House of Minalima

We dropped Mum off at the National Portrait Gallery this morning and took Dad to explore Soho.

It's Chinese New Year so Chinatown was filled with lanterns and dancing dragons.

We started off at Smack so that Dad could try a lobster roll.

We then got tempted into the House of Minalima, the design house of all the printed props for the Harry Potter movies.

There was a shop on the ground floor selling all kinds of gorgeous stationary, prints and Harry Potter souvenirs.

The first floor had designs for book covers featured in the films. The artwork was gorgeous.

I loved the artwork for the witch books.

The stairs were covered in wanted posters.

The second floor was filled with newspapers from the films. We tried squinting to read the smallest text on the pages but one of the guides told us that it's just jibberish.

The next floor was all the packaging for the movies, with chocolate frogs, wizard supplies and candy.

I'd love to try some Exploding Lavender Bonbons.

The attic was dedicated to Fantastic Beasts with a gorgeous metal cut version of the cover.

I loved all the little details, like witch exit signs, floating candles, hands coming out of the ceiling and signs warning of trolls on the doors.

We waited next door in the Coach & Horses while waiting for Mum to finish up.

The pub is famous for having London's rudest landlord and was a favourite of the staff at Private Eye, so there are lots of illustrations on the wall.

We picked up Mum and headed to Victoria, so I could treat everyone to welsh rarebit croissants for lunch at Dominique Ansel.

We sat in the pretty covered courtyard at the back.

Tom tormented me about the super cute Blizzard The Bear cake I'd ordered, making me feel too guilty to eat it.

We popped our noses into Belgravia Books where they had the Paddington pop-up book which was just like the one from the movie.

We then made our way to Vagabond for an evening of wine tasting.

I loved the skeleton illustations on the label of this bottle of red wine.

Our final stop of the evening was Mother Kelly's at Vauxhall, where we tucked into platters of cheese and chocolates.