Evening in London with pre-teens DCs

[MaybeSwitzerland]

We are in London for one night at half term, with DC1 and DC2 aged 11 and 14.
We are planning walks and museum for the day but need affordable ideas for the evening.

we will be staying in a hotel near the city centre. Budget is not allowing us musicals (far too expensive). DCs love theatre, dance, arts and good food.

I would be very grateful for suggestions for either early evening activities, or food / eating experience that we would not find easily out of london

Inamo is a fun restaurant with an interactive table top and chef cam. Sometimes we skip having dessert there and go to Milk Train Cafe afterwards instead.
We also love Flesh and Buns for their s’mores dessert where you get given a little marshmallow toaster for your table!
You could try and get free Sky Garden tickets. They aren’t available yet for half term week, but they’ll be up soon and they go very very quickly so keep looking. Last entry is 5pm on weekdays but you can stay up there until 6pm. It’s later on weekends.
If you’re travelling to London by train, you could get 2for1 tickets for the London Eye www.daysoutguide.co.uk/london-eye The
last time slot is 17.45, which is the time you join the queue. By the time you get off, it will be nearly 7pm.
There’s a board game cafe/bar called Draughts www.draughtslondon.com Under 18s are allowed until 9pm and under 12s play for free, 13-17s play for half price.
What day of the week are you going?

Not all musicals are as expensive as others. I got £25 tickets for my and my DC to watch MamaMia - which is only a tiny bit more than what supper would have been.

Food AND singing!

thetheatrecafe.co.uk/theatre-cafe/menu/

EL&N, instagrammable cake shop with arcade machines if they're into that kind of thing.

amazing, thank you all
inamo is now booked and we will look into the milk train too.
we missed on sky garden tickets but this will be a fun evening!

i will so check the arcade machines as the kids will love this too :)

For inamo, have a look on groupon / buyagift / timeout and the like as they often to deals. Don’t know how these compare to their actual prices but they tend to claim a pretty hefty discount.

You could try the TKTS booth in Leicester Square, half price tickets on the day. If you don’t mind where you sit / what you see! I usually get £10-£20 tickets even for Saturday night

we went to inamo and to the milk train!

the kids loved it.
Inamo was a bit dark for me - i struggled to see what i was eating, but the food was amazing. I was too stuffed to have ice cream at the milk train café

there was not enough time for us to go to the tower of london, but we did most of the museums and loads of walking!!