The Wire: what the desk knows about the east

The Wire is where the desk writes down what it knows. Twelve districts, from Hoxton and Dalston in the north, down through Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Whitechapel, to Limehouse on the river, and most of what people ask about them is practical. Which hotel lobby is quiet. Which station runs all night. Which market is worth getting up for, and at what hour.

Every note here is written by Nell, who runs the front desk and answers every message that comes in. They are written for somebody who is actually in east London or about to be, and they stick to what is true and lasting: what a place is, where it is, and what it is known for. Opening hours, menus and prices change faster than any page can keep up with, so where those matter a note tells you to ask, and means it.

Nothing here is paid for. Hotels, restaurants, bars and markets are named because guests go to them, not because any of them has an arrangement with this desk, and none of them has. When a place closes or changes hands, the note that mentions it changes too.

The first notes cover the ground most people start on. A room in the old Bethnal Green town hall. Noodles on Kingsland Road and a basement drink on Hoxton Square. Flowers on Columbia Road before nine and a Saturday down Broadway Market. The night trains through E8, private rooms for a work dinner near Liverpool Street, and the plain mechanics of the thing: how to direct somebody to a warehouse flat, and how an overnight in the City hotels runs from a late check-in to breakfast.

Each note links to the companions who know that corner best and to the nights out an evening there usually falls under. The figures are the same wherever you read them, from £250 for an hour, and they are all on the rates page. When you are ready, one message to the booking desk does the rest.