The British capital is a gastronome’s city – and the best restaurants in London are as varied as they are delicious. The relentless wave of launches can leave one breathless so, to that end, we’ve gathered the best of them (as well as a few bedded-in gems) into this frequently updated checklist of the “wheres?” and “whys?” of London’s hot-ticket tables. The only question is: where to book first?

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The Best Restaurants In London

• The tip: Book a terrace table to eyeball minor celebs and neck boulevardiers to your heart’s content.

Sat round the corner from Toklas at 180 The Thames – with must-book terrace seats overlooking Temple Gardens and its forest-green, Grade-II cabman’s kiosk – Café Clement is an all-day diner from Nick Jones, set within the new St Clement hotel. Things are as slick as you’d expect from the Soho House impresario, and the Big European Brasserie carté features all the Wolseley-recalling classics: bayonne ham and melon, a gruyère soufflé, moules, umpteen grilled cuts, a de rigueur prix fixe of oeufs mayonnaise and onglet steak. Is it progressive? Absolutely not. But for old-school glitz and glam, you’re sorted.

• : North African / Mediterranean
• The tip: The menu’s so wild that it’s tempting to plough, Mr Creosote style, through the lot. But the sole dessert – an insane date and pistachio tart – demands you save room.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the debut restaurant from Meedu Saad – former head chef at Kiln, now doing exemplary North African and Mediterranean-influenced fare – might buckle under the omnium-heavy weight of expectation. But nope, whether booze (an apex strawberry daiquiri here; carafes of Maxim Magnon’s super carignan red there) or food, it’s a rollicking triumph. You could pick blind and come up trumps: everything – from the shiso-wrapped crab kibbeh and dainty sea bass crudo with tomato, garum and pink peppercorn, to slabs of bordelaise-slicked sweetbreads with salted onions, and the famed duck, molasses-roasted with blackberries – is knock-out. It’s also part of the Super 8 group (Kiln, Brat, Mountain, Smoking Goat, et al) so the concrete-heavy space, inspired by architects like Carlo Scarpa, is as dreamy as the food.

French
The Vogue tip: Go for the courgette tart, and ask the staff to suggest a wine to go with it.
Soho
Ever found yourself in central on a weekend afternoon, knackered, peckish and hankering for a wine, only to realise that town is heaving and the only options that don’t involve being laughed away at the door are an Italian chain restaurant or a jacket potato stand? This is why the arrival of Marjorie’s, just off Carnaby Street, is so welcome. This already vibey little spot makes a point of keeping space for walk-ins, either on the smattering of pavement tables, or at the counter inside. The small, Parisian-inspired menu manages to be both decadent and well-priced, and the wine selection is excellent.

• The tip: The masala haddock with tartare: rustling nuggets of subtly spiced perfection.

Late of the strange downfall of Islington’s Caravel (that restaurant on a boat in Islington) the Spiteri brothers Lorcan and Fin have, along with dad Jon (a powerhouse maître d’ who launched St John, Session Arts Club and more) and mum Melanie (Arnold, one half of Rochelle Canteen), opened this, a fantastic gastropub in the bum end of north Kensington. The location belies some serious nous behind both bar and pass: think cider-braised pork belly skewers, seasonal pastas (tagliatelle with Romana courgette and stracciatella, say) and a killer chilli cheeseburger to eat; passionfruit-laced dry daiquiris, a Westway (in homage to the road) cocktail of tequila and blood orange shrub, and eponymous pub lagers to quaff.

• The tip: The deep-fried metsovone cheese balls, sticky with thyme honey, are the postcode’s greatest beer snack, bar none.

Tacked on to the side of (and sharing a bathroom with) the Covent Garden branch of Arcade, Zylia is an admirably straight-shooting Greek Cypriot (that is, Greek Cypriot) taverna headed up by Athens-raised ex-Singburi/Oma/Agora chef Nick Molyviatis and Cypriot hospitality man Barry Karacostas. The decor’s a sweet mix of holiday trad (think: wicker) and brushed steel, while the menu factors all the quotidien standards. Still, it’s worth erring slightly leftfield (for hipster London, anyway) towards the piles of burnished sweetbreads saganaki, caul-fat wrapped sheftalia sausages and chewy, mastic-laced kaimiki ice cream with sour cherries for the full effect.

• The tip: Settle into the counter seats with a sobrasada roll and a chilled glass of Crush (a 10 per cent ABV Loire grolleau) and thank god you’re not in the throng.

A blessed recourse to the seventh circle of touristic hell that is Kingley Court’s ground floor, Alta is a slick joint meshing northern Spanish Navarran cuisine and British ingredients. The remit is open-fire cooking: a dwindling zeitgeist, here deployed effortlessly across giant sharers such as the aged lamb rack with salsa verde and North Sea bream with smoked toms and sour cream. Though the real treasure is in the small plates – yellowtail crudo in an ajoblanco sauce, lobster rice with grapefruit, house sausage and, especially, a beatific sobrasada brioche with goat’s cheese and honey. Design-wise, it’s a peach; the thrumming open kitchen and earthy feature wall (with giant decorative crack) alone presumably a small fortune well spent.

• The tip: Hit the sake: there’s over 50 of ‘em, curated by ace sommelier Aidon Monk.

Humble Chicken’s four-year segue from natty yakitori spot to Michelin-lauded wonder was an impressive about-turn for chef Angelo Sato. He was clearly unsatisfied – despite having garnered two stars, he’s overhauled the restaurant and menu in pursuing a third. It’s not cheap (£235 per head! Before drinks!) but the omakase, flecked with esoteric Japanese ingredients, is truly wild. Think: dishes of sesame langoustine fried shokupan toast and langoustine brains blended with tomato samjung, or the centrepiece of a whole, binchotan-roasted anjou pigeon. Singular stuff.

• The tip: The apple and rhubarb pastry turnover: a natty riff on the beige McDonald’s stalwart.

A hip little sibling to sensual transatlantic diner The Dover – located two doors up the eponymous Mayfair street – the Counter supplies a full gamut of leathery, walnut-y midcentury aesthetics, louche RnB bangers and complimentary down-lighting. The warm, amber glow of the latter is perfect for stuffing one’s face with high-cal comfort classics – wedge salads, a tuna melt, chilli-flecked tomato spaghetti, a killer cheeseburger, slabs of New York cheesecake – and necking any of the eight varieties of margarita shaken up behind the extremely tasteful bar. Swooning stuff, and perplexingly reasonable to boot (and not just for Mayfair).

• The tip: The punchy cocktails, with a heady provision of tequila and mezcal, are non-negotiable.

The onetime wine bar at residency space Carousel is now a permanent Mexican joint – a shift predicated by the top-tier Mexican chefs who’ve cooked here over the years, and variously in thrall to the rustic roadside stalls of Ensenada and chef Lizarralde Serralde’s time cooking in Mexico. Come for the killer crudo (the sea bream with meyer lemon and sesame, and a prawn, ginger and burnt mandarin ceviche are both startling), stay for shards of tempura pumpkin with guacasalsa, and crab chilpachole rice with smoked eel cream. With a warm wash of oak, terrazzo and technicolour art, the space is a peach, too.

• The tip: Whet your whistle with an aviator cocktail, laced with crème de violette for grownup sweetshop appeal.

A six-year Bloomsbury stalwart, sat in the shadow of Senate House, Anna Tobias’s paean to seasonal simplicity seems to be having a second critical wind. And for good reason: it’s one of London’s finest, full stop; doing the kind of pared-back, ingredient-led food that people think they could cook at home, but literally no one could cook at home. Think artichoke, parmesan and parsley on tiny toasts. A chilled spinach and sorrel soup with crème fraîche. Blushing roast lamb with asparagus and a glistening parsley and anchovy sauce. Mint choc chip ice cream to finish, and super cocktails and low-intervention wine (a flushed Romain rosé from Transylvania’s Edgar Brutler, say) to see you through.

• The tip: Forget its muddy connotations; Sino’s catfish is a wildly engaging and underseen gem.

London isn’t exactly brimming with high-end, Ukrainian spots – but Sino would, surely, be an exemplar of the form even in Kyiv’s luxer neighbourhoods. Eugene Korolev’s menu echoes Ukraine’s fecund agricultural and gastronomic landscapes, through a rarefied lens. Marinated aubergine with cheese-stuffed Kyyrma bread, and potato and sorrel waffle with pike roe are both dinky still-lifes flecked with microherbs and petals. Gobstopper-shaped Kyivs with wild garlic butter are textbook; the cherry-glazed BBQ catfish genuinely original; and the multilayered, buckwheat and chocolate-topped honey cake, floundering in a pool of aerated cream, in contention for London’s best dessert.

• The tip: Ballast yourself with a bar-snack baguette; the merguez and frites is already revered.

It’s a pretty open secret that Barnes’s Waterman Arms is one the city’s finest gastropubs (give or take the other hallowed London Arms-es: Camberwell, Canton and Drapers). Founder Joe Grossman’s second site doesn’t have the winsome riverside appeal, but the Shaston is a dinky, higgledy boozer par excellence. Yes, the demographic is a contemporary, clashing melange of garden-variety Guinness blokes and more amendable, Drake’s-clad neo-aesthetes, but the baseline vibe is fully Old Soho and the food (most importantly) is grand: braised fennel or beef fat onion rings with cod’s roe; a fortifyingly brothy chicken, ham and mussel arroz caldoso; scallops with mash and fragrant curry leaves; and so on.

• The tip: It’s all swell, but the temaki uni – sea urchin hand roll – is a particularly beatific taste of the sea.

The capital’s history of approximate izakayas – that is, a kind of booze-fuelled Japanese pub/bar with snacky small plates – have tended a little too far to bijous ends. But “neo-izakaya” Himi, with its bare bricks and bustling narrow counter space, feels slightly more faithful to the model (and not least for the good selection of sakes and heady shōchūs, though the beer and wine skews European). The elevated izakaya classics are superb: from seaweed-wrapped tempura scallops, to robata-grilled red shrimp, duck udon torikara fried chicken, and Neptune’s full provision of temaki hand rolls, nigiri and glistening sashimi. .

• The tip: The Spiced Okra Martini is a perfect aperitif.

South Londoners went into mourning when Joké Bakare’s contemporary west African joint in Brixton Village shut at the end of 2022, but a few lauded pop-ups and a crowdfunding blitzkrieg later, it’s back in business, this time in a double-level space in Fitzrovia. And it’s returned, with Bakare’s phenomenal cooking hitting giddy new heights via set-menu dishes like guinea fowl with taro, ehuru and uziza sauce. Oh, and did we mention Bakare became Britain’s first Black female Michelin-starred chef?

• The tip: Embrace the eponymous unagi (that is, the meaty, mighty eel).

A speedy, Lilliputian sushi bar in the nouveau-gastro hotspot of Notting Hill, Eel is the brainchild of Dorian main man Chris D’Sylva. It’s as much of a pain to get a seat here as it is there, but the lucky ones will be blessed with some of the best – and most aesthetically zhuzhed – sashimi and nigiri in town. Astutely seasoned rice and immaculate fish is a must (not least the eternally underrated horse mackerel, as well the star showing of some lightly-torched, fatty otoro), meanwhile the wider selection of caviar is inevitable given the locale. Don’t miss out on their sole dessert, the very fragrant Japanese musk melon.

• The tip: It’s hyper-vibey all day long, but the live piano twinkling in the evenings (and Sunday bossa nova session) is a bonus.

Osteria Vibrato may only have opened in February 2026, but already feels like a Soho old hand, slotting seamlessly into the district’s boho milieu with its painting-filled, candle-lit, terrazzo-floored vibe and heartfelt regional Italian cookery. Little surprise, as the folks behind it are Aussies Charlie Mellor and som Cameron Dewar (the former a moonlighting opera singer and founder of Hackney’s much-missed Laughing Heart), the duo’s hospitality bona fides apparent from the off. The staples are all present: Piemontese veal tartare, a Sicilian seafood fritto misto, Tuscan ribollita, an Abruzzo-style fish stew and a much acclaimed Lombardian white risotto, humming with 30-month Reggiano, among them.

• The tip: We’ve said it below, and we’ll say it again – the crumpets really are to die for.

For all the prissiness you might expect of its Sloane Street address, there’s a warm familiarity to Willet’s that almost makes you feel like you’ve stepped into your local – well, an extremely elevated version of it, mind. This conviviality, casualness and charm colours the menu at this Belmond-owned bistro, a celebration of nostalgic British classics executed with contemporary verve – sweet Scottish langoustines dressed in a zingy Marie Rose; a generous, juicy slab of a pork chop served with a stone fruit and mustard reduction. And then the sourdough crumpets – by god, do not miss out on the crumpets. The Marmite butter is enough to convert even a lifelong hater.

The Best Restaurants In London

• The tip: Fine, you want the burger – but avoiding groupthink with a giant Swaledale barnsley chop, with ramata di montoro onion and green sauce, is chicer.

A controversial take, but Jackson Boxer – he of south London’s dynastic Boxer food family and the tousled good looks – has largely operated restaurants with great ambiences and slightly flawed food (Vauxhall’s underrated eatery/antiques repository Brunswick House aside). That said, he’s knocked it out of the park with Vesper: an unbelievably cool diner spearheading the Exmouth Market revival, with wicked bites like spring onion pancakes with raw tuna, salt and vinegar crisps with trout roe, and Vesuvio tomato with peach, cashew cream and sea buckthorn sending folks loco. And yes, they’re doing the off-menu, ten-and-they’re-gone gorgonzola burger from Dove, too.

• The tip: The butter and parmesan tagliatelle is ambrosial.

Restaurateur Ed Templeton, chef Naz Hassan and turbo-hunk actor Theo James’s Roman joint Lupa was one of the launches of 2025, but was invariably overrun by the Insta crowd. Blessed, then, is the arrival of Ornella: its sun-dappled, oak-heavy interiors and Milanese-inspired cooking should, one hopes, disperse the masses a bit. It’s timeless stuff, meticulously realised: an excellent vitello tonnato, saffron risotto with ossobuco, penna alla vodka, a plate-size veal Milanese, verdant bowls of peas with onion and guanciale, and so on. Italian wines from small-scale vignerons and cracking twists on aperitivi (an almond and grape sour, laced with the grappa-esque brandy Bava Uvantica, for example) complete the scene.

• The tip: Order a pickleback martini immediately with some cheese and onion choux “Chunion” puffs for a double-punch umami appetiser.

The name might scream ale-sloshing mediaeval brouhaha, but Shoreditch’s Tavern is a rather pacific “British bistro” with all the nuance you’d expect from the folks behind St Barts, Nest and Fulham Road’s wildly underheralded (and long shut) Fenn. Yes, the chilled pewter tankards of beer, eldritch spindles of puffed pig skin (with cod’s roe), hogget scrumpets, “fire bread” slicked with wild garlic emulsion and the cobnut XO (served with a baked Isle of Skye scallop) wink at the ersatz-bucolic scoff intimated by the name. But this is honed stuff, better exemplified in meticulous plates like Nutbourne tomato topped with picked crab, tandoori quail and a punchy veal sweetbread “burger”.

• The tip: Order one of each of the two deserts.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end,” sang ’90s college rockers Semisonic. They have been talking about 1F Mentmore Terrace – the London Fields address that once housed Papi, and recently became Auguste, a swooning Abruzzo-influenced restaurant specialising in charred skewers and plates that skew from the very dinky (such as painterly fingers of rosti with blue cheese and marjoram), to merely small (cured sea bream in a sheeny puttanesca salsa; soft cheese and onion cappelletti in lamb broth) and somewhat substantial (a textbook saltimboca with sofrito and chicken jus). It’s a terribly welcome revival of a lovely space – and, crucially, the Papi era’s lipstick red love-seat by the loos lives on.

• The tip: A shoe-in, but the shrimp toast is talk of the town for a reason.

Tempo, a southeast Asian spot from chef Eric Wan and wine guy Dan Long’s (he of Dalston’s Antipodean wine bar, Dan’s), has smartly eschewed London’s resto PR machine – but it’s still talked about with almost feverish reverence across the industry’s cloisters. It’s easy to see why: its lofty corrugated arch and rust-coloured counter the setting for an “order the lot” menu of shrimp toast (burnished slabs slathered in viridescent chilli sauce), coupes of silken egg with brown crab and shiitake XO, braised aubergine with whipped tofu, and bánh hỏi noodle bundles. Great natty pours, too, of course.

• The tip: Max out on the pasta and protein with a pizza “for the table”.

A former Victorian boozer in the Hackney/Clapton hinterlands, now transmogrified into a cool and breezy Italian restaurant, Elephant is a perfectly-formed spot that does all the small stuff well. The cocktails are zippy, beers are by the pint (a boon), the dinky (a pristine seabass crudo, say; or cheesy fried pasta pucks) a fine prefix to a small selection of textbook charred meats, pasta and blistering Neapolitan pizza. Chuck in some neat banquette seating, a sea of Shrigley prints, vintage crockery and a radiant stained-glass skylight scoured from an old cinema and you’ve got the full shebang.

• The tip: The zuppa imperiale – dowdy in looks, improbable in flavour.

There’s homestyle Italian cookery and then there’s . And Dara Klein’s feted, bustling Columbia Road trattoria – long-awaited perma-home for a Compton Arms residency of the same name – is as heartfelt as it comes. Inspired by Klein’s Pugliese heritage and Emilia-Romagnan upbringing (as well as her expat parents’ trattoria in NZ), Tiella’s simple, ingredient-focussed menu is hit after joyful hit: a slab of honey-doused and chilli-flecked ricotta with perfect focaccia; alchemically delicious zuppa imperiale, cubed parmesan and semolina dough bobbing in brodo; a chicken Milanese with creme-bound apple and fennel slaw; viscid bay leaf panna cotta with blood orange… impeccable.

• The tip: Normally redolent of ’70s dinner parties and wakes, Gina’s tomato vol-au-vent is a revolutionary, summertime reimagining.

Yes, it has proximity to Epping Forest’s verdant charms, but Chingford’s hardly an epicurean hotspot. Until, that was, the resplendent gastro power-couple of pastry doyenne Ravneet Gill and and chef Mattie Taiano launched Gina: a breezy, seasonal and ingredient-led diner, named after Mattie’s late mum, doing the kind of vibrant and subtly nuanced fare – potato and Gubbeen cheese pithiviers, ox cheeks with dumplings, the already-classic salmon roe and cream cheese crêpe – that’ll have people upping sticks to the Essex hinterlands in no time.

• The tip: Get buzzed on the three-sip cocktails while you agonise over the food.

Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s long-awaited sequel to Sabor is, obviously, a tied-on Iberian banger. Locale aside – a rather dystopian and steely new-build zone in Shoreditch, also home to Singbury v.2 – Legado a gem; a grabbag of fine plates inspired by the chef’s peripatetic life. Think: Cantabrian anchovies, smoked cheese and brioche, squid-ink-blackened fideua pasta with shrimp and alioli, a “frit Mallorquin” (or fried lamb bits), the various parts of suckling pig (from the ears and the jamon-powder-dusted head, to a full quarter), a classic Spanish rice pudding with orange jam. Impossible ordering, basically.

• The tip: The two-course £29 lunch deal is daylight robbery on the diner’s part.

The candlelit little sister to the Quality Chop House, Quality Wines does what’s on the tin and then some. Yes, the natty plonk is lovely. But what Vittles columnist and chef’s chef Nick Bramham is cooking up in the tiny kitchen is spectacular. Start with the gildas and cured meats, plough through the ever-changing pastas and embrace as many of the hyper-seasonal and creatively zhuzhed plates of produce (gleamingly verdant asparagus in peppercorn sauce, say) and proteins (braised veal shin with vin jaune, perhaps; or roasted turbot with tzatziki) as you can fit.

• The tip: Yes, the sandwiches have gone viral – but Logma’s weekly “lates” dinners are the real soul of the thing.

Logma is derived from the Arabic for “perfect bite”, which is apt given the heady buzz that’s greeted this former supper club and E5 Bakery pop-up, now installed just south of Broadway Market. Ziad Halub and Farsin Rabiee ply a nostalgia-driven take on the food of their Iraqi/Iranian heritages. By day, this means viral kofte and aubergine sandwiches; by night via communal dinners, which take in anything from oysters with herb oil and gondhoraj lebu (a kind of Bengali lime), to arak-cured tout with pickled mango and the Persian feasting staple fesenjan, a duck stew replete with walnuts and pomegranate. It’s heartfelt stuff, bolstered by a swooning space, awash with rounded surfaces in muted hues, orange polycarbonate stools, latex drapes and figurative artwork.

• The tip: Save room for a dinky tahini ice cream pot from Wave Gelato.

A breezy, light-filled Lebanese bakehouse tucked down a Shacklewell Lane side-alley, Adam Cherkawi’s Edami specialises in , a pillowy Levantine flatbread here topped with za’tar, cheese, labneh, (minced beef and lamb, with or without pomegranate molasses) and the like. The small list of sides and sundries – from black hummus and (a walnut spread), to fatoush and dinky spinach pastries – is equally ace, and even the drinks (Gaza cola, salty ayran, the Lebanese staple of Bonjus, in teeny triangular cartons) are perfectly pitched.

• The tip: The bipartite grab-bag of a menu is all grand, but the hamachi sashimi with truffle soy and furikake is blinding.

Dalston’s sleeper Italo-Japanese gem gets a City-slicked second outing in a lofty space just north of Spitalfields market. Given the concept, the menu’s pretty dichotomous; more Italian with liberal sprinklings of furikake, nori, shiso, kombu, tsukemono pickles and yuzu (save for the excellent crudo and Hokkaido milk bread), but the execution is brilliant. The wine list skews European, though there’s a heady provision of Japanese whisky, sake, gin and vodkas to get woozy on among the other high-end grappa and acquavite, too.

• The tip: Start with the oeuf mayonnaise in whatever form it comes.

It’s hard to quantify just how much adoration the capital’s epicurean class had for chef Henry Harris’s old joint Racine. The Knightsbridge classic shuttered in 2013 after 11 years of pounding out robust, provincial French fare, and Harris’s return to the pass – in a clattery room above Farringdon boozer The Three Compasses – was met with similar fervour, and for good reason. The extensive chalkboard carte is uncompromisingly decadent: Bayonne ham with remoulade; tête de veau with sauce ravigote; escargots à la bourguignonne; confit de canard and braised mogettes; a Mont Blanc for two. Good luck getting a table.

• The tip: Iridescent slivers of pickled mackerel and an icy Adonis make an apposite aperitivo.

If the smooth-jazz standards of Vince Guaraldi and Bill Evans were transmogrified into a restaurant, it might be something like Leo’s: warm, autumnal, understated and louche. Chef/co-founder Giuseppe “Peppe” Belvedere is late of Brawn, Bright and Terroirs, and it shows; the Sardinian-tinged menu is a lesson in fab antipasti (the iridescent cured mackerel is a no-brainer), primi (a brilliant seasonal wet polenta with girolles, say) and sharing secondi (think: a whole turbot or Bistecca alla Fiorentina).

The Best Restaurants In London

• The tip: Depart without trying the cherry tart – doused in tahini cream and best washed back with a fiery shot of homemade rakija – at your peril.

A ramshackle Balkan bolthole in the Forest Hill / Sydenham hinterlands, Doma is the second coming of Mystic Burek: Spasia Dinkovski’s paean to the food of her Macedonian heritage. For v2, she’s simply shifted things into an old kebab shop across the road, decked out with faded technicolour photography and trinkets from the old country (the loos, especially, are a vision). Dinkovski and her partner, Tom, might be London’s most convivial hosts and the homespun food is genuinely astounding; whether a simple tomato, cucumber, onion and Bulgarian farm cheese salad, or big hitters like the head-razing pork fat and cheese burek, and the piles of turbo-flavoured beef , with piquant cream cheese and onions.

• The tip: A no-brainer, but the giant white risotto might even rival Osteria Vibrato’s, and is thus essential.

Clapham’s beloved, longstanding Trinity is the definition of consistency, but head honcho Adam Byatt’s seamless YouTube content (imagine a Regency villain deploying picture-perfect Gallic classics) has seen it cast it into the limelight anew. An ideal time, then, to launch Rosina: an Italian gem on the edge of Wandsworth Common, just round the corner from Chez Bruce. Yes, everyone’s having paroxysms over the yolk-topped risotto bianco, but this is comprehensively superb stuff; the kind of refined, old-school Italian fare that’ll earn it classic status in no time. It’s not been compared to Trullo for nothing.

• The tip: Swerve the à la carte for the heaving feast that is the all-in set menu.

Not content with cornering the market for candlelit, neo-Gallic date spots (Shoreditch’s Bistro Freddie) and St John-riffing gallery restaurants (Clapham’s Crispin at Studio Voltaire), the Crispin group’s Dom Handy has now, successfully, set his sights on the Turkish-Cypriot meyhane. That is, a “wine house”, here transposed to the upstairs dining room at the Globe Tavern in Borough Market. Clattering Turkish pop and old Istanbul flea-market photos set the scene, while ex-Bibi and Chez Bruce chef Keiran Mustafa’s comforting panoply of mezze, fried lamb’s liver with onions and other mangal-charred meats ( lamb neck, knockout beef and lamb köfte, monkfish with chilli butter) does the biz on the food front. Expect to be full.

• The tip: The 50s-style cheeseburger is good, but the homemade zing on the kimchi burger is a level up.

London is awash with smashed beef, its modish burger scene lorded over by two Gallic expat boltholes, Supernova and Dumbo, of barely explicable appeal. But the tongue-twisting Hanbaagaasuuteeki is where the patty party is really at. Yes, Buckingham Palace Road is a dreadful location for a feed, but the Asian-inspired burgers are astounding – particularly the blue cheese burger, with kimchi and green apple slaw, and the hyped shrimp kong baga, the maillard-crusted beef scattered with fried shrimp and piquant burger sauce. Pickle-topped miso fries are salty as all heck but an essential sundry.

• The tip: The egg-mayo anchovy soldiers are textbook, the mustardy remoulade with speck unassailable.

East Dulwich, urbane as it is, has never been particularly blessed with restaurants (Kokum and Norbert’s notwithstanding), so the recent shuttering of venerable St John-alike Franklin’s was a real poke in the eye for the local fooderati. Fortunately, its former Lordship Lane site has a fine custodian in The Victory: a bistro-style gem, with an exec chef late of Noble Rot, banger old world wine list and an exemplary menu ambling across western Europe via garlic prawn gildas, Cornish crab vinaigrette, rose veal sweetbread Grenobloise, roast corn-fed French chicken with morels, madeira and cream, and a poky baba au rhum with alfonso mango. A consummate neighbourhood spot, basically (just like its predecessor).

• The tip: Order a dinky, msg-laced martini and a doorstep-size slab of muffaletta for the ultimate in self-care lunching.

Housed at Camberwell’s Grove House Tavern, Mondo Sando has long been in contention for purveyor of the city’s finest subs. The opening of this, its late-night, formica-laced diner on Peckham Road, has upped the ante in every possible way. Queue for the daytime sarnies – ie. the signature Mondo Frango hoagie of peri chicken thigh and pea salsa verde, or a superlative egg mayo on Toad Bakery’s white tin loaf, plus latkes – but stay for the slightly cheffier evening plates, which, fear not, still include a tiny Cubano and an astounding patty melt. Cracking cocktails and a non-negotiable deep-fried treacle tart seal the deal.

Cafe Mondo.

Courtesy of Cafe Mondo

• The tip: Don’t swerve the chips – they might be London’s best.

Islington’s The Baring was something of a sleeper hit when it opened in 2022, GM Adam Symonds and chef Rob Tecwyn drawing on their experience at the Bull & Last (among others) and fashioning the platonic ideal of a seasonally driven gastropub. They’ve done it again with The Kerfield Arms, an artfully muted, light-filled corner pile on Camberwell’s Grove Lane. Tecwyn’s banger menu of titbits like Cornish squid and lardo shish with pul biber chilli, or fried pig’s head with smoked eel – plus small-label wines and outré beers – means the previously unassailable Camberwell Arms is getting a run for its money.

• The tip: The calves brain with Café de Paris butter is the thinking person’s must-order.

A pitch-perfect regional bistro in the foodie nucleus of Borough Market? From the folks behind Soho’s Ducksoup, Dalston’s Little Duck and Ashburton’s Emilia? Not a pastis-induced fever dream, but Clare Lattin and Tom Hill’s Camille. It’s wildly jolie thanks to baguette baskets, specials-scrawled chalkboards, soft linen drapes and cherry-red panelling, while banger chef Elliot Hashtroudi’s carte is dotted with reconstructed and vividly offaly, Gallic-leaning things like cock’s comb with parsnip and riesling, a stuffed trotter with pommes purée and a cartoonish snout cassoulet.

The Best Restaurants In London

• The tip: A bluefin tuna and stracciatella crostini might jumbled, but it’s a perfect mouthful.

As a committed southeast London apologist, it that Queen’s Park is becoming a gastro hotbed. But hey, an hour’s cycle is small torture for openings like Bar Blondie. Run by Alex Price (former doyenne of the booze lists at Bar Crispin and Plates) and chef Alastair Walling, it’s the platonic ideal of a local wine bar / modern European spot. The martinis are freezing, the wine sourced from regeneratively minded viniculturists and the food – titbits such as monkish with mussels and samphire, crab fazzoletti with chilli and lemon, and a deep-fried artichoke bulb with pecorino and honey – all terribly cosmopolitan. A perfect spot to sit, house martini in hand and glistening Cantabrian anchovy in mouth, gawping at the polished young things of Lonsdale Road drifting by.

• The tip: Eschew the very good focaccia for the wonderful topped flatbreads (or carb load on both).
• : King’s Cross / Caledonian Road

Stuck in the cultural wasteland that is the zone north of King’s Cross and west of Caledonian Road (aka the “York Way Riviera”), Half Cut Market’s transition from wine shop with plates to full bore restaurant has paid dividends. It’s now an in-the-know gem for both natty wine enthusiasts (thanks to the cork-popping bona fides of som Holly Willcocks) and a clued-up fooderati. The plates – cheese and potato flatbreads, stuffed squid with smoked carrot and squid ink sauce, grilled chicken with honking jerk gravy, and so on – are considered and seasonal, and the vibes immaculate.

• The tip: Charlie Carr is one of London’s niftiest sommeliers, so set a price and let him go ham.

Papi – the late London Fields restaurant founded by chef Matthew Scott and sommelier Charlie Carr – was ace, but sometimes felt like a WIP victim of its own outré ambition. Not so the Golden Tooth, the duo’s slightly more conventional, reimagined gastropub, plonked into a rejigged old boozer on lower Green Lanes. It’s quite exceptional: from the minimalist snacks like Cooley Gold oysters and glazed ham with mustard, to a rose veal tartare with smoked eel and truffle, a juddering cheddar custard tart and reimagined chicken and prawn stargazy pie. Carr’s natty, English-heavy wine list is one of the city’s best, too.

• The tip: Make sure to bookend the pies: a hunk of oil-drench pecorino fresca first, humming coffee soft-serve to finish.

Joe Beddia might be America’s most lauded pizzaiolo – a lesson I learned the hard way after queuing in the snow for four hours outside Philadelphia’s Pizzeria Beddia, in the futile, failed hope of snagging one of his coveted pies. Thus, his migration to London to open Bar Etna – with Ed McIlroy of Tollington’s and the Plimsoll, no less – is a major flex. Set on foodie Newington Green, it’s worth every iota of hype: convivial and swooning inside, knocking out astounding pizzas of heft and creative nous. The standard cheese and tomato is an essential litmus, but both the saag-topped curry pizza and cream-based number flecked with Calabrian chillies, Coolea cheese and bitter greens are visionary.

• The tip: Filling up on wontons might be easy, but save space for the wicked matcha-dusted tiramisu.

Essex Road “wine pub” Godet, would be an easy sell as is – such is the super list, convivial vibe and soothing, lido-pink palette. So it’s merely a bonus that Ling Ling’s has taken up residency in its lilliputian kitchen. Jenny Phung’s food – merging elements of Vietnamese, Korean and (mostly) Chinese cooking – is rapturously good: from delightfully textured soy pomegranate radish cakes with daikon, two wonton iterations (pork and water chestnut, and smoked tofu), a single scallop with glass noodles and a sweet/sour wah mui plum dressing, and mala beef ragu noodles and parmesan, all walking a tightrope between delicate and face-punchingly moreish.

• The tip: Dough done, don’t forget to amble into the deli itself, to blow a week’s wages on bijous smoked fish and head-sized challah.

Located within St John’s Wood’s beloved Panzer’s Deli, Circus slings Neapolitan-style circles of cheffy nuance as good as any in this pizza-stuffed city of ours. Founder Kit Delamain initially rode the hype wave with his Portuguese custard pizza (very much as it sounds) and the sweet iterations have come thick and fast since (sticky toffee pudding, and rhubarb and custard among them). But the more conventional savoury stuff is equally ace, from a strachiatella-strewn “super margarita” to a vegan number with mushroom ragu and truffle pangratto and a white pie with zippy cream cheese and folds of the deli’s own brilliant smoked salmon.

• The tip: The chips bravas are a faultless British-Iberian mash-up.

Having upended London’s burger game with Finsbury Park resto-boozer The Plimsoll, co-founder Ed McIlroy has taken a dowdy ’70s chippy and done the same for the Spanish-style seafood bar. It’s gloriously unprepossessing, entirely redolent of a locals-only backstreet Madrid diner with its tiled floor and sunshine-yellow palette. Yes, everyone harps on about the chips bravas, but the plancha-grilled sardines and octopus, minimalist plates of cheddar and almonds (honestly), and ambrosial rice pudding with raspberries are a further cut above.

• The tip: Jephson’s pâté en croûte is masterful.

Cadet is a beautiful, light-filled cave-à-manger, launched by low-intervention importers Beattie & Roberts and charcutier George Jephson, with chef Jamie Smart heading up the kitchen. Late of St John, P Franco and the Haute-Loire’s fêted Auberge de Chassignolles, his menus channel bistronomic simplicity. Pair wines from vignerons like Alsace’s Anne Laure Laengel or Abruzzo’s Cantina Indigeno with plates of crab with fregola and marigold, fromage de tête tartine with chanterelles.

• The tip: The crispy oxtail ragout is a hot contender for plate of the year.

Technically a wine bar with interiors inspired by the Arts & Crafts Movement and Japanese Mingei, Goodbye Horses punches impressively high on both the booze and food fronts. The latter, arranged by wine director Nathalie Nelles, skews organic and biodynamic, while the former, devised by ex-Papi man Jack Coggins, turns classic dishes on their head, from the humble egg mayo to the sardine sobrasada on Japanese milk toast.

Modern British/European
The Vogue tip: Repeat after me: ‘Oxtail crumpet, dripping crumb.’
Queen’s Park

The transplanted Richard Curtis set of Lonsdale Road doesn’t do badly for eating, and the interestingly-named Don’t Tell Dad (actually a very sweet reference to the founder’s late sister) is a seamless addition. This slick diner (all booths, banquettes, marble tops and Art Deco uplighting) might be the platonic ideal of a neighbourhood restaurant. The menu is a parade of pleasantly comforting titbits –  from dinky, cheddar-dusted beignets to a delicate crab tart with crab oil mayo, and a Swiss chard dolma with chickpea purée and peas (and so on). Feted som Bert Blaize’s organic-heavy wine list is whip-smart; and the cakey sweet bits are exemplary (no surprise, as it’s a bakery by day).