Looking for Christmas pressie inspiration? Here's our hand-selected gift guide, featuring exclusive London-themed/crafted present ideas. By the time you've read this article, you might have your festive shopping done!
London gifts for transport geeks
After London transport-themed goodies? These are all wheely good:
🚇 Any transport lover will be au fait with the London Transport Museum shop and its embarrassment of transport-themed riches for everyone from babies to boomers. Next stop: a moquette tea towel... or sofa.
🚇 For a subtler take on that Underground aesthetic, Wallace Sewell — the folks who designed a number of the Underground's moquette motifs — have some gorgeous moquette-style pieces, from coasters to scarves.
🚇 Adam Nathaniel Furman's trippy take on the classic London Underground motifs (designs including 'Bakerloo Boogie Woogie' and 'Mighty Metropolitan') make for eye-catching cushions, mugs, backpacks and sweaters.
🚇 If you'd rather read about moquette than wear/sip from it, we highly recommend 2026's expanded edition of Andrew Martin's generously-illustrated book, Seats of London: A Field Guide to London Transport Moquette Patterns.
🚇 Friend of Londonist Luke Agbaimoni, aka Tube Mapper, has released a 2027 A3 calendar — each month featuring one of his finest London Underground snaps from the past year. Here's to a satisfyingly symmetrical New Year.
🚇 Supperclub.Tube serves up Latin American inspired dishes on a 1967 Victoria Line Tube carriage, which as you can imagine, makes for a memorable night out. Get gift cards here.
Walking tour and experience gift vouchers
After a present for someone who likes to get out there, walk around, learn stuff... and maybe eat/drink stuff too? Here you go:
🔍 Liquid History run regular booze-themed walks of London, where you can glug down quirky anecdotes and trivia, while calling in at some of the city's iconic watering holes. They sell gift vouchers, as well as other themed merch.
🔍 Look Up London sells gift vouchers for private guided tours, where you can choose from a lengthy list of neighbourhoods, from Bankside to Soho to Waterloo. There's a much-lauded feminist Jack the Ripper tour, too.
🔍 The sagacious Footprints of London team — with whom we've enjoyed numerous enlightening wanders — offer a range of vouchers for public, private, and even virtual, tours exploring the city's nooks and crannies.
🔍 Vouchers of various denominations are also available for TfL's Hidden London tours, which whisk you into secretive spaces beneath the city's streets. Some of these experiences are on the 'premium' side, price wise; make sure you love your giftee very much.
A gift subscription that history fans will drool over
Have you discovered our weekly newsletter about London's history? Each week, Londonist: Time Machine digs deeper into a little-known chapter from the capital's past. We ask questions like "Who was the first person to ever ride the Tube?". We see how Londoners of yesteryear imagined the 21st century city might look. And we colour in a lot of old maps.
AND there's an added level to Londonist: Time Machine. For a small subscription, you get to access additional newsletters, browse the full archive, get invitations to meetups and behind-the-scenes tours and be part of the Londonist: Time Machine community.
If you know someone who's sweet on history, consider buying them a gift subscription for Christmas. It's just £7 for a month or £50 for an entire year.
London gifts for kids
🦖 Baby grows, snow globes — even mini guard's hats (which aren't made from real bearskin FYI): Historic Royal Palaces has a fab collection of London-themed kids gifts to peruse.
🦖 Wimbledon, Stokey, Croydon, Hampstead, Brixton and a host of other London locales feature in the Colour Your Streets colouring book series. Children will love it, as will certain adults in your life.
🦖 Know a young kid who's a West End star/director/costume designer of the future? Fan the flames of their passion, with one of these beautiful paper theatres from Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop in Covent Garden — it's an IRL shop, though they also do online orders.
🦖 For offline shopping, consider an independent boutique like the Children's Bookshop in Muswell Hill, Puppet Planet in Wandsworth or Just Williams in Dulwich and Beckenham.
Boozy London gifts
Suggestions for beer, wine and spirit drinkers. We've got teetotallers covered, too:
🗺️ Pub map: Published in 2026, the Historical Pubs of London Map, penned by the author of this very gift guide — the cheek! — leads you to 50 glimmering gin palaces, sawdust-sprinkled hideaways and bibelot-strewn boozers. A good little stocking filler, and the perfect excuse to bail on Dry January.
🍺 Beer: If you're looking to buy London-crafted beer for someone, but don't know where to start, check out our list of taprooms and click on the web shops to see what they offer (lots of breweries sell selection boxes, which make a fine festive gift). A brewery tour makes a thoughtful present too; among breweries offering them are Fuller's in Chiswick (one for the heritage lovers), Five Points in Hackney (purveyors of one of our all time faves, Railway Porter), and the excellent Southwark Brewing Company.
🍷 Wine: If it's vino you seek, make sure it's a London label: Blackbook make "bloody good wine" in their Battersea winery, thanks to grapes sourced from vineyards a stone's throw from the capital. Their "Londoner" 6 pack of wine would make for one stonking great present, or six very good ones. Otherwise, pick up a mixed case of reds, whites and sparklings from E17's Renegade Urban Winery, famous for their 'face' labels.
🍹 Rum: Buy a bottle of Market Row rum, described as "Brixton in a bottle" — and guaranteed to perk up any festive punch.
🍋 Gin: Graveney Gin sells a selection of juniper-infused nectar, including a rosemary and thyme variation. Or book a gin tasting experience for two at its home in Tooting Market.
🥃 Whisky: Yes, you can get a bottle of Scotch in the shape of Big Ben. Also, yes, London-made whisky is a thing. Alternatively, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society sells various memberships, allowing access to their plush Hatton Garden tasting rooms. Memberships include a bottle of whisky.
🎨 Pub pics: As Lydia Wood continues on her quixotic quest to draw every single pub in London, know that she sells prints of various boozers (perhaps you'll find one of a friend/family member's fave drinking hole).
🫖 Alcohol-free: Drink gifts for the non-drinkers in your life? How about one of these literary afternoon teas, or a tea blending workshop at Covent Garden's Bird & Blend.
London book gift ideas
2026 has been another bumper year for books about London. Here's our shortlist of some which we think will tickle your fancy.
📖 What do you get if you mix London's most famous diarist with Poirot? Something along the lines of Jack Jewers' thriller Seething Lane, which reimagines Samuel Pepys as a detective investigating the brutal murder of a libertine aristocrat.
📖 Discover art deco picture palaces, cult film libraries, movie memorabilia shops and more with An Opinionated Guide to Film London, penned by cinema buff and tour guide, Nigel Smith.
📖 RAYE, Fara Williams, George Eliot, Margaret Rutherford... all and many more are celebrated in Extraordinary Wandsworth Women, which dropped earlier in 2026.
📖 Speaking of remarkable women, the life of a Soho model, muse and memoirist is celebrated in Darren Coffield's biography Hen, Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes.
📖 London's Real Heritage Pubs is the kind of book that'll have giftees feasting on its beautiful images for most of Christmas Day, before sloping off to one of the featured boozers on Boxing Day.
📖 Courgette & broad bean shakshuka, a crispy za'atar chicken schnitzel sandwich, and scrummy ginger & chocolate cookies feature in Honey & Co Daily — a cookbook based on the menu at Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer's Bloomsbury restaurant.
📖 There's more to Kew Gardens than (usually) meets the eye: according to Ghosts, Myths and Oddities of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by Jonathan S. Farley, spirits galore are lurking in the bushes...
📖 From Poirot's dining establishments of choice to Miss Marple's fave department stores, Agatha Christie's London: A Historical Guide to the Queen of Crime's Capital is a must for any whodunnit/London lover.
We featured these books because we know it's the kind of thing our readers will enjoy. By buying them via links in this article, Londonist may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, which also helps support independent bookshops.
Tickets for London theatre shows in 2027
The answer to the question: 'What do I get the person who has everything?' is so often: 'Tickets to a show!' Here's our pick of those arriving on the London stage in early 2027:
🎟️ The Seagull, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (opens 15 January): With tickets starting at just £8, tickets to Chekhov’s classic tale of art, ego and love could make for a nifty gift.
🎟️ Dirty Dancing, Prince Edward Theatre (opens 19 January): Its soundtrack featuring Hungry Eyes, Hey! Baby and the irresistible cheese-fest that is (I've Had) The Time Of My Life, a trip to see Dirty Dancing just might help someone through the dirgy days of Jan/Feb.
🎟️ John Proctor is the Villain, Wyndham's Theatre (opens 2 February): Kimberly Belflower's revisionist take on The Crucible sold out its Royal Court run, garnering ★★★★★ notices left, right and centre.
🎟️ Billy Elliot the Musical, Adelphi Theatre (opens 12 February): Pirouetting its way back onto the West End, tickets for the ultimate British feel-good story are already dancing off the shelves — a good excuse to get your Xmas shopping started early!
🎟️ Insane Asylum Seekers, Bush Theatre (opens 12 February): Head off West End for this show about the British-Iraqi refugee experience, which is as hilarious as it is touching.
🎟️ The Popinjay Cavalier, Phoenix Theatre (opens 23 February): A little-known playwright by the name of Quentin Tarantino has his West End debut with this swashbuckling tale in which the world's greatest actor goes to perform at Paris' illustrious Comédie-Française, only to find himself on the sharp end of the sword...
Londony stocking fillers
Simply looking for something small to slip in a stocking? Here are a handful sockful of suggestions.
🧦 Indie London setup Boostology sells this very cute fold-it-yourself Paper London set, perfect for making while other family members fall asleep in front on Ratatouille on Christmas afternoon.
🧦 W Martyn in Muswell Hill has barely changed since 1897. It's a shoo-in for coffee, chocolates, tinned biscuits, Turkish delight, preserves and the like. You can buy online, but visit in person if you can — they put on an enchanting yuletide display.
🧦 Pink gooseberry & elderflower; damson & black pepper; and mandarin and sherry are among the zesty preserves available from London Borough of Jam, a small-batch company based in Clapton.
🧦 Soapsmith takes the concept of London neighbourhood-inspired aromas, and runs with it. The Walthamstow-based setup crafts soaps and bath soaks with names including Brick Lane, Lavender Hill, Marble Arch and Hackney Marshes.
🧦 OK, you might struggle to fit one of Simon Turner's coal hole bowls into a stocking, but one of these handmade beauts will surely make a unique Londony present for the tricky-to-buy-for.
🧦 Something a little different courtesy of the Science Museum: a chance to adopt an object (teddy bear, Enigma machine, Victorian toilet) on behalf of a culture-loving friend/family member. They'll receive a digital certificate, and we'd also recommend pairing this gift with VIP tickets to one of the museum's Lates.
🧦 Sniffing out a beautiful box of pralines, a bar of salted caramel milk chocolate or some luxurious passion fruit ganache? Steer yourself in the direction of our delicious roundup of chocolate shops.
Londonist merch (aka the shameless plug section)
T shirts, prints, mugs and tea towels: Londonist's online shop is brimming with merch that you won't find anywhere else. Plenty here for secret Santas, stocking fillers and main pressies.
Still got some bits and pieces to tick off your shopping list? Read London's Best Christmas Markets And Festive Fairs.
