The furthest east most visitors to London get is the sightseeing in the City; for nightlife, eating out, hotels, parks etc. they stick to the West End, Kensington, Chelsea etc. East London has the unfair reputation of being one great grimy, poor, dangerous council estate. However, Londoners, especially young Londoners, know it as an area 'on the up'; Spitalfields has already had its first million-pound house, and the Shoreditch area has taken over from the now long-gentrified Notting Hill and Soho as the capital's bohemian hotspot. You can barely move for small art galleries in Hoxton, there are also some in Bethnal Green. Alternative culture can also be found at the Lux Cinema on Hoxton Square, or the Space Theatre/Gallery in Mudchute.
The EC1 loft-apartment revolution has done more than push house prices up, it's also encouraged a great improvement in the quality of restaurants and nightlife, too. While you may think of East End cuisine as nothing more than pickled eggs and jellied eels in pubs with frosted-glass windows, evidence of the culinary advances that have taken place across the capital over the past decade can be found there too. For typical trendy bar/eateries stick to the Shoreditch/Hoxton area (EC1/N1, nearest tube Old Street); the Great EasternDining Room is quite good value for money (£20 a head), with a cocktail bar and house/garage music in the basement. If you want to go out after dinner, the club '333', at 333 Old Street, is nearby. For ethnic food, you can't go better than Brick Lane. The borough of Tower Hamlets has a very large Bengali population (large enough for bi-lingual street signs), and their culinary expertise is concentrated on this one street (Aldgate East and Shoreditch are the nearest tubes), where you can find a spectrum of Asian restaurants from 'contemporary Bangladeshi cuisine' to a good old-fashioned cheap 'n' cheerful bring-your-own-booze curry house.
If you want to go shopping, the area boasts some interesting markets, with much less of a tourist overload than Portobello Road. The Sunday Spitalfields market (nearest tube Liverpool Street) has furishings, clothes, music, books etc. in a massive old warehouse with a five-a-side football pitch in the middle. For Delboy-style wheeling and dealing, Brick Lane on a Sunday is the place, with counterfeit clothing, dodgy electrical equipment and smuggled cigarettes galore. While on Brick Lane, stop off at the 'Beigel Bake' for a snack; open 24 hours a day, you can see into the kitchen where they are constantly producing massive quantities of bagels and other baked goods (the Jewish chola bread is good), and it's unbelievably cheap. Just 12p for a plain bagel, even one filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese is only 95p! It has the feel of a bakery in 1950s Little Italy or something, not that I've ever been to New York, but I've seen a few gangster films.
Anyway, I think the East End is a top place to visit. As well as markets, food, nightlife and arts, There's Victoria Park to chill out in. If you're a visitor, it'll certainly make a change from the well-trod route around the West End, and you can have just as much (if not more) fun, without paying such obscenely inflated prices.
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Advantages: A wide range of transport available for getting around in LONDON!, Travel card cheapest way to travel... Disadvantages: Can get busy, tacky buses/trains, can get hot....
Advantages: Lots to see, lots to do, comprehensive travel deals Disadvantages: Quite expensive, you need to stick with the programme to make it worthwhile.
Aug 25th, 2000
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