Harper-Thames with the honest guide nobody else is writing
By Harper-Thames
Whether to bother depends entirely on what you are looking for, which I realise is not the decisive opening a weekend guide usually provides, but which is honest in a way that most weekend guides about Shoreditch are not. Shoreditch is very good at specific things and has been overpromised as a destination to such a degree that people arrive expecting the creative utopia they read about in 2012 and find instead a neighbourhood that is very good at brunch, has excellent coffee, contains some genuinely interesting galleries and some galleries that are using the word “gallery” in a way that its original application does not fully support, and is full of people who appear to be having a better time than you, which may or may not be accurate but is the dominant aesthetic of the public space.
If you are coming for the food and coffee, come. You will not be disappointed. If you are coming for the creative energy that the neighbourhood’s reputation implies, moderate your expectations and you will find enough of it to justify the journey while not finding as much as the articles suggested.
The Things Worth Your Time
Dishoom Shoreditch for breakfast, for which you will queue, and for which the queue is genuinely worth it in a way that queues rarely are. The permanent collection at the Whitechapel Gallery, which is free, consistently excellent, and located seven minutes walk from Shoreditch High Street station in a building that is one of the better pieces of arts architecture in East London. Redchurch Street for independent retail that is good rather than merely decorated to appear good. The Columbia Road Flower Market if you are visiting on a Sunday morning and can get there before 11am, after which the crowd density makes it difficult to enjoy the flowers because you are primarily managing your position relative to other people’s elbows.
The Things That Are Not Worth the Effort They Require
The street art tours that depart from various points around the neighbourhood charge between Pound Sterling 15 and Pound Sterling 25 for information that the Street Art London app provides free. The roof bars that require advance booking, proof of age at the door, and a Pound Sterling 12 minimum spend per person have views that are excellent and cocktails that are priced to reflect the views more than the cocktails. The independent coffee shops are all excellent and you should go to whichever one has a seat available rather than travelling specifically to the one you read about, because they are all excellent and the specific one you read about will not have a seat available.
The Time Out Shoreditch guide covers the mainstream options comprehensively. Harper-Thames writes about Shoreditch at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
