The closest you can get to Little Italy in the east. The owners are amazing, the atmosphere is relaxed, the lunches are abundant and homemade. The cakes are amazing, try Torta Clara (pear and chocolate) for the ultimate bliss.

I'm waiting for a vegetarian-friendly event to get the full dining experience, but in the meantime there's wine!

An excellent bookshop by Brick Lane, the interior design is incredible and the selection unexpected. A good place to get lost in!

Choosing Keeping has a collection of rare, beautiful European, American and Japanese stationery. A stationery haven. 

A treasure trove in the The City of London. The Archive of London. Strongrooms hold kilometres of shelving; boxes of matter that has somehow been catalogued and categorised in a traceable manner by the public, for academic, genealogical and other research. This beautiful book is from a box on Epping Forest. On the same visit, I looked through photographs of Blitz singsongs in Bethnal Green Underground station, 1980s anti-Thatcher / pro-GLC gig posters and paper concertina optical models of the Crystal Palace.