway and commute in. The City empties in the evening and there is nothing to do there after eight.

First visit, want to be in the middle of it. Mayfair or Marylebone. Marylebone for value, Mayfair for the address.

In and out quickly. Paddington. Fifteen minutes from Heathrow, a hundred hotels, and everything else is a short cab away. Our post on Paddington and Bayswater explains why it works better than it looks.

The jet lag question

Worth being realistic about, because it decides the shape of the evening.

Coming from the east you will be tired early. From the Americas you will be fine until about eleven and then finished abruptly. Either way the first night is not the one for an ambitious plan.

What works: eat early, keep it close to the hotel, and do not build in a journey. What does not: a table booked for nine on the other side of town.

An evening that actually works on night one

A drink in the hotel bar at seven. Dinner somewhere within ten minutes on foot at eight. Back by half past ten.

That sounds unambitious and it is the version people enjoy. The elaborate evening is better on the second night, when you have slept and know where you are.

Our post on hotel bars worth arriving early for covers the first half, and choosing a restaurant the second.

If you want company

Ring rather than agonise over profiles. On a first evening you do not know the geography, and the useful question is not who but where, which is the part we can answer in about a minute.

Tell us the hotel and roughly when. An outcall to the hotel you are already in is the simplest possible version and removes every logistical question from the night. Our guide on London hotel bookings covers the arrival, which is more straightforward than most people expect.

Two things worth knowing before you call. Rates are on every profile with nothing added afterwards, and payment is cash, left visible at the start rather than handed over. See how to pay. Cash also means nothing appears on a statement, which matters more when the card is a company one.

If it would be a first booking of any kind, booking for the first time is worth ten minutes.

Practical odds and ends

• Contactless works everywhere. You do not need cash for anything except the booking.
• Restaurants stop serving earlier than you expect. Nine thirty is late for a kitchen in London.
• Sunday to Thursday there is no Night Tube. See getting around late at night.
• Nobody in a hotel is looking at anybody. This is the thing first time visitors worry about most and need to least.

Browse the roster, or ring +44 20 7846 3480. We are open from ten in the morning until late, seven days.