Every date ideas list in London runs to seventy one items and most of them are variations on “go for a walk”. They are written to be long rather than to be used.
This one is short, and every entry names the place, what it costs and the catch. Sorted by what the evening actually needs, because a first date and a fifth anniversary are not the same problem.
A first date that needs an exit
The rule for a first evening is that it should be easy to leave and easy to extend. Dinner is neither: it is three hours, one table and a bill that arrives whenever the kitchen decides.
The Wallace Collection
- Address
- Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN
- Nearest
- Bond Street or Baker Street
- Hours
- Daily, 10am to 5pm
- Price
- Free
How to get in
Free, central, and almost empty on a weekday. An hour here is a real conversation with something to look at, and if it is going badly you leave at the end of a room rather than at the end of a course. If it is going well, Marylebone High Street is four minutes away and full of places to continue.
The other version is an early film. Not because a film is a good date, it famously is not, but because a 6pm screening ends at eight with the whole evening still available and an obvious thing to talk about.
Free, and it does not look cheap
This is the section most lists get wrong. Free in London is not a compromise, because the best things here happen to cost nothing.
Sky Garden
- Address
- 1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF
- Nearest
- Monument or Fenchurch Street
- Hours
- Free tickets 10am to 6pm on weekdays and 11am to 9pm at weekends. Bars 8am to midnight Sunday to Thursday, to 1am Friday and Saturday
- Price
- Free with a booked ticket
How to get in
The view costs nothing, which nobody believes until they are up there. Book the free timed ticket the moment you know the date, because they go, and know that it is valid for an hour. Walk ins depend on capacity and are not a plan. There are bars up there if you want to spend money, and after the free hours end they are the way up.
Evensong at Westminster Abbey
- Address
- 20 Deans Yard, SW1P 3PA
- Nearest
- Westminster or St James's Park
- Hours
- 5pm Monday to Friday, 3pm Saturday and Sunday
- Price
- Free
How to get in
An unusual suggestion and a very good one. Forty five minutes of one of the finest choirs in Europe, inside the Abbey, sitting in the Quire rather than filing past it, for nothing. The tourists outside paid to walk around it in daylight with no music. No ticket, no booking, security checks on the way in.
Hampstead Heath and a pub is the daytime version, and the South Bank at dusk is the one that works in any weather short of rain.
Not sitting down
A date where you are both looking at something is easier than a date where you are looking at each other. That is the whole argument for this category.
Columbia Road Flower Market
- Address
- Columbia Road, Bethnal Green, E2
- Nearest
- Hoxton or Bethnal Green
- Hours
- Sundays only, in the market's own words from 8am til 3(ish!)
- Price
- Free
How to get in
The best Sunday morning date in London. Go at eight for the pick and stay for breakfast on the street. It is one street, it gets genuinely packed by ten, and it winds down from about three, which is as precise as the market itself gets.
Leadenhall Market
- Address
- Gracechurch Street, EC3V
- Nearest
- Monument or Bank
- Price
- Free to walk through
How to get in
A Victorian arcade of red and gold ironwork under a glass roof, in the middle of the City, and almost empty at weekends because everyone who works around it has gone home. Ten minutes of genuine astonishment, and it is covered, which makes it a rain plan as well.
When it has to be good
The mistake here is spending the money on the wrong part of the evening. A famous restaurant at eight and nothing else is worse than a modest dinner with a plan either side of it.
Brasserie Zédel
- Address
- 20 Sherwood Street, Soho
- Nearest
- Piccadilly Circus
- Hours
- From midday, last orders 11pm Monday to Saturday and only 4pm on Sunday
- Price
- Prix fixe, two courses £16.95
How to get in
A vast art deco Parisian dining room under Piccadilly at a price that has no business existing in W1. Book it, spend the difference on the bar afterwards, and the evening is better than the one where dinner took the whole budget. The Sunday 4pm finish catches people out constantly.
Then go somewhere for one drink. The cocktail bars cover which rooms keep space back for walk ins, which is the detail that decides whether the second half of the evening happens.
Sunday, which is the hardest day
London closes in patches on a Sunday and most date ideas lists do not mention it. Columbia Road is a Sunday market. The national museums are open. Evensong is at 3pm rather than 5pm. Brasserie Zédel stops serving at four.
The weekend guide covers what is actually open, which is more than people expect and less than they assume.
When it rains
The South Kensington subway is the answer nobody knows. A pedestrian tunnel runs from inside the station up Exhibition Road to the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V and A, and the Natural History Museum publishes it as step free access to its Central Entrance, so a wet afternoon across three world class free museums barely puts you in the rain. The rainy day guide covers the rest.
How to plan one of these date ideas London wide
Two things, not four. An evening with four bookings is an itinerary, and being marched through it is not romantic. Two moves in the same postcode, with the second one unbooked, is the format that works.
Book the restaurant, leave the bar to chance. The good bars turn over quickly and hold space back. The good restaurants do not.
Keep the first one short. An hour that ends while you both still want more is a better first date than three hours that ends because the room is closing.
Everything here was taken from each venue’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Prices and hours change. Confirm before you book.
Bottomless brunch is the daytime version, and the cigar terraces the late one.
Where to go next
Things to do in London for couples covers how to structure an evening rather than what to put in it, and the romantic restaurants cover the rooms themselves.
Free things to do in London covers how much of this costs nothing, and the cocktail bars cover the second half of the evening.
Questions we get asked
What are good date ideas in London?
Ones that are easy to leave and easy to extend. The Wallace Collection is free, central and quiet on a weekday. Sky Garden gives you the view for nothing if you book the free ticket ahead. Columbia Road Flower Market on a Sunday morning is the best daytime date in the city. Evensong at Westminster Abbey is forty five minutes of one of Europe's finest choirs, also free, and almost nobody thinks of it.
What are cheap date ideas in London?
Most of the best ones. Sky Garden is free with a booked ticket, every national museum is free, Evensong costs nothing, and Columbia Road is free to walk. For dinner, Brasserie Zédel in Soho does two courses for £16.95 in an art deco room that looks like it should cost four times that. Free in London is not a compromise.
What is the most romantic thing to do in London?
Evensong at Westminster Abbey, if you want the honest answer rather than the obvious one: forty five minutes in the Quire with one of the finest choirs in Europe, at 5pm on a weekday or 3pm at the weekend, for nothing. The predictable answer is a view, and the best of those is Sky Garden, which is also free.
Where should you go on a first date in London?
Somewhere with an hour's natural length and an easy exit. A small museum then a drink works because it ends at the door of the museum rather than at the end of a course. The Wallace Collection is the best of them: free, central and quiet, with Marylebone High Street four minutes away if it is going well.
What can you do on a date in London that is not dinner?
Look at something together, which is easier than looking at each other. Columbia Road on a Sunday morning, Leadenhall Market's Victorian arcade in the City, the South Bank at dusk, Hampstead Heath and a pub, or an early film that ends at eight with the evening still ahead of you. The guide for couples covers the structure of an evening in more detail.
What are good date ideas in London when it rains?
Use the South Kensington subway. A pedestrian tunnel runs from inside the station to the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V and A, so a wet afternoon across three world class free collections costs nothing and barely puts you outside. Leadenhall Market is the other one: covered, ornate and nearly empty at weekends.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 73 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
