“This is the most anyone has ever spoken to me on the tube,” said the man to my left, sinking a spoon into his Laphraoig single malt ice-cream. “Well this is the first time I’ve drunk wine from an actual glass on the tube,” added the woman opposite, pouring herself a stream of merlot.
Having dinner on the tube was a first for me, too, and we were all there thanks to trip4real.com. This website was founded in Barcelona last year, as a platform for locals who want to share little-known aspects of their city with visitors and can offer paid-for tours and activities. It launched in London this month and has already signed up more than 100 London locals who have some unique experience to sell.
Our host for the evening was chef Alex Cooper, who produced a four-course meal that included roasted cauliflower soup and sirloin steak – and everything tasted better than anything I could have imagined coming out of the tiny disused cafe he was cooking in. The meal was served in a decomissioned 1967 Victoria line carriage next to a former Victorian waste pumping station close to Walthamstow marshes, tucked away among other disused coaches.
Alex joined trip4real a few months ago to promote the secret supper club he runs here and, from last month, on a 1914 Dutch barge moored in Barking.
Alex and his friend Tom Fothergill started their club, called Basement Galley, at the other end of the Victoria line, in a tiny basement in Brixton, and experimented with a few other London locations before stumbling across the tube carriage on a filming location website and coming up with the Underground Supper Club.
Alex says Basement Galley has seen a much wider variety of passengers-cum-guests since listing on trip4real. “We’re quite tucked away here in Walthamstow,” he says, “so it’s great to see people from outside London wanting to come away from the centre for a night. This has changed the dynamics for locals, too, as there are now a few other little cool projects opening up in this area.”
Other London experiences on offer on the website include a mad hatter’s tea party in a secret location (£22 a head) and live gigs with local musicians in little-known venues (£40).
The company’s founder, Gloria Mollins, says: “I decided to create trip4real as a way for travellers and locals to have a platform to connect and explore the best of a city.”
The site now has 2,000 people offering trips in cities in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, as well as London, and more than 20,000 users.
The hosts, or “locals”, sign up to the website and create a profile detailing the experience they have to offer. It is up to them to set the price. And, as with eBay buyers and sellers, the community offer their opinions of the experience online.
“To grow in a new city, we employ city managers who hunt down cool locals, like Alex and his amazing supper club on the tube,” says Mollins.
All current dates for the Underground Supper Club (£41.65pp) are sold out but there will be new dates coming up for July and beyond. For bookings see trip4real.com or grubclub.com/basement-galley
More locals’ tours websites
Whether you want to eat with them, tour with them or do an activity with them, withlocals.com hooks you up with the locals in Asia. Let Piyaporn take you shopping for five hours in Bangkok’s markets (€8.75 a head), or arrange a three-day tour in Bhaktapur, Nepal in a vintage VW Beetle with Sailesh (€131.25)
The good-looking website Vayable.com has some of the quirkiest experiences, and covers the US and Europe. Foraging for urban mushrooms in LA ($50) with mycologist Alan, who recently unearthed a new type of psychedelic shroom, is just one.
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