Mr & Mrs Smith

The King's Cross area is dotted with restaurants, some more salubrious than others, and nearby Caledonian Road is home to a string of Ethiopian eateries that are well worth sampling. The St Pancras Grand Restaurant and Oyster Bar (+44 (0)20 7870 9900) alongside the station's Eurostar platform serves a shamelessly retro caviar-studded British menu for real Age-of-the-Railways decadence. Acorn House (www.acornhouserestaurant.com) on Swinton Street is a fully sustainable training restaurant, which has an excellent seasonal menu. Both ingredients and staff are locally sourced.  Smithy's (www.smithyslondon.com) is a pubby hideaway in a former stableyard, which has a daily changing menu of gastro greats, such as scallops, ham hocks and sweetbreads.

St Pancras Station's new Champagne Bar (+44 (0)20 7870 9900) is the headline act in these parts; it's the longest in Europe and an excellent place to pass a decadent breakfast or an opulent evening.Hidden behind King's Cross in Varnisher's Yard is Camino (www.camino.uk.com), a lively Spanish bar and tapas restaurant. Also nearby is The Fellow (www.thefellow.co.uk), a laid-back Manhattanite cocktail lounge-style bar which serves European-tweaked British fare.

With the Eurostar less than a minute away, Paris is a realistic day-trip. The 14 million books of the British Library (www.bl.uk) are over the road, and the million odd knick-knacks of British Museum (www.britishmuseum.org) are a 15-minute walk away. King's Cross is in the middle of the mother of all facelifts, and though there are still some iffy bits dotted about, there are also world-class attractions springing up, such as the gleaming new King's Place  arts centre (www.kingsplace.co.uk), which houses concert halls, art galleries, two orchestras and The Guardian newspaper.