9 Unusual Things to Do in London (and 1 Bonus Tip)

London has eight million people squeezed into it, so trying to find really unusual things to see might be like looking for a needle in a crowded (and expensive) haystack.

What people might not realise, though, is that this city has been collecting weird and wonderful places for almost two thousand years, but most visitors only get so far as Westminster Abbey.

If you’ve already done the Tower of London or aren’t that bothered about another photo with the red phone box, this is for you. These are the 9 places that make Londoners look at you with respect when mentioned at the pub.

1. Dinner in the Dark

Dans Le Noir in Clerkenwell delivers something really unnerving, and that’s a good thing. You get to have a whole meal in complete darkness, and you are waited upon by blind waiters who know how to get around better than you do.

What you’re going to eat? Well, you won’t know until later, which means that you are literally playing Russian roulette with each morsel. Is that chicken? Is that fish? Why do I taste purple?

It’s really eye-opening to experience how dependent we are all about sight, and that’s including how to know that you are not overpouring your wine.

It’s really disorienting and absolutely interesting. You have to book it well in advance, especially if you want to do it over the weekend.

2. Uncover the Real Tunnels

Ditch the tourist trap that is the London Dungeon. In my opinion, the authentic experience to be had here is the “Hidden London” tours offered by the Transport Museum, where you get to explore disused Tube stations that have been closed to the public since the Blitz in the 1940s.

“The Tube” station in Down Street, near Hyde Park Corner, was Churchill’s headquarters during the Blitz before the War Rooms in Whitehall were completed. There, you can trace the original tiles, the “ghost” platform, and the cramped workers’ quarters where men lived Underground for months.

These tours operate erratically and are always completely booked when they become available, so act fast. You have to check the London Transport Museum website religiously, though, if you want a place.

3. Dining with Strangers in Someone’s Living Room

The supperclub is a phenomenon that has been around in London for years, but is, for the most part, a hidden world for anyone outside its walls. The supperclub is NOT a restaurant.

It takes place in someone’s actual flat, with the seating for a dozen people arranged around a communal table, with a meal shared with total strangers. The food can range from crazy vegan to native Ghanian, depending on the host.

The Dining Club and VizEat currently aggregate a range of supper clubs in London. Of course, it is entirely necessary that one is comfortable with the idea of dining in proximity to strangers and that one makes small talk in order to get by, but it is exactly this aspect which presents some of the fun.

4. Go to a Non-Existent Museum

The Last Tuesday Society at Mare Street in Hackney is ‘the art gallery,’ but that’s as good a description as saying that the Wonka candy factory is a candy works. The truth is that this above is all the weird collections that Viktor Wynd has mastered.

This place literally resembles going through the fever dream of the Victorian gentleman.

There’s a cocktail bar where you can come and have a drink amidst taxidermied animals and odd artefacts.

Like a skeleton wearing a top hat sits in the corner, supervising. The drinks are stiff, the atmosphere is pleasantly macabre, and you will witness things that you cannot unknow. They offer events such as taxidermy workshops and presentations on esoteric historical subjects. Because, naturally.

5. Dining at a Prison-Themed Restaurant

The Clink restaurants are in actual working prisons (HMP Brixton and HMP Stoke Heath), and are run entirely by prisoners training for jobs in the hospitality industry. It isn’t a lie; the food here actually is superb, often rivalling many restaurants in central London that cost double the price.

You are eating high-quality restaurant food while dining in either ex-visiting rooms or ex-chapels.

There’s a security procedure that must be completed in order to enter, which is obviously not surprising given that it’s a prison, but you should have photo ID and not carry anything that you wouldn’t want to go through an airport security scan.

This is an entire experience that is decidedly surreal in the best possible way, and you’re directly contributing to prison rehabilitation services. These are places that are known throughout the city by locals.

6. Wander Through a Small Police Station

Trafalgar Square contains the smallest police station in the country, hidden away in a corner and not much larger than a telephone box. It dates from 1926, to enable the police to monitor protests and demonstrations that take place in the square.

You can’t get in now, but just one of those London anomalies that makes the city seem as though it holds a multitude of secrets.

As you are in this vicinity, take a stroll down into Goodwin’s Court. It is a tiny alley off Leicester Square and appears to be unchanged since Dickens trod there. The bow-fronted windows and gas lamps are so well-maintained that they are frequently used for period productions for TV and films.

Few tourists know about this gem despite it being only a thirty-second walk away from Covent Garden.

7. Drink at a Bar With No Name

Gordon’s Wine Bar, which is located near Embankment Station, has been serving since 1890, and it shows.

Everything is underground, with candles jammed into old bottles, high ceilings, and yellowing cuttings plastered on the walls. It’s crowded, it’s dimly lit, and the menu reads from blackboards that one must strain one’s eyes to see.

Come summer, however, the whole lot of them crowd outside with their glasses, sitting around barrels and befriending strangers. It’s the last word in fashionable cocktail bars, which makes it absolutely fantastic.

Bonus Tip: Arriving Without Airport Stress

Right, useful bit from a local. So, if you’re actually flying into London, the first thing everyone always worries about is how much the train prices are from the airports. It can actually cost more than your flights if you’re getting the Stansted Express from Stansted Airport into London.

Now this is where actually knowing something about a different method actually pays off. Take a bus to Stansted airport.

Coaches from Stansted Airport to Liverpool Street Station in central London have a big price differential, as fares from Flibco start at about £9.00, compared to over £20 by train.

In only 90 minutes, you’ll be in one of the most convenient spots in the city: not only are there the overground and railway, but also many tube lines like Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan.

From there, you can get pretty much everywhere. Plus, the bus also stops at Stratford Station, another central point.

Coaches are also the perfect way to travel if you have heavy suitcases. You ride in a comfortable seat, with free Wi-Fi, while your luggage is safely stored away.

You can rest stress-free and enjoy the smooth commute, without checking your belongings every two minutes. Also, the journey has only one or two stops; you can read, sleep or simply zone out with no unpleasant, constant interruptions.

By the time you’re in London, you’ll be fresh and ready to visit and have fun.

8. Eat Something Seriously Weird

The Archipelago, located in Fitzrovia, offers insects. Not as a challenge or something different, just for fun, but as a dish, cooked by a real chef.

The Love Bug Salad offers crickets and mealworms. There is scorpion meat to order. You can chomp down on crocodile, kangaroo, or zebra. It doesn’t come cheap, but it is London nonetheless, and if you want to get the back home brownie points for chomping down scorpion in London, this is the place.

Even less populist, yet no less quirky, is Sarastro, a restaurant with an operatic theme, where private booths are styled as boxes at an opera, and there’s baroque decoration to match, plus occasional singing performances from opera singers between courses.

It’s just plain OTT, and only London can really get away with this without resorting to irony.

9. The Wellcome Collection’s Medical Oddities

There’s also the Wellcome Collection at Euston Road, which is free. While it may seem dull because it has an entire floor dedicated to the history of medicine, there’s Napoleon’s toothbrush, paintings created using blood, and surgical equipment that should never have seen the light of day during the Victorian era.

The Medicine Man exhibition has shrunken heads, sexual gadgets throughout history, and Japanese netsuke of a man with demons pouring out of his bum. The complex also has a fantastic reading room and café where one can sit back and digest what one has just viewed.

Unlike most museums in London, it’s not usually full, so one can actually spend time admiring something without being nudged aside by crowds of tourists.

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