Georgiana Davies is a London-based content creator and freelance documentary filmmaker whose oyster videos have reached millions across the globe. Best known online as "Oyster Girl", she has eaten up to 90 oysters in a single sitting and regularly showcases oyster farms, restaurants and producers from Battersea to Kazakhstan.
When she's not on oyster duty, Georgiana covers pickles, solo dates in London and off-the-beaten-track travel to places like Uzbekistan – and has made documentary programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and CNN.
1. Where do you rest your head?
On a beautifully comfortable pillow in Notting Hill. Actually, to be honest, I have about 12 pillows on my bed – so any one of them.
I grew up in Earl's Court and have moved around a bit. Aged two, my family moved to Australia for a year; I went to boarding school in Buckinghamshire, then during my gap year I lived and worked in an orphanage in the forest in Russia, followed by a stint in St Petersburg on my year abroad at university. After graduating I moved to Berlin for a few years before returning to London and settling in Hackney.
Now, at long last, I've made my way back to west London – and it feels so good to be back around friends and family!
2. What's something amazing about your area that only the locals know about?
If you go to It's Bagels half an hour after closing time, they may give you free bags of bagels to take home. There's nothing wrong with them – they just haven't sold that day and would otherwise go to waste. I stumbled across this by accident: all I wanted was an iced caramel latte and I left with 25 squishy bagels that went straight into my freezer and have been sustaining my flatmate and me for the past three weeks!
3. Where's your favourite local spot for a cheap bite to eat?
"Notting Hill" and "cheap" are not usually words you'd see in the same sentence unless you firmly press the word "not" in between them.
However – there is a great Italian restaurant on Kensington Park Road called La Mia Mamma where all the food is cooked by nonnas and pizzas start at £13. The starters, pizzas and pastas are excellent, and if you say it's your birthday, they'll lower the lights, whack on some high-octane celebratory music, come out with a sparkler-laden pudding and sing happy birthday to you. Absolutely worth a visit.
4. Any other local businesses you'd like to shout about?
There's a wonderful Spanish deli called La Plaza Deli towards the top of Portobello Road which sells the most beautiful Spanish ham. I'm especially fond of them because the first time I went in, they were selling some soon-to-be out-of-date Iberico Bellota ham at a ridiculously reduced price. The pigs are fed on an acorn-rich diet which gives the meat an intensely savoury, rich and nutty flavour. They also have beautifully fat boquerones, huge juicy olives and staple food items in wonderfully quaint packaging. Sometimes I'll grab some anchovies, cheese and cured meats, head to the tables outside and enjoy my snacks whilst people-watching. It's as close to heaven as you can get on this earth.
5. Where's your favourite free place to go in London for a solo date?
I love anything to do with art, so I'd always recommend the Royal Academy or the Tate for their free exhibitions. It's one of the things I love most about London – free access to some of the best artworks in the world, with exhibitions that constantly change and surprise you.
A solo walk down Regent's Canal, starting in Kilburn/Maida Vale and ending in Victoria Park in Hackney, is another brilliant solo date option. It takes around four hours; whack on a podcast, your favourite music, or just raw-dog the entire walk – it's magical at any time of year. Sometimes you'll even come across a canal boat selling pastries and coffee!
6. What would your perfect no-spend London day entail?
Taking some oil paints and a canvas and spending much of the day painting in Holland Park. For a park at the edge of Zone 1, it still feels pretty wild and wood-like in parts – but there are also sunny, grassy spots where you can settle down for a few hours and paint peacefully in nature. Add some homemade pickles, a bottle of wine from your fridge and an Italo disco playlist, and you've got yourself a perfect day.
7. You're known for eating copious amounts of oysters – where in London can you get the best ones without spending a fortune?
This depends on the oyster happy hours being offered at any given time. When I started eating oysters in earnest in 2021, you had to search high and low for a deal – but now you can't move in the city for £1-a-pop oysters. I'll stay loyal to Wright Bros, where I film all my oyster-eating challenges. They have restaurants in Battersea, Borough and South Kensington, and each branch does £1 oysters at different times during the week. The staff are wonderful, the seafood is fresh and the owners are great fun – which is always important.
8. As someone who's travelled a lot, what's the one thing you'd most like to import from another city to London?
More nightclubs open late during the week! In Berlin and Madrid you can go clubbing any night of the week. The other day a friend and I were trying to find a good club open late on a Tuesday and could barely find anything past 2am in central London. What's that about?!
9. If you were Mayor of London, what's the first thing you'd change about the city?
I would require all cyclists to take a road awareness test. If you need to learn the laws of the road when learning to drive a car or motorbike – including rules about zebra crossings, roundabouts and not mowing down pedestrians – then I think cyclists should too. And more late-night weekday nightclubs, obviously!
10. In three words, what makes someone a Londoner?
Adventurousness, openness, resilience.
Adventurousness because you can't come to London and live a boring, sedentary life – in my opinion, at least. Londoners love new things, bold action and a bit of risk. There's always a new opening, be it an exhibition, rave or restaurant, that's worth checking out. Openness because the city is constantly changing and full of people from all walks of life – you'll encounter so many different cultures and opinions here, and I absolutely love it. And resilience because the city is expensive, exhausting and never switches off. This isn't the place for someone who wants to live a small life – but I'd rather be overwhelmed with choice and opportunity than struggling to find something to do.
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