When it comes to coolness, you wanna head to Shoreditch. Edginess? Perhaps Camden. But for sheer really bloody niceness – you can’t beat Chiswick. And Turnham Green Terrace can lay very good claim to being the nicest street in the area – well, you’ve got a very nice street on your hands.

At one end is The Tabard – a great little pub that has everything a pub needs – good ales, outside seating and friendly staff and it’s own theatre. Sort off. Above the Tabard pub is The Tabard Theatre – a great little (80 seats I believe) studio theatre that puts on a mix of plays and comedy. Often you’ll find huge acts warming up for their tours here. Tickets are usually dirt cheap, so there’s no excuse not to head on down.

At the other end is Fouberts – A Chiswick institution. For over 50 years they’ve been delighting their patrons with excellent ice creams. You can’t miss the place in the summer – it’s the one with the massive queue. It’s popular. I’ve never had any of their savoury dishes – but hopefully it’s as nice as the ice cream.

If you’re lucky and the wind is blowing in the right direction you can smell Chris’s Fish And Chip Shop the entire length of the street. And what a smell! If you were to describe the ideal fish and chip shop (and indeed, ideal fish and chips) to someone who had never had it – you’d probably describing Chris’s. Picture perfect traditional grub every time.

Let’s ignore the myriad Estate Agents dotted about (probably located in The Terrace to convince potential buyers how nice the area is) and head over to Maison Blanc – a touch of French loveliness in a very English street. It’s not cheap – but it’s a great place to take someone out for a very naughty, cakey treat.

Bit of a foodie? Head over to Mortimer & Bennett and fight your way through the yummy mummies (potentially including Sophie Ellis Bextor) to get your hands on some of the best deli produce in the country. (Seriously!) The place is stocked to the rafters with some amazing savoury treats, meats, olives, cheeses and things you only usually hear about from celebrity chefs. Amazing.

We’d quite like to mention all the classy charity shops and kids clothing stores, but frankly, there are too many and they all blur into one – just know, there are a lot and they are all very nice.

Top top it all of, Acton Green Common (in Chiswick, not Acton) back on to The Terrace – so once you’ve done your shopping and eating you can relax in a beautiful little park. Perfect.

Call it a late breakfast, call it an early lunch, call it what you like. Brunch is an excellent invention. There’s sleeping in to recover from the night before, but you’re still allowed cocktails and you don’t have to have rubbish muesli.

Here are some of the best brunch places in our fair city.

The Cookbook Cafe: They do brunch so much better on the other side of the pond. Frankly, we suck at it. But the Intercontinental’s cafe in Mayfair get it right. You pay £49, and for that you get unlimited tea and coffee, as well as bubbly and bellinis, breakfast goods, and even your pick of Sunday roasts.

The Table: Southwark’s best cafe for breakfast. You’ll find the usuals here – Eggs Benedict being a big feature. But they also make their own berry compotes and serve a brilliant cuppa. Table is a nice surprise on the south of the river.

Hawksmoor: The Shoreditch branch of Hawksmoor does one of London’s most famous brunches. It’s a massive serving for two (and a rather reasonable £35), and you’ll get everything from short rib and bone marrow to pigs trotter baked beans. It’s a real meat feast. Throw in bottomless Bloody Mary cocktails and I’m sold.

The Providores: I’ve only ever heard good things about the breakfasts here, but I’ve yet to go. So let’s turn to what clever Qypers have to say. “One of the best brunches in London, they even do Vegemite soldiers and you can get sour dough toast.” They had me at sourdough toast.

Any others worth checking out? Modern Pantry is leaving people divided at the moment, with great food, but high prices and disinterested service.  Mestizo in North London will give you a Mexican brunch full of heuvos rancheros and tortillas for £19.99. They’re just not getting the best reviews, so you’ll have to go and judge that one for yourself.

Got a favourite brunch place? Share in the comments, or write a review so we can check it out.

Flickr image from adactio‘s photostream.

That’s right. Metal. Not rock. Not punk. Not indie. METAL.

Well, perhaps there is a bit of each of these genres thrown in for good measure – but i’m talkin’ METAL primarily. The kind of bar where it’s fully acceptable, nay preferable to wear a denim cut off entirely covered in patches from bands who split up in the 80s. The kind of bar where the dudes have longer hair than the chicks. The kind of bar that has a jukebox full of bands whose names you can’t even read because the font is far too spiky.

Crobar

Down on Manette Street, tucked away in darkest Soho lurks the Crobar. A tiny, sweaty, smelly box filled with all manner of miscreants, rivetheads and oddballs and home to the worst toilets in all of London. It’s bloody brilliant.  No beers on tap, but a plentiful selection of bottles, cans and whiskeys all served for a low, low price. The Crobar also happens to have the best metal jukebox in the entire western hemisphere.

If you get there early you can enjoy a quiet drink on a table by yourself and perhaps read a book. But get there late and the place is heaving with post gig goers and late nite drinkers. Don’t expect to sit down. Probably best to expect crazy south American metal fans to be playing air guitar on a table to Slayer and work back from there.

The Crobar is also famed for being the preferred watering hole of rock celebs – I once spent an evening talking about old stoner bands and chugging bourbon with Kid Rock – not entirely out of the ordinary for the Crobar.

Hobgoblin

Once The Devonshire Arms – now the Hobgoblin. Used to be packed full of gothic types – still is.

The Hobgoblin is Camden’s most alternative pub – and really takes this accolade seriously. Quite an effort has been made to make their place look ‘gothic’ – perhaps too much of an effort – when a place is actually full of alternative types it doesn’t really need to make this even more known!

Well known for being the ideal starting point for a night out in Camden the Hobgoblin, like the Crobar starts out empty and end up rammed. There is a little outside section if you fancy a smoke or to escape the crowds inside – but this area fills up pretty quickly too.

Historically more goth than metal – The Hobgoblin is now a middle ground ‘alt’ – still a place to get your headbanging on though!

Garlic And Shots

More a restaurant than a bar, Garlic and Shots is the top vampire themed eatery in London. A great big steak with a cross on it made of garlic is pretty metal.

Garlic and shots serves food with, you’ve guessed it, plenty of garlic. They also serve shots with, maybe you haven’t, loads of garlic in them too. The food here is served in industrial portions and I very good – if you like your flavours smacking you around the head. Subtlety is not their forte.

Downstairs is the more metal ‘Crypt Bar’ a tiny little bar that looks like it was in a low budget vampire TV movie – perhaps it was – but it has an excellent atmosphere – and is ideal for post meal chill out.

The Intrepid Fox

Soho’s other very metal spot is found lurking round the back of Center Point – and is pretty easy to spot due to all the metal gargoyles (no, not the patrons) around the entrance. I always like to think of The Fox as Crobar’s younger brother – the music is more mainstream, the drinkers seem to be younger and the whole place just seems a little bit less serious than big bro Cro.

Again, it fills up fast at the weekend, and due to a high table to floor space ratio, getting to the bar is a bit of an assault course. Drinks here don’t come cheap either – it’s a bit more ‘London prices’ here than anywhere else.

But then, they do have an old school Addams Family pinball machine,  so all is forgiven.

Big Red

Big Red may be the least metal of these places, but more than makes up for it by being the most  rockin’ place in North London.

The main selling point for Big Red is the food – specialising in big portion tex mex manly meat and heat  style dishes, served fast by the really very friendly staff. I’d suggest getting a drink with your food though – you’ll need it – they don’t go easy on the chilli!

The bar here is huge and well staffed meaning you’ll get served pretty quickly and don’t have to fight through hair and sweat to get to the front either.

At the back are some pool tables – so entertainment here isn’t solely provided by the jukebox and the booze. Musically it may be a mix of hard rock and metal, but I’m putting it in the guide because it rules.