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Independent, London 465 guides to London Nobody pays to appear Every price checked at the source We take no bookings Est. 2026

Location

No. 44

Things to Do in Covent Garden: The Streets Behind the Piazza

The Piazza is a shopping centre. The things worth doing are around it: a transport museum, a church whose front door is false, the opera house and the pubs down the alleys.

Written by Robert J Wills
Updated 3 Oct 2026
Reading time 9 min
Last checked 28 Sep 2026
A cobbled Covent Garden side street at dusk strung with lights

Covent Garden is the most visited part of central London and the most misjudged. The Piazza itself is a shopping centre with a street performer in the middle of it, and the best things to do here are on the streets around it, or behind doors most people walk straight past.

Everything below is within a five minute walk of that square, and the difference in quality is enormous.

What to do in Covent Garden

London Transport Museum

Address
Covent Garden Piazza, WC2E 7BB
Nearest
Covent Garden, two minutes on foot. Leicester Square, four
Hours
Every day, 10am to 6pm, last entry 5.15pm
Price
An Annual Pass is 27 pounds for an adult and free for under 18s. You also book a free timed ticket for the day you visit

How to get in

The ticket is a year rather than a single visit, so it pays for itself the second time you come, and children go free. Their own advice is that the afternoon is the quieter time to visit.

Two hundred years of London’s buses, trams and trains, on the Piazza itself. Hidden London, run by the same museum, is the way into the stations that closed, and the unusual things to do guide covers the tours, Aldwych first.

St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden

Address
Covent Garden, entered through the gardens behind the church
Nearest
Covent Garden or Leicester Square
Hours
Usually open for visiting 9am to 5.30pm on weekdays. Services on Wednesday at 1.10pm and on Sunday at 11am
Booking
The church office is on 020 7836 5221, worth a call before a special visit
Standing
The Actors’ Church, with almost four hundred years of history by its own count

How to get in

The door under the grand portico on the Piazza is false. The church was turned round at the last minute so that its altar would face east, and the real entrance is through the gardens at the back. It closes for weddings, memorials and its own summer theatre season, which is why the office asks you to ring first.

The portico facing the Piazza is where Shaw set the opening scene of Pygmalion, which became the opening of My Fair Lady, and the walls inside are lined with memorial plaques to theatre people, from the famous to the humble. The gardens it stands in are a burial ground, and a quiet one, a few steps from the crowd on the Piazza.

Royal Opera House

Address
Bow Street, WC2E 9DD
Nearest
Covent Garden. Step free from Leicester Square, Holborn or Tottenham Court Road
Hours
Open daily from midday until after the evening performance. With no evening performance, to 11pm Monday to Saturday and 9pm on Sunday
Standing
The home of the Royal Ballet and Opera, the company’s name since 2024

How to get in

The building opens at midday every day, with a ground floor café and a shop, and there are entrances on Bow Street and on the Piazza. It is cashless, bags are checked on the way in, and large bags and backpacks have to go into the cloakroom, so allow extra time and travel light.

The opera house is not called that any more, or rather the company is not. It renamed itself Royal Ballet and Opera in 2024. The building is still the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and they still use that name for the address, but the organisation putting on the performances is now the RBO. If you are eating before a performance, curtain up is usually 7pm or 7.30pm rather than 8pm, so a 6pm table is a pre-theatre table, not an early dinner, and how to time a theatre evening works it backwards from the curtain.

Seven Dials, Neal Street and Somerset House

The better shopping is north of the Piazza. Neal Street and Seven Dials hold the independents that are not on every high street, and Seven Dials Market on Earlham Street puts twenty one street food traders and two bars under one roof, run by KERB as a social enterprise. The food markets guide has its three booking rules.

Somerset House is five minutes south, on the Strand. Its eighteenth century courtyard becomes a skating rink from 11 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, and the season’s best evening slots go on the day tickets are released, which the Christmas guide covers. Spring, one of the best restaurants in the district, is in its New Wing.

Where to drink

The Lamb and Flag is down an alley off Garrick Street, which is the whole charm and the reason people cannot find it. It is small downstairs and spills into the alley from six, so the upstairs room is the one to aim for, and the oldest pubs guide explains why the 1623 date on the sign does not hold up.

The Harp on Chandos Place, two minutes from Charing Cross, was the first London pub to win CAMRA’s National Pub of the Year, in 2010. It takes no bookings on a Saturday and has no kitchen at all, so eat first. The best pubs in London has the rest.

The American Bar at The Savoy, on the Strand, is one of the oldest surviving cocktail bars in the world and opens at midday, which is the best hour to see the room. There is no formal dress code, but guests are asked to dress elegantly and sports jerseys are turned away. And the upstairs bar at Rules, The Winter Gardens, is the room most people eating downstairs never find.

Where to eat

Covent Garden’s restaurants have a guide of their own, with the set menu prices, the kitchen closing times and the booking rules that differ branch to branch. The short version: Rules on Maiden Lane has been open since 1798 and is London’s oldest restaurant, Clos Maggiore’s conservatory has to be requested by name when you book, and the good tables are all on the streets off the Piazza rather than on it.

The station is the trap

This is the practical thing almost nobody tells you. Covent Garden Underground station has lifts rather than escalators, four of them, and at busy times it is restricted to exit only. That is TfL’s own arrangement, not an occasional accident.

Their advice when it happens is to use Leicester Square or Charing Cross, both a short signposted walk away. Both are genuinely quicker on a Saturday afternoon. Leicester Square is about three minutes on foot from the Piazza and you will almost always beat the lift queue.

Practical notes

Walk two streets in any direction. The rents on the Piazza are paid for by footfall rather than by regulars, and that is as true of the shops as the restaurants. Maiden Lane, King Street, Floral Street and Neal Street are where the district improves.

The Piazza itself is roofed. The Apple Market and the Jubilee Market sit under the old market roof, and with the Transport Museum and the opera house beside them, this is one of the better neighbourhoods in London for a wet afternoon. The rainy day guide has the rest of the dry options.

Visit the church on a weekday. St Paul’s opens for visitors from 9am to 5.30pm on weekdays, and a Wednesday lunchtime has a thirty minute service at 1.10pm.

Everything here was taken from the venues’ own published information and rechecked in full on 28 September 2026. Hours and prices change, so confirm before travelling.

Everything this guide has in Covent Garden

48 places, gathered from every page on this site rather than just this one. Each was checked against the venue's own published information, and the link goes to wherever it is written up in full.

Restaurants

Pubs and bars

See and do

Hotels

Your position is read in this browser, matched to the nearest neighbourhood we have written up, and sent nowhere.

Chinatown is a few minutes west, and the page on it is honest about which of its restaurants are actually worth the walk.

Where to go next

Neal’s Yard is the painted courtyard through the passageways, with a Bib Gourmand counter in it.

The Covent Garden restaurants guide covers where to eat here, including the kitchens that close two hours before their dining rooms do. Soho is the next postcode west and a completely different evening.

For the wider field, the best restaurants in London covers the city and the starred rooms cover the top of it. If the evening is a date rather than a dinner, the romantic restaurants are chosen on the room.

Endell Street holds the oldest chip shop in London, trading since 1871, which is covered with its closing rules in the fish and chips guide.

Questions we get asked

Is Covent Garden worth visiting?

The streets around it are. The Piazza itself is a shopping centre with a street performer in the middle, and the good things are a few minutes away: the London Transport Museum, St Paul's, the Actors' Church, the Royal Opera House, the shops of Neal Street and Seven Dials, and the pubs down its alleys. Everything worth the trip is within a five minute walk of that square.

What is there to do in Covent Garden?

The London Transport Museum on the Piazza, open daily from 10am to 6pm. St Paul's, the Actors' Church, whose front door on the Piazza is false and whose real entrance is through the gardens behind. The Royal Opera House, open from midday every day. Seven Dials Market and the independents on Neal Street, and in winter the skating rink in the courtyard of Somerset House, five minutes south on the Strand.

How much is the London Transport Museum?

An adult Annual Pass is 27 pounds, and it covers unlimited visits for twelve months. Under 18s go free. Alongside the pass you book a free timed ticket for the day you want to go. The museum is on Covent Garden Piazza and opens every day from 10am to 6pm, with last entry at 5.15pm, and its own advice is that the afternoon is the quieter time.

Why is the door of St Paul's Church in Covent Garden false?

Because the church was turned round. Inigo Jones planned its entrance on the Piazza, but at the last minute the Bishop of London insisted on the usual arrangement, with the altar facing east, so the door under the portico became a false one. The real entrance is through the gardens behind the church. The portico is also where Shaw set the opening of Pygmalion, and so of My Fair Lady.

What line is Covent Garden on?

The Piccadilly line, and it is the only line that serves the station. Leicester Square, about three minutes away on foot, sits on both the Piccadilly and the Northern, which makes it the more useful station for most journeys and usually the faster one on a busy day.

Is Covent Garden station open?

It is open, but at busy times it runs exit only, which is TfL's own standing arrangement rather than an occasional closure. The station has four lifts and no escalators, so it cannot move people down fast enough at peak. Use Leicester Square or Charing Cross instead, both a short signposted walk away, and you will almost always beat the lift queue.

What shops are in Covent Garden?

The Apple Market and the Jubilee Market inside the Piazza itself, plus the surrounding streets, which run to the usual chains with a long tail of small independents behind them. Neal Street and Seven Dials immediately to the north are the better shopping if you want something that is not on every high street.

Written by Robert J Wills, no. 44 in the guide.

Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.

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