Pubs and bars

Pubs are one of England's most enduring social institutions, and have outlived the church and marketplace as the focal points of communities, with London's fringe theatre, alternative comedy and live-music scenes still largely pub-based. At their best, pubs can be as welcoming as their full name, "public house", suggests, offering a fine range of drinks and filling food. At their worst, they're dismal rooms with surly bar staff and rotten snacks. One thing you can be sure of, however, is that most pubs and bars remain smoke-filled places where drinking alcohol is the prime activity.

London's great period of pub building took place in the Victorian era, to which many pubs still pay homage; genuine Victorian interiors, however, are increasingly difficult to find, as indeed are genuinely individual pubs. Chain pubs can now be found all over the capital: branches of All Bar One, Pitcher & Piano and the Slug & Lettuce are the most obvious, as they all share the chain name, whereas J.D. Wetherspoon pubs and the Firkin chain do at least vary theirs.

Pub food , on the whole, is a lunchtime affair, although "gastropubs", which put more effort into their cooking, are increasingly offering meals in the evening, too. The traditional image of London pub food is dire - a pseudo "ploughman's lunch" of bread and cheese, or a murky-looking pie and chips - but the last couple of decades have seen plenty of improvements. You can get a palatable lunchtime meal at many of the pubs we've listed in this section, and at a few of them you're looking at cooking worthy of high restaurant-standard praise.

Standard pub opening hours are Mon-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun noon-10.30pm. Our listings only specify the exceptions.

Though pubs may be constantly changing hands (and names), the quickest turnover is in bars , which go in and out of fashion with incredible speed. These are very different places to your average pub, catering to a somewhat cliquey, often youngish crowd, with designer interiors and drinks; they also tend to be more expensive - we've listed a fair few.

England's licensing laws are likely to have changed by the time you read this, as after more than a century of draconian restrictions, the government has finally caved in and liberalized English opening hours. This should allow pubs and bars to stay open way beyond the standard 11pm last orders, so the times listed may well have changed significantly.

Live music and clubs

Don't believe the Cool Britannia hype; London has had a bewilderingly large range of places to go after dark for the last twenty years. The live music scene remains extremely diverse, encompassing all variations of rock, blues, roots and world music; and although London's jazz clubs aren't on a par with those in the big American cities, there's a highly individual scene of home-based artists, supplemented by top-name visiting players.

If you're looking for dance music , then welcome to Europe's party capital. After dark, London is thriving, with diverse scenes championing everything from hip-hop to house, techno to trance, samba to soca and drum'n'bass to R&B on virtually any night of the week. Venues once used exclusively by performing bands now pepper the week with club nights, and you often find dance sessions starting as soon as a band has stopped playing. Bear in mind that there's sometimes an overlap between "live music venues" and "clubs" in the listings; we've indicated which places serve a double function.

The already relaxed attitude to late night bars has become more liberal in the recent years. So far, though, the main consequence of the restrictions on late night drinking laws has been the rapid growth and diversity of club-bars , places which are essentially bars, but cater for a clubby crowd - funky décor, DJs, late opening hours and ridiculously overpriced foreign beers.

The dance and club scene is, of course, pretty much in constant flux, with the hottest items constantly moving location, losing the plot or just cooling off. Weekly listings magazines like Time Out, DJ and 7 give up-to-date details of prices and access, plus previews and reviews.

Classical music, opera and dance

With the South Bank, the Barbican and the Wigmore Hall offering year-round appearances by generally first-rank musicians and numerous smaller venues providing a stage for less established or more specialized performers, the capital should satisfy most devotees of classical music . What's more, in the annual Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London has one of Europe's greatest, most democratic music festivals.

While the English National Opera quietly continues to try and demolish the elitist stereotypes of opera , the Royal Opera House continues to grab the headlines. After a long, costly and painful period of rebuilding and refurbishment, the ROH finally reopened at the end of 1999. Embarrassing technical hitches meant that part of the initial programme of events had to be cancelled, and ticket prices are still far too high, but the new Floral Hall development has generally been well-received.

The more modest economics of dance mean that you'll often find ambitious work on offer, with several adventurous companies appearing sporadically, while fans of classicism can revel in the Royal Ballet - as accomplished a company as any in Europe.

Theatre, comedy and cinema

London has enjoyed a reputation for quality theatre since the time of Shakespeare, and despite the continuing prevalence of fail-safe blockbuster musicals and revenue-spinning star vehicles, the city still provides a platform for innovation. The comedy scene in London goes from strength to strength, so much so that the capital now boasts more comedy venues than any other city in the world, while comedians who have made the transition to television also stage shows in major theatres. Cinema is rather less healthy, for London's repertory film theatres are a dying breed, edged out by the multiscreen complexes which show mainstream Hollywood fare some months behind America. There are a few excellent independent cinemas, though, including the National Film Theatre, which is the focus of the richly varied London Film Festival in November.

Current details of what's on in all these areas can be found in a number of publications, the most comprehensive being the weekly Time Out. The Guardian 's "The Guide" section (free with the paper on Saturdays) and Friday's Evening Standard are other good sources.