39 best restaurants in London worth changing your plans for
A blend of spinach and beetroot, with yoghurt and mustard seeds, this superfood dish is as pink as the decor and packed with flavour. The vibrant beet cheera pachadi, usually reserved for weddings in Kerala, is worth trying. Flavours come through in dishes such as the banana boli – deep-fried plantains with black sesame – and rasa kayi, a spicy vegetable curry from Karnataka. This neighbourhood favourite is known for its all-vegetarian, south Indian menu. Come for locally sourced, seasonal food from independent producers and suppliers and one of the most seductive vibes in all of London. In 2024, Joké became the UK’s first Black female chef to win a Michelin star.
Levelling up from her tiny outpost in Peckham, Lee recently brought her exciting modern Malaysian concept to a sweet spot in Lower Clapton. On the menu, a mean, signature Manhattan (rude not to), oysters, steak, fish and a twice-baked chocolate cake simply asking to be devoured. A rickety wooden staircase leads to the restaurant, which is inspired by New York glamour and top-notch hospitality. It was once a nightclub and it remains relatively inconspicuous save for the bold blue awning over the door and the italicised logo, which contradicts surrounding brown-brick, graffiti-covered walls.
It’s dimly lit and subsequently moody, with meticulously placed light fixtures spotlighting golden fixtures. We’re guided to our table downstairs, admiring interiors inspired by co-founders Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi’s maternal Grandfather’s summer house in Dalhousie (formerly part of Punjab). It’s an exciting new launch that is sure to rival its sister, Gymkhana, which has become the A-list go-to for Indian banqueting. However, rather than mourn balmy evenings of al-fresco dining, we’re headed to JKS Restaurants’ latest jewellery box of an establishment tucked just off Piccadilly on Heddon Street.
Canteen
One of Belly’s ‘viral dishes’ is cured scallops in big, shallow shells, swimming in coconut cream with basil oil and little pickled chillies. An intimate Filipino restaurant in Kentish Town. Simply visit the walk-ins-only bar, where you’ll be able to get most of the snacky bits on the menu – including the legendary rarebit – and a glass of St John rouge. Our most recent visit saw us feast on cocks comb schnitzel and snout cassoulet, dishes that sound like you might have let Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre into the kitchen. Head chef Elliot Hashtroudi learned his way around a carcass at St John and comes across like Keith Floyd in a trucker cap.
It’s easy to see why Max Rocha is quickly becoming known as one of the top chefs in the city. Stick to two or three mains – the handmade pasta with rabbit ragù is perfectly al dente, while the stuffed tomato comes with a side of British graceburn, a creamier version of feta. There’s just enough space for chocolate mousse – dolloped onto the plate, slicked with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt.
Bakare offers a serious set menu that includes a fiery hot pepper soup and peaks with a decadent, crispy skinned guinea fowl yassa. In our original review, we heralded the perfect collision of sweet, salty and peppery heat, and dubbed it London’s best restaurant of 2022. They just celebrated their 10th anniversary, and food is fancy without ever being smug or exclusionary.
Few places are as grand and historically significant as the OWO – a hotel that’s home to nine restaurants, including Kioku by Endo. And don’t scrimp on the vegetable sides – I haven’t stopped talking about the sprouting broccolini and the mashed potato, served on a knockout shellfish bisque sauce and topped with lobster. The menu is not the traditional roast or scones that you might expect, but an unexpected, hold-onto-your-hat, seafood adventure. Taking its name from HRH Elizabeth II, who was born at the Bruton Street address, the restaurant is the creation of Ross Shonhan (Nobu, Zuma, Bone Daddies), who, peculiarly, wanted to imagine what life would have been like for Lilibet had she never become queen. London’s dining scene can be split into two categories – mouth-watering food or eye-wateringly beautiful decor. Cleanse the palate with a refreshing white port and tonic before opting for something funky from the short wine list – we’d order a Chardonnay from the Languedo or a zingy Vinho Verde from Portugal’s Minho region.
For main, we enjoyed pollock fish balls in a sour orange curry sauce and our first foray away from seafood for the evening, a glistening and succulent pork chop. The menu might be simple (two pizzas – one meat, one vegetarian – four pastas, and a short list of wines and beers), but the dishes pack a punch. The menu is vast and made to share; perfectly pitched seafood dishes, a whole section just for lamb (we especially liked the lamb cutlets Milanesa) and pork (sucking pig ears, Iberian pork ribs, pig trotters). These days, thanks to the recent glut of whipsmart Thai restaurants, London diners are on first-name terms with pad peds and nahm prik paos, squeezing out nam jim jaew sauce like it’s ketchup.
Scotti’s Snack Bar
I started with a cocktail – the 2210 rum punch – which tasted like a holiday and instantly made me crave summertime. Fortunately, you could never describe him as ‘all talk and no substance’; the food speaks for itself, and Natty knows it. The young chef has a dedicated social media following (on Instagram, he refers to himself as ‘your gyal’s favourite chef’), and it seems like he’s hit the nail on the head. The menu at Poon’s certainly serves as an invigorating example.
We pile loha karahi chicken curry on mountains of rice and strips of leftover naan bread, adjusting our belts for more room as we mop up the richly spiced tomato sauce. The lightest spice is in the dunghar paneer tikka, which is enveloped in an uber-indulgent, nutty kaju masala sauce – the pools of vivid orange oil are best soaked up with a classic butter naan. We soon realise that everything has a kick, but it’s pleasant rather than overwhelming.
This is the kind of restaurant you want to lose an afternoon in. An intensely violet-y Jordanian Saint George Petite Syrah accompanies us through plates of salty-spongy Nabulsi cheese; Sheikh El Mahshi baby aubergines with pickled herbs and walnuts; Rye Bay skate fish kofta and a slow-cooked lamb spiced with mahlab and mastic. Named after a flowering Palestinian thistle, it is a four-level earthy, imaginative space in a quiet symphony of natural greens, lemony yellows and poured creams. Now, behind the sage-green facade of a Notting Hill townhouse, he has unveiled petite Akub with his friend Rasha Khouri. Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan has done more than anyone to raise the status (and stake the rights) of Palestine’s gastronomic identity.
Sleek, creative cuisine in a shabby-chic listed building that doubles as an antiques shop. A joint venture between the always-excellent 40 Maltby Street and chef-owner Anna Tobias, this is impeccable European cuisine with a particular emphasis on French and Italian cult classics. Homely and simple comfort food bistro in Bloomsbury. This is powerful and intense food. A great Green Lanes gastropub from the Papi chappies, aka chef Matthew Scott and sommelier Charlie Carr. Launched a decade ago in 2016 and run by brother-and-sister duo Emeka and Ifeyinwa, expect London-inspired twists on classic Nigerian dishes, from jollof quinoa to plantain waffles.
A Malaysian flavour powerhouse and our 2024 restaurant of the year. Head chef Jamie Thorneycroft honed his flair for fire and ferments over at Lagom and his menu here is potent stuff, with flavours more than capable of making themselves heard over nightly vinyl-only DJs. Less a ‘listening bar’ and more of a ‘dancing restaurant’. Elegant enough to parade the catwalk at London Fashion Week, it’s served with a bowl of tiny pink pickled onions, a deft, couture-worthy touch. A casual but indulgent spot in East Dulwich with the ex-head chef of Gymkhana in the kitchen. Like most things on the menu here, it’s spicier than a Gaspar Noé movie, but that’s why you’re here, right?
Oslo Court Restaurant
For the food, we started with a crab bisque amuse-bouche to whet the whistle. However, these negative thoughts are washed away as I cross the threshold of the barely opened AngloThai in Marylebone and am embraced by the literal and figurative warmth of the space. casinos not on gamestop Waiters buzz about in natty lilac or chocolate-brown jackets as I sip Gina’s martini, a tiny but lethal version made with olive-oil vodka and named after the restaurant’s muse and namesake, Taiano’s late mother Gina. Gina represents their first swing at nurturing a project all of their own in the locale they call home, sitting snug among the estate agents and corner shops of a nondescript high street at the end of the Overground. Wife and husband duo Ravneet Gill and Mattie Taiano have proven their chops on the capital’s food scene; Gill oversaw the sweet offering at the likes of St. John, Zuma and Black Axe Mangal, while Taiano has cooked for The Camberwell Arms, Franks and Som Saa.
Servers move around the tables as though performing a well-rehearsed dance, skilfully placing napkins over laps at one table before pouring wine – explaining every detail without spilling a drop – at our own. In a restaurant this grand, you might expect service to be stilted and stuffy – it couldn’t be further from the case. It takes a good few moments after stepping inside the grand dining room for your eyes to adjust and take in the spectacular surroundings. With a two-course lunch available for £23 and a service charge of just 10 per cent, it’s all attractively affordable. The current star of the show, however, is the potato sourdough with house gravy, the deep, rich aroma of which seems to rise up from the dish and do an impression of the famous Bisto advert.
The restaurant’s menu features seriously old-school dishes like kedgeree, bubble and squeak, and ‘raw beef and crisps’, which is some kind of wonderful. There’s a rotation of fiery, no-frills dishes such as bavette steak rubbed with yaji dressing (served with the requisite quarter-tomato as is custom, Rafal explains), and ekuru with pumpkin-seed pestou and Scotch bonnet sauce. The wine list is extensive, ranging from the house St John white (£8.75), red (£8.75) or Cremant (£11) by the glass up to blow-the-budget Burgundys north of £600. We update this list regularly as new restaurants open and existing ones evolve. A grand dining room in a Grade II-listed former courthouse. Now it’s a wonderful, community-focused space, with a menu of Jamaican-inspired home-cooked classics.
Where Taiano runs the mains, Gill has put together a pleasingly retro dessert menu that reminds me of my school days, albeit far more refined; riffs on rice pudding and chocolate sponge cake are joined by peach cobbler with clotted cream, one of the highlights of our meal. We’re encouraged to try the Tasting Menu to experience the breadth of the menu, ranging from a nigiri selection of bluefin tuna, yellowtail and trout to an aged monkfish paired with smoked eel, ginger sauce and a potato rosti. There’s a bustling open kitchen plan that overlooks the dining space, allowing guests to see first-hand the detailed precision with which the team works.
Talking of which, most of the meat on the menu is sourced from Scottish estates, though butchered and aged in the meat room downstairs. The closer to the grill you get, the more you may want to consider wearing shorts and a T-shirt – it’s intense, almost like being on the boilerplate of The Flying Scotsman as it chugs up to the Highlands. But another star of the show is the centrepiece wood-burning grill and oven at the far end of the dining room. They’ve assembled something of a crack team, with Ashley Palmer-Watts of Fat Duck and Dinner by Heston fame in the kitchen, front-of-house staff from St John’s and head butcher George Donnelly. It’s the passion project of Oisin Rogers, who has been steering London and Dublin pubs for three decades – most notably and most recently at The Guinea Grill – and Charlie Carroll, founder of Flat Iron steakhouses.
It’s all accompanied by claypot rice, carefully just-crisped at the bottom, and gorgeous glasses of wine, well-recommended by Michael Mackenzie, including a Sauvignon from Burgundy that proves as delicious as it sounds unlikely. A quartet of wontons similarly steep, more literally, in a chilli vinegar dressing, my dining partner terms “celeriac-y” – we are joyfully baffled at its depth of flavour. The pale pink walls of the restaurant’s latest incarnation are adorned with photos of the family, who first opened Poon’s of Covent Garden, around the corner, in 1973.
The space used to be a Finsbury Park fish-and-chip shop and still looks exactly like a Finsbury Park fish-and-chip shop, with tiled floors, old-school pine counters, and original signage intact. A trendy Spanish fish bar in a one-time chippy. If it’s available, do order it. Pasta, wine, and a waiter who might just get up in the middle of service and bash out a little light jazz on the piano – what more could you want? Plus there are at least ten salads on the menu each day – think mango, celery and walnut or fried, marinated courgette and aubergine.
A refined yet wholesome family affair, the contemporary Korean eatery arrived on Mare Street, Hackney, in June, care of chef Hyun Sang Ko, and his two sons, both named Jae Ko. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes the best things in life aren’t free; they’re hard-earned – a theory which would explain the success of Miga, more than 22 years in the making. There are two wine pairings to choose from – one around the £90 mark and one costing £125, as well as a clever non-alcoholic pairing for £49. 14 courses change daily, and are cooked in front of diners – they might include Newlyn crab on roasted chicken skin, Orkney scallops with wild chamomile or Devon Red Ruby beef with fermented artichokes and pickled tapioca, as at the time of writing. Rogan closed Aulis in early 2023, as it entered its sixth year, and reopened with a new look and a fresh menu. Simon Rogan’s little restaurant in Soho could easily be described as an immersive West End theatre experience.
If you’re not au fait with the delights of a tantuni, now’s your time to get involved. Arguably the most important British restaurant of the past decade. House wine is also very decent value at £27 for a 500ml carafe. There is also beef and pork tortellini in a delicate chicken brodo, tonno tonnato, meatballs zuppetta and aglio e olio spaghetti. The ackee and saltfish spring rolls; the confit pork belly; the wiri wiri lamb rump which comes with a light and smoky baba ganoush, sharp pickled onions, mint oil and tamarind jus. For meat eaters, it’s worth adding the poached chicken strips.
The Dubonnet Negroni comes with a succinct history lesson, and is a touch more syrupy than its aperitif original, but it was the Naturally Fresh that we’d ask for again, even if it comes off the menu. There’s no elegant way to eat the grilled prawn ‘soup’ (a peppery seafood broth) or the latke-inspired cassava fritters, but that’s what the stack of napkins is for. Despite the six previous courses, it’s gone in seconds – the perfect end to a dinner verging on a theatrical experience.
Noble Rot’s Dan Keeling gave a helping hand with the wine list here, with a changing monthly focus on small producers. The dining room is nothing fancy, but the omnipresent queue outside says it all – this is some of the most delicious, authentic Malaysian food in the city. Chicken offal skewers (a Filipino street food staple), come with a sweet barbecue glaze and cucumber vinegar dip. Reassuringly frequented by Filipino diners, this Kingly Court eatery combines Filipino street food concepts with British cooking techniques. Their Maginhawa Group (behind some of London’s popular Filipino and Southeast Asian restaurants, including Mamasons Dirty Ice Cream) has grown exponentially in just six years. And while there are main courses from the grill (black Hampshire pork chops with capers and rosemary borlotti beans; whole Brixham mackerel with Castelluccio lentils and salsa rossa) it’s the beef-shin ragu with pappardelle that keeps the locals coming back, and back again.
- The old yellow restaurant sign now hangs on an inside wall.
- On the menu there might creamy ‘nduja on toast, burrata served with peach and basil or breakfast radishes with aioli.
- This is the kind of restaurant you want to lose an afternoon in.
- Mission accomplished – this lowkey, unassuming spot instantly became London’s most acclaimed new restaurant.
- It’s unfussy and honest cooking, served in a setting that feels more country house than East End.
- The khatti meethi cod was also perfectly flakey with a tamarind sweet-and-sour style sauce, and the goat chapli kebab is another exciting dish to add to your list.
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