This multi-multi-million-pound paean to the black stuff, where Guinness disciples can make pilgrimage, has been on the capital's horizon for what seems like an era. The project has been tantalisingly dangled as an opening for some years, then delayed umpteen times, because, quite understandably, erecting a purpose-built, gargantuan, multi-floor Willy Wonka's Booze Factory in the West End of London for a corporate behemoth is no easy feat.
Jody, who also co-owns Via Carota, I Sodi, The Commerce Inn and Bar Pisellino with her wife Rita Sodi, first opened Buvette in the West Village in 2011 and has since taken the restaurant to Paris, Tokyo and Seoul. The 80-cover London outpost will be open all day, meaning you can pop in for a coffee, a leisurely lunch on the terrace or post- theatre cocktails.
While Courtyard Wine Cellars may have only opened in May 2025, visitors could be forgiven for thinking it is a longstanding fixture of the Covent Garden marketplace. Set across seven vaulted, arched cellars dating back to the 1830s, it is discovered by descending the stairs into the central atrium of the market. These brick-lined underground spaces were initially built to provide cool, stable conditions for the fruit, vegetable, and flower stalls that once made this London's central produce market.
Covent Garden gets a lot of beauty traffic, but the sixth So.Shell outpost is operating on an entirely different scale. This place is big - 1,600 sq ft, to be precise. Two tiers, rows of chairs, and teams moving in sync to make sure your time here actually works for you. I popped in for a brow lamination and shape plus a gel pedicure and walked straight into what can only be described as efficiency heaven.
And that entrance is through a wide raised lawn, which is surprisingly well hidden unless you're familiar with it already. It's laid out as two lawns on either side of the main paved route to the church's actual entrance, and the paving is lined almost the entire way with benches, reflecting how busy the pocket park can get on a warm day.
Down an alley in Covent Garden, on a building that was once a banana warehouse, there is a blue plaque. Monty Python, Film Maker, Lived Here, 1976-1987, reads the inscription. It's easy to miss: the plaque is not at eye level as they normally are, but up on the first floor, almost as if the blue plaque committee lost confidence in their uncharacteristic joke. Or perhaps John Cleese put it up.
After finding success with Kolamba, first opened in Soho in 2019 with a second coming to Shoreditch last year, Eroshan and Aushi Meewella have now launched a new Sri Lankan restaurant celebrating the island's street food scene. ADOH! in Covent Garden looks the part - the space features a vibrant palette of red, yellow and teal along with stainless steel, corrugated metal sheeting, and two custom murals by Sri Lankan artist Ruwangi "Roo" Amarasinghe.
After a summer of institutional mishaps to raise the pulse of the most hardened spin doctor, the Royal Ballet and Opera's new season was audible far beyond the venue. Shame on you, chanted protesters over a powerful PA system outside. Some, standing amid yellow and blue flags, simply held placards. Art is not neutral, read one. And indeed it isn't, though opera's entanglements in international geopolitics are rarely as visible as at Covent Garden in recent months.
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