The Date Edit is back. Ready-made date plans for queer women (and allies) who want a brilliant day out without the faff of planning one. Consider this your shortcut.
Let’s get this out of the way: yes, it’s Notting Hill. No, you are not going to spend the day reenacting a film that came out when you were seven. What you are going to do is walk a stretch of West London that has some of the best independent coffee, a canal, a road full of very good wine bars, and a dinner that’ll make you feel like you live here – which you don’t, but that’s fine, nobody does. The whole thing is walkable. All of it. Put your Oyster card away.
Vibe: Unhurried, a bit boujee without being weird about it, canal light at golden hour
Area: Notting Hill Gate / Ladbroke Grove / All Saints Road
Best for: Second date / Long-term couples who want to feel like they live somewhere nicer
Budget: ££-£££
Length: 8-10 hours
The Morning Thing
Electric Coffee Co., Portobello Road
Start at the Notting Hill Gate end of Portobello Road and walk north. Electric Coffee is a few minutes in – small, independent, and doing espresso properly. Order a flat white if you want one, nobody here will judge you, it’s not that kind of place. The market starts properly on Fridays and Saturdays and you’ll pass stalls on the way, which is either ideal or overwhelming depending on how many people you can deal with before 11am. Either way, coffee first. Always coffee first.
Price Point: £
The Market Bit (Weekends Only)
Portobello Road Market
If you’re here on a Saturday you don’t need instructions, it’ll find you. Antiques at the southern end near the Gate, fruit and veg in the middle, vintage and records further north towards Golborne Road. Don’t feel pressured to buy anything. Do stop at the Golborne Road end and get a pastel de nata from one of the Portuguese cafes on the corner – this isn’t a recommendation, it’s a requirement.
Price Point: £
The Afternoon Thing
The Canal, Westbourne Park
Walk down to the Grand Union Canal. It’s about ten minutes west from Portobello, the canal path runs under Trellick Tower, which looms above you in the specific way that great brutalist buildings do when you’re standing at the bottom of them – slightly alarming and very good. Walk east along the towpath towards Paddington Basin if you want more of it, or just sit somewhere by the water for a while and let the afternoon slow down. There is always a heron. Nobody knows why. The heron is not for touching.
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Price Point: Free
Lucky Saint, All Saints Road
All Saints Road is ten minutes back east from the canal – a quiet, slightly glossy side street that has somehow accumulated several of the best places to spend an afternoon in West London. Lucky Saint have a bar here now, which matters because their 0.5% lager is genuinely excellent and this makes it a good stop regardless of whether you’re drinking. The room is nice. The snacks are good. If you’re going alcohol-free today, this is your afternoon sorted.
Price Point: ££
Newcomer Wines
Also on All Saints Road, and doing exactly what the name says – a wine shop and bar focused on new producers and less-obvious bottles. The staff are the kind of knowledgeable that’s useful rather than exhausting. Point at something, describe vaguely what you like, let them do the rest. This is what afternoons are for.
Price Point: ££
If It Goes Well
Books for Cooks, Blenheim Crescent
A two-minute detour off Portobello. An entire bookshop dedicated exclusively to cookbooks, which sounds niche until you’re inside and suddenly forty minutes have passed. They run a small test kitchen at the back. The book selection is genuinely extraordinary. You will both find something. You don’t have to buy it but you probably will.
Price Point: Free to browse / £ if you have any self-control issues near books
Wrap-Up
Granger & Co., Westbourne Grove
Bill Granger’s West London original, which has been doing slow weekends and excellent food since before brunch was a personality trait. The corn fritters are the ones everyone orders and the reason is that they are very good. Good for a late lunch that becomes dinner if the day is going the way it should. Book ahead at weekends – this is not a drill.
Price Point: ££
Bonus Round
The Cow, Westbourne Park Road
A proper pub that happens to do exceptional seafood. Owned by Tom Conran, serves Guinness, has an upstairs restaurant if you want to commit to it. The ground floor is the move – bar stools, oysters, a pint. It’s the kind of place that makes you understand why people don’t leave West London. Don’t leave West London yet.
Price Point: ££
See you next time for the next instalment of The Date Edit.
Nonchalant x
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