The ten minute rule for a first evening in an unfamiliar city

The ten minute rule

The advice the office gives most often to somebody new to London is also the least glamorous. For a first evening, choose a zone where the hotel, the table and the walk back all fit inside ten minutes of each other. Not the most famous district, not the one from the film, but the one where nothing about the evening needs a car, a map or a decision about which of four exits to take.

The reasoning is simple. A first evening in a new city, with somebody you have not met before, already holds enough unknowns. Every extra journey adds another: a taxi that does not come, a station with a queue at the lifts, a restaurant that turns out to be twenty minutes further away than it looked on a phone. Take those away and what is left is the conversation, which is the part you actually booked.

Three zones on this board pass the test comfortably: Marylebone, Mayfair and Covent Garden. Several of the famous ones do not, and it is worth knowing why before you choose.

Where not to start, and why

Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus are the places most visitors picture, and they are the worst places on the board for a first evening: crowded, loud, and short of anywhere pleasant to sit. Shoreditch is a very good night out once you know the city, but nobody on the board lives there, the evening starts late, and the ride back to a central hotel is long. Canary Wharf is excellent after nine and silent at weekends, which is exactly what a first timer does not need.

Knightsbridge and Belgravia are lovely and pass the ten minute test, but both go quiet early, and a first evening that runs out of things to do at half past ten can feel flat. They make better second evenings, once you know you want a quieter one. Chelsea fails on distance alone, because the King's Road is far longer than anyone expects on their first visit.

Marylebone, the easiest village in London

Marylebone is the gentlest first evening on the board. The High Street is short, the side streets are quiet, and almost everything sits within a few minutes of everything else. Daunt Books, the Edwardian bookshop with its long galleried back room, makes a good meeting point if a hotel lobby feels too formal, and the parish church at the top of the High Street, with the garden a street away, gives the walk after dinner an obvious shape.

The restaurants are small and serious, and an eight o'clock table booked a day ahead is nearly always possible. The hotels just outside the village, W1B 1JA and NW1 6JQ among them, are a ten or twelve minute walk, which bends the rule slightly but not enough to matter. Rosa, who lives in W1U and can name a table on the High Street for almost any mood, is an ideal first introduction to the zone: warm, easy going and never in a hurry.

Marylebone also has the quality first timers value most without knowing it: nobody is looking at anybody. The village is full of people who live there, going about their evening, and two people walking back from dinner are the least remarkable sight on the street.

Mayfair, if the hotel is already there

Plenty of first time visitors are already staying in Mayfair, and for them the answer is to stay put. W1K and W1J are small, the streets are quiet after nine, and the district is full of short walks that feel like discoveries: Mount Street Gardens hidden behind the shops, the lanes of Shepherd Market, Berkeley Square under its great plane trees. None of them needs a car.

Three companions live inside those two postcodes, which gives Mayfair the steadiest arrival times on the board and makes it the zone where a first booking is least likely to involve waiting. Luna, who lives in the district and knows every W1 lobby by sight, is a natural first name here. She is warm once seated and happiest at an outside table with a long first drink, which on a mild evening is exactly the right pace.

Covent Garden, if there is a ticket

If the first evening involves a show, Covent Garden is the obvious base. The Piazza, the Royal Opera House, St Paul's Church and a dozen theatres all sit within eight minutes of each other, and the supper rooms around them are at their best after the curtain. The district is compact enough that a companion who lives there can plan the whole evening on foot.

Nancy, who lives off the Piazza, is the name to try for a first theatre evening. She is direct, which new visitors often find a relief, and she likes a nine o'clock booth in the big brasserie on Russell Street, where nobody minds if the conversation takes a while to warm up.

Rosa, Luna and Nancy all appear on the curvaceous list, so if that is where you started browsing, each of the three zones above already has a good first name in it.

Shaping the first evening

For a first booking the office usually suggests the unhurried evening, three hours at £700. It is long enough for a drink, a proper dinner and the walk back without anybody glancing at a watch, and short enough that you are not committing a whole night to someone you have only just met. Two hours at £500 works if you are tired from travelling; four at £900 if dinner is the whole point.

The message itself is short. Send the date, the hour, the length and the hotel name, and hold back the room number until the office has confirmed. The fee goes to her in person when she arrives. Sylvie answers most messages herself and will tell you plainly if the zone you have picked does not suit the evening you describe.

One more thing worth knowing on a first night: London goes to bed earlier than many visitors expect, and its districts do not keep the same hours. Our note on when each zone winds down is worth reading before you settle on a start time.