24-hour Overground: Where to find the 'Ginger' line's best parties

The Overground is switching into night mode. From tonight, the service will run for 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays between New Cross Gate and Dalston Junction, with an extension to Highbury & Islington set for next year.

Now revellers can stay out east until the witching hour: Whitechapel is back on the late-night map, Dalston’s disco dens are booming, and now you can make full use of Shoreditch’s playgrounds without having to shell out for an Uber. And venues are throwing open their doors in honour of the occasion: from late-night feasts to 12-hour booze ups, this is a guide to staying up all night (to get lucky) on the Ginger line. All aboard the sesh express.

1. Midnight feasts

To pull the perfect all-nighter you’ll need to fuel up. The options are plentiful: The Fat Walrus in New Cross Gate uses a Robata grill to give smoky flavour to its American-style dishes (44 Lewisham Way, SE14, thefatwalrus.com), while The Royal Albert dishes up delicious non-fussy pub food alongside its craft beer (460 New Cross Road, SE14, royalalbertpub.com).

Out east, have a boozy banquet with up to seven friends in a historic, underground jail cell at TT Liquor, which is right next to Hoxton station (£95, 17B Kingsland Road, E2, ttliquor.co.uk). Feast on maple-glazed turkey with trimmings and Christmas pudding, or try a less traditional burrata with blood orange, or sea bream with salsa verde. If you want to go straight to the hard liquor, the subterranean Cellar Bar also does a Cocktail Journeys experience: a drinks expert will guide you through a menu of historic cocktails, paired with small plates (£45). The bar is open until 2am every Thursday to Sunday until New Year.

Grab an upmarket burger or hot dog at MEATmission nearby (15 Hoxton Market, N1, meatliquor.com/meat-mission), or over in London Fields, Martello Hall serves meat and vegan wood-fired pizzas alongside the biggest selection of tap wine in the UK and an onsite gin distillery — and it’s open until 3am (137 Mare Street, E8, martellohall.com).

If you go hard enough you’ll need a post-rave refuel, too. Swing by one of Brick Lane’s round-the-clock bagel shops (Beigel Bake and the Beigel Shop) for a cream-cheese-filled delight (or three), or for something rather more civilised, 24-hour restaurant Duck & Waffle is only a 10-minute walk from Shoreditch High Street. High in the sky, it’s serving juicy duck burgers, smoked salmon flatbreads and caramelised banana waffles until 5am (110 Bishopsgate, EC2N, duckandwaffle.com).

2. Culture vulture

Start with culture to atone for later sins. Hoxton Hall is throwing a panto performance of Puss in Boots (130 Hoxton Street, N1, hoxtonhall.co.uk); for something a little darker there’s the burlesque comic folk tale The Tin Drum at nearby Shoreditch Town Hall until Dec 23 (380 Old Street, EC1, shoreditchtownhall.com). At the Arcola Theatre catch Callisto: A Queer Epic, a seductive, time-travelling play by writer Hal Coase, and Tchaikovsky’s sweeping opera, Eugene Onegin. The Arcola bar is open until late every night after the shows (24 Ashwin Street, E8, arcolatheatre.com).

That said, culture isn’t solely an early-evening affair. To celebrate the new 24-hour line, Second Home’s bookshop, Libreria, is staying open from 6pm to 6am tomorrow, dishing up mulled wine, mince pies and beers. Author Mark Forsyth will read from A Short History of Drunkenness, Second Home co-founder Rohan Silva will read a selection from Jorge Luis Borges’s Poems of the Night, and creative director Paddy Butler will read from James Joyce’s Ulysses. There’ll also be intervals for “beats and browse” sessions, where visitors can explore the bookshop. For those who come later, there’ll be a film screening at 3am — the title is a surprise for the night itself (65 Hanbury Street, E1, libreria.io).

Indeed, east London’s late-night film scene is thriving: Rich Mix arts centre in Bethnal Green has night showings of Star Wars and The Disaster Artist (35-47 Bethnal Green Roadd, E1, richmix.org.uk), and the Rio in Dalston brings back its Midnight Movies in the new year: screenings start at 11pm (107 Kingsland High Street, E8, riocinema.org.uk).

3. Late-night liquor

The late-night Ginger line means no need for an expensive Uber home — technically that’s freeing up money to spend on booze. Don’t question the dodgy economics, just party: Dalston Superstore is throwing its annual Christmas bash tomorrow evening — one of the most raucous events of the festive calendar. The event is free before 10pm and there’ll be turns from the Hackney drag-queen glitterati until 4am (117 Kingsland High Street, E8). Have a drink at nearby Ridley Road Market Bar beforehand, which does cocktails for a fiver (49 Ridley Road, E8, ridleyroadmarketbar.com).

Over in Hoxton there are Buckfast Negronis at Bad Sports Bar (184 Hackney Road, E2, badsports.co.uk); just down the road there’s the ridiculous Ballie Ballerson, a ball-pit cocktail bar with a million balls and retro sweetie cocktails. Jump in the main glowing ball-pit or book the private pit, which looks out onto the street on two sides. Serious ballers can book the golden VIP pit (113 Curtain Road, EC2, ballieballerson.com). And make sure to swing by Black Rock (9 Christopher Street, EC2, blackrock.bar) for a nightcap: the small whisky bar has a table made from a huge old 18ft oak tree that has two “whisky rivers” flowing through it.

Things get really exciting at the end of the line in New Cross Gate: there, The LP Bar looks like the inside of a jet and is kitted out with air-hostess costumes (401 New Cross Road, SE14, thelpbar.co.uk). Just don’t get so drunk on the miniatures that you get kicked off the plane.

4. Dancing feet

Late-night boozing and feasting is exciting but it’s inside the club that all-nighters really come into their own. No home time means extra hours on the dance floor, and London’s new party train takes in some of the city’s most infamous venues. No more expensive taxis home from Printworks; now you can jump on the train at Canada Water after raving inside the walls of the old Daily Mail printing plant (Surrey Quays Road, SE16, printworkslondon.co.uk). You can take the train back from Skylight too: the rooftop ice-skating venue in Tobacco Dock is just a six-minute walk from Shadwell station. Coastal Haze is taking over tomorrow night, and there’s a New Year’s Eve party until 1am (Tobacco Dock, E1, skylightlondon.com).

At the other end of the line in Dalston, DJ Vish Mhatre (Sheikh) x DJ Simon Milner (Sälen) are giving pop and R&B a Christmas twist at the Arcola until 3am tonight to make the most of the 24-hour Overground. Next Friday there’ll be live traditional jazz and blues with swing dancing (there’ll be swing lessons for a tenner). If you fancy an extra hour of music, techno and electro music platform “atone” will take over The Nest until 4am (36 Stoke Newington Road, N16, ilovethenest.com). And newly refurbished Dalston Roof Park has opened its doors for winter just in time, too, with a long line-up of guest DJs and movie nights (18-22 Ashwin Street, E8, bootstrapcompany.co.uk/about-dalston-roof-park).

​Shoreditch is buzzing too, and its late-night scene is getting even later. Clubbing titan XOYO is open until 4am both nights this weekend (32-37 Cowper Street, EC2, xoyo.co.uk), and the Blues Kitchen’s (134-146 Curtain Road, EC2A, theblueskitchen.com) soul night tomorrow will last until 3am, with live music from from Stax Records and Atlantic Soul Records.

Wapping is jumping in on the action: keep an eye out for E1, a new venue opening up where Studio Spaces used to be. It’s taking the all-night ethos seriously, with a launch event on NYE that promises to be 27 hours long, stretching to midnight on Tuesday (110 Pennington Street, E1). Rave on.