Advertisement

Meet London's new neighbourhood hotspots

Joe McLaren
Joe McLaren

WALTHAMSTOW

Food

Residents of Walthamstow are certain that E17 is the best postcode, whatever the criteria. Sometimes they’re defensive to the point of contrariness, but there’s no denying the grub is good. On Orford Road seek out Eat 17 (the bacon jam is the stuff of rapturous myth), Froth & Rind (gooey cheese toasties) and La Ruga, an inviting Italian. E17 Village Market pops up on the stretch every Saturday. Elsewhere there’s sourdough pizza café Sodo and Bühler and Co for brunch. Even the book clubs are food-themed: attendees of the monthly E17 Cook Book Club, held in The Bell pub, bring a dish to share and talk about their favourite chefs and recipes.

SHEPHERD’S BUSH

Media

W12 is transforming — pioneered by savvy, fast‑talking media tastemakers with an eye for a fledgling hotspot. Net-a-Porter’s glinting complex is based in Westfield, and Stella McCartney and Mario Testino have had HQs in the shadow of the A3220 for years. This crowd doesn’t live there yet (they prefer the bohemian gentility of Notting Hill) but might do soon: the totem of the new shiny Shey-Boo is the Television Centre on Wood Lane, which is being converted into 950 apartments, plus a new Soho House (with rooftop pool), three refurbished TV studios and a warren of offices. Bars are following: Pergola on the Roof pops up seasonally in a former car park, like Frank’s in Peckham. The after-work crowd here is more polished; they’ll be in Net, not Nike, but drinking negronis just as hard.

WANDSWORTH

Wellness

Hitherto defined by its proximity to other places (‘it’s quite near Clapham’), Wandsworth is finding a reason to thrive. Healthy chef Madeleine Shaw lives in the ‘Village’ and hangs out Boma café while a huge Planet Organic offers barre and yoga. The Ram Quarter residential and retail development is seducing young buyers for whom a good yoga class is far more important than nearby schools.

ISLINGTON

Fashion and design

People here make a show of being unshowy (even though the houses go for millions), but secretly they’re thrilled when something shiny moves in (those houses will be worth more millions). N1 is in the grip of a fashionable makeover: Paper Mache Tiger, an elite comms agency with an office in New York and a showroom in Paris, has set up a base near grimy Essex Road. While it’s no Montmartre, there’s creativity in the trafficky fug around Angel: goliath interior-design platform Houzz opened its London office there last year, with stripped-wood floorboards and exposed stone walls. What’s that about Jeremy Corbyn?

BERMONDSEY

Tech

London’s tech scene is no longer just a bunch of brogrammers drinking craft beer in Shoreditch: it has diversified (there are girls) and plenty have migrated to SE1. By night, Bermondsey’s boffins network on the climbing wall at Workspace, a major co-working space in a converted biscuit factory where coffee subscription start-up Pact is based. White Cube gives the area cultural kudos and the crowd is a little cooler and more interested in a world not expressed via JavaScript. Take advantage of bars such as 214 Bermondsey and Village East (instead of beer pong in the office).

PECKHAM

Music

If you’re no longer claiming a student loan you’ll feel ancient in SE15, where art‑school kids lose it at South London Soul Train on a Saturday in the Bussey Building, also home to record store Rye Wax. The White Horse has a circuit of residents it calls on to enliven a Friday night. Last year was the first Peckham Rye Festival; the follow-up in May involves three nights of gigs in venues across SE15.

HACKNEY

Theatre

They might look like club kids but Arcola Theatre’s beanie-and-trainer wearing crowd are cerebral: on the bill is Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard and a new piece by Hackney-born Oladipo Agboluaje. The Courtyard Theatre runs a writing festival and Shoreditch Town Hall is showing The Pitchfork Disney, starring ES Film Award-winner Hayley Squires. The West End — and its tourists — can have the musicals.

SPITALFIELDS

Literacy

There is sanctuary on Brick Lane: Libreria, a bookshop by Rohan Silva, the brains behind co-working space Second Home. There’s no wi-fi; crowd members are likely on their second start-up and thus devout about carving out regular ‘off-grid’ time. The Spitalfields Winter Festival hosts The Dead Poets Social Club, a tour of cemeteries with famous residents and cult blogger Spitalfields Life runs an online bookshop specialising in literature set in the area.

STRATFORD

Bars

Most of E20’s new residents are thirty-something ex‑Hackneyites, seduced by affordable terraced houses that are ripe for renovation. But they’re ever-so-slightly worried about missing the east London party. No coincidence then that nightlife entrepreneurs Jaguar Shoes Collective — behind Dream Bags and Hand of Glory in Dalston — have opened cocktail bar RedYellowBlue on Victory Parade. Also head to Darkhorse for the wine and try the beers at Neighbourhood, while Village Vanguard is an all-day diner that takes a dark and boozy turn by night with two-for-one drinks from 6‑8pm Wednesday to Saturday. Talk about an Olympic legacy.

DEPTFORD

Clubbing

Venues here run the gamut from unassuming to ‘scuzzy’, but they’re about music not velour ropes. Punters are skinny Goldsmiths kids, so club nights punch above their weight — The Bunker on Deptford Broadway hosts viral newcomers such as Will Lister and GIRL, who made their name on the SE London broadcasting circuit. There are regular DJ sets at the Job Centre and The Birds Nest hosts live music until late most evenings. Residents may be exasperated by the ‘new Dalston’ epithet but, like Efes in N16, Deptford’s longest, noisiest nights often happen in snooker hall Shades.