London Nights | Grown-Up Delights

Quote of the Week - “It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely.” - Cole Porter

Good Afternoon, London. In this edition of The London Palette, you’ll see our city is wrapping itself in a richer kind of sparkle. Lambeth Council shines as it quietly rewrites the rulebook on people-first regeneration. There’s a barn in Sloane Square that’s serving luxury as an experience, not just a logo. They feed into the feeling that London is both softer and sharper at once. You might find yourself under candlelight in a historic hospital hall. Or, you can float through a Tunisian café and radical bookshop near Oxford Circus. After singing your heart out at a soulful bingo, you could order a full Christmas roast at 3am. Consider this your handy guide to London nights, grown-up delights.

Snatched highlights from this edition:

1. Play Soul Bingo at Your Office Party

2. From Buzzwords to Borough of the Year

3. Enter the Cultural House and Stay for a While

4. Live Music - Jo Harrop, Antonio Forcionne & lots more!

Let’s dive in.

—Bybreen Samuels

COUNCIL CANVAS

Lambeth Turned Regeneration Into a People-First Win

Lambeth’s gamble has paid off. It has just been told by the whole planning world, that its strategic bet on its People First regeneration goal is transforming lives. Just last month it was named Borough of the Year at the New London Architecture Awards 2025. The South London Council beat a crowded field to be recognised as the place doing the most to activate its planning theory to produce results. The theory prioritises equity, climate action and inclusive growth, and has produced tangible outcomes of actual streets, homes and public spaces. This is the first time N.L.A. has handed out a borough‑wide prize because what Lambeth is doing goes well beyond the usual Best Place to Live rankings. Instead, the awarding body judged Lambeth by what it is building, how it is engaging stakeholders and who really benefits.

The Award is effectively a verdict on Lambeth Council’s policy model. Judges praised their “strong focus on people and community engagement.” All of this is underpinned by a clear strategy that links affordable housing, climate infrastructure and skills into one coherent growth narrative. Their submission leaned heavily on its SC1 health and life sciences cluster on the South Bank. This partnership led initiative includes a £1 billion new homes programme, the future of Waterloo Station and the surrounding environment. If you’re a policy geek you know this is a classic mission‑led local government. At the heart of it is the use of big regeneration projects to drive jobs, social value and decarbonisation instead of prioritising maximum financial gain from land sales.

The judges’ comments about youth programmes and community focused projects are especially telling in a policy context where consultation is often still treated as a tick‑box exercise. Lambeth’s approach is a combination of involving young people in place projects to re‑imagining assets like Brixton Recreation Centre with new workspaces, lighting and signage while preserving its community‑sports DNA. Taking a multifaceted approach suggests a shift towards genuine co‑operation and production. This aligns with wider evidence on Lambeth’s climate and engagement work, where external scorecards highlight strong partnership working with cultural institutions, schools and residents on net zero and behaviour change.

So what does Borough of the Year actually signal for councils across our capital? First, it raises the bar. New London Architecture is now rewarding a joined up, visionary stewardship rather than one‑off architectural trophies. By changing direction it strengthens the hand of officers arguing for integrated climate, housing and economic strategies. Also, it puts political capital behind the idea that regeneration must be done with communities, not just for them. These sentiments echo Councillor Claire Holland’s insistence that jobs, skills and life benefits are shared “equally across our communities.” For neighbouring boroughs juggling growth, austerity and climate deadlines, Lambeth’s win is less of a feel good headline. Rather, you should see it as a policy case study in how to turn the buzzwords of inclusion, resilience, opportunity, into something award‑winning, and crucially, shaped by residents.

CITY PALETTE

The 3am Xmas Roast London Didn’t Know It Needed

There are festivities, and then there’s eating a full Christmas dinner opposite Liverpool Street at 3am. Polo Bar is the 24 hour café that’s been propping up Londoners since 1953 and has brought back its Christmas menu. This seasonal shift is being billed as the only roast in the capital you can order at any hour of the day or night. We know our city runs on night shifts, delayed trains and varied nights out. So the idea that you can slide into a booth at dawn and be served turkey with all the trimmings feels like a very London signature.

The headline, round the clock serving of Christmas dinner is a bargain at £17.50. For this you get turkey, mash, pigs‑in‑blankets, seasonal veg, homemade stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy. Dinner is available whether you’ve just finished a late turn at the hospital or rolled out of a nearby bar. You can tuck into full portions, which fits Polo Bar’s reputation for humongous servings of unapologetically hearty café food. If you’re more into festive flavours than a full roast, there’s also the Crimbo Turkey Burger. Imagine a filling stack of turkey, stuffing, cheese, giant pigs‑in‑blankets, confit onions and chips.

Breakfast people aren’t left out in the cold. Santa’s Big Breakfast takes the classic fry up and slides it firmly into December. There’s streaky bacon, scrambled eggs, beans, tomato, stuffing, toast and, inevitably, pigs‑in‑blankets. It’s the sort of plate that works just as well for a morning after as it does for a pre‑Eurostar treat when you’ve got family in tow and everyone wants something different. And, if you’re feeling more like Scrooge than Santa, the regular menu from pancake stacks to milkshakes, runs alongside the festive specials.

Polo Bar’s seasonal pivot is less about novelty and more about what it says about London right now. A 24 hour café at 176 Bishopsgate quietly offering a Christmas menu until December 24 becomes a kind of unofficial clubhouse for the city’s night shift workers, hospitality crews, ravers and early bird commuters. It’s a reminder that the festive season here doesn’t just live in ticketed experiences and set menu dinners. But also in those slightly surreal, fluorescent lit moments where you find yourself eating pigs‑in‑blankets with friends or strangers, while the city outside resets for another day.

Find out more here - https://www.polobar.co.uk

Soul Bingo | Where Your Office Party Grows Up

Brixton has just found the sweet spot between a Christmas party, a nostalgia trip, and a games night you’ll actually remember in January. Soul Bingo’s Xmas Special lands at Brixton Jamm on December 19. This fun and festive event turns a dark Friday night into three tightly packed hours of Motown, soul, anthems from the 1970s and 1980s, laced with bingo cards and nostalgic prizes. Forget about hosting a cheesy office party. Instead, turn up the volume to hear Luther, Chaka, Anita and Whitney on the speakers. Join a room full of grown ups who know every hook and are not afraid of a full throttle singalong.

The concept is simple, but smart. The team behind Soul Supper have blended the mechanics of classic bingo, real music and some theatre for people who want a fun night out. The evening is designed around one main bingo game that is packed with shared moments. There’ll be mass belting out from slow jams to that collective roar when someone finally shouts, bingo. The whole event embraces a supper club vibe because you’ll be seated with friends rather than scrambling for tables. This could be an exciting alternative to the boring Christmas do.

Underneath the glitter, there’s a clever piece of community building going on. A birthday ticket tier means if you’re born in December you get a discounted entry, plus a cake and sparkler moment. This then becomes a ready‑made celebration format for the 40, 50 and 60 somethings who want something more joyful than a set menu in the West End. The whole event finishes at 10pm, so it neatly sidesteps the panic for the last tube. Or, the ‘I’m too tired for a 3am finish’ excuse.

Soul Bingo sits in that sweet category of nights that feel both low stress and high impact. Brixton Jamm’s reputation for good music programming gives the whole thing a relaxed, South London energy. The soul and Motown soundtrack keeps it firmly aimed at the generation who grew up with these records, not on TikTok edits of them. If you’ve been promising yourself one proper festive night out that doesn’t involve novelty jumpers or team building icebreakers, this is the date to circle on your calendar.

Book tickets here - https://soulbingo.uk

UNDISCOVERED GEMS

The Cultural House That Wants You to Stay a While

You know those places that feel finished before you’ve even walked in? Ibraaz is the opposite because it feels like it’s inviting you to help write what happens next. Housed in a six storey Grade II listed townhouse a few minutes from Oxford Circus, this new cultural centre is dedicated to art, ideas and music from the Global Majority. This is the type of venue that aims to cater to those with a wide palette. It contains a bookshop, café, library and gathering rooms woven through the building. You may wander in just for a look and suddenly you’re staying for a talk, a screening, or an impromptu listening session.

First, it grabs your attention on the ground floor. The Maktaba bookshop tempts you with global fiction, theory and poetry you don’t see piled high elsewhere. It’s curated by the Palestine Festival of Literature and is run by Burley Fisher Books. Next door is Oula Café, a Tunisian House of Harvests led by chef Boutheina Ben Salem. The smell of coffee draws you in to sample mezze style plates and pantry goods that turn lunch into a mini North African detour. You come in for a flat white, then find yourself in a conversation about film or pocketing a flyer for tonight’s music night.

Then your curiosity kicks in and you head upstairs, where the atmosphere shifts from cosy to quietly cinematic. The Majlis Assembly Hall hosts exhibitions, talks and music, opening with Ibrahim Mahama’s Parliament of Ghosts. Picture an installation built from colonial style furniture and stitched jute sacks that turns the ballroom into a meditation on repair and history. As you venture deeper inside, the Iqra Library‑in‑Residence, launched with The Otolith Group, feels like a living archive of books, films and maps. A place where you can read, research or tuck yourself away between events. While downstairs, Minassa becomes the screening and performance space where late night films and experimental sound start to take over.

By this point, the desire is simple. You want this to be your regular, go to third space, away from home and work. What makes Ibraaz such an undiscovered gem is the way everything is held together by hospitality rather than hierarchy. Founded by Lina Lazaar and developed by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation as a brave space for Global Majority voices, it holds urgent, sometimes difficult conversations. But, they’re always grounded in generosity, food and listening. Next time you’re near Oxford Circus, give yourself an extra hour. Browse the radical bookshop, catch an intimate night of music, linger over Tunisian dishes, and leave feeling like the centre of London has quietly tilted a few degrees in a new direction.

Find out more here - https://ibraaz.org

LONDON BUZZ

Candlelight and Grime | Inside Barts’ New Music Secret

London’s newest live music crush is hiding in a hospital. When you walk through the doors of St Bartholomew’s in Smithfield, instead of a ward, you’ll find Barts’ North Wing. The exquisitely restored Great Hall and Hogarth Stair of the UK’s oldest working hospital, now moonlights as a candlelit concert venue. After a major restoration, the 18th century James Gibbs interiors have reopened to the public. Our city suddenly has a space where Baroque ceilings, Hogarth murals and modern sound tech meet under one roof. It feels less like a pop‑up and more like discovering a long lost cultural salon that’s been hiding in plain sight for 900 years.

In terms of programming, it’s already punching well above the idea of it being just a nice heritage place to hire. The Great Hall is now a regular home for Fever’s Candlelight series, where everything from Queen and ABBA to UK rap and grime is reimagined by string ensembles under hundreds of flickering candles. Sofar Sounds are moving in too by turning the space into an intimate gig room for emerging artists. Think in terms of secret line‑up acoustic sets, but framed by portraits and panelling instead of brickwork and fairy lights. Also, when you add in choral Christmas concerts, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra appearances and City Music Foundation events, you’ve got a calendar that jumps nimbly from classical to cult favourites without losing the sense of occasion.

What makes Barts’ North Wing feel so different is how hard it leans into the building’s medical story without turning the whole thing into a museum piece. Events like Music and Malady weave 900 years of hospital history, surgical curiosities and musical responses to illness into a witty, theatrical evening. It’s supported by narrators like Simon Callow and BBC Radio 3’s Donald Macleod. Regular tours of the Great Hall and Hogarth Stair sit alongside concerts and workshops. So you can geek out on the architecture before settling in at a cabaret styled table for Beethoven, Bernstein or a candlelit grime tribute.

The Great Hall is exactly the kind of cultural repurposing that keeps our city interesting. Instead of demolishing and rebuilding, Barts has opened up its most historic wing for public wellbeing and arts. A beautiful and quiet nod to the growing evidence that music and culture support health as much as medicine does. If you want a new night out in the Square Mile, a place where you can live out full Bridgerton ball fantasies one week, discover a Sofar act the next, add this destination to your cultural calendar. This is a place that allows you to experience both a concert and a 300 year old story.

Find out more here - https://bartsnorthwing.org.uk

LONDON SOUNDSCAPE

Blackheath Halls - December 13

Some nights you don’t just listen to music, you get swept up in it. Blackheath Goes Gospel offers you one of those nights. In the Great Hall at Blackheath Halls, the adult choir, advanced level singers and the children of Brindishe Green School gospel choir join forces for a goosebump raising celebration. You can expect big harmonies, call and response, hands in the air moments and that shared joy you only get from live gospel. With tickets ranging from £7 to £17, this is an easy, heart‑warming December booking.

Book tickets here - https://www.blackheathhalls.com

Bulls Head - December 12

The Royal Jam wants to bathe you in the groovy sounds of The Crusaders. This killer UK band mirrors that classic West Coast jazz‑funk line up of sax, trombone, piano, guitar, bass and drums. Carl Hudson channels Joe Sample’s unmistakable touch and alumni of Ronnie Scott’s delivering big, soulful ensemble playing, it’s serious musicianship with zero stuffiness. If you’re a proper jazz head, take this journey back to the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Book tickets here - https://tickets.thebullsheadbarnes.com

Hootananny Brixton - December 10

Rob de Boer creates a similar feeling to a warm bath on a chilly winter night. Head to Hootananny to hear his soulful, smooth vocals and a sound that threads Bill Withers’ warmth through modern alt-soul and jazz. You can expect Latin and Afro-rhythmic grooves, Motown tinted blues, funk and soul, all wrapped in Rob’s signature visual flair. Say yes to this grown up night out in Brixton.

Book tickets here - https://hootanannybrixton.co.uk

Jamboree - December 10

Midweek blues feel very different when you’re listening to them live at 3pm with a glass in hand. At Jamboree, TJ Johnson’s Peak of the Week turns a Wednesday afternoon into a pocket sized New Orleans, blending jazz, blues, gospel and country with the grit of someone who’s lived every lyric. He’s not just a singer but a pianist, drummer and bandleader, delivering songs of love, loss, hope and late nights with real boozy swagger. It’s free entry and a perfect soulful reset before the evening rush.

Book tickets here - https://www.jamboreevenue.co.uk

Pizza Express Live Holborn - December 8 and 9

If you could bottle the feeling of wandering through Mediterranean nights, it would probably sound like Antonio Forcione. Across his solo show, Antonio takes you on a sonic postcard journey from Spanish gypsy fire to Cuban shorelines, African grooves and trance like Southern Italian dances. He does all of this through one guitar and a lifetime of stories. With 20 albums and a history of doing festivals across the world, Antonio makes it feel intimate, warm and human. You can travel by ear through his richly textured sounds.

Book tickets here - https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com

Rich Mix - December 6 and 7

If your heart beats a little faster when you hear a darbuka and a synth line together, this one’s for you. At Old School Raï Night, El Besta brings the golden age of Algerian raï to Rich Mix, channelling the raw, romantic, slightly rebellious energy that filled North African dancefloors long before Spotify playlists. You’ll be wrapped in big choruses, driving rhythms and that bittersweet, late night feel that makes you want to dance and daydream at the same time. If you love discovering global sounds in intimate East London rooms, grab a ticket now!

Book tickets here - https://richmix.org.uk

606 Club - December 7

At some stage, Stevie Wonder’s songs have soundtracked your life. Now you have the chance to hear them reborn up close. At the 606 Club, The Wonder of Stevie brings together two UK heavyweights, saxophonist Derek Nash and vocalist Noel McCalla, for a deep dive into Stevie’s songbook. They’ll take you from funk burners to heart wrenching ballads. You’re in for a treat of world class sax, spine tingling vocals and a band that knows how to groove.

Book tickets here - https://www.606club.co.uk

Toulouse Lautrec - December 6

Velvet booths beat tinsel when Jo Harrop is in the room. Jo brings her Winter Love Affair to cocoon you in soulful originals and tender ballads. Critics describe her voice as one that can ‘melt the chilliest of hearts.’ Fresh from supporting Gregory Porter’s 2025 UK tour, Jo brings elegance, warmth and real jazz to this intimate setting. For £22, you get a mature, romantic glide into the festive season. This is perfect for a glass of red, candlelight, and songs that linger all the way home.

Book tickets here - https://toulouselautrec.co.uk

World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens - December 12

Christmas starts to feel more grown up when Julian Joseph is at the piano. During his show, the internationally acclaimed jazz maestro leads his trio and special guests through an evening of festive sophistication. Embedded within, is wintery elegance and swing inspired Christmas favourites. You get dazzling jazz, rich arrangements and that warm, communal glow without a novelty jumper in sight. So, if you’re looking for a polished, soulful December night out that also supports one of London’s most inspiring youth music organisations, you can’t go wrong with this show.

Book tickets here - https://worldheartbeat.org/embassy-gardens

BUSINESS SCENE

Ralph Lauren’s Cosy Masterclass in Experiential Luxury

You’re not just looking at another festive pop-up. You’re actually walking into a live masterclass in how luxury brands play the game. The Ralph Lauren Holiday Experience on Sloane Square offers you a unique insight into a mini world. There’s a barn styled like a mountain, hands on workshops, a coffee bar and a full Holiday Shop that behaves like a compact flagship right in the middle of the Square. For a heritage label, this is experiential retail as a smart customer acquisition funnel. It’s free to enter, but very deliberately designed to pull you deeper into the Ralph Lauren universe.

At the heart of it all, you’ll find that cinematic barn, styled like an Alpine retreat and programmed more like a cultural space than a store. You can book wreath‑making, seasonal craft sessions, a florist in residence and cookie decorating at the Cookie Atelier. Thia shifts Ralph Lauren from the place you buy cashmere to the place you host family time. Around you, Ralph’s Coffee is serving hot chocolate, mulled wine and branded treats. Allow the flavours of Ralph’s Brownie and s’mores cookies to dance on your tongue. They’ll give you a cosy reason to linger, chat and take photos while the brand quietly gathers insight and loyalty.

When you wander into the Holiday Shop, the commercial strategy snaps into view. You’re guided through a tightly curated edit of Polo Bear collectibles, knitwear and gift ready accessories that turn your festive mood into carefully nudged purchases. They’re all framed as nostalgic forever gifts. Because the experience runs until Christmas Eve, all day, in a high‑footfall spot like Sloane Square, Ralph Lauren effectively secures a seasonal flagship on your commute and shopping route. Thus giving it maximum visibility, without committing to another permanent store.

What really changes the feel though, is how giving is woven into what you do there, not added as an afterthought. Ten per cent of proceeds from activities support The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity through the Pink Pony Initiative. You can pay a little extra to hang a personalised star on the Giving Tree in honour of someone you love. That simple gesture turns a quick visit into something more meaningful. For you and the wider retail scene, this pop‑up proves that the meaning of iconic in 2025 is less about the size of the footprint and more about layered value. Community moments, photogenic design, multiple revenue streams and a clear sense of purpose, are all wrapped up in one very Instagram ready barn.

Find out more here - https://holiday.ralphlauren.co.uk

LINGUISTIC TAPESTRY - WORDS OF THE WEEK 

English Word:
Parsimonious
Pronunciation: /par-suh-MOH-nee-uhs/
Definition:  Extremely unwilling to spend money or use resources; overly frugal or stingy.
Cultural Note: It can describe people, organisations, or even styles of writing. And it carries a sharper edge than simply calling someone careful with money, implying a lack of generosity rather than prudent budgeting.

Tunisian Word:
Barsha (برشة)
Pronunciation: /BAR-sha/
Definition:  A versatile intensifier meaning a lot, very, or so much, used to amplify quantity, emotion, or emphasis in everyday speech.
Cultural Note: It appears constantly in casual conversation, from praising food to expressing affection. Also, it reflects the warm, expressive, and slightly theatrical way Tunisians colour their language and emotions.

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