Planning A Second Trip to London (Part 2): Where to Stay, What to Eat, and What Not to Miss

Foreign.

Welcome back to travel in 10.

This is our second episode this week and we are going back into the same city we were talking about yesterday to London, England.

And we're doing something a little bit different this week and we're talking about not the first experience in London, we've done a podcast on that before.

Instead we're talking about that second trip to London.

What really once you've seen all the main attractions, you've been to Big Band and you've been to, you know, Buckingham palace and you've seen all those main attractions, what are the next levels, the next, next kind of things to really dig into on your next experience to the city once you've already checked some of the, the main items off of your, your bucket list.

So I know yesterday we, we covered off a lot of, of the best sites in town.

Um, any more spots?

Do we want to talk about food?

London definitely has some good bites, has some amazing restaurants.

And, and I mean my two, my two recommendations on, on the food side would definitely again staying in on our Shoreditch theme in the same neighborhood, one called Dushoon, which this is actually there's a number of locations for Dushoon.

This is probably the most famous, most well known Indian restaurant in London.

Inspired by the cafes of Mumbai.

It's quite a modern, cool looking place.

They have breakfast as well, which isn't super common sometimes for Indian restaurants, but they've got this bacon naan roll that they do for breakfast that's, that's very well known.

And then at night it's packed, it's, it's a tough place to a table.

So definitely worth booking in advance, but great food and would highly recommend Duchum in Shoreditch and right around there there's a whole bunch of cool restaurants in that same district.

Another one that we really enjoyed was a place called Smokestack, which has become kind of a legendary barbecue joint in town.

Perfectly smoked, you know, smoked briskets, they've got charred ribs, they've got a great sticky toffee pudding.

So that's another one that I would recommend seeking out and another one that you probably need advanced reservations if you want to get in as well.

I know you've had some great restaurant experiences there.

What were some of your favorites?

Yeah, you know, I love going to Harrods.

You know, there's this huge department store there called Harrods and they have a food hall and they call it the world's greatest food emporium.

And I think that's only maybe just a slight Exaggeration.

I mean, it really is incredible because you can go and do traditional, you know, it's all these different little food stalls, small restaurants, all through the lower levels of this massive, massive department store.

So you can go simple, you can get fish and chips, you can go high end and you can get Kobe beef and get steaks.

I think I have not actually I've been to the food hall.

I didn't go to this place, to this one particular stall.

It's at the top of my list.

Next time I'm going to be in London, which is a hot dog stand that is, that belongs to and is helmed by a Michelin starred chef.

So I want to see what a Michelin starred chef can do with a hot dog.

People who know me know that I am a man who appreciates a hot dog, a really good hot dog.

And so, and so I would love to have a Michelin star hot dog.

The other place, speaking of Michelin stars that I want to mention is Gordon Ramsay, obviously one of the best known, most famous chefs in the world, has many, many restaurants around the world.

It has now has three Michelin stars, which I believe is the most you can have.

It's a maximum three.

Um, and it is called Still, I'm sure this was the original name restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

And so to differentiate it from all of his other restaurants, even just in London, a lot of people just, they call it Hospital Road.

They said, oh yeah, I'm going to go to Hospital Road tonight for, for dinner because that is where it is located.

I think it's called like Royal Hospital Road or something like that.

But people call it Hospital Road.

But if you want to see where it all began, this, this, this worldwide famous empire culinary empire, that is where it all began.

So definitely that's a recommendation as well.

And, and you know, I mean, we were talking earlier in a previous episode about cities with great hotels.

We've talked about our favorite hotels in the world.

London's definitely a hotel that has some of the best hotels in the world.

So I know you have a couple of places that you have enjoyed laying.

Your head for sure.

Again staying in Shoreditch and in East London, I mean two that I would call out the Hoxton.

Quite a cool kind of trendy boutique hotel, stylish rooms.

I think the really call out thing here, I say like a lively lobby bar and cool scene there.

So that's what kind of stands out there.

And then the Mondrian also in Shoreditch, which, you know, more kind of design forward.

Very chic hotel.

And the standout thing here.

Not a lot of places in London you're going to find great rooftop pools, but this is one of them.

So I don't know if they keep it open all year long, but have to be open one of the times I was there and would definitely recommend checking that out.

And I know you've got two that you love staying at in the city as well.

Yeah, so there's the Andaz, which is kind of the fashion brand, the stylish brand in within Hyatt and we have talked before about Marriott and Hyatt and our favorite brands.

Anyway, it is in Shoreditch.

It's within walking distance of many of the markets and things to do there.

They were the hotel that organized that graffiti tour.

So they're definitely well connected to people within that neighborhood.

Same people that designed the Houses of Parliament designed this hotel.

It's built on the site.

You know, when people say Bedlam.

Oh, I went down there and it was Bedlam.

There actually was a mental hospital I think it's called, and I might be wrong on this but like Bethlehem Medical Psychiatric Hospital.

And people shortened it to Bedlam.

It's built on the site of where the original Bedlam was.

I can tell you it's that you're not going to have a similar experience to those unfortunate people who had to stay there many years ago.

But it is and they weave in a lot of the local elements into the design of the hotel.

So that's one of my favorite places.

And then I'm just going to, you know, for my second one I'm just going to go with a classic.

I had a wonderful stay.

It was a very, it was a winter time when I stayed there.

I've only had one stay.

But the Savoy, you know, which is one of the classic, you know, very well known, world famous hotels in London.

Very close to the West End and all the theaters there.

They say it was built with the profits from Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

And they say it was the first hotel in the United Kingdom to have elevators, hot water and electric lights.

And I can tell you they have a lot more than that now, including a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

But a beautiful, luxurious place to stay, excellent service.

I've said this about other hotels but you know, place where people really do, the staff really do remember your name and your preferences and, and I mean That's a very special thing.

So in addition to the traditional luxury, there's a lot of history, great location, lots of great service.

So definitely one of again, one of my favorite hotels in the whole.

Okay, well, let's jump into our camp misses for London.

And I'm going to throw out two briefly.

One is Borough Market, London's probably most famous food market.

This is a great spot if you're, if you're looking for, you know, particularly.

It's very much a food market.

So this is a great place to go for lunch.

Ton of variety here.

Artisanal cheese, fresh seafood, gourmet street food.

Really great spot.

So we really enjoyed our time at Borough Market.

I would highly recommend that.

And then one a bit more maybe unusual, can't miss.

But this is probably my favorite experience that I had in London was a purpose built theater that they've got there that was created for a show called ABBA Voyage.

They took the original members of ABBA and created holograms of them.

Super lifelike looking holograms.

And every night they do an ABBA concert in this purpose built ABBA Voyage stadium.

And it is mind blowing.

It is one of the best performances of any kind that I've ever been to where these avatars perform all of ABBA's greatest hits.

It is at times in the concert undistinguishable from a real live concert.

You could swear that the members of Abra are there just in front of you and it is a live concert happening in front of you.

At other moments they blow up to 200ft tall and different lasers and projections and things happening all around you.

You've got people from 14 years old to 90 years old all dressed up in their ABBA gear and feather boas and shiny disco suits.

It is a super cool atmosphere, a ton of fun.

I would happily go back anytime I was in London.

So that would definitely be my can't miss.

Very cool.

And I mean, who doesn't love abba, right?

I mean, everybody loves abba.

People who hate ABBA love abba.

So, you know, I mean, I'm not much of a dancer, but I believe that if I went to this show I would actually get up and do my best attempt at dancing.

Your best dancing queen there, I'm sure.

Yeah, exactly.

I would do my best.

Yeah, I would do my best.

My best dancing queen.

And you know, I mean, kind of in the same vein of I love going to a West End show.

I really do love a musical.

And you know, anytime I knew I'm In New York, I go to a show on Broadway.

Anytime I have a night in London, I make sure to do a show in the West End.

Speaking of abba, I was looking at some of the shows that are running at the moment.

Mamma Mia.

Is running.

I've actually seen Mamma Mia a couple times on Broadway.

Have not seen it in the West End.

Les Mis is running right now.

So you've got the classics.

There's a show that I was curious about that I saw on the list of Back to the Future.

Apparently there's a Back to the Future musical.

What a great 80s movie.

I don't know how they're going to do a musical out of that, but I would love to see that.

And then my favorite musical of all time, Hamilton.

I mean, I know everybody knows about Hamilton, but I absolutely love Hamilton.

And I've seen it on Broadway and I've seen it in the West End.

And the vibe was very interesting seeing it in the West End because if you know anything about Hamilton, you know, the King, the King of England plays a role because this is revolutionary, American revolutionary history.

And the King of England is sort of mocked and you know, this kind of comical character, this farcical character that they bring out.

Um, when I saw it on Broadway, you know, people laughed and, you know, whatever.

In England, I almost felt like people were rooting for the King just a little bit.

Just maybe just a little bit, you know, so it was a little bit of a different vibe.

Loved it.

Both casts were incredible.

So, yeah, so if you're in London and you can often get last minute tickets online for a discount.

So that's also worth, you know, if, if you're not dedicated to seeing one musical.

And one last actually recommendation is I got my ticket to Hamilton last minute by just showing up at the theater and saying, if you have a cancellation, you know, where do I go?

And they said you'd line up here at whatever time it was 6 o' clock, 5 o' clock, something like that.

I was the second person in line and I got a ticket for a very fair price and I got in the same day.

So it's always worth just going.

Even for a show like Hamilton, which arguably is probably still the most popular show in the world, it's worth just showing up and seeing what might be possible.

So that's my recommendation.

One thing you reminded me of when it comes to London West End stories, I mean, one of the great things about seeing a show in the West End in London is quite often you get celebrity UK celebrities who are starring in a lot of the shows.

And my first ever trip to London, this was probably 20 plus years ago now, I at the last minute got tickets to a show called Art which was the entire show featured the only thing on stage was this large painting that was entirely white and it was two cast members arguing over the merits of this white painting for the entire two hour show.

It was very funny and a very well done show.

But one of the two stars of the show was Sean Connery, the original James Wan.

So that was super cool.

And yeah, so that definitely makes a unique part of the West End experience is getting some of those types of experiences.

Absolutely.

And I mean a lot of those venues are quite small.

Right.

So you're being able to see Sean Connery perform in a small venue.

I mean, what a thrill.

I mean I'm sure that's something you'll never forget.

So yeah, heartily recommend it.

Sounds great.

Well, thank you Tim.

Always great to talk to you on different destinations around the world as we try and share some good tips with people about how to travel more and travel better and give you some of our insider tips from our travels around the world.

We hope if you find it helpful, that you'll take a moment to drop us a review or a rating on the Apple Podcast store or on Spotify and check out all of our other podcasts from around the world@voyescape.com thanks so much David.

Always great to chat.

Have a great week.

Thanks, you too.