What to do in the City of London
There is a good chance that you, yes, you, who is reading this, do not work in the City of London. There is also a good chance that you were there because you had no choice, because you wanted to visit st paul Or were you walking around heading to the Tower of London which, by the way, until January 2 has a fabulous ice rink.
You don't go to the City with an exploratory spirit or with excessive enthusiasm, because you associate it with a financial district that is emptied on weekends and in which no one lives.
That, we are sorry to contradict you, is only partially true. The City now has a continuous environment and about 10,000 people live there. There are not many, but enough to see children in uniforms and backpacks on their streets coming home from school.
These lines are a vindication of a neighborhood that received in 2017 a whopping 18.4 million visits but of which 37% were visitors from London itself.
The Spanish still prefer areas like Kensington, Piccadilly or Covent Garden. The City seems like a place where we don't hit, with empty streets and no great incentives. How wrong we all are.
The City with St. Paul in the background
In this square mile (for a reason they call it The Square Mile ) , there are good architecture, a lot of history, places to eat delicious and possibilities to stay up late. It is advisable to go during the week and not miss out on work and the decompression you are looking for. That is the energy that we will find in the City.
The City is also part of the setting of Bodyguard, the BBC series. This has been the most watched fiction this year in the United Kingdom, with an audience of more than ten million live viewers.
Many of the chases of the series take place in this neighbourhood. There you can appreciate its architectural power and its hard and strange air, as if above time and space.
The City is a strange area. To get started, It is a county, the smallest in the United Kingdom. Have his own mayor, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, who is Peter Estlin, who is not the Mayor of London and who works, damn it, in a bigger office than he does.
He also owns his own police, independent of the city. All for an area of 2.6 square kilometers (the famous mile) whose limit is in the middle of the river Thames; in the middle, not on the edge. How eccentric are these English.
The City, that great unknown
ARQUIPASEO
Walking through the City is walking through the architecture of the last twenty centuries. We do not associate London with classical remains, but there you can visit the Mithraeum, that hides the rest of a Roman temple from the 2nd century AD. and other finds of the time; It's in the bloomberg building and it is one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. The visit is free, you just have to book the ticket.
We also found baroque churches (there are up to 47 in total from all eras) and Victorian structures such as the Leadenhall Market, to which we will return
On the edge of the City is the Tower of London, a basic in any visit, as is the Saint Paul's Cathedral, work of one of the fathers of local architecture, Christopher Wren.
The City is also the place to wallow in 'Money Architecture'. there is the Bank of England and the building of Royal Exchange. Postmodernism has good examples, such as the singular building of No.1 Poultry (James Stirling) of which we can say, at the same time, that it is beautiful and horrible. Brutalism fans have a space to drool there, the eighties and vindicated Barbican, Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon.
The rock stars of the contemporary architecture they have left their mark on the City. We see the head office of the Rothschild Bank, of Rem Koolhaas, Bloomsburg's Norman Foster, author also of the 30 St Mary Ax building, called The Gherkins and one of the emblems of the new London.
30 St Mary Axe, also known as The Gherkin (the pickle)
There is only one shopping center in the City, the One New Change, which is the work of Jean Nouvel. It is possible to take interesting architectural routes, such as those organized by the Architecture Foundation.
The City is a mecca for arch-fetishists: there are few areas of the world where there are concentrates So many styles and eras in so little space.
Going back to Bodyguard, there are recognizable areas of the City in the series. Two of the most dramatic moments take place in this neighborhood: one near Saint Paul and one near 20 Old Bailey. We will not reveal them.
SLEEP IN THE OFFICE. AND WHAT OFFICE
Just a 6% of visitors overnight in the city. We have been part of this percentage. The hotel offer is increasing and, above all, better. It's far from plentiful, but what it does open is excellent.
The most majestic hotel in the City is the **Four Seasons Hotel London at Ten Trinity Square**. Is located next to the Tower of London, in a 1922 Grade-II building that was home to the Port Authority offices. It is in a small square and it is imposing, so much so that it misleads when entering because it is not identified as a hotel, but as a monument.
The Four Seasons Executive Room
It opened a year ago and is the second from Four Seasons in London. It has 100 rooms and inside you will find all the codes of this Canadian brand: comfort, attention to detail (“you ordered a cappuccino yesterday, do you want it today too?”), magnificent flower arrangements and bathrooms, and powerful gastronomy. .
In this hotel this is taken to the maximum because among its restaurants there is The Lady of Pic. In front is the chef Anne-Sophie Pic, the only woman in France who has three Michelin stars, one of them for this restaurant.
This woman makes French cuisine as refined as she is enjoyable. The whole menu is worth it, technical and tasty and the dessert “The White Millefeuille” is that he gets almost, almost, an applause.
The treatment is much more relaxed than it may seem and the price starts at 32 pounds for the lunch menu, something very reasonable for London. Here businessmen alternate with gastrocurious and it is reason enough to venture to this neighborhood.
Scottish Prawn at La Dame de Pic
In Bodyguard, a hotel in which the Secretary of State takes refuge, one of the protagonists of the series. This is the **South Place Hotel**, which is also in this neighborhood. It is a “modern” business hotel, with an emphasis on design and something impersonal, something that suits the series to convey the idea of a safe.
If we are movie buffs we can stay there, but if we want something more lively and lighter we have the option of the ** Citizen M Tower of London **, located a few meters from the Four Seasons. It supposes a turn in the idea of functional hotel; it is a business hotel, but a 21st century business hotel.
Its strength is the price and well-decorated public spaces (we recognize Vitra furniture) and that lend themselves to long coffees, freelance life (in the City there are also freelancers) and more or less improvised meetings.
The king of the party because in the City there is a party and a lot of it, it is ** The Ned **, but we will see that later when we talk about eating, drinking, going out, sleeping and relaxing, when we talk about many things.
BREAKFAST, LUNCH, WORK, EAT, DINNER
In the City you eat a lot. Tourists don't come here to eat, although there are excellent restaurant and we like that because tourists, paradoxically, do not like to mix with others. The neighbors of the neighbourhood, that is, the executives and executives they fill them for business and socializing, which is sometimes the same thing. Therefore, it is normal to find them full at noon, for a quick meal and, above all, when leaving work.
The Leadenhall Market It is a great option for the day. The building, as we know it today, was designed in 1881 by Sir HoraceJones, great architect of markets. It is an example of victorian Architecture, destined to transmit greatness.
Here there is specialty shops and small restaurants that involve a walk through the gourmet side of the city, which is sometimes neglected. One of them is Cheese, with a revealing name, and that has a very good selection of cheeses. we can stop to drink a piece of Stilton, because it is a universal truth, that life with this English cheese is much better.
Leadenhall is a very interesting place in form and substance and we will not repeat that Harry potter and the Philosopher's Stone it was shot here because a lot has already been written. Wow, we just wrote it again.
Another place in the City that brings together good restaurants is the Bloomberg Arcade. There we find attractive places like ** Caravan , famous for its brunch or Bleecker ** (which started out as a food truck) and which gracefully handles fast food.
Leadenhall and the Bloomberg Arcade are good options for the day. The night is another matter and it is, perhaps, when the City shows a face that is not seen in another neighborhood of London. It is the moment in which those who work in the offices lose their rigidity and drink their beers; from beer to dinner and from there to cocktails.
Or maybe the order is not this, but in any case it is the moment in which the City becomes enjoying. We can start the night in a pub. There is a very classic one that, in addition to looking good, will give us a history lesson. This is ** Nicholson's ** which has been standing since 1668 and as a pub since 1873 and where Sir Christopher Wren is said to have sat drawing plans for Saint Paul. How not to sit on it.
After the beer we might feel like having dinner. In the City there is money, ergo there are powerful restaurants to spend it and desire to do so. It is striking that they are neither stretched out places nor more expensive than the rest of the city. An example is ** Tem per, an urban barbecue ** with an interesting concept devised by Neil Ranking, one of the apostles of this way of cooking.
The place is defined as "Barbacoa Animal" and has zero waste policy and zero industrial agriculture. temperature has open kitchen, music and a good wine and cocktail list.
Another declension of barbecue is ** Brigadie rs , a cross between an Indian barbecue, a bar and a very masculine club** that has been in great demand since it opened a few months ago. It is easy to feel like a viceroy or viceroy of India on its velvet armchairs.
In section “places with a view” there are spectacular examples. **Bars like Jin Bo Law or Savage Garden ** leave those who like urban landscapes speechless. Here we raise our hands. If we want to eat we can make reservations at ** Duck and Waffle **, the highest restaurant in the whole city that serves food 24 hours. Rarely will we be surrounded by so much and such good concrete, steel and glass as in these places.
AND IF WE WANT IT ALL...
In the City there is a self-sufficient place where we could spend 24 hours without going outside. There are people who do. This is **The Ned. ** Everything is powerful here: the building is from 1924 and the work of Sir Edwin 'Ned' Lutyens himself; was the Midland Bank Headquarters and it is another example of 'Money Architecture' in the neighborhood.
The Ned is a 250-room hotel, spa, private club and has seventeen bars and restaurants (repeat, seventeen) open to the public in a space of one thousand meters. It opened more than a year ago and it is still one of those places that arouses a “what luck” when you say you are going to it.
Luck is not such: anyone can book because their prices are not outrageous. However, everyone wants to go, so it's easy not to find a spot in one of the seventeen at the desired time. In some, like At Cecconi's, they can give us an appointment at 3 in the morning, because The Ned never closes.
The latest novelty of this macro theme park of urban hedonism is LibraryBar. It is, perhaps, the quietest space of all. East Champgane & Martini Bar It has capacity for eighteen people, a 1930s air and the retro-warm decoration that is a trademark of the house, with restored furniture.
You have to sit at one of their tables and order a Martini that will be served with your cart a waiter who looks more like a dancer from the Royal Ballet, by the grace of his gestures. Or maybe we prefer one of the 1800 inspired cocktails made with vintage vermouth or one of the 30 champagnes that they serve
This bar is the most discreet space of all; the rest is pure party. At night there is live music and hundreds of people with a glass in hand and a lot of desire to let go, let go and let go. This is another way of doing business. Bank puppies, savvy tourists and young politicians like the ones seen in Bodyguard gather here. Sure, at The Ned there are bodyguards.
The Ned has everything to squeak (too many meters, too many people, too many stressed people, too much noise) but not only does it not do it, but it leaves your mouth open in ambition, decoration and atmosphere.
An Argentine financier who has been based in London for years affirms: “The Ned has it all included: a fabulous gym, pool, sauna, barbershop, breakfast, lunch, dinner and even a room if the available night leads to something else.” Sex and the City.
Library Bar, the coolest corner of The Ned