These are the new spots that really got us talking
The London restaurant scene is in constant flux, which is why we keep an updated list of the best new openings throughout the year and why we look ahead to the most promising new restaurants to come in 2025. Before we dive head first into a new batch of openings, it’s time to reflect on the last twelve months – we’ve already rounded up the best things we ate and now we’ve got the best places we ate, and we fully expect these to be getting some repeat visits in 2025.
AngloThai
Many years and pop-ups in the making, John and Desiree Chantarasak finally opened a fully fledged permanent restaurant for their AngloThai concept at the back end of 2024. It’s been a long road to get here, and having been to nearly every pop-up and residency AngloThai have done in London in the last few years, we feel as though we’ve very much been along for the ride and we can safely say that it’s been worth the wait. Influenced by his Thai-British heritage, John reimagines Thai dishes with British ingredients, blending bold flavours and traditional cooking styles with contemporary presentation to create something that’s totally unique.
OMA
Not content with doing one headline opening, David Carter decided to do two in Borough Market with his Greek double AGORA and OMA. The ground floor AGORA is modelled on a classic Athens taverna with an incredible open-fire rotisserie at one end of the room. OMA is the more refined upstairs restaurant, designed to give you that slower-paced feel of a holiday on a Greek island. Order up dishes like laffa bread, salt cod XO labneh, spanakopita gratin, wild red prawn giouvetsi, and a bottle of Greek vino and you’ll instantly be transported there.
Sael
Jason Atherton had a hell of a 2024; he opened a gourmet hot dog kitchen at Harrods, he closed Pollen Street Social and reopened it as Mary’s, he opened Three Darlings in Chelsea, he teamed up with Spencer Metzger for the high-end Row on 5, and he brought us British brasserie Sael in St James, which really blew us away. It’s such an overused line, but truly this was a hard menu to order from – we agonised for ages over it, and could have happily ordered all the snacks and starters before we even got to the rest of the menu.
Ibai
Nemanja Borjanovic and Will Sheard, the team behind meat supplier Txuleta, and chef Richard Foster, opened Basque steak restaurant Ibai in Farringdon this year. 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 was brilliant to see the team open up their own place. The steaks are the headline act but there are a whole load of other goodies on the menu, like the Croque Ibai – four little golden bites of boudin noir, carabinero prawns and ossau-iraty cheese stuffed into soft, toasted bread – and a beautiful carabinero tartare, topped with a healthy dollop of caviar.
Goodbye Horses
Goodbye Horses is a De Beauvoir restaurant/wine bar opened by 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, including a standout cheese toastie and beef tartare, and 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.
Wildflowers
When a restaurant’s co-founder is an interior stylist, you’d expect it to look good but Wildflowers really is a gorgeous space. Opened by Laura Hart (the stylist) and Aaron Potter (the chef, previously of Elystan Street), Wildflowers occupies a prime spot in Newson’s Yard, an old timber yard just off Pimlico Road, and offers a wonderfully simple menu inspired by the relaxed dining cultures of Spain, France and Italy – it’s Aaron’s take on the food of his holidays, made with British ingredients. The food is uncomplicated but beautiful, the ingredients are few but well chosen, the dishes are light but hearty, and it all just feels incredibly chic.
Josephine
With a couple of notable exceptions, Fulham isn’t exactly bursting with great restaurants; so the arrival of Claude Bosi’s new place Josephine – which would be big news in any residential London neighbourhood – felt like an especially big deal. This little neighbourhood bistro, in a lovely blue-painted corner site on Fulham Road, is intentionally a long way from his Michelin-starred restaurants. Inspired by Claude’s hometown of Lyon and named after Claude’s grandmother, the menu is inspired by the dishes that Josephine would cook for him when growing up – hearty French fare like onion soup, frog’s legs, terrine, Saint-Félicien cheese soufflé, chicken and mushroom vol au vent, and sweetbreads with morel mushroom sauce.
The Hero
Phil Winser and James Gummer, the duo behind The Pelican and The Bull, Charlbury (both of which we loved) 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. The downstairs pub offers comfort food classics done to perfection, like half roast chicken with salad; a throwback ham, egg and chips done with a nice juicy bacon chop; and a cheese and onion pie. And if that wasn’t enough, the grill restaurant on the first floor is also a knockout. It’s got a beaut menu that focuses on speciality cuts of meat and fish, grilled over the open fire, and dishes like celeriac and truffle pie, leg of lamb with peas and charred greens, and sweetbreads in lobster gravy.
Cloth
Set in a Grade II-listed building (and nestled next to some of the oldest residential buildings in London), Cloth is all about seasonal food and an approachable list of excellent, affordable wines. The wine bar and restaurant was born out of a collaboration between two wine importers, Joe Haynes and Ben Butterworth, and a chef, Tom Hurst (whose impressive CV includes Brawn, The Marksman, Levan, Salon, Larry’s and, most recently, Lasdun). The result is a carefully curated bottle list and dishes from a chef who really knows what he’s doing – an instant classic.
Leydi
The Hyde hotel group has opened its first UK outpost inside the historic Spiers & Pond building in Farringdon and a big shiny new hotel needs a big shiny restaurant, which is why Selin Kiazim was drafted in to oversee the menu at Leydi. The restaurant takes inspo from the eating culture of Istanbul, with a menu that moves from Turkish breakfast right through to kebabs from the mangal in the evening, and there are few better to design such a menu than Selin. She’s kept it fairly concise, which means it’s only filled with the hits – and yes, this does make ordering rather difficult, so come hungry (ideally with some reinforcements) and don’t skip the chips.
Cafe François
Cafe François is the new spot from the Maison François team that opened down in Borough Yards. It’s an expansive restaurant with a lot of seats to fill but they’ve nailed the concept, offering affordable, crowd pleasing hits that are going to appeal to pretty much everyone. The sandwiches section is frankly ridiculous – there’s a grilled cheese with French onion dip; a soft shell crab banh mi; a foie gras, bacon and egg muffin; and finally, a Royale with cheese, bacon and béarnaise sauce. The rest of the menu is packed with treats, including moules marinière flatbreads, rotisserie chicken, and pate en croute, and there’s an impressive dessert counter too.
Morchella
Perilla has been a fave of ours since it opened on Newington Green in 2016, so any follow-up restaurant from the team was always going to be big news (and come with big expectations). Happily, Morchella, open on the site of an old bank just off Exmouth Market more than met them. Morchella has much more of a Mediterranean slant than the pan-European offering at Perilla, with the kitchen spotlighting seasonal produce from the Med as well as from British farmers and day boats across dishes like impossibly light cigars of spanakopita; salt cod churros with chunky romesco sauce; hake covered in a luscious sobrasada sauce; and pearly white monkfish atop cuttlefish.
Bottarga
After making its name with Peruvian restaurants, the Pachamama group has moved to the Med. First came Zephyr in Notting Hill in 2022 and two years later, Bottarga landed in Chelsea, taking over the spot where the group’s seafood-focused Chicama. Like Zephyr, the Bottarga menu is Greek-inspired, drawing particular influence from the Aegean Islands, but it’s been billed as “younger and more casual’ than its Notting Hill big sis. There are excellent dips and spreads, lots of lovely things coming off the grill and a very vibey atmosphere.
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