Hoxton Square

By day, this is a surprisingly quaint little square just a minute’s walk from the chaos of both Shoreditch High Street and Old Street. Not the best green space in London, but not bad either. By night, the area fills up with drunken partygoers visiting the numerous bars/​clubs/​restaurants surrounding the square. Favourite spots right on Hoxton square include Zigfrid for late nights, Happiness Forgets for speakeasy style cocktails, and the Dead Dolls House for their roof terrace and pop-​up dinners. The shops and Saturday market on Hoxton Street are just a short walk up the road too.

Years and years and years ago, when I first moved to London, I lived on New North Road. The little bit with the church on it, not the big bit. My postcode was N1 6JB. I lived spitting distance from this square and I have seen it change. It once was a scary space with benches that were home to people without real beds and drug dealers, then Hoxton became cool and in came the artists and musicians that would buy cans from the off-​licence and drink in the square because it was cheaper that hitting the swanky Bluu Bar.
Now it’s full of the spill out from bars that have seen better days, it’s not as grotty and not as indie. But it’s a good summer spot to sit with friends and a great meeting point.

I am both a lover and a despiser of Hoxton Square. I despise it because of the pretentious trendiness of it all. The tight ill fitting jeans, dodgy haircuts and wannabe attitudes make me want to vomit. Mix this with the always popular (NooooooT) City Boys, and you have a confused cocktail of people which I will name ‘Trendy Twats.’ Plus the square itself isn’t the most beautiful patch of green in London by a country mile.
Yet when my alter ego kicks in and I get drawn into the London ‘look at me’ bullshit, I revel in the choice of bars and eateries where I can pretend I am some kind of celebrity, I love sitting at Yelo with my ok curry, people watching (but acting like I’m not), laughing a little louder than I need, just so everyone thinks I am having a great time. If the sun is out I’ll sit in the park with a bottle of wine chilling with friends making sure I do not get any dirt on my expensive but purposely worn down looking outfit.
My favourite drinking spot on the square is Zigfrid. Although drinking here on a busy night can mean long waits between getting served. Still it’s great because its quirky, and nobody loves quirky more than a Shoreditch Twat. Fact is there is nothing wrong with Hoxton Square, it is actually pretty good, the trouble is for me it doesn’t quite match the hype. So when reality kicks in and you realise pretending to be cool ISN’T COOL and you want to hang out in a park with a little cheese and wine I’d suggest Primrose Hill, simply because it is so much better.

Just walk into this park, full of trendy East London hipsters and scream ‘Happy 4^th of Juuuly’ — they will love you! Yeah probably not.
We chugged a lot of Budweiser here, chatted up some of the park’s residents… lovely chaps. And then when we came back later, it had miraculously transformed into San Francisco, complete with a guitar playing folk singer and beardy blokes.
If you can ignore the poseur vibe, it is a cool place to hang with your mates. Hit up the local off licence — get a bag of booze but make sure you share your bench or else you are bogarting someone’s bed.

Located in the midst of the concrete jungle of Shoreditch, Hoxton Square provides a small patch of green. What used to be very industrial, Hoxton Square is now seen as the heart of the London arts and media scene. Home to the White Cube gallery, a wealth of bars & restaurants, all frequented by the über trendy fashion kids and city suits, sipping their cocktails or picking up a takeaway coffee on their way to the office.
The park in the centre of the square is often filled with people on summer days, it’s nothing special but a good patch of grass is few and far between in these parts!

First lets be realistic, this park is not pretty. If you count a tiny grass area a park. well you get my picture. But it is the fact that it is located on middle of Shoreditch what makes it interesting. There are a good selection of bars and shops around the park, my favorite café Macondo and the White Cube gallery at one corner.
During the summers is when this park is in its glory. All the locals spend here their days and nights, there are often some smaller festivals or parties. It is just nice place to hang around with a bottle of wine and friends after work and after that just pop into some of the bars. Oh I wish it was summer now!

What’s tiny and frequently filthy but still regarded as a Shoreditch treasure? Hoxton Square. One of the only green, um, expanses available to local residents and the epicentre of Hoxton nightlife with The Hoxton Square Bar and Grill amongst others on its fringes, a visit to Hoxton Square is imperative if you find yourself within the Shoreditch Triangle.
A veritable microcosm of East London, despite its compact size Hoxton Square has it all: great Thai food in the form of Yelo, hip coffee shops such as Macondo’s, pioneering galleries like Jay Jopling’s White Cube and darling boutiques like Lara Bohinc’s eponymous shop. OK, it’s not the best kept London park and it’s probably sage to look out for syringes and the like if you’re dog walking, but Hoxton Square is as good a place as any to enjoy a takeaway coffee during the summer or picnic with friends.

Any East Londoner with any sense of fun will inevitably end up hanging around Hoxton Square. This tiny little square has a lot to offer in the way of drinking, eating and… everything else.
Most famously, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen is situated here. A bustling bar in the heart of the east. There are lots of cool eateries, cafes and restaurants as well as music venues too.
Oh yes… and there’s a little park…
I’m not a local so I don’t go out of my way to hang out here. Hoxton’s really for the trendy indie kids, wannabes and «Nathan Barley’s» of London. A little pretentious for me but there are still lots of fun nights out to be had!

Hoxton square has been home to the self-​styled cool kids of the arts since the early 90s, and has been the epicentre of local nightlife for the best part of a decade. Somehow it seems to keep drawing huge numbers of people at night and the tiny patch of grass at the centre is always packed in the summer with anyone and everyone wanting to be hip and edgey. The truth is that it’s not really anything special — a few bars and restaurants and a gallery or two — and anyone who frequented the area at its peak has long since moved on — most likely further in the direction of Hackney. There are still a few defiant artists and designers around, and plenty of those determined to dress differently like everyone else, but also an abundance of City banker types creeping ever further up from Liverpool Street, and the prices have long since been tailored more to their considerably deeper pockets.