There is no capybara cafe in London: where the capybaras actually are

There is no capybara cafe in London. There is not one opening, not one in planning, and there never has been one. If you have been sent here by a listing that suggested otherwise, it was wrong.

This is worth answering plainly, because thousands of people a month search for it and the results they get are about a business that is neither in London nor, as far as anyone can confirm, open.

The one everybody is reading about is in Norfolk

The UK’s first capybara cafe is proposed for Toftwood, near Dereham in Norfolk, which is roughly a two and a half hour drive from London. It is the project of Jemma Aldridge, a full-time carer for her two disabled and autistic children, who found that the animals’ calm suited them and built the idea around that. Two capybaras, Clover and Sweet Pea, were committed to before they had been born.

The opening has moved three times. It was first announced for the end of 2025, then spring 2026, then summer 2026. In March 2026 the Eastern Daily Press asked Breckland Council what had been submitted and was told that no planning or licensing application had been received, only informal conversations about what an application would need to contain. The exact site has never been made public. Summer 2026 has now been and gone, and we have found no report that it opened.

It is also opposed. The RSPCA, Freedom for Animals, the Born Free Foundation, Animal Aid, OneKind and World Animal Protection issued a joint condemnation of capybara cafes in the UK. Laura Walton of Freedom for Animals argued that the animals’ needs cannot be met “within a commercial café setting”, and that any application should face proper scrutiny. Whatever you make of the idea, that is the regulatory weather it is opening into.

We have checked all of this against the reporting and the council rather than the cafe’s own announcements, on 9 September 2026. If it opens, this page will say so.

London has capybaras, and you can book to meet them

Here is the part the search results bury. London Zoo has two capybaras, and they are not hard to find.

Gizmo and Kiwi are a brother and sister pair, Gizmo born in November 2023 and Kiwi in June 2024, and both were born at Hertfordshire Zoo before moving in. They live in the Blue Zone, next to ZooTown. In November 2025 they moved into a purpose-built home the zoo describes as spa inspired: two pools, mud-bath wallows and climate-controlled zones.

Which is quietly funny. The Norfolk cafe’s pitch is a spa treatment for its capybaras. London built its two an actual one, and you can already walk in and look at it.

What the Meet the Capybara encounter costs

London Zoo runs a bookable encounter, and the detail matters because the headline price is not the whole price.

It is £75 per person and general admission is not included, so budget for both. You get a twenty minute behind the scenes encounter with the keepers, including helping with a training session, in a group of up to six. The minimum age is 8, children must be with an adult who has also bought an encounter ticket, and there is a limit of two children per adult.

Start time is 4pm until 23 October, then 3.30pm from 24 October, so check the confirmation rather than assuming. Closed-toe shoes are required. The zoo says it is not suitable for anyone pregnant, breastfeeding, or with a condition affecting their immune system, and wheelchair access is available with carers admitted free.

Our London Zoo guide covers tickets, the quieter hours and what else is worth the walk while you are in there.

If you want the animal cafe idea rather than capybaras

The thing most people are actually after is an hour in a room with an unbothered animal, and London does have that, just not with rodents the size of a spaniel. Cat cafes are the established version here and they are booked by the slot rather than walked into.

For animals more generally, things to do in London with kids covers the city farms, which are free and often overlooked, and free things to do with kids covers what costs nothing at all. Hertfordshire Zoo, where Gizmo and Kiwi were born, also keeps capybaras and is a straightforward day out of London if you want a second herd.

Day trips from London covers what is genuinely reachable and back in a day, which Dereham, for the avoidance of doubt, is not really.