🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

We know this city. Do you?

We uncover the best of the city and put it all in an email for you

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Get us in your inbox

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Who can forget flare-bum guy?

Let’s be honest, this year didn’t exactly get off to a great start. It was cold, it was bleak and everything was closed. But hey, at least we all had loads of time to binge-watch and weep over the truly excellent TV show ‘It’s a Sin’. And remember when it snowed that time in January? That was nice.

But if we’ve learned one thing from this year, it’s that London is resilient. When the big outdoor hospitality reopening in April cruelly coincided with torrential downpours, we dutifully sat sipping cold pints under dripping wet pub garden umbrellas. And you know what? We were ecstatic about it.

As everything unlocked, Londoners flocked to restaurants, bars, cafés, theatres, cinemas, galleries and museums, reminding ourselves why we love this city. This year saw the sweaty, joyful and euphoric return of festivals and clubs. It was the year that football properly, nearly, actually came home. It was the year that we all laughed at stupid stuff like the Marble Arch Mound and a man charging thousands of pounds for salty slabs of meat. For a year that started off so terribly, 2021 has not been without joy.

At the time of writing, things feel uncertain again. As we’ve learned from the last (nearly) two years, the situation can change overnight. But now we know that, no matter how shit everything gets, Londoners still know how to laugh, they still buzz with creativity and new ideas – and there’s always a chance that someone might even stick a flare up their bum in the name of football.

So here’s to celebrating the greatest things that happened this year. See you on the other side.

The evolution of chef Asma Khan’s restaurant Darjeeling Express is nothing short of incredible. Having started out doing supper clubs at her home, she opened her first restaurant in 2017. At the end of last year (after delays thanks to Covid), she opened a new and bigger Darjeeling Express in Covent Garden. Her loyal following has continued to grow this year, but her fans aren’t just Londoners. In 2021, a flurry of Hollywood stars flocked to her restaurant, including Paul Rudd (he’s practically a regular), Dan Levy and Riz Ahmed. Which A-lister will turn up in 2022? Only time will tell. 

You kind of have to admire the ballsiness of Nusret Gökçe aka Salt Bae, who opened his first London restaurant this year. He’s created a cult-like hype around throwing salt on slabs of meat and now punters are racking up £37k bills after a sodium-studded meal. 

One sign that theatre is bouncing back is the number of celebs who’ve graced the stage this year. There was Michael Sheen in the National Theatre’s reopening show ‘Under Milk Wood’, Hollywood superstar Saoirse Ronan in a hot-ticket ‘Macbeth’ at the Almeida and Eddie Redmayne’s first stage outing in ages, in a much-hyped revival of ‘Cabaret’. 

In October, an innovative solution arrived in Tottenham to help the city’s homeless: 33 ‘pod homes’ that aim to provide a more stable base than the streets, hostels or shelters for rough sleepers, helping them to eventually move on to permanent accommodation. At around 24 square metres, they have a living area, kitchenette, desk, washing machine and a separate bedroom and bathroom. Sure, they might look like grey shipping containers, but inside they’re much nicer than lots of the dingy London rentals on Rightmove. And they cost around £5 per week in running costs, which is not bad at all. Here’s hoping this is just the start. 

At what felt like the seventeenth attempt, ‘No Time to Die’ finally came out this year – and it was worth the wait. Barring a wishy-washy villain and an ending that upset purists, it exceeded expectations, and the ticket sales were a lifeline for the city’s hard-pressed cinemas. 

The most riveting Andrew Lloyd Webber show since ‘Phantom…’ wasn’t his new musical ‘Cinderella’ but his torturous battle to get the damn thing open. He declared he’d rather go to jail than open it with social distancing; he rebuffed the PM’s dodgy offer of a special distancing exemption for his show; and he pulled the entire thing for a couple of weeks at the height of the pingdemic.

The Marble Arch Mound was announced in February to universal whaaaaa? An artificial viewing platform overlooking Hyde Park, its apparent purposelessness was borne out by its subsequent career. It opened before it was finished, shut down, reopened, hosted an infinity room in its scaffolding-supported tummy, led to council resignations and finally went free, after costing £6m. It was this year’s Garden Bridge. Except that it actually happened. 

What were you doing aged 18? Whatever it was, tennis player Emma Raducanu made us all feel like absolute wasters by comparison when she won the US Open final in September, having just finished her A-levels. Born in Canada but raised in Bromley, she became the first British woman to scoop the trophy in more than 40 years. Afterwards, she became a household name and got invited to the Met Gala. Bit of a different vibe from going to Reading Festival after your exams, eh? 

Sure, ancient-grain sourdough is great and all, but you know what’s really great? Greggs. And you know what’s even better? MegaGreggs. That’s why Londoners went into a frenzy at the news that the high street icon is possibly, maybe (definitely?) opening a big branch in Leicester Square. It submitted plans to Westminster City Council this year and could open in February 2022, which would coincide with the moment you give up the whole ‘new year, new you’ thing and return to your sausage-roll-guzzling ways. 

Now look back at the ten best London theatre shows of 2021.

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. Ad revenue is Time Out’s main source of income. The content you’re reading is made by independent, expert local journalists.

Support Time Out directly today and help us champion the people and places which make the city tick. Cheers!

An email you’ll actually love

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Get us in your inbox

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!