Covent Garden had recovered much of its familiar energy by the summer of 2022. Visitors were again filling the Piazza, audiences were gathering around street performers and the surrounding streets were busy with shoppers, restaurant tables and people moving through the West End.

This Roberts London film, published on 19 June 2022, records one of those afternoons. The plan is straightforward: walk from Charing Cross to Covent Garden, collect a burger from Five Guys on Long Acre, watch the public performances and see where the streets lead afterwards.

Walking from Charing Cross to Long Acre

The journey begins near Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square before turning towards the Strand and the streets around Covent Garden. It is a useful approach because the district reveals itself gradually. The grander buildings around the Strand give way to narrower commercial streets, theatres, restaurants and the constant movement between Leicester Square, Soho and the Piazza.

The food stop is Five Guys. Inside, the familiar red-and-white interior is busy without feeling overcrowded. The burger is collected in the chain’s paper and foil packaging before the walk continues towards the centre of Covent Garden.

Street performance beneath the decorations

Near the Piazza, a large audience has formed around a street performer. Covent Garden’s performance culture works through these temporary circles: a patch of paving becomes a stage, the crowd establishes its edge and the ordinary movement of the street pauses for a few minutes.

The film shows the scale of the audience from several positions. Some visitors stand close to the act while others watch from beneath the Market Building’s colonnades. Above them, coloured decorations stretch across the street and give the performance an unusually theatrical setting.

This is not incidental entertainment at the edge of the visit. It is part of the character of Covent Garden itself: performers, spectators, shops and architecture sharing the same public space.

The Piazza, theatres and St Paul’s Church

The route continues past West End theatre fronts and into the Piazza. St Paul’s Church faces the Market Building across the open space, while the surrounding terraces and colonnades frame the crowds below. The film moves between these recognisable landmarks rather than treating Covent Garden as a single attraction.

From one side of the Market Building, the Piazza appears almost like an auditorium. People sit along the edge, descend the steps or stop above the lower market spaces. The layers of activity explain why Covent Garden can feel busy without being reduced to a shopping street.

A Five Guys burger outside

The burger is eaten outside, away from the restaurant but still within the movement of Covent Garden. It is substantial, loosely wrapped and unapologetically messy. The close views in the film provide the evidence a food-led article needs: not merely the shopfront or packaging, but the burger itself.

The sequence is personal rather than comparative. Although the original video title promises an “ultimate” burger experience, the film documents one particular meal during one afternoon. Menus, prices and the branch itself should therefore be understood as they appeared in June 2022.

Beyond the Piazza

After lunch, the walk continues through the Market Building and the network of streets around Covent Garden. Pubs, bars, restaurants and shopfronts sit close together, and the character changes quickly between the principal visitor routes and the smaller streets beyond them.

Seen now, the value of the film lies in this complete sequence. It records central London not as a list of recommendations, but as an afternoon in use: walking in from Charing Cross, buying food, joining a crowd, looking at the architecture and carrying on through the West End.

The burger gives the journey a destination, but the busking and street life give it its shape. Together they preserve Covent Garden as it felt on a busy June afternoon in 2022.