Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St John’s 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine.
Tomos Parry’s talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fisher’s, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish – grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage – softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices.
Superlatives should be used in moderation – but heck it, this might just be London’s best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more – with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite.
When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it – hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and you’re not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat.
Perhaps because it’s quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by London’s food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good; it is somewhere to pick and choose from bits and pieces, and put a meal together yourself. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order.
There’s “Press For Champagne” buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded – there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar – even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital.
Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but let’s not have that argument now) couldn’t be beaten – and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone.
Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds – this dish changed that. The starlet of Padella’s much coveted is this plate of pici – hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta – with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled – and it’ll set you back just £6.
A dish like this should be elusive – it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), we’re already planning our next visit.
There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Wei’s triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xi’an Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the “special” sauce they swim in – very special indeed.
Le Gavroche – the street urchin – is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isn’t always better. Michel Roux Jr’s cheese soufflé, baked on double cream, stuns, so overwhelmingly tasty, utter decadence that clings to the taste buds.
James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but it’s good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops, and can do more beyond, there’s something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 can’t operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, which is operating out of the same site.
Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseur’s Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings.
It’s not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals.
Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages – these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence.
David Carter’s Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun – the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you.
L’Escargot is one of Soho’s old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun – perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells and submerged in their butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It won’t matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night.
Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered.
Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis – his pies could so easily have also made this list – but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle – a combination so popular Lee says he “nearly ran out” of eel on post-lockdown reopening.
London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder.
Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients – say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince – do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyth’s sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. You’ll be treated here.
Don’t worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy.
Long an actor’s favourite, J Sheekey’s glamour has never lost its lustre. It’s kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekey’s thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter has a meatiness that’s beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too.
There’s a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital – but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named “Ari Gold” burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions.
Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. That’s exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful.
Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the area’s best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pig’s trotter, has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if it’s on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints – they do pints now, not just halfs – all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs.
There are so many delights at Bentley’s, it’s tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter (pictured). It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail – choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan.
Soho’s Lina Stores – the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from – is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find – too often there’s too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough – but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close.
London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub – a proper one – it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or…), where they’ve served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time – pints, red wine, brandies, the lot – but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none.
The late Joël Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble – mashed potato. Until you’ve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good.
our months departed from London’s restaurants has had us daydreaming.
“Do you remember that time we ate…?” has been the way we’ve started most conversations during lockdown. And yet, even with a good 15 weeks to think about it, we still can’t decide where to eat.
Do we want noodles in north London? Or a bao bun in Borough? With a flood of the capital’s top restaurants having now reopened or pencilled in their reopening dates, we’re overwhelmed with dishes to revisit – so we’ve decided to make a list of the very best.
In all honesty, the list could be 10 times the length if we had the time, and we freely admit there are some big names and local favourites that aren't (yet) on the list. In some cases, that may be because the restaurant hasn’t yet confirmed its reopening date – it would be cruel to tempt you with something if you can't put a date in the diary to tuck in.
From Michelin-starred signature dishes to the best fast food in the capital, here are 30 dishes you need to try in London.
Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St John’s 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine.
Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds – this dish changed that. The starlet of Padella’s much coveted is this plate of pici – hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta – with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled – and it’ll set you back just £6.
Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis – his pies could so easily have also made this list – but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle – a combination so popular Lee says he “nearly ran out” of eel on post-lockdown reopening.
26-29 Dean Street, W1D 3LL, quovadissoho.co.uk
James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but it’s so good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops and can do more beyond, there’s something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 presently can’t operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, operating out of the same site.
107 Upper St, N1 1QN, 1251.co.uk
L’Escargot is one of Soho’s old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun – perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells, submerged in a butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It won’t matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night.
48 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4EF, lescargot.co.uk
Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but let’s not have that argument now) couldn’t be beaten – and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone.
E2, W1, N1, W8, dishoom.com
Superlatives should be used in moderation – but heck it, this might just be London’s best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more – with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite.
7 Northumberland Avenue, WC2N 5BY, 50kalo.it
Tomos Parry’s talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fisher’s, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish – grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage – softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices.
Perhaps because it’s quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by London’s food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order.
221 Kensington High St, W8 6SG, 020 7937 3003
Le Gavroche – the street urchin – is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isn’t always better. Michel Roux Jr’s cheese soufflé, baked on double cream, stuns. It is so overwhelmingly tasty; utter decadence that clings to the taste buds.
43 Upper Brook St, W1K 7QR, le-gavroche.co.uk
Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages – these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence.
1-5 Bloomberg Arcade, EC4N 8AR, brigadierslondon.com
Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered.
88-94 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3EA, thequalitychophouse.com
Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the area’s best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pig’s trotter, he has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if it’s on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints – they do pints now, not just halfs – all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs.
49 Dean St, W1D 5BG, frenchhousesoho.com
Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients – say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince – do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyth’s sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. You’ll be treated here.
92 Kensington Park Rd, W11 2PN, corebyclaresmyth.com
London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder.
13 Stoney Street, SE1 9AD, baolondon.com
When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it – hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and you’re not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat.
58 Brewer Street, W1F 9TL, kilnsoho.com
A dish like this should be elusive – it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), we’re already planning our next visit.
N1, W1, WC2, barrafina.co.uk
Long an actor’s favourite, J Sheekey’s glamour has never lost its lustre. It’s kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekey’s thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter is beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too.
28-32 St Martin's Ct, WC2N 4AL, j-sheekey.co.uk
London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub – a proper one – it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or…), where they’ve long served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time – pints, red wine, brandies, the lot – but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none.
30 Bruton Place, W1J 6NL, theguinea.co.uk
Don’t worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy.
160 Piccadilly, W1J 9EB, thewolseley.com
The late Joël Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble – mashed potato. Until you’ve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good.
6 Clarges St, W1J 8AE, robuchonlondon.co.uk
Soho’s Lina Stores – the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from – is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find – too often there’s too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough – but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close.
51 Greek St, W1D 4EH, linastores.co.uk
There’s a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital – but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named “Ari Gold” burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions.
Various locations, pattyandbun.co.uk
David Carter’s Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun – the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you.
35 Sclater Street, E1 6LB, smokestak.co.uk
Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. That’s exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful.
5 Henrietta Street, WC2E 8PT, dintaifung-uk.com
There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Wei’s triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xi’an Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the “special” sauce they swim in – very special indeed.
62 Wentworth Street, E1 7AL, xianbiangbiangnoodles.com
It’s not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals.
338 Acton Mews, E8 4EA, berberandq.com
There’s “Press For Champagne” buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded – there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar – even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital.
1 Upper James Street, W1F 9DF, bobbobricard.com
There are so many delights at Bentley’s, it’s tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter. It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail – choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan.
11-15 Swallow Street, W1B 4DG, bentleys.org
Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseur’s Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings.
10 Basinghall Street, EC2V 5BQ, thehawksmoor.com
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