London Soho Tourist Map

Soho is the grid of narrow streets between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. It has been London's quarter for music, film, nightlife and food for more than a century, and it is still where the West End goes to eat before and after a show. There are few grand monuments here; the appeal is the density of theatres, shops, bars and restaurants packed into half a square mile.

On the western edge, Carnaby Street was the centre of 1960s mod fashion and is now a pedestrian shopping street. Around the corner, Liberty London occupies a 1924 mock-Tudor building made with timbers from two Royal Navy ships, HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The London Palladium on Argyll Street has staged variety, pantomime and musicals since 1910.

Shaftesbury Avenue forms the southern edge, with the Apollo, Gielgud and Sondheim theatres side by side and the Palace at Cambridge Circus. The Prince Edward and Prince of Wales stage long-running musicals nearby. For something odder, look up for the Seven Noses of Soho, plaster casts fixed to walls in 1997 by the artist Rick Buckley, or sit in the Phoenix Garden, a community garden off St Giles.

When to go: mornings are quiet and good for shopping; Soho comes alive from early evening, when theatre crowds and diners fill the streets. Book restaurants ahead on Fridays and Saturdays, or eat early. Stations: Oxford Circus (Bakerloo, Central and Victoria lines), Piccadilly Circus (Bakerloo and Piccadilly), Tottenham Court Road (Central, Northern and Elizabeth lines) and Leicester Square (Northern and Piccadilly).