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For a taste of rustic French cooking you don’t have to cross the Channel, just the Thames (and that’s only if you’re not already in South London) to get to Casse-Croûte in Bermondsey. It’s classic bistro vibes, including checked tablecloths and a menu du jour, in French, chalked up on a blackboard. Expect dishes like rabbit with mustard, bavette with green beans & bernaise sauce, sole meuniere, vanilla mille-feuille and tart au citron, and French (what else?) wine to wash it all down with.

Three friends teamed up to sail De Hoop (a 114-year-old Dutch Barge) from Holland to East London’s Hackney Wick, and after mooring up along the canal they’ve converted it into a floating restaurant and canal side garden which seats a whopping 300 people. Their menu focuses on street food classics, like buttermilk fried chicken burgers; bacon and sage scotch eggs; deep-fried apple tart; and roast beef buns, with locals East London Liquor Co, Beavertown and Three Choirs supplying the brews and cocktails. Whether it’s brunch, lunch or sometime in the evening, get yourself aboard.

The buildings that make up Wilton’s Music Hall (which now house the box office, bars, offices and rehearsal space) date all the way back the 1690s, with the Victorian music hall being opened by John Wilton in 1859, who wanted to bring a bit of West End glamour and entertainment to east London. With many original features still intact, it’s one of the few surviving music halls left in the East End and, after a period of time as a Methodist mission and a storage warehouse, it now operates as a performance venue once more. Over 300 events, including everything from theatre to stand-up to classical music concerts, are held at Wilton’s each year.

The Prospect of Whitby has been around since 1520. Overlooking the Thames, the traditional boozer is a great place to sink a few pints and enjoy some pub grub. Being a bit off the beaten track, you don’t have to be there by lunchtime to get a table either.

For any of you that have been to Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities you’ll know it’s quite the err…curious place. Hackney’s world famous emporium of bizarre collectables houses everything from mummified skeletons to taxidermy is now not only a place to see, but also to eat. Allow us to elaborate. The museum is now home to a restaurant offering an exciting new menu of feasting platters and exotic game burgers featuring the likes of zebra, camel, ostrich and kangaroo. Yikes, sorry Skippy. Fancy the place to yourself? Then hire the entire museum for private dining and indulge in the luxury-feasting menu that includes oysters, foie-gras and pheasant terrine. They certainly don’t do things by halves over at Mr Wynd’s. Wash it all down with some house cocktails inspired by the museum’s inventory and you might just have yourself London’s most fantastical, but wonderful night out.

Sessions Arts Club, one of our favourite restaurants in London, has finally given us a reason to romanticise Sundays again. The Clerkenwell spot is now open for Sunday lunch, serving a modern spin on the roast in its beautiful, firelit Grade II-listed dining room, alongside live music. Food is classic but polished, with seasonal starters like asparagus with saffron and verjus or trout with beetroot and horseradish, followed by shoulder of lamb with wild garlic salsa verde, beef fat potatoes, leeks with parmesan and an excellent gravy. Puddings come on a trolley, with rhubarb trifle and chocolate with prune and Armagnac to choose from. Don’t skip the dill martini or tomato spritz either, and the wine list has very fair mark-ups too. Man, we love this spot.

This former suit tailor’s storeroom is now one of London’s best cocktail bars. Hidden in Spitalfields, spot the small black door at street level and head on down into the cosy bar for classically inspired cocktails. You can expect the likes of a Cockney Touch with whisky, sherry, bitter grapefruit syrup and soda, and a High Five of Bombay Sapphire gin, pampelle, chamberyzette, citrus and absinthe.

Biscuiteers runs the world’s only biscuit boutiques and icing cafes in Notting Hill and Belgravia. At the boutiques, easily identified by their black and white striped awnings, you can shop the full range of Biscuiteers’ hand-iced collections, stop for a slice of cake, indulge in afternoon tea, and even learn how to ice biscuits like the pros with Icing Lates and School of Icing events.

This popular art deco cafe, which has been going since 1946 (the original tiling is still intact), is probably one of the most famous greasy spoons in town thanks to it appearance in several films and TV shows. It’s excellent value too with the standard brekkie coming in at just over a fiver.

Go back in time to the Victorian era and explore how medicines were made and surgery was carried out 200 years ago at the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. Housed in the attic of the church of the Old St Thomas’ Hospital and installed in1822, the operating theatre (the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe) was used for operations on females before anaesthetics and antiseptics, and was a place where medical students would learn their profession. As well as the operating theatre itself, you can also explore the herb garret, where herbs for medicines were dried and stored, and artefacts used before the advent of modern science in procedures like cupping and trepanning.