London lifestyle guide: Eats, Beats and Treats around the capital you won’t want to miss

A listening room in Denmark Street, a new Mayfair restaurant, a music hotel on the way and a new rock & roll photography exhibition

There’s always something happening in London, and The Luxe Review has the inside track on all the new bars, restaurants, hotels, and divine distractions that make spending time in the capital such a vibe.

Welcome to Eats, Beats and Treats. We’ll be adding to this diary as new places and experiences appear, with a particular eye on the things you really won’t want to miss out on. Consider this your personal guide to what’s new, what’s coming and where London might take you next.

Moonrays brings high-fidelity cocktails to Denmark Street

Denmark Street has a new reason to visit. Moonrays has just opened at No. 7, combining a café, cocktail bar and high-fidelity listening space across three floors, with two bars and a ground-floor terrace. The idea is simple enough: music, food and drink from morning into the evening, with enough room to work, talk or simply sit back and listen.

The Listening Room is a 15-seat space tucked away at the rear of the ground floor. It’s been designed around intentional listening, with a vinyl playback system feeding vintage Celestion Ditton 44 speakers. Its Listening Room Sessions will invite musicians, DJs, producers and other cultural figures to play an album from beginning to end while sharing the stories and memories behind it. Guests can also browse the venue’s record collection or bring an album of their own.

After dark, the mood moves downstairs, where a vinyl-first programme of resident selectors and guest DJs explores jazz, soul, rare groove, world music, funk and blues through a d&b audiotechnik system. 

September’s opening programme includes sessions with Orphy Robinson and Camilla George, alongside Tuesday Album Clubs devoted to artists including Daft Punk, David Bowie, George Michael, Jamiroquai and Sade. The food is equally well considered, ranging from Japanese milk-bread sandos and Comté toasties to spicy tuna melts, while cocktails include the citrus-led Talullah and smoky, earthy Nord.

Moonrays is open seven days a week at 7 Denmark Street, London WC2H 8LZ.

Denmark Street is getting a new music hotel

Still with Denmark Street, UMusic Hospitality & Lifestyle and Outernet London have announced a partnership designed to connect music, hospitality, nightlife and entertainment across the wider Outernet district.

The headline arrival will be UMusic Hotel Denmark Street, due to open late 2026. It’s the brand’s first UK hotel and its second European property, following UMusic Hotel Madrid. It’ll sit alongside Outernet’s existing live music venues, artist programming, nightlife, retail and entertainment spaces, providing a music-led base to explore the district.

We’re told UMusic Hospitality & Lifestyle will also develop new music-focused food and beverage concepts and lounge spaces. It will take responsibility for programming and operations at The Lower Third, the grassroots live music venue directly opposite, working with Universal Music Group’s network of artists, labels and creative partners.

The partnership is rooted in the street’s extraordinary history. Denmark Street has been associated with publishers, recording studios, rehearsal rooms, guitar shops and clubs for more than a century, with artists including the Rolling Stones, Bowie, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and the Sex Pistols passing through. The wider Outernet district includes the 2,000-capacity Outernet Live and the huge digital canvas of The Now Building. 

UMusic Hotel Denmark Street is scheduled to open in Q4 2026.

Fayre brings Mayfair history to the table at new boutique hotel

A new neighbourhood restaurant is getting ready to open as part of The Shepherd Mayfair, the boutique hotel arriving in Shepherd Market this October. Called Fayre, the 62-cover restaurant takes inspiration from the historic May Fair that once occupied the surrounding fields, bringing a little local history to a menu centred on British produce and European classics.

Inside, rich berry tones, dark timber panelling and banquette seating create a suitably theatrical setting. Urban artist Adam Ellis has produced wall coverings depicting livestock markets, performers and games of chance, giving the restaurant a visual connection to the area’s past. The hotel itself occupies the site of The Cottage, Mayfair’s oldest house, which dates to 1618.

The menu includes lobster and prawn brioche rolls, braised beef short rib croquettes, citrus-cured trout and beef Wellington pithivier. There’s also a playful feature for anyone who regards dessert as a serious part of the evening: Fayre’s ‘Puddings by the Glass’ series begins with a strawberry and Champagne trifle, with a new creation planned each week.

Fayre is one of three dining and drinking spaces planned for The Shepherd Mayfair. The Lounge will provide a café-style setting that moves from morning into evening, while Teddy’s will be a hidden late-night cocktail bar. 

The hotel is scheduled to open in October 2026 at The Shepherd Mayfair, 2 Stanhope Row, London W1J 7BT.

Bella Italia serves up a £1 second main

September has brought a familiar proposition from Bella Italia, with participating restaurants offering diners a second main course for £1. The promo runs from Sunday to Friday until October 2 2026, with the cheaper of two main meals reduced to £1. For anyone arranging a family dinner, lunch with friends or a midweek catch-up, that could make the arithmetic considerably more agreeable.

There‘s a little administration involved. Diners need to sign up through Bella Italia’s website to receive a unique voucher code, which can be used for a table of up to 10 guests. The code can be used once per visit and can be used again on subsequent visits during the promotional period.

The offer is for dine-in meals and includes some specific exclusions, including the Bella Italia restaurants at Center Parcs, London Paddington and Edinburgh Northbridge.

For London diners, that leaves a useful opportunity for a relatively inexpensive Italian-inspired meal during the promotion’s run. 

The offer is available at participating Bella Italia restaurants nationwide until October 2 2026

Gibson Garage London puts three decades of rock photography on wall for new exhibition

Held: Three Decades of Artists and Their Gibson Guitars is a new exhibition by music photographer Scarlet Page, at Gibson Garage London.

Page has spent her career getting close to musicians, from the photographers’ pit at Glastonbury to backstage rooms and life on the road. The exhibition opens September 23 and runs until February 2027, bringing together more than three decades of live, candid and studio photography. Among the highlights is Alex Turner at Glastonbury in 2023, photographed during the Arctic Monkeys’ return to Worthy Farm, while Angus Young is captured supporting The Rolling Stones in 2003. Page’s photographs from her time on the road with The Darkness in 2004 are also included, as is Paul Weller backstage at the Royal Albert Hall during a Teenage Cancer Trust benefit.

There are plenty of other familiar faces. Jeff Buckley’s career-defining 1995 Pyramid Stage performance is represented, alongside portraits of Slash, Lenny Kravitz, Jack White, Jimmy Page, Wolf Alice, Cat Stevens, Michael Kiwanuka, Brian Molko, Kelly Jones, Robert Smith, John Squire, Robbie Williams, Cameron Winter and Paul Stanley. One of the images we particularly like the sound of is Page’s quick portrait of Slash at Hollywood’s Sunset Marquee hotel. He was apparently in a hurry to get to his children’s sports game, yet still managed to switch into full rock-star mode for the camera.

Page began photographing musicians professionally in 1993, with her first published work featuring Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell. She then photographed the Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins during the 1994 Lollapalooza tour, an experience she has described as cutting her teeth. The following year brought a significant breakthrough when one of her photographs was chosen for The Verve’s A Northern Soul album cover. Three decades later, the archive provides an unusually intimate record of musicians at work, on stage and in those fleeting moments between the two.

Held: Three Decades of Artists and Their Gibson Guitars by Scarlet Page runs from 23 September 2026 to February 2027 at Gibson Garage London.