Buy the food at a supermarket, buy the interesting part at a market or a food shop, and eat it on grass. Two rules will save you a wasted afternoon: you almost certainly cannot have a barbecue, because the Royal Parks ban them outright and boroughs such as Tower Hamlets ban them in every park they run; and whether you may drink a beer depends on which borough's grass you are sitting on.
A picnic in London is not a compromise. The parks are free, they open early, and on a dry day a bench in Greenwich Park or a deckchair in Hyde Park is a better place to eat than most restaurants within the same ten minutes. It is also the largest single saving available to a visitor: lunch for two from a supermarket comes to a fraction of lunch for two sitting down beside an attraction.
This page covers where to shop, what to buy that needs no cutlery, what the rules actually are, which parks repay the walk, and what to expect in a rented kitchen. Our guide to supermarkets in London explains the chains and the loyalty prices; this one is about the picnic.
The rules, in one box
- Barbecues in the Royal Parks
- Not allowed. The Royal Parks state it plainly
- Barbecues in borough parks
- Tower Hamlets bans them in all its parks. Assume a ban and check the borough
- Large groups
- A picnic of more than 100 people in a Royal Park needs an event application
- Alcohol
- Not banned nationally, but councils can make controlled drinking zones. Police can require you to stop
- Litter
- An offence in a Royal Park to leave litter anywhere but a bin. Bins fill up in hot weather
- Carrier bags
- At least 10p in England, charged by every size of retailer. Bring a bag
Where to shop, in order
A supermarket, for the bulk of it. Bread, cheese, tomatoes, fruit, crisps, a bar of chocolate and the drinks. Ten minutes and well under £20 for two. The small "Express" and "Local" branches that fill central London are dearer than the big stores but they are everywhere, which usually wins.
A market, for the part you will remember. A cheese, a pie, a piece of cured meat or a punnet of something in season is worth the extra pounds, and our guide to London's food markets has the trading days, which vary far more than people expect. Buy the one thing at the market and everything else at the supermarket; buying the whole picnic at Borough Market is how a £15 lunch becomes £45.
A neighbourhood food shop, if there is one nearby. These are the most useful and the least known. Greensmiths at 27 Lower Marsh, four minutes from Waterloo station, puts a bakery, a butcher, a greengrocer and a cheese counter under one roof and was rated 5 for hygiene in September 2025. Shops like it exist on most inner high streets and they will slice, weigh and advise.
A bakery, last, and on the way. Bread goes stale in hours and a warm loaf is the difference between a good picnic and a bag of shopping.
Buy the picnic before you get near the sight, not at it. The shops within two hundred metres of a major London attraction are priced for people who have run out of options. A supermarket three streets back sells the same sandwich for a third of the price, and our page on eating cheaply in London puts numbers on the difference.
What to buy when you have no cutlery
The constraint that decides a London picnic is not money, it is equipment. You will not have a knife, a board, a plate or a cool bag. Everything on this list can be eaten with hands, off paper, at ambient temperature.
- A pork pie. The correct British answer. Cold, self-contained, meant to be eaten in the hand, and it comes with its own pastry plate. A Scotch egg does the same job.
- Cheese that does not run. Cheddar, Wensleydale, Lancashire. A ripe brie in a warm park is a mistake you make once.
- A baguette or rolls rather than a sliced loaf, and butter in a small pack rather than a block.
- Cherry tomatoes, radishes, grapes, cucumber, all of which need no preparation.
- A jar of pickle or chutney. Piccalilli or Branston with cheese and bread is the classic combination, and a small jar travels.
- Crisps in a British flavour, which are better than the reputation suggests, and a packet of biscuits.
- Water in a refillable bottle. Refill points across London are mapped in our guide to tap water and refill points.
Ask at the till for a bag if you need one; it will cost at least 10 pence, and nobody will offer cutlery or napkins unless you ask.
The barbecue answer is no
This is the single thing visitors most often get wrong. The Royal Parks, which run Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent's Park, St James's Park, Green Park, Greenwich Park, Richmond Park and Bushy Park, state that barbecues are not allowed. Tower Hamlets, which runs Victoria Park and every other park in that borough, says barbecues, gazebos and marquees are not permitted anywhere in its parks, because of fire risk and permanent damage to the grass.
Other boroughs differ, and a handful of parks in outer London do have designated barbecue areas. But the working assumption in central London should be that you cannot light anything, including a disposable tray or a camping stove, and that includes on Hampstead Heath and in the City of London's open spaces. If you want to grill, find a park that says in writing that you may, and read its rules rather than a blog's.
There is also a national answer this year, and it removes the question entirely for most people. After the droughts and heatwave of 2026, the Office for Product Safety and Standards published statutory guidelines on 14 August 2026 stating that disposable barbecues cannot be considered a safe product in the current conditions and must not be made available for sale, in store or online, anywhere in Great Britain. So you are unlikely to be able to buy one at all, whatever a park's own rules say. The guidelines are under review and will be withdrawn when conditions change, so check the date on them if you are reading this in a later year. Several councils have gone further for the same reason: Camden has temporarily banned barbecues in all its parks, reusable charcoal ones included.
The same applies to large groups. In the Royal Parks a picnic of more than a hundred people counts as an event and needs an application, and gazebos, sound systems and inflatables all need permission.
Whether you may drink a beer in a park depends on the borough, not on the law. There is no national ban on drinking in public, but councils can make Public Spaces Protection Orders covering particular areas, and within those a police officer or authorised officer can require you to stop drinking and hand over the container. Refusing without reasonable excuse is an offence. Signs at the park gate are the only reliable guide; our page on alcohol laws and drinking in public sets out what the officer can and cannot do.
The parks that earn the walk
Almost anywhere green will do, but six places are genuinely better to eat in than to walk through.
Greenwich Park rewards the effort more than any other. The Flower Garden in its eastern half has a small lake, mature specimen trees and benches, and it is quiet even when the hill above it is full; the fenced deer paddock is a few minutes away. Coming in from the Blackheath gates at the top means no climb at all. Our Greenwich Park guide has the gates and hours.
Hampstead Heath is the one to choose for a view and space, and the slope below Kenwood is the classic spot; see our Hampstead Heath guide.
St James's Park is the most convenient in the whole of Westminster, and the benches along the lake face the pelicans and the back of Horse Guards; see St James's Park and Green Park. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens have deckchairs you can hire in season, which you may be asked to pay for; see Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
Victoria Park in the East End is the oldest public park in London, opened in 1845, and it has the best combination of space, shade and canal for an ordinary afternoon; see our Victoria Park guide. And Postman's Park in the City is the smallest and strangest option: a tiny churchyard garden with a wall of memorial tablets, empty at weekends, five minutes from St Paul's. See Postman's Park.
Two gardens that are not parks
Two places near major sights are better picnic spots than the parks around them, and neither is obvious.
The hospital gardens at St Thomas', on the river opposite Parliament, hold the statue of Mary Seacole and look straight across the water at the Houses of Parliament. They are open, free and almost always emptier than the South Bank a hundred metres away. The Florence Nightingale Museum is inside the same hospital and has no cafe, which is why its own advice sends visitors out to eat.
And if you are going out to Colindale for the RAF Museum, take food. The museum has outdoor picnic areas and green space, and there is nothing worth walking to nearby. It is one of the few large London museums where bringing a picnic is the recommended plan rather than the cheap one.
Out of town, Hever Castle allows picnics on its lawns and names three of them, which makes a day there considerably better value for a family than the ticket price suggests.
Rubbish, weather and the things that go wrong
Three practical points. Leaving litter anywhere but a bin is an offence in a Royal Park under the 1997 regulations, and on a hot Sunday the bins overflow by mid-afternoon; carry a bag and take it with you if the bin is full. Wasps arrive with sweet drinks in late summer. And London grass is wet for most of the year, so something to sit on matters more than the food does.
If the weather turns, the free indoor spaces where nobody minds you eating something you brought are the arts centre foyers rather than the museums: most museums forbid food in the galleries but have a hall or a lawn. The paid version of the same idea is a food hall, where you buy at a counter and sit at a shared table with no waiter and no service charge; our guide to London's food halls lists them with their hours.
Self-catering: what a London kitchen actually has
If your room has a kitchen, assume less than you would at home. A London short-let or aparthotel kitchen typically has a hob, a microwave, a kettle, a toaster, a fridge and a small selection of pans; many have no oven, and a surprising number have no sharp knife, no chopping board and no colander. Check the listing for an oven specifically if you intend to cook properly, and read our guide to apartments and short lets before booking.
Three things make a week's self-catering work. Do one large shop rather than daily top-ups, because the convenience branches cost more per item. Buy oil, salt, pepper and a head of garlic on the first day, which the flat will not have. And plan around Sunday: large supermarkets may open for only six hours between 10:00 and 18:00, and the small branches, which are exempt from that rule, are the ones open at eight in the morning.
Online delivery works for stays of several days. Slots for a first-time customer at a new address are usually available within a day or two, and the delivery charge is less than the mark-up on a week of convenience-store shopping. You will need a UK address and a phone number that takes a text.
Frequently asked questions
Can you have a barbecue in a London park?
Almost never. The Royal Parks state that barbecues are not allowed, and Tower Hamlets bans barbecues, gazebos and marquees in every park it runs. A few outer-London parks have designated barbecue areas. Assume a ban and check the borough's own rules in writing before carrying a grill anywhere.
Can you drink alcohol in a London park?
There is no national ban, but councils can designate controlled drinking zones through Public Spaces Protection Orders, and inside one an officer can require you to stop drinking and surrender the container. Refusing without reasonable excuse is an offence. Look for signs at the gate.
Where is the best place to buy picnic food in London?
A supermarket for the bulk of it, plus one thing from a market or a neighbourhood food shop. Buying an entire picnic at a famous food market will cost two or three times as much as the same food from a supermarket a few streets away, for two or three items that are genuinely better.
What should I buy for a picnic if I have no knife or plate?
A pork pie or a Scotch egg, a hard cheese that will not run, a baguette, small packs of butter, cherry tomatoes and grapes, a small jar of pickle, crisps and biscuits. All of it can be eaten with your hands at ambient temperature, and none of it needs preparation.
Do London holiday flats have proper kitchens?
Often not. Expect a hob, microwave, kettle, toaster and fridge, and check the listing specifically for an oven. Many flats have no sharp knife, board or colander, so buy oil, salt, pepper and garlic on your first day and do one large shop rather than daily top-ups.
Sources
- The Royal Parks - Greenwich Park frequently asked questions, including that barbecues are not allowed and that picnics over 100 people need an event application (checked September 2026)
- Tower Hamlets Council - Can I picnic or BBQ in Victoria Park? (checked September 2026)
- GOV.UK, Office for Product Safety and Standards - Statutory guidelines on disposable BBQs, published 14 August 2026 (checked September 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk - The Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces Regulations 1997, regulation 3, on litter and prohibited acts (checked September 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk - Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, section 63, on alcohol in public spaces (checked September 2026)
- GOV.UK - Carrier bag charges: retailers' responsibilities in England (checked September 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk - Sunday Trading Act 1994, Schedule 1 (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - Food hygiene rating search (checked September 2026, for the food shop named here)