This proud port on the River Mersey used to be best known outside the city for football and the Fab Four but that started to change when its derelict warehouses were brought back to life to create vibrant districts crammed with cool bars and creative restaurants.
These days, Liverpool is buzzing. Time Out has named it as the only UK entry in its World’s 20 Best Cities for Food, alongside Osaka and Copenhagen, recognising its variety of street food vendors, contemporary small plates joints and homegrown talent. It also crowned Liverpool as this year’s seventh best global city while Which? recently named it as the UK’s best large city.
You’ll find world and fusion flavours lining Bold Street, laid-back independent restaurants and coffee shops on Lark Lane and high-end restaurants along Castle Street, with plenty more in between.
The city’s impressive Victorian, Georgian and modern architecture, alongside Scouse warmth, can’t fail to impress. Regenerated areas such as Royal Albert Dock and Baltic Triangle sit in harmony with the sleek Museum of Liverpool while the Three Graces – including the Royal Liver Building with its iconic Liver Birds – and its two cathedrals remain majestic symbols.
It’s busy year-round, but this weekend up to 20,000 people will gather on St George’s Plateau for the Pride march on Saturday and free Pride festival at the Pier Head.
The Pier Head will also host the reincarnated Mathew Street Festival for the first time over the August bank holiday weekend with music from Liverpool artists including Holly Johnson and the Lightning Seeds, Beatles and Bowie tribute acts and more.
Summer highlights also include the many sandy beaches to the west and north of the city, from West Kirby and New Brighton on the Wirral to Southport and Merseyside’s King Charles III Coastal Path.
Later in the year, River of Light illuminates the waterfront in autumn. For more, see visitliverpool.com.
Getting there and around
Trains from London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street run hourly and take around 2 hours 20 with Avanti West Coast. Direct services also run from Birmingham with West Midlands Railway and from Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester with TransPennine Express. Merseyrail runs city services from Lime Street, Central, Moorfields and James Street stations while Arriva and Stagecoach operate buses from Liverpool ONE and Queen Square.
Drop your bags
Bang up to the minute is The Halyard in the Ropewalks area. Built on the site of an 18th-century rope making warehouse, this new four-star hotel is named after a nautical knot and has industrial-chic bedrooms. Higher rooms give you cathedral or Liver Building views. Doubles from £149 including breakfast.
For a cheaper option the Holiday Inn Express Liverpool Central sits next door with the same views but fewer frills. Doubles, with accessible options available, from £89.
Browse the shops
Liverpool ONE near Albert Dock and the pedestrianised Church, Lord and Paradise Streets have the mainstream covered.
Bluecoat, a quaint backstreet square offers independents selling violins, antique books and crafts while Bold Street in Ropewalks is lined with vintage shops such as Cow. Rough Trade’s largest record store recently opened a few streets away.
Lunch break
Oh Me Oh My serves afternoon tea under fairy lights in a former bank. Ahead of slivers of rare roast beef on toasted ciabatta and black forest macarons you’ll be offered a selection of more than 10 different teas; the strawberry and kiwi iced tea goes down a treat on a hot day.
In the formerly industrial Baltic Triangle, Baltic Market contains a bar and pops-up serving everything from coffee and gin slushies to chicken Caesar subs, slow-cooked beef burritos and wood fired pizzas.
Rainy day refuges
Liverpool has more museums and galleries than anywhere outside London. The British Music Experience offers an interactive deep-dive into pop, while Central Library houses the world’s most expensive book, a John James Audubon Birds of America volume worth £12.5m.
St George’s Hall holds £5 lunchtime organ recitals while its ornate Concert Hall, once dubbed “the most perfect hall in the world” by Charles Dickens, also hosts performances.
An evening drink
Goodness Gracious is an eighth-floor terrace with arguably the best views. Enjoy bespoke cocktails or their special G&Tea – using tea from Oh Me Oh My below – under the Liver Birds’ watchful eyes.
Love Lane Brewery’s bar provides a taste of the Baltic Triangle’s craft beer scene, with beer flights available.
The newly-opened Sister Ray makes classy cocktails against a disco and funk playlist. Try the Sea Shape vodka martini with a slither of nori.
For cask ale opulence, The Vines on Lime Street is hard to beat. Grade II-listed, it has ornamental friezes, a glass dome and a lavish ceiling embellished with zodiac signs.
Dinner time
Belzan is the out-of-town restaurant everyone’s talking about. Applauded by Michelin, Liverpool-born chef Sam Grainger’s restaurant near Sefton Park offers a three-course set price menu for £32, including a glass of wine. A la carte dishes include Lindisfarne oysters with pickled gooseberry, Guinness rarebit potato and beef sirloin with smoked bone marrow.
In Albert Dock, Maray lays on Middle Eastern-themed small plates like whipped goats’ cheese, braised carrots on black garlic tahini and lamb kofta with baba ghanoush – and a crisp Lebanese house white.
Ma Boyle’s Alehouse, dating back to 1870, is a good bet for scouse, the lamb or beef stew that spawned the Scousers nickname.
Summer strolls
A Reel Tours walking tour reveals how Liverpool is the most filmed city in the country after London, doubling as Moscow, Birmingham and even Gotham City in Peaky Blinders, The Batman, TV’s Ipcress File, Tin Star and more. £15pp for two and a-half hour group tours.
To head out into nature, you could explore the woodland and garden trails at the National Trust’s Speke Hall, close to John Lennon Airport, or join the 21-mile Sefton Coastal Path which starts in Crosby and runs north to Southport via Formby Point’s red squirrels, the iron men of Antony Gormley’s Another Place beach installation and Ainsdale National Nature Reserve’s sand dunes.
Three things you might not know about Liverpool
- The Liver Birds are called Bella and Bertie. It’s said Bella looks over the river waiting for returning sailors while Bertie turns inwards to check when the pubs open.
- The 30,000 hand-crafted Minton floor tiles in St George’s Hall are worth millions, with images of Neptune, tridents and dolphins and a Liver Bird.
- St Luke’s – known as the bombed-out church – is a symbol of Scousers’ resilience. A 1941 blitz attack obliterated all but its shell, which today holds events.