London restaurant reviews

Bill Granger's original London outpost — still one of the defining Notting Hill weekend-queue brunch spots.

The first pub in London to win Michelin Pub of the Year — an unpretentious boozer downstairs, a Bib Gourmand dining room above it.

The 200-year-old backstreet pub that inspired George Orwell's 'The Moon Under Water', now home to a rotating chef residency.

Half restaurant, half French deli, from the team behind Gascon cooking's London reputation.

One of the last restaurants in London still performing genuine tableside duck-pressing — a near-extinct piece of classical French ritual.

A Lamb's Conduit Street trattoria open since 1983 — lively, unpretentious, and one of the street's longest-surviving independents.

Northern Thai 'drinking food' on Shoreditch High Street — loud, cheap by the neighbourhood's standards, and properly spiced.

The upstairs cocktail bar on Old Compton Street is the best pre-dinner stop in Soho. Two bars, one building.

Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich's acclaimed Middle Eastern kitchen, now in a bigger Lamb's Conduit Street home.

Ago Perrone's martini trolley remains the most perfect cocktail service in London. Dress for it. Book a week ahead.

A cookbook shop with a working test kitchen and a handful of communal tables — a genuine Notting Hill original since the 1980s.

Jeremy Lee's Soho institution on Dean Street is the best lunch in the neighbourhood. Go for the smoked eel.

A centuries-old listed pub near Smithfield Market, wood-panelled and genuinely old rather than styled to look it.

Moro's noisier, narrower sibling two doors down — the same Moorish pantry compressed into tapas, eaten fast at a counter.

The Mount Street seafood institution since 1851 — Dover sole, native oysters, and a Champagne bar built for a long lunch.

A Grade II-listed Mount Street pub doing a proper fish finger sandwich among Mayfair's grandest addresses.

A Phipp Street bistro cooking the France–northern-Italy borderland — quietly one of Shoreditch's better rooms since replacing Leroy.

Ed Wilson's Columbia Road neighbourhood favourite, built around pork-focused charcuterie and a cult natural-wine list.

All-day global small plates inside the Grade II-listed Grainstore, overlooking Granary Square.

Graziano Bonacina's Amalfi-coast Italian cooking with live jazz six nights a week — the theatrical counterpoint to St James's usual hush.

London's longest continuously-running independently-owned Michelin-starred restaurant — open on the same Charlotte Street site since 1991.

Reached by pressing a buzzer on a locked green door at Arnold Circus, one of London's best long lunches.

The Hackney Road wine bar that every other 'wine bar' in London has tried to be since.

The Ottolenghi flagship on Warwick Street is still the best Middle-Eastern-tinged restaurant in Soho.

Angelos Bafas's five-storey Seven Dials opening: an upstairs julep bar with home-grown mint, a seven-colour cocktail menu below.

The Smithfield institution that first argued British restaurant cooking seriously, and still does.

The Dean Street pub that serves beer only in half pints is still Soho's most civilised long afternoon.

Berkeley Square's Asian-inflected seafood room — as much a show as a meal, and not embarrassed about it.

The King's Cross branch of London's Bombay-café chain — the bacon naan roll alone justifies the queue.

The martini is made tableside, from a trolley, with the glass out of the freezer. Dress for it.

José Pizarro's tiny standing-room sherry-and-tapas counter — the restaurant that put Bermondsey Street on the map.

Widely credited as one of the original 1990s gastropubs, tucked on a quiet street near Ravenscourt Park.

Ben Chapman's Soho counter is still the best bowl of clay-pot noodles in London. Walk-ins only, and worth the wait.

The Clove Club team's Italian-via-British-produce room on St John Street — one Michelin star, and pasta that justifies the reputation.

Running since 1945 — one of London's oldest continuously operating Italian restaurants, popular with the St James's club and gallery crowd.

A neighbourhood restaurant for long enough that the neighbourhood has changed around it. Trullo has not.

A big, tiled, buzzy Keith McNally-style brasserie built to fit around a curtain time.

The low-key, family-run counterpart to Charlotte Street's fine dining — thin-crust Roman pizza and homemade pasta, no pretension.

A three-floor Georgian townhouse dedicated to specific Sicilian regional cooking rather than a broad, catch-all Italian menu.

First of all, a wine list. The Lamb's Conduit Street original remains one of London's essential long lunches.

A converted warehouse with a cabaret piano bar attached — one of the venues that defined this pocket of East London before it was fashionable.

Named for and inspired by the original Xavier Marcel Boulestin — his actual recipes, revived on St James's Street itself.

A converted 1950s laundry near the Emirates Stadium, doing seafood-led seasonal cooking with a genuinely deep natural-wine list.

A walk-in pasta bar with a deliberately short menu — around eight fresh pastas, no reservations, no filler.

A tiny gingham-tableclothed room doing an idealised version of a Paris bistro, since 2013.

A destination Indian kitchen on the King Street strip, from a chef who came up through Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy.

The most exciting dinner in East London for the better part of a decade, above a Redchurch Street pub.

A Grade II-listed 1865 gymnasium turned Mitteleuropean brasserie, a few minutes' walk from the station.

Sweeping Art Deco arches and marble floors make the Foyer & Reading Room the more architecturally confident of Mayfair's grand teas.

The 'forever spring' conservatory — blossom, candlelight, a retractable glass roof — routinely called London's most romantic dining room.

Established 1742 — the epitome of old-school clubland British dining, largely unchanged in atmosphere for decades.

Opened in 1987 as a staff canteen for the Richard Rogers architectural practice, still one of the most important restaurants in London.

Ryan Chetiyawardana's basement bar under One Hundred Shoreditch trades spectacle for genuine ingredient curiosity in every glass.

London's oldest restaurant, established 1798, still doing game pie and its own-estate grouse.

A Grade II-listed 18th-century Thames-side pub, home to the world's smallest bar and a genuine literary history.

Brett Graham's three-Michelin-star kitchen, unusual for using deer, cattle and pigs reared on the chef's own farm.

Adejoké Bakare's Michelin-starred West African tasting menu — near-unique in London, and correctly regarded as one of the city's most interesting kitchens.

Isaac McHale's two-Michelin-starred tasting menu inside Shoreditch Town Hall — the fried chicken alone is worth the booking.

A candlelit Bermondsey Street wine bar that treats the Beaujolais list as the main event, not the food.

The Bethnal Green cocktail bar with a new list daily. Walk in.

Assaf Granit's Jerusalem-inspired kitchen overlooking Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square.

A long-standing King Street fixture for home-style South Indian vegetarian and vegan cooking.

Twenty-eight seats in a low-lit room beneath Lina Stores' Brewer Street deli, doing Italian aperitivo properly rather than as a cocktail-list afterthought.

The restaurant that pioneered Andalusian and North African cooking in London, anchoring the whole Exmouth Market strip since 1997.

The no-reservations tapas counter, transplanted to the canal-side viaduct level of Coal Drops Yard.

A grade-II listed pub on Charterhouse Street, five minutes from Farringdon station.

A 100-year-old seafood institution tucked behind the Coliseum, with a pre-theatre menu built for the job.

Jun Tanaka's Michelin-starred small-plates room on Charlotte Street — the set lunch is one of the best-value stars in the city.

A former Canonbury garage turned communal-table bistro that helped define London's natural-wine scene.

The Drury Lane counter — no bookings, an open kitchen, and a queue that's part of the point.

A glamorous, low-lit Argentine steak room that's become a discreet neighbourhood favourite without losing focus on the cooking.

A historic two-floor Bloomsbury pub named for the Bloomsbury Group's famed hostess, doing well-sourced British comfort food.

Gilded ceilings, panelled mirrors and a live pianist — the Palm Court is the afternoon tea every other London room is measured against.

A Grade II-listed Victorian working-men's dining room from 1869, original wooden benches included.

A converted meat-market building split across four floors, from a ground-floor bar to a rooftop grill over the market itself.

A Bermondsey Street institution since 2003, built around a daily-changing fish counter and British day-boat sourcing.

The all-day Corbin and King brasserie on Piccadilly is still the most London-ly lunch in London. Breakfast, tea, dinner.

The 2002 original that launched the entire Ottolenghi brand — still a genuine counter-service deli, not a polished later branch.

The top floor of the former Clerkenwell courthouse, up a staircase you would not find unless you knew.

An 1830s Islington pub widely regarded as one of London's best gastropubs, especially for its Sunday sharing roasts.