My London: Toby Stephens

East London, near Spitalfields.

What's your earliest London memory?

Being taken for walks by my nanny in Battersea Park and looking up at the huge blue gas towers and smelling the malt from the brewery that used to be there.

What was the last play you saw?

The White Guard at the National.

What advice would you give a tourist?

Walk as much as possible to avoid the Tube, which is terrible and overpriced.

Which five shops do you rely on?

I go to John Sandoe in Chelsea for books because it's like something out of a Dickens novel with its little corridors. Folk, in The Old Truman Brewery, for unusual but well-made shirts. A lovely perfumery in Belgravia called Les Senteurs for unique colognes and perfumes that don't take your head off. St John Bread & Wine for Eccles cakes and brownies. I like to browse the records in Rough Trade East.

What's the best meal you've had in London?

At Galvin La Chapelle, off Bishopsgate. During the week it's filled with obnoxious bankers, but it's lovely and quiet at the weekend.

What are your guilty pleasures?

Triple-shot lattes in small cups from Nude Espresso on Hanbury Street, E1.

What are you most afraid of?

Not working.

What would you do as Mayor for the day?

My big hatred is littering, so I would impose an on-the-spot punishment and make litterers wear a sign saying 'I am a lazy slob'.

What was the last album you bought?

Brian Eno's Plateaux of Mirror, which I put on when I've drunk too much coffee. It's very mellow.

What would you save from a fire?

My heavily pregnant wife Anna-Louise [Plowman] and my two kids.

What makes you cry?

Everything. I'm pathetic and I'll cry anywhere, any time. It's the cause of great embarrassment.

Which is your favourite shopping street?

Cheshire Street off Brick Lane. I go window-shopping there with my son and we stand outside the toy shop and fantasise over which mechanical robot we'd like to take home.

What do you most like wearing?

My double-breasted navy coat from Tin House in Norfolk.

What's the most romantic place in London?

Two Temple Place by the Inns of Court. It's where we had our wedding reception.

What is your favourite London discovery?

Bunhill Fields Cemetery, off Old Street, where William Blake is buried. It's an oasis of peace.

Tell me something I don't know about London

My neighbour, the historian Dan Cruickshank, told me that the Shakespearean actor Richard Burbage is buried in a vault in a church on Shoreditch High Street.

Where did you last go on holiday?

I'm in Norfolk at the moment and we're staying in an old lighthouse. I recently took my wife to Paris for a romantic break and we spent last Christmas in Venice, which is so atmospheric when the sea mists are rolling in.

What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you?

I was recently in a lift with a mother and her daughter and they were complimenting me on my work. Just before we got out, they said: 'And what's your wife Helen doing?' They thought I was Damian Lewis who is married to Helen McCrory. In the end I went along with it and just said, 'She's very busy at the moment!'

Have you ever stolen anything?

I got arrested in Los Angeles for stealing bubble gum when I was about six.

Toby is in Danton's Death at the National until 14 October and in the comedy series Vexed, which begins on BBC Two on Sunday at 9pm