Sometimes I simply have to escape the oppressive suburbs. Otherwise, I am perfectly capable of spending the entire day on the sofa watching YouTube and praying that nobody knocks on the door. My solution is to devise a cheap London day out with enough food, art and entertainment to prise me from the sofa—and this time, I wanted to see how much of London I could enjoy for £20.
TooGoodToGo is the Go-To for a Cheap London Day Out
I sometimes look for a Too Good To Go Surprise Bag for lunch. In case you haven’t heard of it, Too Good To Go is an app that sells food which would otherwise go to waste, usually for about a third of its original price.
Some of the best bags come from the breakfast buffets of swish five-star hotels. My treat today came from the Coffee House inside the Royal Society of Arts, near the Savoy.
Whatever you choose, make sure it has a rating of at least 4.2 stars. In fact, I would go further and look for 4.6 or above. I also adopt a belts-and-braces approach: study the establishment’s own menu and then inspect its photographs and reviews on Tripadvisor. A bargain is only a bargain if you actually want to eat it.
The RSA offering stood out immediately. Fellowship costs about £230 a year, and its clientele consists exclusively of the most cultured, artistic and intellectually distinguished people in London…and presumably they are gourmets too.
The RSA is impressive: a collection of interconnected Georgian buildings designed by the Adam brothers, complete with a doorman. More importantly, it is only a stone’s throw from Charing Cross Station and the National Gallery.
My plan was to visit the National Gallery’s free collection, collect my lunch, and then see where the day took me. I have a Freedom Pass—the free travel pass available to older Londoners—so my transport cost nothing.
If you want to construct your own inexpensive itinerary, see my guide to 20 free and nearly free things to do in London. I have also previously attempted to spend an entire day in London for just £5—with surprisingly life-enhancing results.
The Ambassadors and the Hidden Skull
I am nearly 70 and no great admirer of steps or stairs, so I took the number 24 bus from Tottenham Court Road station to Trafalgar Square, used the lift to the right of the main staircase and headed for the National Gallery rooms overflowing with Italian and Renaissance art.
Chief among the treasures was Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Ambassadors. It is an enormous, intricate and intimidating work of art. These were clearly people of consequence, and they knew it.
The shelves are crowded with objects that display their wealth, learning, and worldly importance. But a broken string on the lute suggests discord and turmoil, while the strange grey shape floating across the floor is a memento mori: a skull reminding these splendidly dressed men that death makes nonentities of us all. You can only see it properly by standing at an angle to the right of the painting.
Another favourite was Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. The naked figures have luminous, almost translucent skin, but the longer you look, the more peculiar and disturbing it becomes.
Time pulls back a blue curtain showing a haggard, aged woman. A smiling child representing Folly prepares to scatter rose petals, apparently oblivious to the thorn piercing his foot. Behind him is what initially appears to be a pretty girl but is actually Fraud, complete with a scaly body, lion’s paws and a serpent’s tail.
The picture was probably given by Cosimo I de’ Medici to Francis I of France. This was a king noted for his enthusiasm for women. Was Francis delighted by this erotically charged gift? Or did he wonder what, precisely, Cosimo was trying to tell him?
Best of all, the gallery was almost empty. This rather proves my point: people will flock to spend £20 or more on a temporary exhibition, where they are herded around among hundreds of other tourists, while upstairs some of the most famous and priceless paintings in the world can be seen for nothing.
You can find more overlooked treasures in my guide to the best free art galleries in London.
Total spent: £0
National Gallery
National Gallery visitor information
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN
Open daily, 10 am–7 pm, with Friday opening until 9 pm during the summer programme. General admission is free, although some temporary exhibitions are ticketed. Check the website before travelling because seasonal hours can change.
The Cheap London Day Out Lunch at the RSA
The Coffee House at RSA House is open to the public, although non-members have to sign in at reception.
Would I recommend it? That depends on what you expect.
If you are a tourist hoping to sweep into a grand Georgian salon filled with eminent philosophers debating the future of civilisation, you may be disappointed. The Coffee House itself is a modern white space with the atmosphere of a refined staff canteen. Almost every table appeared to have been colonised by a laptop.
Nevertheless, for a cheap London day out, the tea is excellent and, at £2.90 for a pot, it must be the best value in central London. I was also given 10% off while I waited for my Magic Bag.
The collection window lasts only ten minutes. The usual arrangement is that you choose three items from whatever remains at the end of lunch. On the day of my visit, the selection included sausage rolls, vegetarian samosas, vegetarian quiche and tuna or cheese sandwiches. As there was also some salad left, I was given generous portions of carrot, bean and tomato salad.
I packed away the samosa and quiche and ate the sausage roll and salads for lunch.
Afterwards, several members of staff invited me to explore the building. I visited the library, joined a table of mainly academics discussing the controversy surrounding Jason Arday and successfully offloaded my spare food.
And the lovely doorman suggested that I visit the grand hall and see the new portrait of the king before I left.
Cheap lunch, Georgian architecture, intellectual controversy and no food waste. I considered my cheap London day out so far to be a triumph.
The RSA is another example of how apparently exclusive London spaces are sometimes more accessible than they appear. I have found eight exclusive London events and experiences you can access for free—without a private income or a friend with a title.
Total spent: £7.50
Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go is an app. Each shop or restaurant lists its own short collection window.
My lunch came from:
The Coffee House at RSA House
8 John Adam Street
London WC2N 6EZ
Open Monday to Friday, 8.30 am–5 pm. Non-members are welcome but must sign in at reception. Surprise Bag availability, prices and collection times vary, so check the app on the day.
Cheap Day Out in London Hack – Free Live Jazz at Café Bohème
Buoyed by my social and culinary success, I set off in search of the next adventure.
From the Strand, I took a bus to Cambridge Circus. Café Bohème occupies a particularly fashionable corner of Soho on Old Compton Street. It is within striking distance of Ronnie Scott’s, Bar Italia and L’Escargot.
And this is a cheap day out in London hack – it offers free live jazz every afternoon. There is no admission charge, so for the price of a drink you can listen to some excellent London musicians. These are the stalwarts of the London music circuit, and you’d otherwise have to buy an expensive ticket or club entry to hear them play. They don’t get rich from their performance at Cafe Boheme, but the venue does give them lunch.
If Dom Pipkin is playing his exuberant New Orleans jazz, you may even see people dancing.
Live jazz currently runs from 4 pm to 6.30 pm Monday to Wednesday and from 3 pm to 5.30 pm Thursday to Sunday. Check the Café Bohème live-music programme before travelling, as the performers change daily.
Tea, coffee or two-thirds of a pint of 1664 will keep your bar bill comfortably below £6.
Total spent: £4
Café Bohème
Café Bohème
13 Old Compton Street
London W1D 5JQ
Monday–Wednesday: 8 am–1 am
Thursday: 8 am–2 am
Friday: 8 am–3 am
Saturday: 9 am–3 am
Sunday: 9 am–midnight
Free live jazz currently takes place from 4 pm–6.30 pm Monday to Wednesday and from 3 pm–5.30 pm Thursday to Sunday.
Luxury Artisan Gelato at Gelupo
It is the end of summer, and I always try to squeeze in a few visits to Gelupo before the days become autumnal and ice cream doesn’t feel like a necessity.
Gelupo’s gelato is made fresh each day by the team behind Bocca di Lupo, the stylish Italian restaurant directly opposite on Archer Street.
There are three sizes of cone: single, double and triple. The price difference is negligible, but an enormous ice cream produces a sugar high that I can no longer handle. If you are undecided, the staff will usually let you taste a flavour from one of those tiny ice-cream spoons.
At £6.50 for an ice cream, it may not sound like a bargain worthy of a mention on a post about a cheap London day out, but this is only because you haven’t tasted it!
The greatest surprise is the intensity of Gelupo’s sorbets. They have absolutely nothing in common with the pale, watery sorbets found in supermarkets.
I chose apricot sorbet, which tasted like a concentrated fresh-fruit compote, combined with fig-leaf ice cream. And yes, it was made with fig leaves. The flavour was earthy and green—slightly reminiscent of matcha, but with a hint of coconut and lemon. If my ice cream looks paltry, it is because I intentionally asked for a smaller amount.
It was a perfect combination, and I felt smug when the Boca Di Lupo restaurant manager, who was doing a wine tasting with a supplier, encouraged her to try the same ice cream combo.
Total spent: £6.50
Gelupo
Gelupo
7 Archer Street
Soho
London W1D 7AU
Sunday–Thursday: noon–11 pm
Friday and Saturday: noon–midnight
London’s Cheapest Cappuccino?
On my way back from Gelupo, I walked back along Old Compton Street and stopped at Algerian Coffee Stores for a takeaway decaffeinated cappuccino.
I have written about this marvellous Soho institution before because, at £2, it is practically performing a public service. It must be one of the cheapest—and best—coffees in Soho.
If it is your first visit, the old-fashioned interior is a pleasure in itself. The shop is crammed with coffees from around the world, freshly ground to order, and the smell hits you as soon as you walk through the door.
The coffee is strictly takeaway, so I carried mine to nearby Soho Square Gardens, found a bench and settled down for some obligatory people-watching before taking the Elizabeth line home.
Total spent: £2
Algerian Coffee Stores
Algerian Coffee Stores
52 Old Compton Street
Soho
London W1D 4PB
Monday–Wednesday: 10 am–6 pm
Thursday–Saturday: 10 am–7 pm
Sunday: closed
My Cheap London Day Out Cost £20
If £20 still sounds extravagant for a cheap day out in London, you might enjoy my more severe experiment: an afternoon in London for just £5. London is expensive, but it also rewards anyone prepared to ignore the obvious tourist attractions and do a little advance plotting.
If you have more energy than I did, you could add a walk through Soho, browse the shops on Oxford Street or visit more free galleries without spending another penny.
The less enlightened may use their £20 to buy a single exhibition ticket. I managed free masterpieces at the National Gallery, lunch at the RSA, live jazz in Soho, artisan gelato, excellent coffee and a final bout of people-watching in Soho Square.
Not bad for the price of being herded around one blockbuster exhibition.
