Outdoor Restaurants and Terraces in London
The sun is coming out and the temperatures are rising so that means it’s time for outdoor drinking and dining, so round up your mates and check out the best terrace restaurants in London.
London’s not got the sunniest reputation, so when those blue skies do finally make an appearance, you can bet Londoners will be making the most of it. And by making the most of it, we of course mean drinking outdoors. While autumn and winter are the perfect time for pints in a cosy pub with a fireplace, spring and summer are reserved for beer gardens and al fresco terraces – and there are plenty of those in town. East London’s got the Five Points Brewery & Courtyard, south of the river has got Vinegar Yard, out west you’ll find The Hawk’s Nest, up north you can sip on wine while looking out over one of the best views in the city at Alexandra Palace. And that’s just naming a few.
If your priority is food, though, there are also a tonne of restaurants with picturesque terraces. Acme Fire Cult, a Dalston fave, has a killer outdoor space that’s also heated and covered – just in case. For a more central London option, Kingly Court is an al fresco space with a whole range of restaurants to choose from, including plant-based Mexican spot Club Mexicana and modern Filipino spot Donia. Ready to explore the great outdoors? Get browsing below.
With a prime position on the riverside terrace at Somerset House, Setlist is an ideal spot to indulge in some outdoor drinking and dining. There are two fully furnished terraces bookending a covered pavilion, so you’re sorted whatever the weather, plus art installations and a music programme curated by Clem from Prince of Peckham. Four female chefs have curated the food offering – there’s West African food from Opeoluwa Odutayo, Italian-inspired small plates and pizzette from Sophie Wyburd, tacos from Andrea Montes Renaud and Laura Copp, aka Masafina, and ice creams from Terri Mercieca’s Happy Endings. There’s a great drinks selection too, including frozen cocktails, Pimm’s, spicy margs, spritzes, beers and wine.
They already had their indoor taproom, but in 2023 Five Points launched a new courtyard outside their Mare Street-based brewery. The al fresco bar is a huge 300-cover space where you can not only drink the brand’s own beer but also a range of cocktails and low-intervention wines. Food-wise, they’ve got From The Ashes, a nose-to-tail concept created by Martin Anderson and Curtis Bell who met at temper Soho in 2019 where they decided to start a delivery service before graduating to their east London collection spot. Following an incredible customer response, the pair outgrew their place in Hackney Wick and now they’re serving their signature BBQ, including the pork & nduja Del Piero doughnut, pork adobo tacos, steak frites with chimichurri and whole smoked chicken. You could easily spend the whole day here.
If you’re catching a show this summer, head out to the Forza Wine terrace at the National Theatre for some drinks beforehand. An extension of the restaurant, you can get snacks and Italian-ish plates plus wines, spritzes, negronis and spicy Palomas to sip on out in the sun.
Acme Fire Cult, the live fire kitchen from Andrew Clarke and Daniel Watkins, has opened a permanent restaurant, with a covered and heated terrace, at 40FT Brewery in Dalston. Here the pair are taking the concept to the next level by collabing with Steve Ryan of 40FT, to use beer brewing by-products in their cooking – hello Acme Marmite and hot sauce made from beer-soaked chillies. The menu showcases veggies, dayboat fish, and native breed meat from regenerative farms, with dishes like grilled leeks with pistachio romesco; char siu of monkfish with jalapeno verde & grilled sea vegetables; and smoked shortrib (glazed in molasses made from 40FT Eccles Cake Stout), mustard greens, beef fat cream & ancho koji flatbread. And the restaurant has ten beer taps pouring fresh brews, with 40FT knocking up a special edition beer each month to go with the menu.
Elevated from street level, with plenty of space for tables, plants running the entire border, and an awning just in case the weather turns, Toklas is home to one of the best terraces in central London – you really don’t feel like you’re just off the Strand at all. You can enjoy Toklas’ Mediterranean menu – there’s nothing like mozzarella & broad beans, courgettes & romesco, lobster with panzanella, and pistachio ice cream on a gloriously sunny afternoon – but drinkers are welcome too. There’s a dedicated bar menu, featuring snacks like courgette fritti, boquerones, arancini, and those famous Toklas chips, which are the perfect pairing for a couple of limoncello or white sbagliato spritzes.
Umbrella Cider House in Bethnal Green, London’s first and only working cider house, is the latest venue from the team behind The Sun Tavern and Discount Suit Company. Naturally there’s plenty of cider on offer at the bar, including Umbrella London presses brewed on-site, with flavours like rhubarb and blackcurrant, plus beers from Two Tribes, wines, and bottled Umbrella Workshop cocktails. There’s a pool table, dartboard and DJ booth inside the Cider House but the 60-capacity terrace is where you want to be on a sunny day.
Peckham’s become a bit of a rooftop terrace hub lately, but anyone after some al fresco dinner and drinks might be hard-pressed to find it at the usual suspects, which are typically rammed. So, if you don’t mind being closer to the ground, the terrace at Peckham Arches has you covered – literally. The canopied space is heated, so you can enjoy fresh tank beer from Bird House Brewery and tacos from Angele whatever the weather.
Padella Shoreditch, is the perfect place for some al fresco pasta thanks to its 26-cover terrace – it’s heated and covered in the rain and uncovered in the sunshine (the restaurant’s glass barriers are also retractable to really open up the space) so it works whatever the weather decides to do. The menu is packed with all the Padella classics including courgette fritti, pici cacio e pepe, pappardelle with 8-hour beef shin ragu, and tiramisu.
Three friends teamed up to sail De Hoop (a 114-year-old Dutch Barge) from Holland to East London’s Hackney Wick, and after mooring up along the canal they’ve converted it into a floating restaurant and canal side garden which seats a whopping 300 people. Their menu focuses on street food classics, like buttermilk fried chicken burgers; bacon and sage scotch eggs; deep-fried apple tart; and roast beef buns, with locals East London Liquor Co, Beavertown and Three Choirs supplying the brews and cocktails. Whether it’s brunch, lunch or sometime in the evening, get yourself aboard.
The 1500 square metre south-facing terrace, aka the largest beer garden in London, is back at Ally Pally with mega views of the city, and this year you don’t even have to book tables so you can just turn up and get the drinks in. The bar will be serving softies, wine, beer and cocktails and there’ll also be stone-fired pizzas on offer, with street food traders popping up on weekends.
15,000 sqft of garden area and over 500 seats… Mercato Metropolitano is a winner in the terrace stakes. As well as all that space, there are over 40 traders on site, including Badiani, V for Vegan, Leggero, Molo, Baba G’s and Ze Spatzle Club, plus the German Kraft microbrewery and the Jim and Tonic urban gin distillery.
Ciao Bella is a traditional Italian restaurant in the heart of Bloomsbury, the kind of place where the walls are covered with photos of Sophia Loren, there’s someone playing the piano, the portions are big, and everyone there seems to be celebrating something. The menu of eternal classics is a safe bet – pizza, pasta, gelato; what’s not to like? And so you have the best possible experience, you’ve gotta sit on the terrace for some of the finest people-watching in London.
Borough Market has plenty of outdoor options – as well as the main bit of the market, traders like Tacos Padre, Mei Mei and Shuk; in the Borough Market Kitchen area have covered space, and restaurants like Arabica, Elliots, El Pastor and Applebees all have little terraces out the front if you’re after a proper sit down.
The London Bridge outpost of Bar Douro has a spacious outdoor terrace, where you can prop up a barrel with a white port & tonic and a bifana sandwich or sit at a table for some Portuguese sharing places. And you can do both whilst staying covered and heated.
The restaurants on the ground floor of Kingly Court have the space for outdoor tables, both inside the central (covered and heated) courtyard and outside on the street facing sides. That means you and your pals can meet up and eat at the likes Pizza Pilgrims and Shoryu Ramen.
Brixton Jamm has made over the Brixton Courtyard with covered booths, a retractable roof, an outdoor bar and a DJ area with 360-sound. There’s also a food menu featuring fried chicken and halloumi burgers, mac & cheese dippers, chicken tenders and loaded fries, and a selection of classic cocktails and jugs.
Vinegar Yard is an eating, drinking, art space and shopping market located a stone’s throw away from London Bridge station. It’s the second site from the team behind Flat Iron Square and has both inside and outside space. Food traders include Nanny Bills, Baba G’s and Nik’s Kitchen and there are a handful of bars, including two on the mezzanine, serving local beers, wines and cocktails. The Yard is also home to a range of resident shops and the weekly Flea vintage market.
The yard at Shepherd’s Bush Market has been transformed into The Hawk’s Nest, a 180-cover space from Bird House London (run by Wil Fuller of Soho House and Frazer Timmerman of Incipio Group). You can feast on stonebaked sourdough pizzas, with the fully stocked bar pouring fresh fruit margs, spritzers, frozen cocktails, rosé wines and Camden Town Brewery beers. And you can win a £150 bar tab to spend at their bi-weekly quiz nights, hosted by MC and comedian Jamie Allerton.
Pyro, an expansive new restaurant and bar in Borough, might be inspired by Greece but you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into an Ibiza beach bar when you arrive. The huge outdoor drinking area is an enviable summer drinking spot, dotted with olive trees, sleek wooden furniture, wicker lamp shades and a bar area shaded with a rough canopy of branches. And that’s just the garden bar. At the back is an indoor / outdoor dining room with an open kitchen, which is where you’ll be heading if you’ve booked into the restaurant proper. The kitchen is headed up by Greek chef Yiannis Mexis, and this isn’t the kind of place where you rock up for some hummus and moussaka – Pyro is an altogether more modern, elevated take on Greek cuisine. We’re talking potato pitas (round, almost like crumpets) cooked on the hearth; dainty spanakopita; celeriac souvlaki with radicchio, prunes and sour apple; asparagus with slithers of smoked eel and avgolemono; and whole flame-kissed lobster with a deep fried crispy claw, mussels, fennel and roasted tomato orzo. Cocktails are designed by Ana Reznik, previously of A Bar With Shapes for a Name, and there’s also some interesting Greek wines on offer too.
Yauatcha City has not one but two wraparound terraces overlooking Broadgate Circle, so there’s plenty of space to feast on their epic dim sum – don’t miss the prawn and bean curd cheung fun, xiao long bao and venison puffs.
Flat Iron Square is an indoor/outdoor venue and street food market that’s home to a rotating line-up of traders, so you can expect to see the likes of Flock, Dough and OPA, serving up fried chicken, pizza and souvlaki. There’s also a craft beer brewery and taproom on site to keep you well-watered and sheltered should the weather take a turn.
Neighbourhood bistro and wine bar The Laundry, run by The New Zealand Cellar founder Melanie Brown, boasts a south-facing terrace out at the front. It’s the perfect place to work your way through the wine list and there’s also a new all-day European-inspired sharing menu to tuck into too.
After popping up all over town, Night Tales finally settled down with a perm spot in Hackney Central. Set over two railway arches by the overground, it’s got a 300-capacity nightclub, a cocktail bar, a Japanese-inspired garden, on-site pizza slingers, and a whole host of DJs hitting the decks.
If you’re looking for somewhere to eat, drink and enjoy the weather in Earl’s Court, head for The Prince. Not only does the venue have a retractable roof to really maximise the sunshine (and to protect against the rain), it’s decked out like an English summer garden thanks to loads of flowers and foliage. There’s an in-house kitchen, plus Crust Bros and Temaki Bros serving up the grub with beers, cocktails and frosé available at the bars.
As well as being The Standard London’s relaxed all-day dining restaurant, serving everything from pancakes at breakfast to tuna tartare and ribeye with bone marrow at dinner, Isla also has a terrace that’s a right little sun trap. Head out there for a meal al fresco or just to sink some spritzes in the sun – or whatever the weather, as it’s got a retractable roof to keep you dry.
Situated at an absolutely prime position, Between the Bridges is an open-air bar and events venue right next to the Thames, just in between the Southbank Centre and the London Eye. It’s free to enter, so you can walk up and grab a beer or a cocktail – or some street food – and soak in the skyline sights. There’s also a huge programme of events that runs throughout the summer, featuring a number of special guests. There’ll be music from the likes of Guilty Pleasures, Old Dirty Brasstards, Barrioke, and Swiftogeddon; drag brunches with drag superstars; Whitney bottomless brunches; and more.
