Journal 4 September 2026
Soho after eleven, street by street
A square half mile that holds most of London's late licences, and behaves differently on each of its streets.
Soho is the densest square half mile of evening in the country and it is not uniform. Where you stand at half eleven decides what the next two hours are.
Old Compton Street and around
The busiest and the latest, and the part that does not thin out until the small hours. Bars rather than pubs, and the pavement is the venue as much as the rooms are.
Frith Street and Dean Street
Ronnie Scott’s is on Frith Street and its late show is the reason to be there after eleven. Soho Theatre on Dean Street runs comedy into the night and has a bar that keeps going after the room empties.
The edges
Walk east and you are in Chinatown, where the kitchens serve later than almost anywhere else in the centre. Walk west and it stops abruptly at Regent Street.
Leaving
Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road are all a few minutes away and all on the night tube at weekends. On a weeknight it is the bus.
The rest of the late city is in what stays open after dark.
By anxiousoyster67. Updated 5 September 2026.
More on after dark
All 5 piecesWhat is open when everything else has shut, where the late licences actually are, and how to get home once the last tube has gone.
- Where to eat late in London, when the kitchens have shut Most London kitchens stop at ten. A few streets do not, and knowing them is the difference between dinner and a bag...
- Getting home after midnight in London The night tube runs on five lines and only at weekends. The buses run every night and go everywhere. Knowing which is...
- London after dark: what stays open, and until when Eleven is the licence most pubs hold. What happens after that is a matter of which streets, which night of the week,...
Where to go next
Everything above is drawn from the listings, which are dated and rebuilt as things change.