The Best Places to Eat and Drink in London

Forget toad in the hole and bangers and mash – London’s food scene is more like a greatest-hits tour of the globe. Here’s your shortcut to the best eats in town.

The best breakfast

Scrolls from The Dusty Knuckle bakery, London

How much time have you got? The pick of the quick options are a flaky feta and fennel seed swirl, drizzled with honey, at The Dusty Knuckle (above) in Dalston (about 30 minutes from the city by train), a brie and caramelised onion Danish at Jolene in Newington Green (a 20-minute drive from the city) or a salt beef sandwich zinging with hot English mustard just around the corner at Brick Lane Beigel Bake, which is open 24/7.

To take things at a more leisurely pace, head to Towpath Café, a pocket of dreamy Englishness on the bank of Regent’s Canal, a 10-minute stroll from Haggerston station. My last breakfast here featured toast topped with pretty Marinda heirloom tomatoes and a peppery mojo verde. Even the toasted cheese sandwich gets a boost of brilliance in the form of quince jelly. As for coffee, Rosslyn (above) serves up the right mix of cheery greeting and frankly excellent espresso in three city locations.

The hottest restaurants

Not so long ago, the restaurant scene in London – for the casual visitor, at least – was top-heavy and dominated by a French idea of fine dining. The good news is that its DNA has been reset by an influential group of chefs and restaurateurs.

At the white-hot Café Cecilia (above), a fashionable crowd thrills to the cooking of young gun Max Rocha, who opened the Hackney eatery after working at dining institutions The River Café and St. John Bread and Wine, as well as at Spring, the restaurant of feted Australian expat chef Skye Gyngell. Rocha’s rich, flavoursome Guinness sourdough could form the beginning of the meal or its coda, when it’s churned into a densely textured ice-cream. In between, he works a very likeable riff on Anglo-Italian with sage and anchovy fritters served hot and crisp, and a Barnsley chop of lamb with a bitey salad of chicory and dandelion; also, excellent chips.

Rochelle Canteen is not new and has always been great but it now enjoys a more central place in London’s food conversation. Margot Henderson, the chef and co-owner, is married to St. John’s co owner and chef, Fergus Henderson, and they share ideas of what constitutes a good time at the table. The Canteen is set within the walled garden of a former Victorian school in Shoreditch, which gives it a sunny, colourful air, and Margot’s menus take broader inspiration, with the likes of hake, samphire and capers complemented by beautifully made mutton kofta with radish slaw.

Welsh chef Tomos Parry adds woodfired cooking to the equation at Brat (above), a pleasantly rough-hewn first-floor dining room in Shoreditch that has a superb wine list. “Brat” is an old Northumberland word for turbot and the big fish is the signature, coming to the table grilled whole to share in all its sweet and gelatinous splendour.

If it’s a scene you’re after, make your way directly to Sessions Arts Club (above), in the former judges’ dining room of Sessions House in Clerkenwell. Chef Abigail Hill’s food is as much of an attraction as the people-watching. There’s lots to like here but the zesty skate bisque with sea beet makes a convincing case for the more-is-more approach.

Of course, a great many champions of the new London style weren’t born in the city and while it might not be entirely accurate to call Ikoyi (above) an African restaurant, benne, moin moin and jollof rice sit easily alongside prime British produce such as aged beef and sweet peas. I can’t think of another two-Michelin-starred eatery working with these African ingredients that brings it all together so seamlessly. “Ikoyi is about hyper-seasonality through a lens of spice. It’s about immediate cooking of fish, grass-fed beef and just-picked vegetables,” says chef Jeremy Chan. “It’s a restaurant of big flavours, sharp aesthetics and passion for comforting but complex food.”

For an experience that’s very much right-here-right now, you want Black Axe Mangal (or F.K.A.B.A.M) near Islington Tube stop. The restaurant’s direction owes much to head chef Lee Tiernan’s love of the city’s mangals (Turkish grills), the woodfired oven and his sense of adventure. Certainly there’s no other eatery in London with music this loud that serves skewers of snails and duck hearts this good.

The coolest wine bars

There’s a spectrum here from bottle shops that also pour wine and run a short, smart menu, such as Quality Wines in Farringdon, through to places that are essentially restaurants but afford every bit as much care to the wine and service as they do the food.

To eat Anjou pigeon pasta with broad beans at Noble Rot in Soho or steamed hake with lemon mayonnaise and green asparagus at Quality Wines along with a glass of something extraordinary, is to feel that London remains one of the major crossroads of culture in this world.

The final honours go to Planque (above). In French it means “hide-out”, which speaks nicely to the eatery’s location, next to Haggerston station. It’s also pronounced “plonk”, useful for appreciating its wine focus.

The food is impeccable – vibrant, fresh and downright delicious, from the pink radicchio matched with sheep's curd to the gorgeous rabbit ballotine with artichokes and anchovy. Planque’s magic is a meeting of its co-owners, Paris-born sometime Sydneysider Jonathan Alphandery and his Italian- Australian wife, Bianca Riggio, as well as Geelong-born chef Sebastian Myers, who has cooked his way through top kitchens in Paris, provincial France and Lisbon, as well as many of the leading local lights. In other words, as London as it gets, circa now.