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London is a city full of the best restaurants in the world, making it the undisputed dining capital of the world (ok we may be a bit biased but we’re standing by it). But what are the absolute best restaurants in London? For us, they’re the ones that blow us away when it comes to the food, make us feel at home when it comes to the service, and have us itching to Instagram when it comes to the interiors. They’re the places we want to keep coming back to, the places that we instantly recommend to everyone, and yes, the places we dream about when we open our fridge and find half a lemon and a bottle of ketchup staring back at us.
Our top London restaurants list covers everything from fine-dining and Michelin-starred menus to street food and cheap eats. High-end Chinese food, Middle Eastern small plates, simple British fare, modern Mexican grub, authentic handmade pasta for under a tenner…. we love the lot.
We’ve got stalwarts like The Ritz, a certified London institution and one of the best places to dress up and dine out. Local neighbourhood gems like Rochelle Canteen and Quality Chop House have also made the cut. Then there’s a museum cafe serving up food way beyond cakes and sandwiches, an East London spot serving up some of the most creative food in town, and a fifteen-course menu from one of the country’s best chefs.
So here you go. In no particular order (narrowing it down to this many was a hard enough task, we can’t be playing favourites anymore than that), these are the best restaurants in London… for now.
Best Restaurants in London
London is a city full of the best restaurants in the world, making it the undisputed dining capital of the world (ok we may be a bit biased but we’re standing by it). But what are the absolute best restaurants in London? For us, they’re the ones that blow us away when it comes to the food, make us feel at home when it comes to the service, and have us itching to Instagram when it comes to the interiors. They’re the places we want to keep coming back to, the places that we instantly recommend to everyone, and yes, the places we dream about when we open our fridge and find half a lemon and a bottle of ketchup staring back at us.
Our top London restaurants list covers everything from fine-dining and Michelin-starred menus to street food and cheap eats. High-end Chinese food, Middle Eastern small plates, simple British fare, modern Mexican grub, authentic handmade pasta for under a tenner…. we love the lot.
We’ve got stalwarts like The Ritz, a certified London institution and one of the best places to dress up and dine out. Local neighbourhood gems like Rochelle Canteen and Quality Chop House have also made the cut. Then there’s a museum cafe serving up food way beyond cakes and sandwiches, an East London spot serving up some of the most creative food in town, and a fifteen-course menu from one of the country’s best chefs.
So here you go. In no particular order (narrowing it down to this many was a hard enough task, we can’t be playing favourites anymore than that), these are the best restaurants in London… for now.
Just under a year after she closed her Brixton site, Adejoké Bakare’s Chishuru has finally re-opened in its shiny new Central London location. The new site, which is located on Great Titchfield Street, is bigger than the Brixton original but still not huge by any means – there’s a maximum of 55 covers, split across two floors. They’ve done a great job on the space, however, with earthy-toned walls, splashes of light green, modern artworks, and smart spotlights. On the food front, it’s all very simple: there’s a £65 set menu at dinner and a £35 menu at lunch. Within that you’ll get some starters/snacks, choose your main course from three options, and then finish with a dessert. It’s truly all fantastic with a thick fermented rice cake (Sinasir) topped with white crab meat, pumpkin and sorrel purée; fiery peppercorn broth,topped with eko, meat floss, kale, and corn tofu; Egusi, grilled hispi cabbage stuffed with caramelised shallots, utazi leaf, and a superb wild watermelon seed sauce; and Ngalakh, a rice ice-cream, with ginger cream and a dusting of baobab powder amongst the standouts.
Phil Winser and James Gummer, the duo behind The Pelican and The Bull, Charlbury (both of which we loved) have just opened another new pub, The Hero in Maida Vale. It’s a beautiful old building dating back to 1878 and the guys have done a great job stripping it back and restoring it to its former glory, including a grill restaurant upstairs, a PDR, and The Library, a nice little lounge bar with cocktails and a banging sound system. In the main pub the menu offers comfort food classics done to perfection – and actually at a very reasonable price too, especially for bougie west London. You won’t wanna miss the incredible scotch egg; the chicken liver pate’ the deep fried cod cheeks with curry sauce; half roast chicken with salad; ham, egg and chips done with a nice juicy bacon chop; the cheese and onion pie; and the sticky toffee pudding.
As well as opening bringing the Knave of Clubs back to life, James Dye (co-owner of Bambi and The Camberwell Arms), Benjy Leibowitz and Patrick Powell have also opened One Club Row, one floor above. While the downstairs pub is a homage to British pub culture, One Club Row is the team’s tribute to New York, drawing on Benjy’s time spent working in the city’s restaurants. The NYC-style awning (surrounded by the graffiti of Shoreditch) is a contender for the most papped entrance way of 2025, and the rest of the space is a real looker too. The menu is filled with modern classics, from indulgent pickled jalapeno gougères and lobster & ham croquettes to steak tartare, cheeseburger au poivre, pork schnitzel with gorgonzola and New York-style cheesecake – and not a smashburger or a Basque cheesecake in sight. As well as the food, cold martinis and excellent hospitality make One Club Row a must-visit -there’s even a house pianist playing on weekends.
Ibai is a new Basque steak restaurant from Nemanja Borjanovic and Will Sheard, the team behind meat supplier Txuleta, and chef Richard Foster. If you’ve ever had their Galician blond steaks at one of the many London restaurants they supply, you’ll know just how good they are, so it’s brilliant to see the team open up their own place. Ibai is in Farringdon close to Restaurant St. Barts and hot new opening Cloth, in a big old site that used to be Lino. Before you get to the main event of those standout steaks, there’s a whole load of snacks and other bits you’ll definitely want to order, especially the Croque Ibai, four little golden bites of boudin noir, carabinero prawns and ossau-iraty cheese stuffed into soft, toasted bread. For the steaks, there’s a choice of wagyu from Norfolk; Black Angus from Spain; and Galician blond ex-dairy from Spain, which is definitely the one to go for. The beef is superb, beautifully cooked medium rare on the grill and served with a big bowl of fries and optional sauces like the ossau-iraty and pepper.
The long awaited debut restaurant of Sri Lankan cookbook author Cynthia Shanmugalingam has opened in Borough Market – and it’s already proving a big hit. The site features a big open kitchen with a very impressive grill so be sure to grab a seat at the counter top and watch the show. The menu is all killer, no filler with a couple of snacks, selection of short eats, meat, fish and veg and just one dessert, a mango soft serve sorbet – which you’ll be lucky to squeeze in after working your way through the rest. Highlights include the chunky mutton rolls filled with curried lamb; the very delicious red pineapple curry (what might be one of the best veggie dishes on offer in London right now); tempered potatoes; and the black pork dry curry with some fresh roti. Don’t miss the snacks either, especially when washed down with banana negronis or calamansi iced tea.
Restaurant St Barts is the new restaurant from the team behind Nest in Hackney and Fenn in Fulham. From a slightly ramshackle room on a busy main road in Hackney to St Barts, a beautiful modern dining room in a quiet, pretty square opposite St Bartholomew’s church, this latest venture is a huge jump and a marker of how far they’ve come. The food here is excellent and we’ll be surprised if anything comes along that feels more assured and exciting than this. As with their other restaurants, St Barts follows a set, tasting menu format – although the days of the incredible value £28 menu at Nest are long gone. At St Barts, the 15-course menu is £120 at dinner, and boy is it worth it. When you first arrive you’ll be sat in the cosy bar area at the front of the restaurant and from here you can have a cocktail or glass of fizz while the first round of snacks arrives, including offal kebab, cod fritters, and goats cheese & onion tart, and then it’s onto a proper table in the dining room for the second half of the meal. It’s one of the openings of the year for sure.
Manteca in Shoreditch is the third iteration of a restaurant that started at 10 Heddon Street before moving to Soho, and now finally settling here in on Curtain Road. Of all these, the new place is the one that really feels like their home. If you’ve been to Manteca before and loved it then you will definitely be a fan of the Shoreditch restaurant. All the elements are there – the in-house charcuterie, the nose-to-tail menu, and the fresh pasta – and now it’s all wrapped up in a beautiful new space and a bold menu that combines some of their classic dishes with several new ones. Don’t miss the incredible mortadella, made fresh in house; the crisp, rich pig head fritti; the clam flatbread; the n’duja mussels; and the tonnarelli with a brown crab cacio e pepe sauce.
Clerkenwell’s Quality Chop House turned 150 in 2019. Despite some brief closures, there’s been a restaurant on the same site since 1869; back then it was a ‘progressive working-class caterer’ and now it’s one of the most beloved restaurants in town. Will Lander and Daniel Morgenthau have been running it since 2012 (they’re also behind Portland, Clipstone and Emilia), with Shaun Searley heading up the kitchen. Aside from the amazing interiors, complete with rickety old church pews, the food here always hits the mark. It’s classic British cooking with dishes like duck liver parfait with truffle and beef fat brioche; peas and jellied eel with a herb salad; Highland beef with ramson sauce; those famous confit potatoes; and broccoli with dripping breadcrumbs. And for dessert, don’t forget THAT treacle tart. A true London classic.
We’ve loved Da Terra since it opened in 2019 (which won a Michelin star in 2020 and added a second in 2021) and it’s just as good as ever, offering one of the best fine dining experiences in London. Da Terra offers blind tasting menus, so the only choice you have to make is if you want the short or long version. Da Terra is headed up by chef Rafael Cagali, who is originally from São Paulo but has lived in the UK for 20+ years, and though there are definitely elements of Brazilian cuisine in the menu but it’s certainly by no means a Brazilian restaurant, taking a much broader scope in style and invention, with dishes like carabinero and tomato bisque spiked with vodka; hamachi sandwiched between thin layers of pumpkin and bathed in tucupi; aged turbot served with manteiguinha beans, farofa, and a rich seafood coconut milk broth with dende oil; and baba with pistachio and caviar. The food at Da Terra is technical and accomplished but the restaurant never loses sight of delivering fantastic dishes that you actually want to eat.
We absolutely LOVE Darby’s, Robin Gill’s restaurant next door to the US Embassy in Nine Elms. Although it’s a big space in a brand new shiny building, the designers AvroKO have done an incredible job making it feel like a homey, lived-in restaurant with a large central bar area and nice booth seating around the sides. Robin, who’s an amazing chef and all round nice guy to boot, has also smashed it out the park on the food front. The menu is classic by nature – think oysters, grilled fish, and steaks – but it’s all been executed with great care and attention. And when the classics are done well, they’re really very hard to beat. With a big selection of oysters, a couple of these and a pint of Guinness or glass of champagne makes for an excellent start. Darby’s has its own bakery in house so a round of sourdough and cultured butter is another must, as is the lobster roll which comes slathered in roe mayo and sandwiched in a glistening brioche bun. For dessert, you need to order the truffled Baron Bigod cheese which is melted over thin slices of sourdough and served with fig and walnut and the Pump Street chocolate mousse with Guinness gelato.
Rochelle Canteen, run by Margot Henderson and Melanie Arnold, has long been one of London’s favourite spots. Housed in a former school bike shed on Arnold Circus in Shoreditch, accessible only through an unmarked door that, when buzzed in, leads you through a pretty garden and to a small dining room, it’s always been a hidden spot for Londoners to enjoy. Aside from being an excellent setting to enjoy a leisurely weekend lunch, the cooking is really quite good too. Simplicity is the order of the day so, although menus change daily, expect dishes along the lines of Queenie scallops, grilled in garlic and butter; the skate wing with burnt butter and samphire; and, our favourite, braised lamb with peas and mint.
A museum cafe isn’t somewhere we’d usually think of when recommending restaurants but The Garden Cafe has changed all of that. The restaurant, inside the Garden Museum in Lambeth, serves a small menu of beautifully presented, simple dishes that taste every bit as good as they look. We were wowed by cured sea trout, venison wellington and a buttermilk pudding topped with fresh rhubarb and honey. The menu changes daily and the bad news is at time of writing the restaurant is only open for lunch and on Friday evenings – although we’re hoping that might change!
Aulis, Simon Rogan’s London chef’s table restaurant, has reopened with more seats (12) as well as a lounge for pre- and post-dinner drinks. Head Chef Charlie Tayer is still looking after the stoves alongside wingman Oli Marlow, Simon’s Exec Chef for the group. The tasting menu, based around British ingredients, uses produce from Simon’s own Lake District farm and tries to be as sustainable as possible, replacing citrus for vinegars and the like. Happily it’s as good as, if not better, than before with dishes like pig and eel donut; crispy chicken skin with Cornish crab; cheese and truffle pudding; crab bone custard with rosehip vinegar and marinated trout roe; peas from Simon’s farm served with beef tendons in broth; and a delicious spin on a cheese course, frozen Tunworth cheese with truffle honey and hazelnut. For a tasting menu experience in London that’s well worth the money (£175 a head) Aulis might just be the most failsafe option there is. Brilliant cooking, interesting wines and just enough story telling to keep you interested but not send you to sleep. All you need to do now is score yourself a seat.
Even if you’ve never been to Behind in London Fields before, you may well have heard of it – the restaurant made headlines back in 2020 when it won a Michelin star after being open for just 20 days, and it’s still going strong. The restaurant is set up around sweeping semi-circular bar surrounding an open kitchen, with 18 spots around the counter, each with a front row seat to watch the chefs prepare and serve the dishes. Behind is all about fish and seafood, sustainability sourced from across the UK via suppliers such as Broadway Market’s Fin & Flounder, with dishes including mackerel and kaki sorrel with prawn consomme; Cornish skate wing with onions, olives and sea lettuce; and gilt-head bream with girolles and a vin jaune sauce. We’d really recommend the wine pairing too for a special occasion treat that doesn’t involve journeying into central.
The Baring in Islington has been one of the biggest success stories among the new wave of London food-first pubs. It opened to rave reviews in 2022 and has been perennially booked out for its high-class Sunday roast. And now the team, made up of Adam Symonds, Rob Tecwyn and Jay Styler, have done it again, taking over The Crooked Well in Camberwell and reopening it as The Kerfield Arms (the pub’s original name). It’s got the same signature stripped-back style as The Baring, and the food is perhaps even stronger. Don’t miss the taramasalata with chunks of warm pizza dough; the Cornish squid and lardo shish with a pul biber chilli oil; and the crispy pig cheek and smoked eel croquette swimming in a warm tartare sauce; the Swaledale rack of hogget with violet artichoke and bagna cauda; and the outrageous strawberry and chamomile custard doughnut. The Kerfield Arms also has a whole section that’s more pub-like, which is saved for walk-ins only. So you could quite happily pop in for a pint of Deya Tappy Pills or Lost & Grounded pale ale whenever you please.
MAD Restaurants, which is also made up of Executive Chef Andy Cook, Head of Beverage Dino Koletsas, and Group Operations Director Giulia Cappuccio, landed in London with MOI, a Japanese-inspired spot in Soho. The two-floor space has room for 150 covers plus a private dining room, an omakase sushi bar, and a listening room, which runs a programme of music-led events. The MOI menu features a mix of small plates, skewers, sushi, sashimi and larger grills to share, featuring both British ingredients and house ferments. Expect the likes of chicken & blood sausage tsukune; silken tofu with toasted buckwheat; pressed mackerel roll with pickled myoga; lobster tail with clam dashi; brill with kombu butter sauce; bluefin tuna onigiri; and beef ribeye with toasted sesame and tomato hollandaise. Dino Koletsas has curated the drinks programme, putting together a low-intervention wine and sake list, and cocktails that draw on Japanese techniques.
BIBI
- Monday: Closed
- Tuesday: 5:30 – 10:00 PM
- Wednesday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 5:30 – 10:00 PM
- Thursday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 5:30 – 10:00 PM
- Friday: 12:00 – 3:30 PM, 5:00 – 10:00 PM
- Saturday: 12:00 – 3:30 PM, 5:00 – 10:00 PM
- Sunday: Closed
Indian restaurant BiBi is part of the JKS group and ran by chef Chet Sharma, who’s earned his stripes working at some of the country’s best Michelin-starred restaurants including Moor Hall and L’Enclume. Oh, and Chet also has a PHD in physics from Oxford University – which is really not something you can often say about a chef. Chet has a very strong debut in the can with BiBi, full of crowd pleasing hits, familiar notes and more adventurous moments. The Indian menu is split in to five sections – snacks, chaat, sigree, sides and desserts – and you’ll want to ensure a spread of six to eight dishes across these. The must orders in our book include the Wookey Hole (that’s the cheese fyi) cheese papad, giant cheesy crisps with a creamy dip and mango and green chutneys; the raw belted Galloway beef pepper fry, an Indian riff on a beef tartare, spiked with spices and fermented Tellicherry peppercorns; the chukh masala tikka; and the Swaledale lamb belly gallouti, glistening with rich fat and crispy skin. All in all, BiBi is a great restaurant, with truly exciting and inventive dishes on offer, and a fresh, contemporary take on Indian cuisine.
After a series of deliveries, pop-ups and residencies, Matthew Scott has finally taken Hot 4 U permanent and he’s got Charlie Carr of Wingnut Wines in on the action too. With Papi, open on a London Fields backstreet, combines the creative cooking (who can forget the garum pom bears and whisky bone marrow luge?) we’ve come to know and love from Hot 4 U, with Wingnut Wines’ selection of under-represented natural wines. Split across two floors, the intimate downstairs cocktail bar nods more heavily to the Hot 4 U days, with Ribena Negronis, Strawberry Nesquik Daiquiris, pig’s trotter nuggets with mustard smiley faces on offer. Upstairs in the main 28-cover dining room, Matthew’s signature mix of sustainable, zero-waste and fun cookery is still on show, just in a slightly more refined way. And what a menu – smoked rabbit kielbasa, cheeseburger tartare, garlic bread with cheese, ABC tomatoes, get it all!
The Hyde hotel group has opened its first UK outpost, taking over the historic Spiers & Pond building in Farringdon opposite the Old Bailey, and it’s tapped Selin Kiazim to create the menu for one of its restaurants inside. The 90-cover Leydi is a celebration of Istanbul and the city’s eating culture, starting with Turkish breakfast dishes like böreks, caramelised tahini spirals, stuffed lavash rolls and menemen. The lunch menu takes inspo from lokantas, neighbourhood restaurants that cater to everyone, and includes lahmacuns, pides, house-made döner and Islak burgers (the famous wet burgers where buns are soaked in tomato garlic sauce). In the evenings, the mangal gets fired up for adana kebap, lamb kebap with dripping pide, chicken thigh shish and more – make sure to save room for the XL künefe though. Kevin Patnode, twice named the best bartender in Turkey, has created the drinks list for Leydi and he’s done some killer spiced and smoked cocktails.
Tucked away behind pink curtains downstairs from Maison Bab, Kebab Queen is not your typical kebab shop (despite the kebab shop signage out front). The speakeasy-style restaurant is decked out with chandeliers, electric blue stools, neon lights, herringbone wooden flooring and a marble countertop (that’s heated), which is where you’ll be served your six-course kebab tasting menu. Counter dining is the only kind at Kebab Queen, so you’ll watch the chefs assemble various courses of uniquely-styled kebab, like acorn-fed Iberico pata negra pork and barbequed foie gras served directly on the countertop. Even with the fine dining elements, eating with your hands is strongly encouraged, so get stuck right in.
If you like dim sum and duck, you’re gonna love Dim Sum & Duck. Located in King’s Cross, the simple, small Chinese restaurant serves some of the best dumplings in London – it’s just off the main drag so look out for the queue, which you’ll spot well before the bright blue restaurant. Once seated you can take your pick of fresh translucent dumplings, including the Shanghai pork soup dumplings, which just might be our favourite xiaolongbao in London; the crispy sesame prawn roll, a spin on sesame prawn toast; prawn & chive dumplings; fried duck bao; char siu honey roast pork; and the BBQ roast duck. Then there’s the char siu bao steamed pork bun, custard bun, crunchy tofu skin roll, cheung fun…we could go on and on and that’s before we’ve even mentioned the other Cantonese noodles, soups and rice dishes. It’s BYOB, service is fast and, like the queuing process, it’s also a little manic at times with orders and wrong dishes flying out, but it’s all part of the charm. Absolute gem this one.
Hot on the heels of MOI (which we loved), comes ALTA, a live-fire norther Spanish spot and the second restaurant of the nascent CAPS-loving MAD Restaurants Group. ALTA is another huge central London site, having taken over a two floor space in Kingly Court with three distinct areas and Rob Roy Cameron heading up the kitchen. Don’t miss the little txistorra sausages, the squid with lardo and Vizcaina, the Insta-worthy sardine empanada, the turbot tranche, crushed potatoes and mojo verde butter, and the Basque cheesecake with poached apricots. The drinks list is a real treat with a strong showing of cider, entire page dedicated to vermut and fortified wines by the glass, natural wines, and cocktails in smaller serves – this restaurant knows what’s on trend in all departments.
London has its fair share of iconic, world-famous hotels but The Ritz arguably trumps them all. The grand Grade-II listed building on the edge of Green Park has been around since 1906 and as you step inside, it feels as though not much has changed since then, with its decadent furnishings modelled on the grand old hotels of Paris. Nowhere does this feel more true than the dining room with its chandeliers, thick curtains, painted ceiling and classical sculptures – there aren’t many dining rooms in London like it and it’s a pure piece of dining escapism. Despite its reputation for all things grand and luxurious, The Ritz never held a Michelin star until it was awarded one in 2016 under the stewardship of Executive Chef John Williams, who joined the hotel in 2004. John’s refined menus are befitting of the space, beautifully presented classic French dishes that still feel fresh and modern enough to hold their own in London’s innovation-hungry dining scene.
Goodbye Horses, a restaurant/wine bar on the backstreets of De Beauvoir, comes from Alex Young, George de Vos, previously of Brilliant Corners, and head chef Jack Coggins, who we know very well from his time at Papi. It’s a lovely site with a 10-metre-long wooden bar in front of the kitchen, plenty of seating, and a wall stacked with 2,500 records. The menu is all killer no filler, with a short but very sharp lineup of three snacks, seven small plates, and two desserts (plus cheese). From the snacks menu, the cheese toastie is a must-order. If you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to cheese toasties, this one takes it up to another level, mainly from the genius addition of the homemade leek pickle. You can also expect dishes like beef tartare with smoked chilli and crisp sourdough breadcrumbs, oxtail ragout broken rice, and bread treacle ice cream with puffed rice granola and blackberries. There’s a very good wine list that’s been put together by Nathalie Nelles (ex-Noble Fine Liquor) including organic and biodynamic bottles from European producers, with 20 available by the glass and more than 300 by the bottle.
After winning a legion of fans with Indian pubs The Tamil Prince and The Tamil Crown, both in Islington, Prince Durairaj and Glen Leeson expanded south of the river in 2024 with Tamila, their reinterpretation of a classic curry house. Beginning as a street food concept at Hackney Bridge in Hackney Wick, the first bricks-and-mortar Tamila opened on Northcote Road in Clapham. A second site opened in King’s Cross in 2025, complete with a basement bar and a takeaway hatch. The menu at both sites features the group’s signature roti and dishes from across Tamil Nadu and the Indian subcontinent, including onion bhaji, okra fries, fried sweetcorn, Thanjavur chicken curry, Chettinad lamb curry, garlic coriander naan, half tandoori chicken, and tandoori paneer with pineapple chutney.
Regent’s Canal is a bit of a gold mine when it comes to waterside restaurants, running through many of the city’s hotspots and picking up foodie treasures as it goes. Towpath is a cafe that sits along the Haggerston stretch of the canal and a cult favourite for its glorious and ever-changing menu of simple, seasonal dishes that always hits the spot. And the location – outside seating along a shady, serene canal path – is a perfect oasis away from the hustle of the streets. You’ll have to queue, especially on sunny days, but dishes like confit garlic and goat’s curd, plaice and potato salad, cod’s roe and radishes, make it 100% worth the wait.
