Where to go in City of London

15 places in City of London, each one on the Guide on merit.

City

• Barbican Conservatory

  Conservatory garden

  London's second-biggest glasshouse, 1,500 species of jungle tucked onto level 3 of the Barbican. The real draw is the collision of brutalist concrete and tropical planting. Free, open only Friday evenings and weekends, and popular with photographers, so time it and expect company.

• CORD by Le Cordon Bleu

  European

  The first London restaurant from a culinary school older than most of its diners. Precise, polished, and unsurprisingly good at the fundamentals.

City of London

• Baby Bacchus

  Wine bar

  A City wine bar down a Bank-side lane with a wall of two hundred bottles, all walk-in after dark. Drink in or pull one off the shelf to take away.

• Black Parrot

  Cocktail bar

  A rum library in Bride Court, a lane off Fleet Street, with more than 700 bottles and a team that will steer you through them.

• Cloth Cornhill

  The team behind Farringdon's Cloth have taken over Simpson's Tavern, a City chophouse that fed workers from 1757 until 2022. The ground floor pub serves pints and bar snacks like coronation crab beignet and sausage pie. Upstairs, the restaurant serves modern British cooking in restored high-backed booths under brass rails once used for top hats.

• Dave's Wine Bar

  Wine bar

  A proper City wine bar where the meat on your plate was reared on the owner's own farm.

• Merchant House: The Brig

  Hidden cocktail bar

  A hidden two-to-four person room with your own bartender, drinks included, where you can mix your own.

• Wild Izakaya

  Asian

  An izakaya in the City from the Goodman group, with executive chef Satoru Hashimoto formerly of Nobu and Koyn. The menu runs nigiri, sashimi, maki, temaki, skewers, fried plates and gohan bowls. Counter dining dominates the large space, with table seating available for groups.

Fleet Street

• St Bride Foundation

  Letterpress & print heritage

  A Fleet Street print-history institution: letterpress and bookbinding workshops, a bar and a library that does much of the work. A deep-cut cultural craft entry.

• St Bride's Church

  Wren church & crypt museum

  The journalists' church with a spire that allegedly invented the wedding cake. The free crypt museum is the real surprise.

Smithfield

• Restaurant St Barts

  European

  The only place in London holding both a Michelin star and a Green Star. Fifteen courses that move from raw and cured through steaming to open flame, in a hushed Nordic room with windows onto a churchyard cloister.

St Paul's

• The Wren Coffee

  Coffee shop

  Fireheart and Caravan coffee inside a gold-corniced Christopher Wren nave.

Temple

• Aram

  Middle Eastern

  Imad Alarnab second act, on the Somerset House terrace.

• Café Clement

  European

  All-day bistro on the ground floor of St Clement, the new Strand hotel from Soho House founder Nick Jones. Former River Cafe head chef Danny Bohan runs a modern European menu of grilled fish, pasta and casseroles. White linen, vintage Cassina chairs, frosted-glass booths and an open kitchen behind ornate screens.

The City

• Mei Ume

  Asian

  Two kitchens under one roof at the Four Seasons: dim sum and roast meats from an ex-Royal China chef, sushi and sashimi from an ex-Sake No Hana one, in a room off a skylit hotel lounge.