Vaishnavi Pandey, Author at Secret London

Born and raised in India, Vaishnavi Pandey is a South London-based writer and documentary photographer. Before working as a Staff Writer at Secret Media Network, she worked as a Social Media Producer at Earthrise Studio, a writer and photographer for publications such as Mixmag, Noctis Magazine and Unsettled Magazine. When she's not writing or taking photographs, you'll find her looking for new music, catchings gigs or cooking for her loved ones.

Christmas Escapes

Europe’s oldest Christmas market dates back to 1570, has over 300 fairytale chalets, and sits just a train journey away from London

One of Europe’s oldest Christmas markets, dating to 1570, and turns this French city’s medieval centre into a city-wide winter wonderland each year. For Londoners, it is a genuinely feasible festive es...

In the 1980s, thousands of exotic plants took root across the Barbican – 40 years later, the Conservatory is giving them away for free before a £240m closure

Londoners can take home a living piece of the Barbican Conservatory this December, as the venue offers a final round of plant cuttings before closing for a major restoration. Applications for the last...

Culture Music Top news

The London nightclub loved by Charli xcx and Olivia Rodrigo is making a comeback next month – and no, phones are still not allowed

London’s most elusive night out is coming back. Lost, the secretive, celebrity-favoured club that banned phones and shut after just eight months, has confirmed it will reopen in November 2026 at the f...

Culture Top news

Hackney has launched a free ‘night map’ to make London nights out safer – with toilets, phone charging points and routes home

Hackney Council has launched an interactive “night map” designed to help people navigate the east London borough after dark, pointing them towards toilets, free drinking water, phone charging points and w...

Things to do

32 of the most spooktacular things to do for Halloween in London

All Hallows’ Eve is upon us once more. As the nights draw in and the weather turns, carved pumpkins are beginning to illuminate doorsteps across the capital, signalling that it’s officially the season to...

These empty Canary Wharf offices could soon become 180 flats for homeless families in east London

Tower Hamlets Council is set to convert four Canary Wharf office buildings into 180 temporary homes, in a bid to keep homeless families in the borough rather than moving them miles away from their schools...

Food & drink

Hidden near Bank, this Indian barbecue restaurant from the creators of Gymkhana serves some of the best tandoori lamb chops and butter chicken wings in the capital

Hidden in Bloomberg Arcade near Bank, this Indian barbecue restaurant and sports bar from the JKS team behind Gymkhana and Trishna is all smoke, spice and sizzling platters, the sort of place where the me...

Food & drink

From pillow-soft Hokkaido milk bread to truffle kombu tortellini: Osteria Angelina brings its stunning Japanese-Italian dining to Shoreditch

There are restaurants that slap “fusion” on the menu and hope for the best, and then there’s Osteria Angelina. Tucked away in Nicholls & Clarke Yard, just off Shoreditch’s busy Blossom Street, thi...

Things to do

A 45-second walk from Rotherhithe station, a little-known museum guards the shaft of the world’s first underwater tunnel, once described as the Eighth Wonder of the World

Beneath a quiet corner of Rotherhithe, just 45 seconds from the Overground station, lies one of London’s most extraordinary forgotten spaces: the vast brick shaft that once carried Victorian crowds down i...

All London rail closures over Christmas and New Year in full as Network Rail carries out £152m upgrade works

London rail passengers face significant disruption over Christmas and New Year as Network Rail carries out a £152 million programme of engineering works across the capital and beyond. While most of the...