Our capital is famed for all sorts of reasons: the formidable landmarks, the history, the greatest restaurants on earth, and the greatest people too. But it all comes at a cost — London has long been home to the most expensive versions of just about everything. But for those who know where to look, there are still vast swathes of the city that can be enjoyed for less. A tenner isn’t a lot, but it turns out it can buy a meal, a drink, a ticket to the best live theatre, and access to some of the finest art, culture and fashion going. Here’s how.
Budget boozing
The Colony Club (Darren Coffield)
Kicking things off in the undeniably essential category of drinking, the aptly named Discount Suit Company (29A Wentworth Street, E1, discountsuitcompany.co.uk) in Shoreditch serves a rotating range of fabulously made cocktails full of finely sourced ingredients for just £10 a pop. In a city where cocktails of this calibre are lurching upwards of £16, these are a steal. The bar also does sharing cocktails for £35 which comfortably serve four. You do the maths.
Group conviviality is likewise encouraged at one of south London’s finest cocktail bars, Goldfinch (145 Mitcham Road, SW17, goldfinchsw17.co.uk). The early-bird menu offers two immaculate cocktails for just £15, or £7.50 each. We defy you to find a cheaper Tom Collins in town. Meanwhile, at Cafe Mondo (42 Peckham Road, SE5, @mondo.sandwiches), a mini martini is £5, beer is £3.75 and a negroni is just £7.50. It’s all brilliant, too: read the Standard’s five star review. If the budget’s even tighter, at the various Passyunk Avenue bars (across town, passyunkavenue.com), a Citywide Special — which is a beer and a shot of bourbon — is just £7, or head to Jazu (2 Deptford High Street, SE8, jazudrinks.com) and have a £5.50 pickleback: a slug of whisky served alongside a house pickle chaser.
Elsewhere, people often bemoan that non-alcoholic drinks are priced at the same rate as their boozy brothers; not so at the exceptional Lyaness (20 Upper Ground, SE1, lyaness.com). Here, the craft and execution of these well-conceived drinks are at the highest level, but the non-alcoholic versions come in at just £8.50, which feels like daylight robbery when you’re in the buzzy surrounds of this gilded bar.
For wine, there are few better options than Bar Levan (12-16 Blenheim Grove, SE15, barlevan.co.uk). All of the eight or so by-the-glass “vins du jour” (plus extra rotating weekly specials) are priced at £10 or less, with a most recent visit offering a courageous glass of chardonnay-style Portuguese white for just £7. Mind you, you could just head to Colony Room Green (4 Heddon Street, W1, daisygreenfood.com), a revival of “London’s drunkest club”, where Peter O’Toole and Francis Bacon would drink in the Eighties; prices remain as they were in 2008, meaning wine for £6 a glass, and doubles of spirits too. You might call it dangerous. But it’s also an awful lot of fun.
Mighty museums and glorious galleries
The Old Operating Theatre (The Old Operating Theatre)
The Imperial War Museum (Lambeth Road, SE1, iwm.org.uk) is a great place to start when it comes to enjoying top-notch culture for less. Each and every one of its exhibitions is free, and when you consider the roster of fabulous curation and shows the museum has laid on of late (Ai Weiwei and Tim Hetherington to name a few), it’s a miraculous place which doesn’t always get the plaudits it deserves. Elsewhere, another gem of a location is the Old Royal Naval College, specifically the Painted Hall (Greenwich, SE10, ornc.digitickets.co.uk), often dubbed Britain’s answer to the Sistine Chapel. It’s usually more than a tenner to enter, but word to the wise, it offers £5 tickets on the first Sunday of every month. And, of course, don’t forget many of London’s biggest museums are all free, although certain shows will have restrictions (the British Museum, for instance, offers free entry to its permanent collection, though special exhibitions will charge a fee). Other institutions that can be opened up for under £10 include the expansive British Library (NW1, bl.uk), where many events come in at £8 a ticket. Do a bit of digging, or simply head to the Silk Road Oasis exhibition which is on till February. For an interactive bit of unique London history, little beats the Old Operating Theatre (9a St Thomas Street, SE1, oldoperatingtheatre.com) where tickets are £9. Its mix of the macabre and the medicinal, and is sure to spark curiosity. It’s perhaps one of London’s best hidden gems.
On the grander scale, Tate Britain (Millbank, SW1, tate.org.uk) is free to enter when viewing the permanent collection which includes the very best of JMW Turner, as is the National Gallery (Trafalgar Square, WC2, nationalgallery.org.uk) with all the splendour of the Renaissance masters. For something altogether more contemporary, the relocation of the Saatchi Yates gallery (14 Bury Street, SW1, saatchiyates.com) to St James’s is quite the masterstroke. All exhibitions are free to enter and the spacious, vaulting room is perfect to view some of the very best curated contemporary art in town. White Cube (144-152 Bermondsey Street, SE1, whitecube.com) is another free-to-visit space which lends itself particularly well to larger format works, with the likes of Antony Gormley and Tracey Emin making regular exhibition features.
Finally, the Photographers’ Gallery (16-18 Ramillies Street, W1, thephotographersgallery.org.uk), while not free, is still essential. Tickets to shows never really venture above £9, and present some of the world’s finest snaps.
Stage savings
The Royal Opera House (Camilla Greenwell)
Live theatre is one of the many, many categories which has experienced a kind of London-flation, but if you know where to look (and importantly, if you’re happy to stand) then you’d be surprised at how far £10 will go. Kicking off with the world-famous Shakespeare’s Globe (21 New Globe Walk, SE1, shakespearesglobe.com), where £5 standing tickets are still very much a thing. The spaces are up in the gods, but for £5 or £10, plus the opportunity for rush £5 tickets, every show, every day is financially accessible. Note that the balustrade stands at about four feet, so little ones need to be taller than that to see anything.
Slips for a fiver are also still available at the Royal Opera House (Bow Street, WC2, rbo.org.uk), too. In a venue where most tickets start at £75 and quickly escalate upwards of £200, the notion of spending just £4 or £5 to see a production seems laughable, but each day for most performances, punters can book a standing ticket, adopt a gentle leaning position and watch some of the finest ballet and opera that Europe has to offer.
Elsewhere, the National Theatre (South Bank, SE1, nationaltheatre.org.uk) still offers its Friday Rush tickets; between half noon and 1pm, £10 tickets for select shows are released. They’re tough to claim but worth a go. Finally, previews at the Lyric (Lyric Square, W6, lyric.co.uk) are typically only a tenner, too.
Have a kickabout
If the afternoon calls for a different kind of performance, then perhaps a day out at the football is in order instead. It might seem unlikely but pretty much all of the major clubs across London sell women’s football tickets for under a tenner. From the top-tier Chelsea FC to the lower-league Wimbledon and Dulwich Hamlet, the women’s starting XI usually sell tickets for between £5-£10 a go, depending on the match. Prefer rugby? Tickets for the women’s Six Nations start at £7.50 (sixnationsrugby.com).
Make a night of it
Rowans (Rowans)
For a night out, comedy in London is a great place to start and the Top Secret Comedy Club (170 Drury Lane, WC2, thetopsecretcomedy club.co.uk) is well located for crepuscular debauchery. Midweek tickets start from just £1, so gather nine friends, laugh your bellies off, and prepare for a night on the tiles. Otherwise, Tate Lates (Bankside, SE1, tate.org.uk) is a decent first at bat. Each month it ships in a guest curator to format an evening of DJs, dancing, talks and parties. Little Simz was a recent hit. Things kick off at about 6pm and don’t wind down till the wee hours — some of these Turbine Hall parties have become the stuff of legend. For a more stripped-back feel, try Corsica Studios (4/5 Elephant Road, SE17, corsicastudios.com). Typically, tickets never venture above about £7, with DJ sets, live bands and revelling well into the night. Elsewhere in south London and the recently redone Upstairs at the Ritzy (Brixton Oval, SW2, picturehouses.com) offers a mix of DJ nights, live bands and even spoken-word poetry evenings. It’s almost always completely free and a dedicated bar means no waiting in line behind throngs of cinemagoers.
In north London there’s an undeniably brilliant venue to spend not very much money in — but quite a bit of time: Rowan’s tenpin bowling alley (10 Stroud Green Road, N4, rowans.co.uk). £1 entry, bowling costs about £7, karaoke works out at £3.50pp/ph (based on 10 people, but a booth fits about 15), and the pints are cheap and there’s an arcade. It’s an all-night grown-up playground of the very best kind.
Eat more, pay less
(Bun House)
London’s food scene is famous for its high-low double life. With a budget of £10, start with either Chinatown (Bun House is a good bet) for, well, Chinese, or the Edgware Road, which has a mix but is mostly Lebanese and Persian. There’s good cheap Thai dotted around Hammersmith, too. Hype-lovers, though, can queue for a £10 Chatsworth Bakehouse sandwich (120a Anerley Road, SE19, chatsworthbakehouse.com), or get a smash-burger from Supernova in Soho (25 Peter Street, W1, supernovaburger.com) for £9. A ham and cheese toastie at the Devonshire is still £8 (17 Denman Street, W1, devonshiresoho.co.uk), and bloody good too. Maltby Street Market (Maltby Street, SE1, maltbystreetmarket.co.uk) is full of bargains, too: everything from steak frites to Ethopian specialties can all be had for a tenner or less. Vegans, meanwhile, might want to try any one of the five Saravana Bhavan Indian restaurants (across town, saravanabhavan london.co.uk) where almost everything on the menu comes in at under £10.
Get your gig fix
Slim Jim’s Liquor Store (Slim Jim’s Liquor Store)
Live action in London for under a tenner might seem hard to come by, but more and more venues are trying to draw in the crowds by slashing the door fees. Try The Lower Third (26 Denmark Street, WC2, thelowerthird.co.uk) which has a cracking calendar full of live bands, covering rock, folk, alternative and more. Tickets can get up to about £18, but about a third of the nights sell for sub-£10 or for free.
Elsewhere, Slim Jim’s Liquor Store (112 Upper Street, N1, slimjimsliquorstore.com) is another rockers’ paradise, and with practically all of the gigs free to attend, you’ve got budget spare to sink a few pints (though hard booze is really the thing here). The Blues Kitchen (40 Acre Lane, SW2, theblueskitchen.com) might be nothing new, but the live music, particularly the soul, funk and afrobeats on offer at Brixton, is especially impressive, as is the other south London favourite, the New Cross Inn (323 New Cross Road, SE14, newcrossinn.com) which does plenty of sub-£10 tickets earlier in the week. In the mood for blues? Ain’t Nothin’ But… (20 Kingly Street, W1, aintnothinbut.co.uk) has gigs most nights, with free entry.
Another little gem of a place is the Cable Cafe (8 Brixton Road, SW9, @cablecafeuk) which does free live jazz every Wednesday and Thursday. Have fun out there.