London, January 16-19, 2026

Written By Gary Wong

#COYSTrip26

Oh, hey, another trip to London? Yep, sure is. This time it was for my annual visit to see Spurs at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. While in town, I had planned on running a race but three-plus weeks of travel through Asia the previous month somehow re-aggravated the lower back injury I suffered last summer. Heavy sigh, it’s not fun getting old.

As if my back didn’t have me feeling bad enough, I had to suffer through a thoroughly dispiriting 2-1 loss to West Ham United. This happened back in January where I had no idea that Tottenham Hotspur would eventually be trying to ward off this West Ham United side to stay in the Premier League. Going into the final weeks of the season, West Ham actually passed Spurs to drop them to 18th, in the relegation zone. Thankfully, Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment as gaffer would be enough to steer the club into safety, securing another season in the top tier of English football on the final day of the season.

Anyway, we didn’t know any of that would transpire when this loss happened on the third weekend of January - heck, even after this loss, they were still 10 points clear of the relegation zone. Just goes to show just how bad this season would get.

It wasn’t all bad - we got to see Conor Gallagher make his Spurs debut, the current captain Cuti Romero score the lone Spurs goal, and (possibly) next captain Pedro Porro put in a full effort shift. Also, any time I get to see Spurs in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is time well spent, regardless of the result.

The Food and Drinks

So seeing Tottenham Hotspur lose sucked. You know what didn’t suck, though? Stuffing my face all weekend in London, one of my S-tier cities. As per usual, there was a Michelin-starred restaurant on this trip - this time it was at one-starred HIDE in Mayfair for their £58 lunch set menu. In the realm of £40/50-ish Michelin lunch deals in London (of which there are quite a few), this compares favorably with Kitchen W8 but I think it falls short of Chishuru. That’s absolutely no knock on HIDE as Chishuru set a high bar for this price point and that suckling pig hand-cut pasta dish, while an upsell, was totally worth the price of admission, albeit a touch on the salty side.

The best meal of this trip, though, was dinner at Rogues. Coming right after watching that annoying Spurs loss, this meal was a real salve for my football-inflicted disappointment. I ate way more than I probably should have (maybe one less dish would have left me less uncomfortably full at the end) but these were all bangers (quality dishes, not the sausages). The scallop upsell and day boat fish were really good examples of seafood done simply and well. But that beef cheek main, man, was something else - well-flavored and incredibly fork-pulling tender. Just an excellent meal.

On Sunday, my last full day in London, I decided to see how much I could do along the Bermondsey Beer Mile.

As you can probably guess, I did a lot of it, with stops at five breweries over the course of an afternoon/evening. New to me on this one were Hiver, who brew their beers using British honey, Against the Grain, a cidery, and Bianca Road Brew Co, which wasn’t new to me but was in a new, much nicer location. Also along the way was a stop at Cloudwater which is a really nice, comfy taproom to have a few.

My last stop along the mile was to my favorite brewery taproom in London, The Kernel Spa Road. Like I did in my last COYS trip, I settled for a long rest of my afternoon and early evening having beers served to me by Moritz and in the company of his partner Maddie, and making new friends throughout, including an ex-pat couple from Georgia now based in Amsterdam where one of them brews at The Hollows. Of course, no visit here would be complete with some food from Yagi Izakaya. Again, just the best time with the best beer people in town.

Virgin Atlantic at LHR

Thanks to this trip happening during the off-peak season, I was able to fly Premium on Virgin Atlantic using a relatively small amount of points. No, really, it was kinda an absurdly small amount of points as it only cost me 10,500 points for a transatlantic flight in Premium. Sure, the taxes and fees came out to nearly £370 (thanks, Heathrow) but, even with the cpp value of the points, that’s still better than what a straight cash fare would’ve been.

More importantly, booking in Premium coupled with my Delta Skymiles Platinum status meant access to one of my favorite lounges in the world, the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at Heathrow. This would be clutch as while I was en route on the Lizzie line to the airport for my 8 pm flight, I was notified my flight would be delayed by nearly two hours so it was really nice to have access to this lounge.

With a lot of time to kill, I decided to go up from the check-in counter level to the Upper Class Wing, walking all the way out to the entrance so I could experience checking in for my flight as though I’d been dropped off at this grander entryway like some bougie bitch.

I’m bougie but I’m not so bougie I’d take a car to the airport from central London - that shit’s ££££. That said, it was nice to check this space out, especially the large scale models of the Boeing 787-9 (Dream Girl) and Airbus A350-1000 (Red Velvet).

And then there’s the actual lounge itself which I am ashamed to say I didn’t get any photos of but if you’ve been there before, the biggest change was the area behind the bar that used to be seating area being blocked off for renovation. I’m told it’s since been completed and is, once again, a seating area but I’m not sure in what kind of configuration. I guess I’ll find out the next time I’m fortunate to come through the place.

As per usual, the a la carte menu had plenty to choose from but I went light with dumplings and fish this time though I did succumb to the smoked fish on offer at the cold station and dessert as the delay dragged on. Cheers to the staff as they indulged me in a bubbly tasting, pouring me a glass each of what they had. Like I said, I had a lot of time to kill there.

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Gary Wong
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Spain, November 28-December 8, 2024