If you’re looking for date-night ideas this winter, then wrap up warm and get ready to slide (very accurately, with the aid of some brooms) into your intended’s DMs – because The Curling Club is coming back to London.
That’s right, mesmeric Winter Olympics favourite curling – we’re talking ‘slidey rock’, we’re talking ‘target at the end of a long narrow sheet of ice’, and we’re absolutely talking ‘some people with brooms sweeping frantically’ – is very much a playable attraction at the Southbank Centre, seven days a week, from the start of November.
And this isn’t some lukewarm take on the sport – this is the real deal, with five curling sheets, each accommodating groups of up to ten, and the whole thing overseen by bona-fide curling ledge Eve Muirhead OBE, quadruple Olympian and former skip of Team GB.
But it’s not all sweeping, scrubbing, sliding, and burning (when you accidentally touch the stone when you’re not supposed to – at which point your team mates are fully within their rights to deliver you a sick burn). As with every self-respecting winter sport, the whole enterprise is underpinned by a healthy drinking culture. The Curling Club offers some cracking après-ski (après-curl? Uncurling?), with DJs, cocktails, and Alpine-themed food (including dirty raclette fries and bratwursts galore – both meaty and vegan-friendly).
For those a little further out of town, the Club is also open in Twickenham, where the key headline concepts of ‘sport plus booze’ are likely to be met by legions of local rugby fans with something approaching religious euphoria.
If you’ve been honoured/saddled with the privilege/agony of organising a work Christmas party, your prayers/frustrated obscenities have been answered; both Curling Clubs accept big group bookings, meaning with little-to-no effort you’ll be able to lock down a silly, boozy, quasi-structured night out that your colleagues will genuinely enjoy.
And for those going on a date? May your curling arm be strong and your aim be true. We hope you score.
NOTE: The Curling Club comes to the Southbank Centre, and 68 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 from 2nd November – 3rd January 2023. You can find out more, and book (from £24pp), here.
The Curling Club | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
On the hunt for more wintry spots? You’ll want to have a look at the best winter rooftops in London…
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Carpe Diem!