Things to See and Do in Shoreditch

As the creative hub of London’s trendy East end, with walls splashed in colourful street art and hip pubs, cafes and restaurants, you’ll never be short of things to see and do in Shoreditch.

Why not make a weekend of it and book a stay in one of the many hotels in Shoreditch? There’s so much to see and do here that you’ll want to spend as much time as possible in the fun East End area!

 

Street art in Shoreditch

The streets of Shoreditch are adorned with colourful street art and murals everywhere you look – providing the perfect photo opportunity everywhere you turn! Shoreditch is the heart of the art scene, bustling with interesting buildings, popular culture and more. Art holds a massive presence on the streets and down alleyways in the form of graffiti, drawings and posters.

 

The Old Blue Last

The Old Blue Last is refurbished East End boozer, with a live music venue upstairs attracting a young, trendy crowd.

The pub is over 300 years old; it was first a brothel and then was turned into a pub – even Shakespeare used to hang out there! Now, it’s a popular pub and music venue, where the likes of Charli XCX, Florence and the Machine, Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys have all performed. It’s a quirky little pub with very minimal furniture, but the vibe is chilled and friendly.

 

Dinerama

I love finding foodie things to do in London, so I was excited to stumble on Dinerama.

Dinerama is a Shoreditch street food arena, serving up food, booze and tunes Wednesday – Sunday. It’s free to enter before 7pm, but you have to pay £3 to enter after then. There’s plenty of food and drink stands to try out – and the venue is family and dog-friendly too yay!

We tucked into soft fluffy steamed buns at Yum Bun’s first of all. James went for the pork bun (slow roasted belly pork, cucumbers, spring onions and hoi sin sauce) and I went for the chicken bun (Japanese fried chicken, tarutaru sauce, chilli dressing and lettuce) both of which were delicious and mouth-wateringly good. Next on the agenda was loaded nachos from Club Mexicana, a 100% vegan vendor. The loaded nachos came with pickled onions, guacamole and a sweet salsa which went down an absolute treat.

We drank Corona’s from Cerveza and frozen cocktails from Big Bar, then sat in the beautiful open-air section in a cute greenhouse style room. If you love good street food and cocktails, then Dinerama definitely needs to be on your list of things to do in Shoreditch!

 

BoxPark Shoreditch

The good thing about Shoreditch is that everything is fairly close and within walking distance, so we headed over to BoxPark to check it out.

BoxPark is a food and retail park made out of refitted shopping containers, founded by Roger Wade who describes the area as the world’s first pop-up mall. BoxPark Shoreditch was built in 2011, and you will be able to find restaurants, bars and shops here. A second BoxPark was built in Croydon in 2016, with restaurants and bars and space for events such as music performances, kickboxing and movie screenings.

 

Spitalfields Market

(Photo taken from timeout.com)

Spitalfields Market is a historic roofed market in the heart of the East End, open seven days a week with hundreds of market stalls and popular chain restaurants and bars. The market was originally built in the 1800s, but it was refurbished and rejuvenated in the early 2000s and is now one the most unique shopping and eating destinations in London.

There are a big name brands such as Mac, Dr Martens and Chanel here, alongside hundreds of traders selling arts, crafts, clothing and knick-knacks in the two central concourses.

 

London Cocktail Club

To round off our trip to Shoreditch, we popped into the London Cocktail Club for a few cocktails. (Read: a few too many). We visited the Liverpool Street branch which has a circus theme with a vintage fairground themed basement bar, faux-leather furniture, tables with ball pits in and flickering multi-coloured lights dotted everywhere!

There’s actually a London Cocktail Club bar just around the corner from BoxPark with a biker themed bar, with split-level booths and pool tables. There’s an industrial metal staircase that goes down into the bar, with a 40ft x 60ft wide biker inspired wall mural with biker jacket themed couches filling the room.

 

There are so many things to see and do in Shoreditch, so you’ll be spoilt for choice on your next trip to London! 

 

This post was made in collaboration with Hotels.com. All views and photos (unless stated otherwise) are my own.