You’ve been to the capital’s major art galleries, dined at your pick of its best restaurants and seen all that’s caught your eye in the West End. So what to do on an alternative date in London? We round up the city’s lesser-known immersive experiences, hidden haunts and unusual activities, sure to surprise and thrill on a date with a difference.
Absurdist adventure, interactive theatre, multimedia art installations and culinary experimentation combine in Gingerline’s Chamber of Flavours. Among the hottest tickets in town, the Gingerline team have been transporting daring guests into immersive, ‘multidimensional’ dining experiences since 2010. Due to the top secret nature of these events – exactly what you’ll be eating won’t be revealed until you get there, while the location of the event is sent out by text message at 10am on the day of your visit – we can’t reveal much more. But what we can say with some certainty is this is about as experimental a date night you’ll find in London.
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A CW all-time favourite, the former home of Victorian artist Frederic Leighton is one of London’s loveliest hidden gems and a truly beautiful space to explore on a date. Constructed between 1866–95, this purpose-built art studio-cum-house is decorated with stunning colour and orientalist design. The jewel-toned mosaics and Islamic tiles that cover the walls in the Arab Hall are superlatively gorgeous, and the enormous open studio offers a peek into intricacies of Leighton’s world. The museum also runs regular lates, bringing in bands to fill the space with live music, so why not time your date to coincide with one of those and stick around to see the lights dimmed?
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Let The Great Gatsby immersive experience transport you and your date back in time to the roaring twenties of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel. Gold sequins glint from every surface, prohibition is flouted in a surfeit of champagne and gin, and the crowd here is a mass of sparkle and feathers (seriously, this is one for couples who love dressing up). Together you’ll learn to Charleston, creep down corridors behind adulterers or eavesdrop on plans for a tea party. Depending on which character you follow, you’ll experience different snippets of the story. And if you choose to be bold and split up, you'll have all the more fun regrouping and putting all the pieces together.
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Whether you’re already masters in the kitchen or looking for a new skill to develop together, pasta-making masterclasses at Petersham Nurseries offer an induction to pasta making, using traditional dough recipes and shapes. Working with fresh ingredients, you’ll learn how to make ravioli, garganelli and tagliatelle as well as a number of simple Italian sauces. The best bit? You can take home your freshly made pasta (as well as pasta flour, Haye Farm eggs and a homemade tomato sauce), to heat up and enjoy in a romantic setting of your own creation.
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One for arty couples: Drink, Shop & Do by King’s Cross offers a host of different craft-based evenings for a chance to get creative while enjoying some tipples at the same time. From their regular Naughty Nipple Tassel making events to their upcoming pumpkin carving workshops, the programme here is a cheeky, up-for-a-good-time step away from the more sombre offering at, say, pottery cafés. If it’s early days for you and your date, you might be pleased to hear that many Drink, Shop & Do events have a complimentary glass of prosecco included in the ticket price – handy to ease the nerves. Cheers to that.
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If you and your partner are looking for something a little more down to earth, Forage London are an organisation offering foraging events of various sorts across the city. Their autumn programme is jam-packed (literally, in some cases) with activities, from wild food walks to natural medicine masterclasses and mushroom forays. The pair of you can bond over the craft of foraging, and take away skills and natural ingredients to cook together in the kitchen.
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