Things to do this weekend in London, August 28–30 2026

The bank-holiday weekend arrives a day early. Friday 28 August is the last proper day of All Points East in Victoria Park — the east London festival that has used the park as a city-sized stage for years — and the first of Battersea Park in Concert: Sounds of South Africa, Jeremy Loops with the London African Gospel Choir, gates 18:00, show 19:15. Tickets are on See Tickets. If you already have an All Points East ticket, that is Friday. If you do not, Battersea is the easier door. Coming through Soho first, Tangra is the Mildreds family’s Indo-Chinese restaurant, open since November and only now on Localtime.

Saturday holds the park and the palace. Hampton Court Palace Food Festival opens with the bank holiday and stays through Monday: more than 150 producers, Sri Lankan and Korean street food in a Tudor courtyard, Henry VIII’s brickwork behind the stalls. It is a train to Hampton Court, not a Tube, and it is worth the extra half hour. In west London, Saturday 29 August is also Steel Band Competition Day at Notting Hill Carnival, tickets only, the UK National Panorama, Junior Panorama included. That is the quietest of the three carnival days, which is a relative term, and the one where you actually hear the pans.

Sunday is the 60th carnival, the diamond jubilee. Official dates are 29–31 August. Sunday 30 August is Families and Children’s Day, free: J’ouvert, the children’s parade, sound systems and stages through W11 — times and route on the carnival site. Two million people if the weather holds, 40,000 volunteers, a reported £396 million in economic weight, and a police operation large enough that the Mayor put extra money into overcrowding this year. Monday 31 August is Adults Day, the louder close — after this letter’s Friday-to-Sunday window, but the street will not wait for a Monday edition.

If you can only pick one: W11 on Sunday. Everything else is a supporting act. All Points East is the Friday you already booked. Hampton Court is the Saturday if you want to leave the carnival until the children have the road. Carnival is the reason the weekend exists. Bakeries and restaurants Localtime added this week — TOAD Deptford, Idalia, Tangra — are in South London bakeries, and a 300-seat restaurant in Olympia.