Open 24 hours, for real

Most "24-hour London" lists are copied from each other and half of the places closed years ago. Everything below carries a link to where the claim comes from and the date we last looked. Where we could not verify something, it is not on the page.

Last checked: 27 August 2026

Ring before you travel across London. Hours change, venues close, and a source page can be out of date the week after it is published. This list tells you where to look and what to expect. Only the business itself can tell you it is open tonight.

Food, all night

Genuinely round-the-clock kitchens, not "late". There are very few, which is why the same handful of names appear on every list.

Duck & Waffle
Around the clock
Restaurant and bar on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower, serving through the night — breakfast at sunrise, its signature dish at 3am, and the best free-with-a-drink view in the City.
Heron Tower, Bishopsgate, EC2
Book. A 3am table is not the same as a 3am walk-in.
Source: duckandwaffle.com
VQ
Chelsea 24/7. Bloomsbury runs 24 hours from Wednesday morning through to Sunday morning.
One of London’s original 24-hour cafés. All-day breakfast, burgers, sandwiches and diner food, aimed squarely at shift workers and people who are awake at the wrong time.
Chelsea and Bloomsbury
The two branches keep different schedules. Check which one you are walking to.
Source: vqrestaurants.com
Beigel Bake
24/7
Brick Lane institution, feeding east London around the clock since the 1970s. The salt beef bagel is the reason, and the queue at 4am is part of it.
Brick Lane, E1
Cash-and-queue energy. Go with a plan for what you want.
Source: The Handbook
Polo Bar
Round the clock
A London café since 1959, directly opposite Liverpool Street station. Full English and pancakes at any hour — the classic first stop off a night bus or last stop before an early train.
Bishopsgate, EC2, opposite Liverpool Street
Source: The Handbook
Kings Sports Bar
All day and all night
Inside the Empire Casino on Leicester Square, open all day and all night. Central, and open when the West End is not.
Leicester Square, WC2
It sits inside a casino, so normal casino entry rules apply.
Source: The Handbook

Health, all night

The category where being wrong actually matters, so this list is deliberately short and heavily sourced.

Zafash Pharmacy
24 hours, every day of the year
The pharmacy Londoners end up at during the night. Established 1978, dispensing NHS and private prescriptions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — it describes itself as the only community pharmacy in the UK doing so.
233–235 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 0EA
One pharmacy cannot cover London. Always check the live NHS finder for whatever is nearest you tonight.
Source: NHS service listing
NHS pharmacy finder
Live listing
The live, official listing of every pharmacy in England with real opening hours. More current than any guide, including this one. Filter for open now.
Source: nhs.uk
NHS 111
24 hours
Clinical advice through the night, free from any phone. Can arrange an urgent supply of a medicine you have run out of, and can tell you what is genuinely open near you.
Source: 111.nhs.uk
A&E and 999
Always
Hospital emergency departments never close. For anything life-threatening this is the only entry on this page that matters.
Source: Find your nearest A&E

Gyms, all night

The genuine growth story of London’s night. There are now more 24-hour gyms in this city than 24-hour clubs.

The Gym Group
Mostly 24/7, branch dependent
Most London branches run 24/7, though a few — Oxford Street and Caledonian Road among them — keep shorter hours.
Source: thegymgroup.com
PureGym and Anytime Fitness
Branch dependent
The other two big 24-hour networks across the capital. Between the three chains there are well over two hundred London gyms open around the clock.
Overnight access is usually PIN or fob entry with no staff on site. Check the branch’s staffed hours and its lone-training policy before you rely on it at 3am.
Source: Hussle 24-hour listing

Transport, all night

The only category where "24 hours" is a network rather than a handful of addresses.

Night buses
Every night
N-prefixed routes plus around fifty ordinary routes that never stop. Every night of the week, one flat fare, unlimited changes within the Hopper hour.
Source: tfl.gov.uk
Night Tube
Friday and Saturday nights only
Five lines — Victoria, Jubilee, Central, Northern via Charing Cross, and Piccadilly to Heathrow T5 — plus the Windrush line Overground between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate.
Night services are the first thing cut for engineering work. Check the status page on the night.
Source: TfL live status
Black cabs
Always
The only vehicle you may legally flag down in the street. Metered by law, higher tariff at night, card payment mandatory in London.
Source: TfL taxi information

Emergency trades and care

Here we deliberately name registers instead of companies. A register you can search tonight beats a list of firms that will be out of date by Christmas — and for gas work, the register is the law.

Gas Safe Register
Searchable any time
By law, every gas engineer working in the UK must be on it. Search a business name or registration number before you let anyone touch a boiler or a gas appliance. There is no legitimate exception to this.
Source: gassaferegister.co.uk
NICEIC / NAPIT — electricians
Searchable any time
Registered electricians are assessed on their work, premises, documentation and competence. Search the company name on the scheme’s own site, never trust the logo on theirs.
Source: niceic.com
WaterSafe — plumbers
Searchable any time
The national accreditation scheme for approved plumbing businesses. Useful at 2am with water coming through a ceiling.
Source: watersafe.org.uk
TrustMark — general trades and handymen
Searchable any time
A not-for-profit licensed by government. It does not vet individuals itself; it endorses the scheme operators who do. Use it to find which scheme covers the trade you need.
Source: trustmark.org.uk
Master Locksmiths Association — locksmiths
Searchable any time
Locksmithing is not a licensed trade in the UK, so this vetted-and-inspected membership is the closest thing to a check that exists. Verify on the MLA’s own directory, not on a company’s website.
Our sister site covers this in depth — what a lockout should cost and how the overcharging scam runs.
Source: locksmiths.co.uk
Ofsted — babysitters, nannies and childminders
Searchable any time
Childminders register with Ofsted or with a childminder agency. Ofsted registration and inspection reports are public, and a DBS check is a separate thing from being registered — ask to see both, and verify them yourself.
Agency directories are not regulators. "Vetted" on a listing site is a marketing word, not a legal status.
Source: gov.uk

Nothing on this page paid to be here. We take no fees, no commission and no affiliate payments from anyone listed, and none of them know we exist. If a listing is wrong or a place has closed, it gets removed — we would rather have a short honest page than a long stale one.