The capital’s most innovative, aesthetically pleasing, exciting and often downright weird children’s playgrounds.
Play Area
Appalling weather? Kids bouncing off the walls of your tiny London flat? Fear not, there is hope in the shape of the capital’s myriad indoor playgrounds, from the most stylish play cafes and museum children’s galleries to the least awful soft-play centres we can think of (and, good God, there are some dreadful ones).
Bella Boos is the only soft play I’ve ever been to that’s reminded me of going clubbing.
I have a (probably fairly unhealthy) fixation with play cafes and am always embarrassingly pumped when I hear about a new one popping up somewhere useful.
I’ve never quite managed to find a public soft-play centre in London that doesn’t make me want to kill myself… until now.
The Moustache has a distinctly grown-up feel – it just happens to cater to grown ups who have children. And frankly, that’s the best kind of cafe I can think of.
This could so easily have been just another generic soft-play centre, but the owners have clearly put a lot of thought into making it stand out from the crowd.
I always feel slightly uncomfortable about members’ clubs and their keeping-out-the-riffraff vibes, so this felt like a nice, inclusive alternative.
I would genuinely be more inclined to go if it was called Bertie and Boo’s Dystopian Nightmare (actually, that sounds awesome).
Play cafes are the eternal saviour of the sleep-deprived adult-in-charge-of-a-small-person, but sadly the pandemic has kissed goodbye to/coughed all over a hefty chunk of our favourites.