Notting Hill, London: Portobello, the Painted Streets and What to Skip

Notting Hill is best known for a film and a market, which undersells it considerably. It has the best cinema in London, streets of painted terraces that reward a slow walk, a carnival that draws around a million people, and, almost unknown to the crowds arriving for the market, two of London’s six three Michelin star restaurants within a ten-minute walk of each other.

The market is still the reason most people come, and the day you choose decides what you get.

Portobello Road, and the day that matters

The single most useful thing to know: the market is not the same market every day.

Friday is the second busiest day: antiques at the southern end, food and new fashion in the middle, and vintage and collectables at Portobello Green. Quieter and better for browsing, but the antique arcades themselves stay shut until Saturday.

Saturday is the full market: antiques, food, fashion, the lot. It is also extremely crowded, to the point where walking the length of it takes longer than you would believe.

Monday to Thursday the street market is a fruit and vegetable run, and outside summer and December there is no Sunday street market at all, which is not nothing but is not the market either. If someone tells you they went to Portobello on a Tuesday and found it disappointing, this is why. The Portobello Road Market guide has the full week, including the antique arcades that open on Saturdays alone.

The painted houses everyone photographs are mostly on the residential stretches around Lancaster Road and St Luke’s Mews. They are people’s homes. Photograph them from the pavement and do not sit on the steps.

The cinema, and the pub

The best cinema in London by some distance, and on Portobello Road itself, so it fits into a market day rather than needing an evening of its own.

The best things to do in Notting Hill, and how to spend a day here

Friday: Portobello for the vintage at Portobello Green and the antiques at the southern end, lunch in the Cow’s saloon bar, and a film at the Electric in the afternoon, when an armchair costs less before five.

Saturday: the full market early, before about ten, then get off Portobello entirely. The side streets are the pleasure and everyone else is on the main road.

Any evening: one of the two three-star rooms if you booked three months ago, the Cow if you did not.

Sunday: quiet, and the best day to simply walk the residential streets between Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Park Road.

Where to eat

Notting Hill’s restaurants have a guide of their own, and the headline is the one above. Core by Clare Smyth on Kensington Park Road and The Ledbury on Ledbury Road both hold three stars, alongside Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Hélène Darroze at The Connaught and Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library. That list was checked against the MICHELIN Guide’s own London listing, rechecked on 28 September 2026, and it is exactly six, name for name. Three of the other four are in Mayfair and the fourth is in Chelsea, which makes Notting Hill the only neighbourhood outside Mayfair with more than one.

For scale, the same listing shows 85 starred restaurants for London and its surroundings, 6 with three stars, 15 with two and 64 with one. Notting Hill holds a third of the top tier, and both of its three star rooms book months ahead rather than weeks. For breakfast, Granger and Co on Westbourne Grove takes no bookings, since it books tables only from 5pm, and it always keeps room for walk ins.

Practical notes

Three stations, and they are not equivalent. Notting Hill Gate is the southern end, nearest the antiques end of Portobello Road. Ladbroke Grove is the northern end, nearer the Electric and the market’s food stretch. Westbourne Park serves the north east corner and The Cow. Pick by what you came for.

Carnival is the last weekend of August. Around a million people. If you are visiting for the market or the restaurants, do not come that weekend; if you are coming for Carnival, do not expect to do anything you planned.

It is residential. More so than any other area in this guide. The pleasure is the streets rather than a strip of venues, and the pace should match.

Everything here was checked against venue and guide sources, and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Opening days and star ratings change, so confirm before travelling.

The other districts covered here: Soho, Mayfair, Shoreditch, Marylebone, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. Each is written the same way, on what the places themselves publish rather than on atmosphere.

Where to go next

The Kyoto Garden is in Holland Park, a short walk from Notting Hill Gate, and is free from 7.30am until dusk.

The market running through this postcode needs planning, not just a postcode. Portobello Road Market is open seven days in name and two in practice: Friday and Saturday are the full market, the antique arcades open on Saturdays alone from seven in the morning, and outside summer and December there is no Sunday street market at all.

The Notting Hill restaurants guide covers where to eat, including the one every other list still recommends and which has closed. London’s Michelin starred restaurants puts Core and the Ledbury in the context of the rest, and the best bars in London covers where to drink once you have eaten.

For a neighbourhood that works in the opposite way, all towers and water and empty at weekends, our Canary Wharf guide is the contrast. Soho is the other direction again. And our main London guide has the rest.