The St Bride Foundation is the home of the St Bride Library, an incredible resource of printing history, in the form of books, printed ephemera, and tools from the trade. It also hosts many fantastic talks each year – check their website for details.

Forget Selfridges or Liberty! Fenwicks Contemporary Womenswear department has the biggest selection of Sonia Rykiel this side of Paris, amongst other great labels such as Thomsen, Dagmar, Les-Prairies-de-Paris and See by Chloe. But the best thing about it – it's quiet!

Inspired by Dave Eggers’ projects in the USA such as the Pirate Store in San Francisco and Superhero store in Brooklyn, The Monster Supplies Store in Hoxton is home to the Ministry of Stories: A volunteer run organization, founded by Nick Hornby, to help young people with creative writing of all kinds through workshops and free mentoring sessions. The store is the “Purveyor of quality goods for monsters of every kind” with fascinating bottles and tins containing everything from eyeballs to Zadie Smith’s short story Mortal Terror.

Turkish food meets Heavy Metal. Lee Tiernan's (ex St John Bread & Wine Head Chef) experimental take on Turkish cuisine. Flatbreads, offal, squid ink, cod roe & foie gras doughnuts. Expect the unexpected.

A great club to see amazing performance from the funniest drag queens in the city. I have so much laugh and fun every time I am going.