Less-known museums (and cool S. indian or other cafes) in London?

[Sadik]

DP & I are going for a few days next week. Plan is one day for all the Greenwich museums/Cutty Sark, and another day for Kew. That leaves us two half days, ideally not too far from Paddington station. Alone I'd do art galleries & bookshops, but neither really DP's cup of tea. Any great recommendations very much welcomed!

Also, we both love food from different cultures, & don't get a lot of variations where we live, but probably more towards the cafe / low key end of the spectrum rather than more upmarket. So again, any recommendations either for specific cafes/restaurants or areas very welcome.

Battersea would be great for one of the half days, although not sure about ease of transport re Paddington. The shops are soulless for the most part, but the building is amazing and you can take an expensive but brilliant lift to the top. There’s a Roti King for lunch (roti and dhal with roti to die for) and Battersea Brewery right next door to bribe OH with.

Get him to order a Buddha beer if you go to Roti King, for the best beer bottle ever (the contents are not as exciting as the bottle).

Now it's on the tube it's effectively central London, so like all other central London journeys it takes half an hour. (First law of the Tube, from anywhere to anywhere else in zones 1 and 2 takes half an hour).

Loving this thread. DH and I are having a week in London in February.

We already have booked one of the Hidden Underground tours.
We want to spend a day at Greenwich so interesting information here.
Also we fancy spending a day walking on Hampstead Heath.
Other ideas on our list are Westminster Abbey, Postal Museum and Borough Market.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Borough market.I do want to go to the postal museum at some point.

I can’t remember if I mentioned the tour of the Barbican centre? Really good and not much more than the cost of a glass of crap wine in a London pub.

https://www.aladyinlondon.com/2017/04/self-guided-walk-hampstead-london.html

This is a magnificent walk though Hampstead - totally stunning (and I have lived in London all my life) - would skip the heath itself as it will just be a muddy sludgy field then.

Maltby Street is a great alternative to Borough Market.

www.instagram.com/maltbystmarket/?hl=en

Just checking back in to thank everyone for the great suggestions. We had a lovely trip & packed lots of stuff into a few days as well as seeing friends.

Japan House & the fake food was fab, also the Uber river bus down the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster, the Roman amphitheatre/Guildhall gallery, lots of things! Great food too, Caribbean & Ethiopian particular highlights.

Only slight disappointment was the Wellcome Collection - I didn't think the exhibitions there this time were as good as ones I've seen before.

Glad you had fun. Which Ethiopian did you go to? Ethiopian is a cuisine I've not yet tried, but have heard it's good for vegetarians.

The Wellcome has taken lots of things off display in its permanent exhibition because of being deemed culturally offensive, I think. Its temporary exhibitions vary widely in hoe good they are, but I always find it a good way of spending an hour, largely because of the excellent book shop and the reading room. The upstairs cafe used to be gorgeous too, but I think they've closed it. I don't like the one downstairs.

Really unhelpfully neither of us can remember the name - we hopped off the tube in shepherd's Bush on the way back from Kew & wandered along till we found something we fancied. The joys of big cities!

I really liked the idea of the wellcome exhibition about the effect of work on our bodies, but I thought they avoided hard questions by going for things everyone visiting is going to agree are bad iykwim (enslaved field workers, US prison work).

I guess I'd been expecting things like eg the impact of night shifts on nurses or effects of heavy lifting done by care workers etc etc - things that are happening here & now (and of course so recently particular communities being so badly hit by COVID because due to historical factors they're overrepresented in certain jobs).

I forgive you for being unhelpful!

Yes, you make very good points about the exhibition (I haven’t seen this particular one).

AI really hasn't cracked it yet has it. Reported.

🤪

I tried to report it and it disappeared as I was doing so. Not even pretending to be human! 😂