A Neighbourhood Guide to Kings Cross
This once tatty transport hub is now the last word in cool.
Eat + Drink
For brunch, try Granger & Co., a buzzy all-day café on Pancras Square run by Australian chef Bill Granger. As well as coffee from acclaimed New Zealand roasters Allpress, you can order the Fresh Aussie – jasmine-tea-hot-smoked salmon, poached eggs, greens, furikake, avocado and cherry tomatoes.
With a terrace overlooking the Regent’s Canal, Chapel Down Gin Works & Restaurant is a new eatery and microdistillery by England’s leading winemaker. Enjoy Chapel Down tipples and dishes such as whole sole with brown shrimp butter and garlic mayonnaise or classics such as ale-battered cod and chips.
Little Creatures, beside grassy Lewis Cubitt Park, is the Perth brewery’s first British outpost. Try its signature hoppy ales and pilsners, plus bar nibbles, pizzas and sharing plates.
Do
Mosey around Coal Drops Yard, a swish precinct with more than 50 bars, eateries and boutiques among Victorian brick viaducts and striking modern architecture. Stand-outs include Wolf & Badger for independent fashion, homewares and beauty brands and the Coal Office restaurant, a collaboration between Israeli chef Assaf Granit and London designer Tom Dixon.
Check out the public galleries at Central Saint Martins, an esteemed arts college on Granary Square (canalside pictured up top). Next door is the House of Illustration, a museum launched by Quentin Blake, whose quirky drawings helped bring Roald Dahl’s stories to life.
A decade or so ago, King’s Cross was one of the British capital’s shabbiest neighbourhoods but thanks to sleek regeneration projects, the former ugly duckling has been transformed into a hip place to live, work and play. Day and evening, you’ll find Londoners and visitors rubbing shoulders in the bar-and-eatery-filled lanes and squares behind the district’s bustling railway stations – King’s Cross and St Pancras International.
Stay
Get a room
The Standard
Facing the neo-Gothic façade of St Pancras International, The Standard is
a hip hotel within a Brutalist 1970s former council building. It has 266 rooms and suites with retro-inspired décor, the Sounds Studio (a live-streaming and recording venue) and
a 10th-floor restaurant, Decimo, with 360-degree city views.
