London’s Regent St will be host to The Regent Street Festival: A Great British Experience on September 7th. Touted as one of the biggest, free, outdoor events on the calendar, Regent Street will be closed to traffic from 12 noon to 8pm facilitating marching bands, fanfare trumpeters, pipe bands, live music, dance performances, a veteran car display and gourmet food stalls. Retailers and restaurants are offering a celebratory 10% off on the day.

For foodies, Regent Street food quarter (Heddon Street and Swallow Street) will be serving up traditional British specials, such as, Fish and Chips at FishWorks (be the first to review this branch!) or Sausages and Mash at The Living Room W1. For those more liquor oriented, there will be ice sculptures created by Absolut Ice Bar on Regent Street itself, complete with vodka pop up bar.

Added to this, there will be lots of British themed in-store activities and promotions. Bose will have a James Bond themed afternoon, whilst Godiva will be offering fruits covered in delicious Belgian chocolate that would mix well with traditional afternoon tea at Austin Reed. Zavvi will be providing the soundtrack to the day, with British ‘cover bands’ performing live.

Worth a trip, I think! Will you be going? If so, here’s some of the places our community trust that you might like to check out:

The Living Room W1, as mentioned above, is very popular, getting 5* from howardtjmoon “What a night. What a night. Filled with families and some creatures that I didn’t recognise! The food was fantastic. Jewish starter, malaysian main and seafood ice-cream deluxe for desert! Fantastic atmosphere, great jazz-fusion music and friendly staff! I will be back, yes sir.”

How about a 5* afternoon tea at nearby Pret-a-Portea at the Berkeley Hotel? ONscotland was impressed - “For tea I had a beautiful infusion - Pear and Caramel, which really worked. Imagine the slight tartness of pear with the richness of caramel, it would be my tea of choice if I could get it anywhere else…  Pret-a-Portea is expensive yes, but the service, style and sheer indulgence of the experience means that it is something you won’t forget. That’s why I pick ‘Good Value’ for this.”

You could always finish your evening with some 5* laughs at The Comedy Store, or if you’d prefer something more low key, how about a meal at Yatra, which NikoTheFinn gives 5* for being “quite the little gem. With fantastic food, an utterly romantic ambience, and an extensive menu of “fusion” indian food, it should be top of everyone’s list”.