The Journal: notes from both banks of the river

This part of London is two places joined by bridges. South of the Thames lies SE1: London Bridge at the foot of the Shard, the market lanes of Borough, the warehouses and galleries of Bermondsey, then Bankside and the long river frontage towards Waterloo. North of the water lies the Square Mile, from Bank and Monument out to Liverpool Street and Aldgate, and past it the late streets of Shoreditch. One bank keeps office hours. The other carries on after them. Most evenings we arrange cross from one to the other at least once.

The Journal is where the desk writes down what it knows about that ground. It begins with the buildings guests actually sleep in: the hotel that starts on the thirty-fourth floor of the Shard, the Lutyens bank on Poultry, the small stays around Bermondsey Street, the rooms whose windows really do face Tower Bridge. Then come the tables, from Borough Market once the traders leave to the dining floors thirty storeys above the station. Then the hours in between: summer terraces, a Saturday under the railway arches, a Sunday night in a City that has gone home.

A word on the names. Hotels, restaurants and bars appear here as places, nothing more. None pays to be mentioned, none is paid, and no arrangement of any kind sits behind a recommendation. Menus change, rooms are renovated, a rooftop closes for the winter; where a detail is likely to move, the entry says so and suggests checking before you set out.

Practical matters close every entry: which companions suit that corner, which of our offerings the evening falls under, and where it sits on the rates ladder, which opens at £250 for an hour. The booking itself stays where it always is, in a single WhatsApp or Telegram thread with the desk, answered by a person at any hour.