Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf is a thriving artistic and lifestyle hub; a sustainable city-within-a-city where people can work, live and play, with more than 300 shops, bars and restaurants, an award-winning events programme, and a colourful open-air gallery that’s the largest free to visit public art exhibition in the UK. All of that exists within a 15-minute walk, making it easy to soak up everything Canary Wharf has to offer.
Primarily known as a business district – Canary Wharf’s skyscrapers are home to range of businesses, including Morgan Stanley, Mastercard, Barclays and Credit Suisse – it’s not surprising that the area is buzzing during the working week. The tube, DLR and Elizabeth Line stations are heaving with commuters during rush hour and green spaces like Jubilee Park and Crossrail Place Roof Garden are filled with office workers taking a break from the daily grind.
Over the past few years, the food scene has really developed in Canary Wharf helping to turn the neighbourhood into somewhere for pleasure as well as business. The likes of Dishoom, Hawksmoor, Blacklock, Pergola on the Wharf, The Ivy, Boisdale, Six by Nico, Mallow, and Roe can now be counted among Canary Wharf’s restaurants.
And the fun doesn’t stop there. With interactive and immersive activities like Fairgame, Capital Karts and Electric Shuffle to enjoy, an Everyman cinema and an epic ice rink that pitches up every winter, Canary Wharf has everything you need for a full day out.
Roe is the latest opening from Will Murray, Jack Croft and James Robson, the trio behind Fallow and FOWL. It’s located out in Canary Wharf, close to where Hawksmoor is, at the bottom of a tall circular residential tower. It’s a huge space, seating around 300 inside, and more on the riverside terrace. Similar to Fallow, Roe is all about local, seasonal ingredients, with a zero-waste sustainable ethos. The menu is split into Snacks; Small Plates; Skewers; Flatbreads; Large Plates; Steaks; Sides; and Feasts, which are for two or more. Don’t miss the maitake mushroom Cornish pasty served with an amazing walnut ketchup; the Cornish scallop flatbread with bacon butter; the cuttlefish fried brioche with sesame and chill jam; the breaded mushrooms with garlic mayonnaise; the Wildfarmed sourdough with smoked roe; and the blooming onion with picked onion powder and garlic mayo. And with caramelised banana parfait, made to look exactly like a plain peeled banana, served with peanut and toasted vanilla sauce, on the dessert list, you’ll wanna leave room for pudding too.
Inspired by the old Irani cafes of Bombay, Dishoom became an instant hit thanks to its bangin’ sharing plates and beaut decor, and all their sites have regular huge queues out the door. The lamb samosas, masala prawns, house black daal and chicken ruby are spot on every single time, and we’ll never say to no to THAT bacon and egg naan with a chai for brekkie.
Blacklock brings quality chops to the people of Soho, the City, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and Shoreditch. It’s all about the meat here, with a range of steaks, big chops, skinny chops, burgers at lunchtime and specials up on the chalkboard. For us, the best way to go is still the All In, which gets you three varieties of pre-chop bites and you get a pile of perfectly cooked beef, lamb and pork chops sat on top of thick fingers of flatbread, so all those meaty juices run down and soak in, plus sauces and sides. And not forgetting a big spoonful of white chocolate cheesecake scooped right from the bowl. Blacklock also does one of the best Sunday roasts in town and classic cocktails for a fiver. Bring on the meat sweats.
After finally opening Hawksmoor across the pond, the team returned to London for their first new restaurant in the capital for four years, and also the biggest one in the group too. Housed on an eco-friendly floating pavilion in Wood Wharf, Canary Wharf’s new neighbourhood, and inspired by the Golden Age of Travel, this Hawksmoor also boasts two waterside terraces and The Lowback bar. The restaurant serves up all the Hawksmoor classics plus some of the hits from New York, including oysters, South West coast halibut with porcini & bone marrow sauce, and veal chop with fried oysters & tartare sauce. At The Lowback, Hawksmoor’s most ambitious bar yet, you can work your way through a brand new drinks list, featuring ultimate champagne cocktails and sundowners, whilst soaking up the glam atmosphere in a velvet booth.
Mallow is one of those 100% plant-based restaurants that you can easily bring your not-so-plant-based mates to. With its excellently thought-out and executed vegan dishes, it’s pretty tough to miss the presence of meat or dairy. Plus, the menu has also been designed to be as low waste as possible, with many ingredients like vegan feta and labneh to garden pickles and jams made on-site, as well as vegan wines and cocktails on the drinks list – bonus points there. While you can go down the starter and main route, we reckon sharing everything is the best way to eat at mallow, mainly because the small plates section is so good (especially the makhani mille feuille and their signature green oil gyoza). Other highlights include the green amok with five-spice tofu and the lahpet pilau. And make sure you save room for dessert, you won’t wanna leave without trying the chocolate caramel mousse cake. YUM.
Take London river cruising to a new level with GoBoat, the self-drive boating experience. Round up your friends (you can fit up to eight people per boat), pack up a picnic, and choose your captain before jumping on board and driving your way through the Docklands. You start at Bellmouth Passage but from there, the route is up to you, so you’re free to explore the neighbourhood’s architecture, green parks and local landmarks however you wish. AHOY!
Caravan really knows what it’s doing when it comes to all-day dining. The globally-inspired small plates menu features a mash-up of Asian, European and Middle Eastern flavours. That means you can tuck into everything from stilton & peanut wontons to broken lamb meatballs to sourdough pizzas, and that’s before you get onto their bangin’ brunches – hello baked eggs, hello jalapeno cornbread, hello pork belly on kimchi pancakes. Caravan also takes their coffee very seriously, so not only can you buy it freshly poured but you can order a whole range of blends and kit to improve your own coffee game.
If you feel the need, the need for speed, then there’s one place you should head for and that’s Capital Karts. It boasts the UK’s largest and fastest indoor go-karting track, where you can reach speeds of up to 45mph in the electric karts. The professionally designed course has enough twists and turns to keep even the most wannabe Lewis Hamiltons amongst you on your toes, and with different kinds of races on offer, including Sprint Sessions and Grand Prix Sessions, there are plenty of ways for you to get your adrenaline fix on the track. Once you’ve zoomed your way to victory, you can conduct your own post-race analysis in the on-site bar and lounge.
Camille Walala’s geometric designs are instantly recognisable and she’s brought her signature patterns to Canary Wharf with ‘Captivated by Colour’. Originally installed at Adams Plaza bridge as part of the inaugural London Mural Festival, the colourful work, which creates an optical pattern that shrinks and elongates as you move through the tunnel, is now a permanent addition to Canary Wharf’s public art collection.
Funfairs are no longer just for summer, or for kids, because Fairgame is here with a whole load of fairground games that have been rebooted for grown-ups. The 20,000 sq ft arena is decked out with all sorts of classic carnival games for you to test your skills and rack up points. Have a go at their version of whack-a-mole Gopher Broke, take aim in duck shooting game Phoeny Island, dunk basketballs in Alley Hoop, and much more. Plus, with their dedicated app and electronic wristbands, you can keep track of everyone’s scores and see which of your friends comes out on top. Of course, no fairground is complete without food and drink and there are some crowd-pleasers on offer, with Burger&Beyond, Rudy’s Pizza Napoletana and Tacos Dos Mas dishing up the goods, and three bars pouring cocktails and craft beers.
Created by Will Bowlby, who previously worked at The Cinnamon Club, the dishes are inspired by Southern India but use British ingredients and modern flair to bring them up to date. Samphire pakoras and Keralan fried chicken have become Kricket signatures but there’s a lot to love across the menu, including the likes of Goan sausage croquettes & burnt apple chutney, claypot baked cod, duck leg seekh kebab, and Mangalorean chicken gassi. The Brixton and Canary Wharf restaurants also serve Sunday lunch menus centred around charcoal grilled tandoori chicken, grilled cauliflower and braised leg of lamb, with sides like berry pulao, black garlic & dried chilli raita, and pickled onion & pomegranate salad.
Canary Wharf has been building its public art collection for the last thirty years and it now includes over 100 permanent pieces by over 50 world-renowned artists, including, Henry Moore, Ottotto and Helaine Blumenfeld, across a variety of media. The ‘open-air gallery’ spans the entire Estate so you can do a tour of all the artworks, and the best place to start is with the Canary Wharf Art Map.
Founded by Nico Simeone in Glasgow in 2017 (and now boasting sites in Dublin, Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester, Liverpool and Fitzrovia) Six By Nico has landed in Canary Wharf, where the restaurant also boasts a dedicated bar area and a large terrace. Six By Nico serves up a themed six-course tasting menu that changes every six weeks, with past themes like ‘Chippie’, ‘Circus’ and ‘Guilty Pleasures’. It’s just £50 for the six courses, making it a really accessible way to try adventurous and experimental cooking.
If you’re in the mood for some friendly competition, then move on over to Electric Shuffle. They’ve levelled up traditional table shuffleboard with interactive screens and vision technology, so you focus on the game and not on the scoring. To keep you fuelled between rounds, Electric Shuffle serves up pizzas, craft beer and cocktails perfect for enjoying with your team.
Spanning two floors plus a large outside terrace (which is heated in the winter), this is the largest branch of The Alchemist so there’s plenty of space for you to tuck into the all-day dining menu and get the drinks in. And when it comes to drinks the mixologists here don’t do things by halves – we’re talking lots of dry ice, smoke and fire alongside creative flavour combinations. Yes, these cocktails are made for the ‘gram.
Part of The Ivy restaurant group, The Ivy in the Park serves seasonal, modern British food from breakfast through to dinner, with classics like eggs benedict, crispy duck salad, lobster linguine, and shepherd’s pie on the menu. With art-covered walls and that signature slick Ivy decor, it’s glam enough for a dinner date yet relaxed enough for a weekend brunch with friends. And as it’s got an orangery and garden terrace, it’s perfect for al fresco dining and socialising too.
Pergola on the Wharf is a waterside spot flooded with natural light and filled with foliage.The huge space is perched above Canary Wharf’s north dock, meaning you’ll be treated to panoramic views across the Estate. It’s got everything you need for a day and night out, including three bars, food pop-ups and an in-house kitchen plus live music and DJ sets. There’s also a 200-capacity terrace which wraps around the venue in the beautiful Crossrail Roof Garden – perfect for some al fresco fun.
You can’t beat a good rooftop, especially one that’s got a garden, and Crossrail Place Roof Garden is one of the biggest in London. It showcases some of the plants that were brought to the capital by explorers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and as Crossrail Place is almost exactly on the Meridian Line the layout reflects different hemispheres. You’ll find Asian plants like bamboo and Japanese maple on the eastern side of the garden, with ferns and sweet gum from the Americas on the western side. You can wander through and explore the foliage or take five on the benches nestled into the pathways.
Marceline takes inspo from the brasseries of Paris and New York and feeds the people of E14 from morning to night, seven days a week. Robert Aikens, who’s worked at Le Gavroche, Tom’s Kitchen and most recently Pastis in NYC, will be heading up the kitchen, cooking comforting and classic dishes like steak tartare, onion soup, tuna niçoise, confit duck with lentils, croque monsieur, rotisserie chicken and moules mariniere. The drinks offering at Marceline is no afterthought; Jeffrey Koren (previously of the three-star Maaemo in Norway) has curated the wine list, which has over 30 by-the-glass options and more than 100 bins from across Europe, with cocktails like Two Sips Martinis, St Germain Spritzes and Absinthe Sours also on offer.
Filled with trees and cascading water features, Jubilee Park is a little oasis of calm amidst the atmosphere of the city. It’s the place to head for when you need to find some zen and when the sun is shining over the grass, there’s no better spot in the neighbourhood to sit and relax.
Harbour Quay is the closest thing you’ll find to the beach in the capital, and if you stroll along the long boardwalk and look out over the water on a sunny day it definitely won’t feel like you’re in the city. There are plenty of great picnic spots on the lawn for when you want to chill out and watch the world go by or you can burn off some energy with the outdoor fitness equipment.
Originating in LA, Barry’s is an indoor boutique bootcamp that’ll shock your system with a combo of strength and cardio workouts, set to pumping nightclub tunes in their famous red-lit rooms. The exercises and intervals are varied to keep you working hard – you can burn over 1000 calories in a hour at some of the classes here. The trainers are industry famous and specialise in maximising potential, so you’ll defo work up a sweat.
There are a few floating restaurants in London (like Caravel, and The Cheese Barge), floating hotels, a floating bookshop, and now, we’ve got an arts space to add to the list of buoyant attractions. It’s called Theatreship and it offers a programme of film, theatre, visual arts and music performance, featuring a mix of local and international talent. Originally a cargo ship built in 1913, Theatreship took 18 months to convert into its current form and is now home to a 100-seater theatre, a cafe & bar and exhibition space, making it the UK’s largest floating theatre and cinema.
If you’re a fan of the cocktails at Kricket, next time you’re at the Soho or Canary Wharf restaurants be sure to head next door to their cocktail bar SOMA. Named after the Hindu Moon God, SOMA is a modern take on the speakeasy, with most of the space set aside for walk-ins and a closing time of 3am at the weekends (it’s 1am in Canary Wharf). Both bars are minimalist in decor but with statement bars, like the 9-metre-long stainless steel bar in Soho, where the bar team shake up drinks inspired by the Indian subcontinent. The cocktail list makes use of seasonal ingredients and spices whilst still sticking to a ‘less is more’ ethos, so you can expect drinks like Gooseberry Chaat Margarita (tequila, mezcal, gooseberry salt & chaat masala), a Coconut & Jaggery Old Fashioned (bourbon, jaggery, coconut & mace bitters) and Pickled Mooli Martini (vodka, curry leaf vermouth & lightly pickled mooli).