15 Bonus: Alice in Londonland 25
The bare bones of an Alice tour of cafés, bars, shops and experiences.
Every week on Alice & the Eggmen, I trace the tapestry of connections linking the 1860s and the 1960s (and sometimes beyond). And this week I’m on holiday, so I’ve prepared this bonus installment.
In 2025, Alice is part of the furniture, and part of the cultural landscape. This year alone, I can go and see the Royal Ballet’s Alice and there’s a new VR-inspired Alice coming at Sadler’s Wells. Curious visitors might also visit Westminster School — which boasts Liddell House and a Liddell’s Arch — or nearby Poet’s Corner with its Lewis Carroll plaque.
But Alice shows up in other ways that are often little more than just naming — lots of pubs for example — but are sometimes more meaningfully connected. In London alone, I’ve counted 20 physical locations so far. And then there’s the Barnes rabbit.
So I’ve made a little map to guide us:
Let’s start with the pubs…
The Walrus & The Carpenter pub
45 Monument St, EC3R 8BU
Standing in a slightly unlovely part of the City, is the Walrus & The Carpenter pub, with an upstairs dining room named after Lewis Carroll.
The Mad Hatter Hotel & Pub
3-7 Stamford St, SE1 9NY
Cross the river and stroll along Bankside and you’ll find this hotel / inn overlooking the river Thames. It’s nothing to write home about, especially in a sea of Mad Hatter-inspired locales, but you can get a pint of Fuller’s London Pride, which is always a good enough reason to stop in.
For some reason, though it’s bars, especially cocktail bars, that have found Alice connections — exploiting nocturnal creativity and in some cases transforming underground drinking dens.
The Rabbit’s Hole: a cocktail bar in Clerkenwell
168 Clerkenwell Rd, EC1R 5DD
A nice spin on the underground-toilet-turns-bar theme, the Rabbit’s Hole celebrates the underground-ness of Alice’s journey with its mysterious entrance and speakeasy vibes. The “clandestine cocktail haven” features plenty of mirrors and white rabbit imagery, but strangely not a single Alice-themed cocktail on the list of 150+. Still… a cool spot.
Looking-Glass Cocktail Club
Hackney Rd
A little further East we encounter this “speakeasy escape to the surreal and whimsical world of London’s best cocktails” as well as the promise of debauchery through a secret door into a hidden bar. I’ve yet to indulge myself.
Calloo Callay: a cocktail bar in Shoreditch
65 Rivington St, EC2A 3AY
One of an East-West pair of London bars, comes this long-standing Shoreditch classic, with several rooms, fun decor, and — when I last went with my sister — fairly average food. Extra points for quoting Jabberwocky though:
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.-Lewis Carroll, ‘Jabberwocky’, Through the Looking-Glass (1871)
And here’s its sibling outlet on the King’s Road, Chelsea
The Mad Hatter Cocktail Bar
44 Old St, EC1V 9AQ
An art deco bar, this outlet mainly seems to celebrate vintage cocktails with a subversive twist, such as the Stormy Daniels (a Pornstar Martini dressed up as “Trump’s worst nightmare”. Chance would be a fine thing!
Jump Like Alice: a boutique
162 Columbia Road, E2 7RG
Fight your way through the weekend throng of Columbia Road flower market and you’ll happen on this boutique, selling a mixture of fashion, homeware and trinkets.
I’ve not detected a strong Carroll theme; instead the owner pitches her shop as a reflection of “my lifelong passion for style, film, the visual Arts and above all travel. In many ways the shop is a visual autobiography of my life”. I’d love to know whether she’s aware of To Jump Like Alice, the 60s fashion boutique we wrote about two weeks ago.
The Rabbit Hole Cafe, in North London
411A Holloway Road, N7 6HJ
As well as North London classics like Kofte, Korean Chicken and Shakshuka, peckish passersby on Holloway Road can feast on ‘Eat Me With Mushrooms’ and Alice’s Fluffy Bunny (a stack of pancakes with fruit, maple syrup, turkey rashers, sausage, hash browns and scrambled eggs. The menu is Wonderland-themed with tumbling Alice, keys, teapots, fob watches and high-backed chairs. It has 4.4/5 on Tripadvisor.
Beyond the obvious food and drink analogies that dominate the London Alice scene, we have a slew of places, services and experiences
White Rabbit Studios
471-473 The Arches Dereham Place, EC2A 3HJ
This Shoreditch photography studio, event space and cafe offers “interconnected arches boasting high ceilings and vast open studio areas, crafting an ideal backdrop for everything from corporate conferences and creative workshops to product launches, parties, immersive experiences, and electrifying live gigs”. Its promise is more White Rabbit as creative guide than anything more explicit, but it’s still interesting to see how the character connotes transformation and adventure.
White Rabbit London: an indie apparel brand
Rather like White Rabbit Studios, this apparel brand from South London leans into the creativity implicit in White Rabbit (post 60s) promising a “catalyst for creative expression, a symbol of unity and imagination”.
Jabberwocky Design
4th Floor, 50 Marshall Street, W1 F9BQ
An architecture, interior design, lighting and project management agency with a nod to Through The Looking-Glass in name only - from what I can see. And yet it still goes on the list.
And so to some of the more interesting of the London locations.
OSIT (Serviced Offices) in Waterloo
2-6 Boundary Row, SE1 8HP
These offices — which have been a venue for some of the Lewis Carroll Society meetings in the past — take Alice seriously, but in a playful way. The entrance itself is striking, but the theme continues into meeting rooms, with playing card decorated meeting rooms, English garden vegetation, and more.
The Sanderson Hotel - Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea
50 Berners St, W1T 3NG
Afternoon teas are a staple of high-end London hotels. And Alice is a common theme for one-offs, but this is the only hotel which always has something Carrollian on the menu. I haven’t been myself, so can’t vouch for the £65+ experience, but it certainly sounds appetising. As well as a proper selection of ‘Alice in Wonderland teas’ (Alice, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, White Rabbit, Cheshire Cat), there are themed sandwiches and pastries like the Grow Me, Shrink Me, Red Knight Army Shortbread Cookies, a Toadstool Forest (complete with lemon petals and chocolate soil) and Blue Caterpillar (a blueberry bavaroise with coconut crunch).
Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium
152-4 Bethnal Green Road, E2 6DG
London’s first cat café is a subtle, but clear, nod to Alice. For those who don’t remember, Dinah is the name of Alice’s cat (which she also calls "kitty”, inspiring the wildly successful Japanese Hello Kitty brand. The cafe — in Shoreditch, by the top of Brick Lane — has Wonderland-style décor, featuring strange trees, playing card imagery, and portraits of cats in gold frames.
Alice Through the Looking-Glass
14 Cecil Court, WC2N 4HE
The story behind this shop is still a little of a mystery to me, but it’s a must for Alice fans. The shop has a dramatic window-display, and in addition to books, and first editions, sells a beautiful Cheshire Cat notebook, an original tale by Jake Fior, and other occasional treasures, such as framed prints by Dali and others. I picked up a 2-volume set of Carroll’s letters here, and always pop in when I’m in the area.
For those keen to spend more time on Cecil Court, you can also dive into Marchpane Books next door which specialises in children’s stories and has an extensive collection of Alice originals and foreign-language editions. While not the cheapest, it’s well worth a browse.
And then there’s Alice’s: an antiques shop in Portobello Road dating from the 1880s. There’s no Alice theme here per se, but it’s certainly an Aladdin’s cave, or Wonderland, of products, leaning into Victoriana and flamingos.
Oh, and then there’s the Barnes Rabbit.
I’m cheating a bit as I think Spike Mclarrity’s monthly appearance in South West London during covid may have been a temporary thing, but in many ways it’s a better expression of the Alice spirit than most.
“I surprise commuters to take their minds off bad news”, he told the Evening Standard... “sitting on the wall, if somebody’s on a bus or in a car you can see them and they’re obviously thinking about what’s happening in their day. But suddenly they see me and their consciousness shifts. Is that a rabbit I just saw on the wall?
See you when I’m back from holiday. And perhaps I’ll find some Alice treats in Japan to share with you all.