Food
Tiella Trattoria is the newly opened bricks-and-mortar site from Dara Klein, a progression of her successful Compton Arms pop-up in 2024. Right now, the menu has quite a few of the classics from the pop-up days, and we’re not complaining. The anchovies in saor, the beef tartare, the tria with cime di rapa and pangrattato, and the chicken Milanese are all highlights, and the ricotta is 100% a must order. Desserts, including a bay leaf panna cotta with rhubarb in Campari, and a chocolate torta caprese with amarena cherries and crème fraîche, are exceptional. Honestly you can’t really put a foot wrong with this menu. There are some fun cocktails and a decent wine list with a strong Italian focus. Tiella 2.0 has kept the building’s original pub bar too, so you can even pop in for a glass and a snack. Dara has smashed it with the second coming of Tiella. She’s managed to retain about 75% of the pop-up, from the menu to the pub surroundings and the vibe, but taken it all up to the next level.
Oval Farmers’ Market, which pitches up in the grounds of St Mark’s Church on Saturdays from 10am – 3pm, has been going for almost twenty years. There are stalls selling fresh fruit and veg, organic meat, cheese, olives, honey, pies, cakes, soups, juices, and coffee and there’s a designated outdoor cafe area where you can tuck into the hot food that’s on offer. You’ll also find some arts and crafts traders in amongst the food, so you can also pick up jewellery and skincare.
There’s so much more to Camberwell Green Market than food. Yes you can pick up fresh bread, seasonal fruit & veg, meat and poultry, herbs and juices but there are also a number of craft stalls on site – that means you can also get candles, flowers and vintage pieces too, making it a real one-stop-shop. Head down on Saturdays between 10am – 3pm to check it out.
Wimbledon Farmers’ Market has been a Saturday morning staple since 2000. Running from 9am – 1pm, it pulls in a loyal crowd who come for the stalls piled with sourdough, seasonal fruit and veg, free-range meat, jams, cheeses and cakes. There’s always a good selection of cut flowers on offer too. Dogs have to be left by the school entrance, so just bear that in mind if you’re out with your pooch.
Head down to the Henry Cavendish Primary School on Saturdays from 9am – 1pm and you’ll find an array of produce to shop from at the Balham Farmers’ Market. There’s always a good mix of fruit and veg, meat, cheeses, breads and sauces on offer, from traders like E.S. Burroughs, Brambletye, Wild Country Organics, Pick’s Organic and Laycroft, and you can pick up bakes to eat right then and there too.
THE FOOD MARKET CHISWICK
Each Sunday (the market runs 10am – 2pm), around 25 producers set up shop at The Pavilion, including the likes of Astons Bakery, The Olive Tree, Ringden Farm, Sotomayer & Sons, Big Wheel Cheese and Ted’s Veg. As well as being a popular place to shop, the market is also a social enterprise, with the proceeds from its running being used to improve and maintain Dukes Meadows park, so stopping by is a win-win.
Barnes Farmers Market is one of the oldest farmers’ markets in London (having been going for over 25 years) and an award-winning one at that. Each Saturday over 20 producers, including the likes of Gilcombe Farm, Berkshire Trout, Wild Country Organic, The Olive Bar, and Big Wheel Cheese set up shop to sell everything from free-range meat and fresh veg to olives and biltong.
Queen’s Park Farmers’ Market is a Sunday fixture that’s popular with the whole neighbourhood – you’ll often see a mix of dog walkers, young families and local regulars browsing the stalls. There’s always a wide range of goodies on offer, including organic veg, fresh pasta, artisan cheeses, baked goods, eggs, juices, fish and shellfish, organic meat, plants and flowers, with traders like Bagnell Farm, Feel Good Ferment, Beer Fisheries, Ted’s Beg, Popina, and Organic Orchards. In fact, the market is so good that it’s a finalist for the 2026 Farmers Market of the Year award.
The farmers’ market pitches up on Bute Street, about five minutes away from South Ken tube, on Saturdays from 9am – 2pm. Early birds get the best pick of fresh seafood from Dorset Fish and Seafood, otherwise you’ve got plenty of cheeses, veggies, poultry, honey and bakes to shop from. As well as selling a range of pork and beef cuts, Parsons Ridge always has hot food on offer too so you can grab a sausage sarnie for breakfast.
Founded by Charles Ganem and Samuel Nataf in Pigalle in 2019, Dumbo quickly won over Parisians with its take on the smashburger and its stripped-back aesthetic. Having grown to four sites in Paris, Charles and Samuel went international by opening a location in Shoreditch. Like its Parisian sisters, the London Dumbo has the same understated, functional design and simple menu of cheeseburgers (made with HG Walter meat) and veggie burgers made with artisan potato brioche buns, American cheese, onions and pickles; french fries; and chicken nuggets. The whole vibe isn’t dissimilar to Supernova, which went viral when it launched in Soho, and Dumbo looks to have gone down well too.
After running a series of pop-ups and residences, Andrea Asciuti opened a permanent 081 Pizzeria restaurant in Peckham in 2023 and it quickly became one of south London’s go-to pizza joints – it was even listed as one of the 50 Top Pizzas in Europe. Two years later, he added a second in Shoreditch. Neapolitan pizza and Naples-inspired tapas is the name of the game, with pizzas like the Napoli RMX (tomato, burrata, anchovies, olives & capers), the Maradona (smoked mozzarella, Italian sausage & wild broccoli), and the Parmigiana (tomato, mozzarella, fried aubergines & parmesan) on the menu alongside arancini, deep-fried aubergine balls, croquettes and pistachio doughnuts for pud.
Bob Bob Ricard is a Soho institution, famous for its glamorous decor as well as THOSE press for champagne buttons on every booth. The menu is a mix of British and French classics given a luxe twist – think dishes like prawn cocktail, steak tartare, beef wellington, cheese, soufflé, chicken & champagne pie and flaming créme brûlée. There’s also a dash of Russian influence there too with caviar offerings and a selection of vodka shots served at -18°C, and alongside the champagne, you can find plenty of fine wines on the list. If you’re looking to add a little luxury to your mealtime, this is the place.
DakaDaka sits on Heddon Street, a short but serious stretch of Mayfair real estate alongside Sabor, Fonda and Ambassadors Clubhouse. It’s the debut London project from Berkeley Square Hospitality and is the vision of Giorgi Mindiashvili and Mitz Vora, who are behind some of our fave spots in Tbilisi. At DakaDaka, they’re putting Georgian cooking front and centre with confidence. The 105 covers are split over two floors, with carved wood, handmade ceramics, earthy tones and tactile finishes making it feel like Georgia by way of Mayfair. Don’t miss the chvishtari, a cornbread laced with Westcombe cheese, maize and green chilli; the khinkali filled with a mix of Iberico pork, aged beef, tarragon and summer savoury and eaten by hand; the kubdari, a traditional Georgian stuffed flatbread filled with Iberico pork, Svaneti salt, ajika and walnut dip, and the karcho, a beef short rib stew with walnut, coriander and khmeli suneli. Georgia’s eight thousand year winemaking tradition underpins the wine list at DakaDaka. There’s a Georgian pet nat on the opening page that we loved but there’s plenty of skin-contact styles to explore too, so be curious.
IVAN RAMEN
Thanks to a little show called Chef’s Table, Ivan Ramen has become one of the most famous ramen restaurants in the world. After opening ramen joints in Tokyo and NYC, Ivan Orkin has come to London with a relaxed and casual spot in Farringdon. It’s a tight menu of small plates and ramen bowls and it really is all killer, no filler. Ivan’s karaage is rightly getting all the plaudits but don’t sleep on the pickles either. As you’d hope for a restaurant and a chef with such a stellar reputation, the ramen absolutely delivers; deep, rich broths and bouncy noodles that retain their texture. The tori paitan is a celebration of chicken with a creamy chicken broth (with an egg yolk to mix in for more body), minced chicken and crispy togarashi chicken for extra crunch. The spicy miso red chilli ramen, dashi and chicken broth layered with chillies, miso, savoury pork, togarashi and pickled garlic, is a hot and complex bowl. If you have more than a passing interest in ramen, you’ll have heard Ivan Orkin’s name before and his food lives up to the hype. It’s a touch more expensive than other ramen in the city but it’s worth the extra few quid.
Bar Flor is the new addition to Pimlico’s much-loved Wildflowers restaurant. Billed as its ‘playful younger sibling’, the pinxtos wine bar sits above their restaurant in Newson’s Yard. It’s headed up by Wildflowers’ chef Aaron Potter and interior stylist Laura Hart, who have taken influence from their favourite parts of Spain to form the menu. With its dimmed lighting, low ceiling and long centre bar topped with a few of the tapas dishes on the menu, it’s intimate and relaxed. Their selection of pintxos is made of simple, classic ingredients, like jamon rillettes with guindilla and Cantabrian anchovy with shallot and salted butter, alongside tapas plates of confit tuna, white bean and red onion salad, and gambas al ajillo. The drinks offering at Bar Flor is made up of a curated list of European wines, along with Basque ciders, vermouths and sherries. As well as the vinos on the list, they have their house wines by the glass at a very reasonable price. If you’re more of a cocktail drinker, then you should try their take on the Adonis – a warming mix of Manzanilla sherry, Cocchi Torino and orange bitters.
George Hartshorn, owner of The Farrier in Camden, has gone east for his newest spot Clara’s, and rather than being a pub, it’s a deli, wine bar and bistro. Clara’s runs as a cafe and deli in the day, serving speciality coffee from Extract Coffee Roasters, pastries and breads from Dusty Knuckle, sandwiches and salads. The shelves are filled with top quality produce from suppliers like Flourish, Provisions, HG Walter and Neal’s Yard Dairy, so you can stock up on charcuterie, tinned fish, meats, cheese and more. The space then flips into a wine bar and dining room in the evenings, serving Mediterranean-inspired dishes like manchego fritti and braised rabbit, and low-intervention wines from across the UK and Europe. There’s surprisingly few wine bars in Shoreditch so Clara’s is a great place to go for some snacks and a glass or bottle of natural wine, and drink somewhere low-key that’s not a pub.
What used to be a pretty terrible burger joint in Angel has been transformed into Summer Dumpling, a cosy restaurant doing excellent hand-made dumplings and noodles. The menu includes a range of boiled and pan-fried dumplings, including prawn & chicken dumpings; beef, cheese & potato potstickers; pork & Chinese cabbage dumplings; black truffle mushroom & bamboo shoot dumplings; and corn & cheese potstickers. The restaurant also includes some quirky touches to its dishes, like adding caviar-topped crisps to its prawn & fish roe dumplings. The dumplings may be the headline event but you don’t want to miss the chilled cucumber salad, sticky rice cakes or the spicy braised beef noodles. With art by local students on the walls, a great soundtrack and a relaxed vibe, it’s one all dumpling lovers need to hit up.
Stable Wines, located in Islington, is a seriously cool wine shop occupying a slightly random little space on Essex Road , which, in its last life, was a donut shop we don’t think we ever saw open. But all is not what it looks like from street level. Head downstairs and you’ll find a huge basement that was once an old bank. What used to be the gold bullion room is now a cosy space with a big shared table, surrounded by a circular wine wall. It shares DNA with its sister sites Goodbye Horses and The Dreamery: excellent wines, a short, sharp menu of wine bar dishes and plenty of hype, so expect the possibility of a queue. You can book for tables of six and above; otherwise, it’s walk-in only. The short menu changes often but you can expect dishes like Guinness rarebit oysters, a steak tartare on toast, a tomato tartine, the cult Goodbye Horses cheese toastie, a whole fried wheel of Mont D’Or, and chocolate mousse. These guys know their low-intervention wines, with plenty by the glass and bottles priced at retail plus a £20 corkage. Frankly, wine is the only thing you should be drinking here. From crisp pét-nats to skin-contact oranges and chilled reds, this place has them all.
