Leonie Cooper

If you’re looking for some good old-fashioned glamour with your drinking, a cosy London pub might not cut it. You need to pull up a shiny stool at one of London’s best hotel bars where the service is seamless, the clientele is classy and every last drink is a showstopper. Sure, you’ll pay for the luxury, but you deserve a treat every once in a while. So here’s a list of London hotel bars where it’ll be worth making your Monzo wince. The best hotel bars in London at a glance: 😎 Best for hip drinking: Chet's Bar at The Hoxton Shepherd’s Bush  🌵 Best for mezcal and margs: Side Hustle at The Nomad, Covent Garden 💎 Best for old school glam: Rivoli Bar at The Ritz, Mayfair 💖 Best for cool date night: Sweeties at The Standard, King’s Cross 🍸 Best for a seriously strong martini: Dukes Bar, St James’s RECOMMENDED: The best hotels in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Updated November 2025: We’ve refreshed our list of best restaurants in London following the latest Michelin star announcements and a bunch of new openings. Recent additions include stunning Michelin star spot Cycene in Shoreditch and newly-opened Chingford chophouse, Gina.  Best Restaurants in London: Our Critic’s Picks: 🍸 Best Michelin-star restaurant: Cycene, Shoreditch - intimate fine dining with foraged finds and superb seasonal ingredients. 🔥 Best Thai restaurant: Singburi, Shoreditch - cult London favourite known for fiery dishes. 🥩 Best Middle Eastern restaurant: Berenjak, Soho - buzzy Persian grillhouse with counter seating and charcoal-smoked kebabs. 🍜 Best affordable restaurant: Lanzhou Lamian Noodle Bar, Covent Garden - late-night noodles for a great price. 🥧 Best British restaurant: St John, Clerkenwell - trad dishes in a former smokehouse. 🍝 Best Italian restaurant: Trullo, Highbury - perfect pasta in a cosy neighbourhood classic. 🍻 Best gastropub: Rake at The Compton Arms, Islington - great pub food in lowkey surroundings. London doesn’t stand still and neither do we. We’re constantly adding new restaurants to the list and taking away ones that no longer make the grade. From freshly starred fine-dining rooms and hidden gems to neighbourhood favourites, these are the 50 restaurants we think you need to be eating out at in London right now. More London restaurant guides 20 best new restaurants in London 2025 Every Michelin-star restaurant in London 12

Looking for a traditional Christmas meal – aka, the roast with the most – but without all the faff? Feasting on December 25 definitely doesn’t mean getting up at 6am to brine your turkey, half-destroying your kitchen and then washing up for the rest of the day. London’s full of great restaurants that’ll do you proud, whether you’re after fancy hotel dining rooms with elaborate set menus, a welcoming gastropub, or down-to-earth curry house feasting. Here are the best places to eat out on Christmas Day in London.  The best restaurants open on Christmas Day at a glance: 🍻 Best gastropub: The Red Lion & Sun, Highgate 💸 Best big budget blowout: The Ritz, Mayfair 👛 Best under £100 a head option: Riding House Cafe, Fitzrovia 🍛 Best non-trad choice: Tayyabs, Whitechapel RECOMMENDED: Things to do on Christmas Day in London.  The information on this page was correct at time of publication, but please check with venues when you book.

Islington is no slouch when it comes to dining out. From Highbury and the fringes of Holloway Road to Angel via Canonbury, the gastronomical delights on offer in this north London neighbourhood almost put the best restuarants of Soho to shame. Whether you’re looking for perfect Italian pasta joints, sexy small plates or mouth-numbing platters of Chinese mapo tofu, you’ll find plenty to satisfy you in Islington. Ready for your restaurant crawl of Upper Street and beyond? Let’s get started. Going further afield? These are the 50 Best Restaurants in London.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

There's nothing quite as romantic as a dinner date. London is full of romantic things to do, and flowers, gifts and grand gestures are all very well and good, but we reckon sharing a meal is the best way to conjure up some love – and don't worry if a little sauce dribbles down your chin. 'Eating with abandon couldn't be more of a turn-on: it shows that you're comfortable with yourself,' said the late, great Anthony Bourdain, and we're inclined to agree. The places in our list of London’s most romantic restaurants all provide excellent opportunity to shove food in your face while flirting.  From chic French spots to amazing Japanese joints, we’ve got somewhere for every amorous encounter, whether a big date, anniversary dinner or a ‘We finally got a babysitter’ celebration. Really want to push the (love) boat out? Then visit one of London's Michelin-starred restaurants with your beau. To paraphrase Shakespeare: if food be the food of love, munch on. RECOMMENDED: The most romantic hotels in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Afternoon tea is what makes a trip to London truly iconic – even if you already live here. You’ll find some of the best at London’s chicest hotels and restaurants, and even art galleries and theatres. We’ve worked out what makes an afternoon tea a truly memorable (and delicious) experience. It’s not just perfect pastries, the most elegant of teeny tiny cakes and chic little sarnies with the crusts cut off, but swish service, the option to have something boozy and bubbly and a characterful room in which to enjoy it all. From The Ritz to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and even a working prison, there’s truly something for every cake-munching tea-drinker in this round-up of London’s best afternoon tea spreads.  Expect to pay in the region of £50 to £100 for the pleasure per person, but you’ll be in for a treat if you go with one of our recommendations. Many of these teas have set times for seatings, so booking in advance is always a good idea. London’s best afternoon teas at a glance: 👛 Best value: The Wolseley, Piccadilly  💸 Best for splashing out: Palm Court at The Ritz, Mayfair 💃 Best for a modern take on tea: London By Lily Vanilli at Four Seasons Tower Bridge, Tower Bridge 🔑 Best for a unique experience: The Clink at HMP Brixton, Brixton 🌷 Best for tea in a greenhouse: Petersham Nurseries, Richmond  October 2025: This list highlights some of London's latest and most intriguing afternoon sarnie sessions. A bunch of themed teas have recently opened; including Rosewood L

Year round, London’s restaurants and breweries are ablaze with barbecues and smokey, live-fire cookery. Here’s our selection of the best grills the capital has to offer including street food hot spots as well as taproom pop-ups. Here you’ll find everything from Jamaican jerk and Scandi-style wood-fired cookery to Texas platters and Korean BBQ. Want to DIY during the summer? Then here’s a list of the London parks that will let you set up your very own grill. And if you want advice from an expert, it’s over to chef and food writer Melissa Thompson on her fave BBQ spots in the city. RECOMMENDED: A guide to the best fried chicken in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. 

October 2025: We're constantly keeping an eye on this Top 50 list to make sure it's up to scratch, and with so many new restaurant openings in and around Soho, that means regularly adding new places and removing those that might have failed to deliver on our last visit. Recent additions include seriously good value omakase at Sushi Kyu, Cambodian pop-up Mamapen, revamped classic Kettner’s, and plush Japanese joint Moi. For a more casual feed there's lunchtime bagel spot It's Bagels, Filipino bakery Panadera, and artisan burger joint Heard.  The best restaurants in Soho at a glance: 🥧 Best for British classics: Quo Vadis 💅 Best for the fashion crowd: Rita’s  🫚 Best for Thai heat: Kiln 🍔 Best for burgers: Heard 🥕 Best for vegetarians: Bubula There’s honestly nowhere in the world like Soho. The haunt of poets, gangsters, trendsetters and many a louche genius, the seedy, sleazy and impossibly romantic heart of London’s West End is also home to loads of great independent shops, cafés, bars and, most importantly, restaurants. Its culinary diversity has been fuelled by centuries of immigration and cultural cross-pollination. From rustic French fare to iconic Italian dishes and tasty tapas, here is Time Out’s list of our absolute favourite Soho restaurants. Whether you fancy a slap-up meal or are just in the market for a mid-town pitstop, we have you covered.  RECOMMENDED: Here are London’s best restaurants. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor and spends

Every week, a frankly silly amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked in order of greatness and deliciousness. All of them have opened in the past year and been visited by our hungry critics. So go forth and take inspo from this list, which is updated regularly. Check in often to find out what we really rate on the London restaurant scene. And look here for all the info about the best new openings in November. London's best new restaurants at a glance: 🍛 Central: Adoh!, Covent Garden 🍠 North: Belly Bistro, Kentish Town 🥟 South: Doma, Sydenham 🍝 East: Legado, Shoreditch 🥗 West: The Lavery, South Kensington November 2025: New additions include Sri Lankan fast food at Adoh! in Covent Garden, Chingford chophouse Gina, Filipino freshness at Belly Bistro in Kentish Town, indie disco turned gastropub the Macbeth in Shoreditch, Spanish smashers at Legado in Shoreditch and Balkan comfort food at Doma in Sydenham. Hungry yet? Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. RECOMMENDED: The 50 best restaurants in London. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now to tuck in.

Fancy a little slap 'n' tickle in Soho or hanky panky in Hoxton? You’ve come to the right place. London is full of sultry, saucy places to stay, and some of the city’s best hotels have special features to make your night even more romantic – we’re talking sex toys on sale at reception, lavish breakfasts in bed and same-day, daytime-only bookings for you-know-what. Ready to get steamy? Here are the best naughty hotels in the capital. Thank us later, folks.  London’s naughtiest hotels at a glance 🏢 Best views: Shangri-La The Shard 💷 Best value for money: Sea Containers 🛏️ Best for a whirlwind romance: The Hoxton, Holborn 🎉 Best place to party: The Twenty Two 📌 Looking for more options? Check out London’s best Airbnbs, or scroll through the most romantic hotels in London How we curate our hotel lists Our team at Time Out London spend their time reviewing hotels all over the Capital – new openings, old classics and everything in between – to bring you fresh, honest recommendations, all year round. Along with our pool of trusted hotel experts, every hotel on this list has been individually reviewed and selected for a reason: we’ve been there, we think it’s great and we’d genuinely recommend it. By the way, this article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.

If any city in the world were oversaturated with hotels, it’d be Paris. So a list of the ‘best hotels in Paris’ is casting a pretty wide net. The city has over 1,600 hotels in total, ranging from tiny new boutiques to grand historic hotels charging £25,000 a night – and we wanted to make sure every kind of hotel was represented on this list: the luxurious, the downright cheap, and everything in between. Whatever your vibe in the City of Light, you’ll find a hotel for you here. In this guide What is the best area to stay in Paris? + − As will surprise no one, the ‘best’ area to stay in Paris is pretty subjective across its 20 arrondissements and 80 or so neighbourhoods. But we do have some pointers. If it’s your first time in the city, you’ll probably want to be as close to the city centre as possible to tick off those major attractions, so anywhere near the 1st arrondissement – Tuileries, the Marais, St-Germain – would be a good bet. If you’re on a budget, however, you’ll find that cheaper options are usually further out in the 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th – and even on the outskirts of the city. Don’t worry, you’ll still be in on the action – this is where the locals hang out, anyway. For the full rundown, here’s our ultimate guide to where to stay in Paris. Which hotels do celebrities stay in in Paris? + − There is absolutely no reason you should book a stay based on whether or not a famous person has stayed there, but hey, it’s fun to know anyway. It’s pretty fun t

Covent Garden is so rammed with restaurants that decision fatigue can easily threaten the quality of your dinner. Weave through the tourists and theatregoing crowds and you'll discover that this area hosts many of the best restaurants in London, including French-styled Story Cellar, and The Portrait by Richard Corrigan, as well as old faves The Savoy Grill and J Sheekey. We’ve compiled a list of the best in the area, from cutting-edge eateries and classy counter joints to party-ready and casual hangouts, with pre-theatre favourites and cheap eats among them. Think of it as your Covent Garden bucket list. The best restaurants in Covent Garden at a glance: 🍸 Best for old school glamour: J Sheekey 🥦 Best for modern British cookery: Town 🥘 Best for Spanish tapas: Barrafina, Drury Lane and Adelaide Street 🍝 Best for perfect pasta: Bancone 🍛 Best for excellent Indian food: Tandoor Chop House ⌛ Best for a fast feed: Adoh! RECOMMENDED: The absolute best restaurants in Soho. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

The moody and mysterious Maison Souquet is a former ‘pleasure house’ – which is a nice way of saying ‘former brothel’. Things have cleaned up a touch since this four storey townhouse opened for risque business in 1905, and it relaunched as a boutique hotel par excellence in 2015. Though its more raunchy days during the Belle Epoque might be behind it, you’ll find the hotel within high-kicking distance from the Moulin Rouge and the Pigalle’s strip of marvellously mucky sex shops. It might not be one for a family stay, but if you’re looking for a dose of French history and a great location (you’re right next to the hilariously picturesque cobbled streets of Montmartre) then Maison Souquet is the perfect, slightly pervy, Parisian escape. There’s also an occult-adjacent spa in the basement; all midnight blue and available for private hire by the hour, which makes Maison Souquet even more of a unique proposition.  Why stay at Maison Souquet? Romance – or at the very least, a dirty weekend – is unavoidable at Maison Souquet. Decor is never less than utterly ostentatious, starting with the red lamps outside that announce the hotel’s location on Rue de Bruxelles, the same street on which writer Emile Zola once lived (Number 21, if you’re interested in making a brief pilgrimage). The entrance parlour, complete with campy Arabian Nights-worthy interior, which was originally built for a Belgian aristocrat’s turn of the century mansion, is a many pronged attack on the senses, whiffing de

Moi might look like a high-end Rainforest Cafe and smell like a Totnes candle shop, but this foliage-heavy temple to sushi and woodsmoke is making a serious attempt at the title of Soho’s most important restaurant opening of 2025. A huge space that gets bigger the deeper you delve, Moi is all about Japanese food made with primo British ingredients, and filling up the bellies of hundreds of people per night to the sounds of the Velvet Underground and assorted jazz funk greats. On the street-level dining room (there’s also a sprawling basement complete with the ubiquitous ‘listening bar’), talented head chef Nick Tannett – formerly senior sous at Endo at the Rotunda – whips up modern and traditional takes on sushi, skewers, tataki and sashimi in a kitchen so open that he might as well take his apron off and join you at your table.  This is bread with main character energy Of course, with prices like this you’d expect greatness. It’s almost £50 for a small plate of seared A5 wagyu nigiri, and some meaty bluefin toro taku temaki isn’t much cheaper. A gooey sea trout tartare chu maki brushed with a glossy and creamy yuzukosho emulsion is the best of the bunch, but it’s the small plates where Moi steps into its own (and decides not to whack your wallet quite as brutally).  Thick and fleshy mounds of tuna tataki folded like t-shirts in a branch of Cos, and sitting in a pool of zingy grapefruit liquor are exceptional, the sweet and tart sauce so addictive we have to ask for a spoon

I’ve always had a soft spot for this resolutely gorgeous Grade-II listed shopfront in the hectic stretch between Dalston K and Dalston J; the lands where Amazon Fresh comes to die, the pubs are of a distinctly flag-shaggy persuasion, and you’ll never go wanting for fast, fried food. Exale Brewery have boldly stepped into the fray, introducing new life into this old F Cooke pie and mash shop, formerly home to much-missed Chinese restaurant Shanghai, and – most recently – that preposterous thing, a board game cafe.  The exquisitely-tiled front room is a calling card for Art Nouveau ultras The Black Eel – a reference to its past as a cockney canteen – is what we hope will be this building’s final form; a convivial and surprisingly cavernous bar with so many rooms that you might get lost, especially if you’ve been sipping Exale’s 5.8% Oona Neipa. There’s the exquisitely-tiled and elegant front room – a calling card for Art Nouveau ultras – as well as a Victorian side den, a sprawling main lounge, an area for darts and shuffleboard, a huge beer garden (complete with a boat and pétanque court), and a leopard-print carpeted private karaoke room right at the top, complete with a sturdy safe into which you can bundle any substandard singers. It has more in common with Rowans at 10pm on a Friday than it does a quaint backstreet boozer, but come party season, this place will be packed.  Since opening their taproom on Blackhorse Lane, indie brewers Exale have been on a bit of a roll, la

Full disclosure: I can’t be entirely sure that Cycene isn’t a cult. But if it is, it’s a truly lovely one, a Michelin-star sect where they will take your money (£195 for nine-ish courses), but there won’t be any funny business and your family will probably be very happy for you. You won’t want to leave, and in fact, we almost don’t. I’m here for nearly four hours, and by the time I’m handed an oaty and malty Horlicks-adjacent cup of sourdough-infused milk – as if I’m an overstimulated toddler being tucked into bed – it’s an imposition to even consider leaving for the bus stop.  A veritable Berghain of enigmatic meats and victuals Some background. Cycene – named after the Old English word for kitchen – opened in 2022 inside the Blue Mountain School, a spurious but well-intentioned Shoreditch arts space that isn’t quite a museum, nor an archive, but, in its own words, somewhere that ‘nurtures engagements and interactions between diverse practices’. Sure, why not! Suffice to say, one of those practices is food, and my lordy, they do it extremely well.  Step inside this repurposed Georgian townhouse and each guest is immediately greeted by congenial head chef Taz Sarhane, a cook who loves to get a little bit weird. At a long pine bar he’ll proffer you a ‘picnic’ of blush-pink house-cured meats, a fluffy hillock of virgin butter, a platter of runny, mouth-coating chicken fat, a mini muffin, dense seeded bread, and a beefy beaker of collagen soup that is, in the best possible way,

In 2025, it’s not enough to be a wine bar that simply sells wine. How archaic! Some are wine ‘pubs’ (Islington’s Godet), others have adjoining ice cream parlours (De Beauvoir’s Goodbye Horses), and there are even one’s that self-identify as ‘listening restaurants’ (Peckham’s Hausu). Giacco’s is a tiny, friendly vino den on north London’s unofficial street of the sesh (Blackstock Road) that knows this all too well.   Instead of proffering a list that starts with fizzy, fabulous Lambrusco and finishes with a punchy Pinot, Giacco’s have made the wise decision to become an incubator for London’s brightest kitchen talent. So in addition to curated glasses and carafes of plonk alongside candles in old bottles dripping with wax (a wine bar staple since 1971), they now boast an ever-shifting food menu that impresses just as much as their mainly European, low-intervention wine list.   A friendly vino den on north London’s unofficial street of the sesh So far Giacco’s has had pop-ups from South Asian and Italian fusion dons Firangi, as well as the Time Out-approved young chef Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares. On the evening Time Out visits – securing our table after battling our way through a rowdy Arsenal home crowd – we find chef Jemma Harrison in the kitchen, mid-way through a three-month residency with her Kaunter concept, offering glammed-up New York deli staples that proudly show off their Eastern European Jewish roots.  The room – named after owner Leonardo Leoncini’s grandfather – is

The seriously good Soho flagship of this creative Filipino bakery (there’s a smaller outpost in Marylebone), is part of the 1996 Group, which also includes the acclaimed Donia restaurant. Their Manila-flavoured take on the humble bakery serves all manner of treats, including doughnuts pumped full of photogenic purple ube ooze and chocolate-slathered brown butter cookies, as well as iced ube matcha drinks for unbeatable TikTok clout. Their chicken adobo pocket is like Greggs gunning for a Michelin star But it’s their savoury goods that are particularly outstanding. Everything is made on-site, and the longanisa roll offers a giddy take on the sausage roll, its sweet, flaky pastry stuffed with succulent meat, while their chicken adobo pocket is like Greggs gunning for a Michelin star. Their fluffy brioche-like pandesal bread sits somewhere in between the two - enjoy it filled with garlic and cream cheese if you’re looking for something more adult lunch-appropriate. Sturdy and pleasingly square, Panadera’s pandesal sandos are also a must-nibble, from the classic Filipino flavours of a hearty corned beef hash offering to panko-crusted aubergine for the vegetarians. The space, all warm woods, busy working kitchen and a lowkey hip-hop soundtrack, is on one of Soho’s lesser known thoroughfares (Hopkins Street, which runs just off the altogether busier Broadwick Street), but that only adds to Panadera’s off-the-beaten-track charm. Coffee comes from excellent local roaster Catalyst.

Sweet, shy Colin is having a shit time. His mother is terminally ill (but still trying to set him up with inappropriate men), his only hobby is barbershop quartet singing with his father, and to top it all, he’s a parking attendant.  Played with wide-eyed bemusement by an outstanding Harry Melling, Colin’s dreary existence changes dramatically when he meets very tall, exceedingly handsome and inscrutable biker Ray in a Bromley boozer. Ray, a fittingly stern Alexander Skarsgård, propositions him over a bag of crisps, and before he knows it, Colin’s licking Ray’s boots (and rather a lot more) by the bins next to Primark. Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas. Think, if you will, Kenneth Anger’s horny, leather-clad opus Scorpio Rising as directed by Richard Curtis.  Think Scorpio Rising as directed by Richard Curtis Based on Adam Mars-Jones’ 1970s-set novella Box Hill, and helmed by first-time director Harry Lighton, Pillion brings Ray and Colin’s unconventional relationship into the present day, with Colin happily (at first) taking on the role of Ray’s submissive, shaving his head, cooking him dinner and sleeping on a rug on the bedroom floor with a lock around his neck. Colin ingratiates himself with Ray’s gang – featuring real-life members of the historic Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club – which also includes fellow sub Kevin (a perky Jake Shears from Scisso

When chef Spasia Dinkovski closed Mystic Burek – her acclaimed British-Balkan bakehouse – we were gutted, not least because we had to remove it from our Top 50 restaurants in London list. Thank goodness then for her return. Doma has taken over a kebab shop space in Sydenham, just across the road from the original Mystic Burek location, but will be doing things differently.  Open only at weekends, during the day Doma will serve grab-and-go second-generation Macedonian cuisine (including legendary filo pies on the last Saturday of every month), while Saturday and Sunday evenings will be reserved for special dinners, for which you’ll have to buy tickets in advance. Expect everything from Balkan barbecue to fried doughnut-esque mekici served with jam and cheese, sausage baps, stuffed cabbage sarma, loads of burek and baklava buns. 

We have Rocketman and A Complete Unknown to blame for the idea that actors playing musicians can actually nail the gig. Gone are the days of dodgy impressions (apologies to Val Kilmer’s Jim Morrison and André 3000’s Jimi Hendrix) and in their place are films that replace the concept of rock stars as infallible Gods with messy human beings.  Whereas A Complete Unknown painted Bob Dylan as a grumpy fuckboy, Deliver Me from Nowhere digs into Bruce Springsteen’s bout with depression and the childhood trauma from which it stemmed, as well as his fastidious dedication to (arguably) his finest album, 1982’s moody Nebraska.   As a living, loving portrait of blue collar Americana, Deliver Me from Nowhere excels. The late-night diners, faded fairgrounds, and classic cars are gloriously, richly rendered while black-and-white flashbacks to Springsteen’s youth and original are shot with all the misery of Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era portraits.  Jeremy Allen White also slips into Springsteen’s Levi’s with ease. From his spot-on incidental grunts to the uncanny singing voice, it’s clear that White has put in the work, even if it’s sometimes hard to unsee Carmy from The Bear (not least because both characters are unrepentant fans of a James Dean-worthy white t-shirt and denim combo). Alas, Springsteen’s misery means that White never really stretches himself, his facial expression is either sad, brooding, or a glum combo of the two. If you want American gothic with a side of pancakes, you

It might be seen as peculiar to open a restaurant review with an in-depth rundown of the loos, but to hell with convention. Hausu lives in the grand, Grade II-listed, one-time ticket office of Peckham Rye train station, meaning its hilariously spacious bathroom dates back all the way to 1865. Bigger than any other room in the restaurant, the lavs are resplendent, covered with intricate Victorian tiling, and bearing wartime-era warnings against venereal disease. Not something you usually want served up alongside dinner, but for these we’ll make an exception. I would, were the correct bleach used in advance, willingly eat off these majestic floors.  Juicy prawn toast resembles a sea anemone on a diet of Huel and 100 pull-ups a day Alas, Hausu head chef Holly Middleton-Joseph insists that diners have their meals in one of the restaurant’s three rooms instead. There’s the walk-ins-only bar up front; a sit-down dining room in the back; and a strangely bear pit-like middle room, which consists of a shiny counter surrounding a sunken kitchen where you gaze upon chefs at work as if you were a Roman emperor.  Named after a cult 1970s Japanese horror film, Hausu launched in the autumn of 2024, taking over from Peckham institution the Coal Rooms, where Holly Middleton-Joseph (Frank’s, Camberwell Arms, Mountain) had previously staged a pop-up. Her first gig as head chef sees her showcasing a wilfully unique brand of cookery, which draws as much upon high-octane Asian cuisine as it does

What’s the vibe? A field-to-table, foragers paradise, it’s no stretch of the imagination to call Osip the best restaurant in the UK right now. Unsurprisingly for a place run by a chef called Merlin, there’s something magical happening here; dishes are surprising without being confusing, and folksy without being arcane. It’s the culinary equivalent of The Wicker Man, but with a fresh-from-his-Third Space-workout Paul Mescal cast in the Edward Woodward role.  The historic inn now resembles a 1970s Scandinavian art school In 2021, two years after opening, Osip was awarded a Michelin star. Then, in 2024, Merlin Labron-Johnson’s uber-acclaimed restaurant upped sticks from its cosy Bruton high street location to a 16th century inn about 10 minutes drive from The West Country’s Most Artsy VillageTM. As Bruton becomes more or less indistinguishable from north-east London’s lah-di-dah De Beauvoir neighbourhood, Osip’s plan to extract itself from the red-trousered rahs of Bruton makes it even more a place of pilgrimage. That’s now even more possible with the recent addition of four bedrooms above the restaurant, meaning you can devour Osip’s immaculate tasting menu then roll into an extremely comfy bed (or a rolltop bath), before waking up to a locally-plucked breakfast of figs, blackberries and pears, alongside sticky cardamom and pear rolls, pungent local cheeses, cured ham and trout, fresh eggs and Chemex coffee, while gazing out onto the misty fields though dreamy picture windows.

With its instantly recognisable white-washed aesthetic (complete with chalkboard menu, and army barracks coat-pegs as far as the eye can see) the newest, and by far the most lowkey, incarnation of St John looks as if it’s been there for decades, despite only launching a week before we slip inside for a swift luncheon. Taking over the London Review Bookshop cafe in the shadow of the British Museum, it’s an ideal place to enjoy one of their joyfully utilitarian doorstop sandwiches with fillings plucked straight out of a Stella Gibbons novel c.1932. There are just 10 small tables (perfect for two, but could seat three at a push), and the menu here offers all of the St John Bakery with all manner of pastries, Eccles cakes, madeleines, and doughnuts on offer, as well as warm savoury bakes (ham or courgette tart, pig cheek or potato and wigmore cheese pie) and a short but salutary wine list. A glass of claret might not be the first thing on your mind if you’re here early doors (it opens at 8am), so you’ll be happy to hear that coffee is also on hand. It shuts at 6pm (the same time as the bookshop), but for a place to enjoy an afternoon cinnamon bun next to a performative male reading Ursula Le Guin, we can think of nowhere more charming.  Time Out tip Want a St John feast post-6pm but have simply forgotten to book a table? The original Clerkenwell outpost has a walk-ins only bar which serves pretty much that same menu as the sit-down Michelin star dining room. 

The famous Simpson’s Tavern – an 18th century London institution – is set to re-open next year. After over 250 years in business, the Grade II-listed restaurant closed in 2022 after a rent dispute. However, the team behind nearby restaurant and wine bar Cloth have taken over and will be relaunching the venue under the new name of Cloth Cornhill.  The building, which opened in 1757, can be found in the historic Ball Court, off Cornhill, in the City of London. Speaking to the Times, Joe Haynes, Ben Butterworth and Tom Hurst of Cloth stated that the new restaurant will promise the same ‘debaucherous wine-fuelled lunches and dinners’ as the old Simpson’s Tavern was famous for. They added that ‘the old Simpson’s spirit will remain’ despite the name change, and the menu will include ‘chops, steaks and a couple of nods to Simpson’s tradition’. It is thought that the name has had to change for legal reasons.  Photograph: Shutterstock London’s oldest chophouse, Simpson’s Tavern was known for its atmospheric wood-panelled dining room and old-timey menu, serving up old-school English grub like steak-and-kidney pudding, pork chops and something called ‘stewed cheese’. It also has possibly London’s quaintest address: 38½ Cornhill. Charles Dickens and Samuel Pepys were regular visitors to the tavern, and it’s so historical that women were only admitted into the restaurant from 1916.  Simpson’s Tavern is not to be confused with another classic London restaurant (and another fave of Dicke

Well, this one hurts. The innovative and frankly extraordinary Black Axe Mangal – currently known as FKABAM – will be closing its Islington restaurant at the end of the year, with the final night of service on December 20.  However, things aren’t properly ending for the restaurant. Chef-patron Lee Tiernan announced that though the restaurant will be bringing a close to regular service, they will still host events in the space. ‘This is a pause, not a stop. For now I want to focus my creative energy towards a ‘pop up’ within my own restaurant space. Black Axe Mangal opened in 2015, following a trial pop-up in Copenhagen the previous year. Founders Lee and Kate Tiernan have said that further details on a special event, ‘A Decade of FKABAM’, will be announced soon.  Lee, who was head chef of St John Bread and Wine, showcased his Turkish grill-inspired nose to tail cooking at the restaurant, with dishes such as squid ink and cod’s roe flatbread, charred hispi cabbage with fermented shrimp butter and crispy rabbit.  ‘Being original, creative and keeping it fun for ourselves – as well as our customers – has always been the centre of why we do this,’ said Lee in a statement. ‘So how do you celebrate 10 years of running a restaurant? Well, in our case, it’s changing things up while it still feels good. I love and value all we have achieved with FKABAM and will continue cooking in our unique style, turning up the volume at events and future collaborations.’ He continued: ‘It has been

Been enjoying the London food recommendations from Time Out’s Best Young Chefs in London?  So far our talented trio of Ella Williams from Peckham’s Hausu, Jay Claus of Rake at The Compton Arms and author Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares have shared the secrets of their favourite burgers, cheap restaurants, best bakeries and Sunday roasts.  Now it’s time for the big one: what this talented trio reckon is the best pizza in London.   Breadstall Ella Williams’ tip for London’s superior slice is Breadstall in Clapham. ‘My dad used to always treat me to a slice from the OG Breadstall on Northcote Road in Clapham Junction,’ says Ella. ‘I usually go for pepperoni. And they also do Basque cheesecake, quite randomly for an Italian place, which is really good.’ Breadstall now boasts a phenomenally popular branch on Berwick Street in Soho.  Bagel House Jay Claus’s choice was a little more esoteric, naming the Bagel House in Stoke Newington as his favourite London pizza joint. ‘Obviously if you’re in New York or Naples there’s a distinct style, but I think if you’re in London you need to go for a school dinner-style, grandma slice - fat and square,’ he says by way of explanation. ‘The best of those are the 24 hour bagel shop in Stokey, or there’s a really cool spot opposite Phoenix Arts Club on Tottenham Court Road. It’s open late too, I’ve been there past 2am. For me, that’s the kind of pizza we should be celebrating in London.’ Franco Manca Finally, Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares went for high stre

For some reason, this November is a bumper month for new openings. If you’re a pizza-head then there are new branches of Ria’s and Napoli On The Road set for Foubert’s Place and Wardour Street in Soho, while old school Knightsbridge Italian Sale e Pepe is opening a second seafood-forward site, Sale e Pepe Mare, at The Langham hotel by Oxford Circus. Ivan Orkin from Netflix’s Chef’s Table also opens Ivan Ramen, his first London restaurant, this month in Farringdon, while Maset, a classy coastal French restaurant, launches in Marylebone. Want something even more glam? Then Belmond’s festive lunch kicks off this month, offering a five-course meal served on a vintage train that pootles around the most scenic parts of Kent. Here’s the best of the rest.  The best new London restaurant openings in November 2025 Hawksmoor St Pancras 1. The serious steakhouse Hawksmoor St Pancras, King’s Cross  The extremely attractive, Grade I-listed dining room at the St Pancras London Hotel will be re-launching as the eighth London outpost of Hawksmoor. It will seat 95, and have a private dining room and chef’s table, while the adjoining bar will change its name from the Gothic Bar to the Martini Bar. So be it. Opens: November 22.  Address: St Pancras, Euston Road, King’s Cross, NW1 2AR. Vincenzo's 2. The grab-and-go pizza parlour  Vincenzo’s Slice Shop, Shoreditch Vincenzo’s is finally making the leap from Bushey to the big city, opening up his New York/Neapolitan joint in east London. Found

It’s official, the greatest pizza in the country is in London! Frankly, we are unsurprised, considering the quality of this city’s current slice scene.  The 2025 edition of the National Pizza Awards took place yesterday (Nov 4) at Big Penny Social in Walthamstow, with 16 independent and high street pizzerias getting stuck into a live cook-off for a panel of industry judges, including Time Out’s food and drink editor Leonie Cooper. This year’s well-deserved overall winner was Short Road Pizza, which you can find in residence at Three Colts Tavern in Bethnal Green and William The Fourth pub in Leyton, which are both run by Exale Brewing.   Inspired by crispy Romana-style pizza, Short Road Pizza won the signature round with their glammed-up marinara, which came topped with garlic purée, a dose of chimichurri, burrata cheese and anchovies.  Time Out is already a fan of Short Road Pizza. Our review from earlier this year says: ‘This thin crust, zero-flop pie acts as a canvas for Short Road’s Italian founder Ugo to paint all kinds of crazy flavours. Paying homage to his grandfather Gigi's ‘a bocca o forno’ (on the edge of the oven) technique, they pair the light crispy dough with exciting flavour combos.’ In second place was Bing Bong Pizza which operates out of You Call The Shots bar in Hackney, and third was London mini-chain Yard Sale Pizza. Other winners included Antonio Raspone of Mamma Dough in south London, who was named Pizza Chef of the Year. Pizza chef Riccardo Demuru of

Here at Time Out we recently revealed the super talented names we’re tipping for greatness as our Best Young Chefs in London.  Ella Williams of Peckham’s Hausu, Jay Claus of Rake at the Compton Arms in Islington, and author and pop-up chef Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares were our chosen chefs and we asked them for their food recommendations. Last week they named the city’s top bakeries, and their favourite Sunday roasts in London. Now it’s time for the trio to lift the lid on their favourite cheap eats, and what they consider to be the best value restaurants in London. Here are their top four picks.  Tay Do, Kingsland Road Pop-up chef and author Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares chose Vietnamese canteen Tay Do on Kingsland Road. ‘It’s one of my favourite restaurants in London. They have two branches, but it’s the white one - no-one is ever there but in a good way!’ she said of the restaurant, which has two locations right next to each other. ‘The pho is amazing, the bun noodle is amazing with marinated pork grilled to perfection with crispy bits. The fried spring rolls with carrots, daikon, lettuce. Tay Do is just the best. It’s delicious comfort food and the perfect place to chat with your friends for hours. And it’s bring your own booze.’ Tay Do, 60-64 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, E2 8DP Bun House, Chinatown and Regency Cafe, Pimlico   Ella Williams of Hausu in Peckham had two recommendations. ‘Bun House do very good buns, specifically the beef one and the chicken one, which is kind of l

Notting Hill’s The Pelican has been named London’s best pub by the Good Food Guide.  Relaunched as a gastropub in 2022 by the The Public House Group (which also runs foodie pubs The Hero in Maida Vale, The Fat Badger in Notting Hill and The Bull in Charlbury, Oxfordshire), the pub came in at seventh place in a list of the 100 best pubs in the UK, making it the top ranking London pub in the list. This being the Good Food Guide, regular boozers have been overlooked in favour of gastropubs with slick menus and spruced up interiors. You will categorically not find any sticky carpets on this list.  The Pelican, which is on All Saints Road, offers a high-end chop house menu with dishes such as the St John-inspired bone marrow and parsley, as well as beef and Guinness pie. Bar snacks include mince on toast and welsh rarebit. It’s all very swish inside, with cream coloured walls, exposed brick and country-core wooden finishes worthy of the Cotswolds.  Other London gastropubs to make the grade include Farringdon’s The Eagle (at number 11), Camberwell’s newly-opened The Kerfield Arms (14), Kentish Town’s The Parakeet (22), Soho’s The Devonshire (28), Barnes’ The Waterman’s Arms (30), Stockwell’s The Canton Arms (43), Camberwell’s The Camberwell Arms (46), Hammersmith’s The Anglesea Arms in Hammersmith, Waterloo’s the Anchor and Hope, Islington’s The Tamil Crown (69) and Chelsea’s The Surprise (90).  The overall winner was The Highland Laddie in Leeds, which reopened as a gastropub in A

Here at Time Out we recently revealed the super talented names we’re tipping for greatness as our Best Young Chefs in London.  Ella Williams of Peckham’s Hausu, Jay Claus of Rake at the Compton Arms in Islington, and author and pop-up chef Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares were our chosen chefs and we’ve asked them for their food recommendations. Earlier this week they named the city’s top bakeries, and now, just in time for the weekend, here are two of their favourite Sunday roasts in London. Chris Bethell The Raglan Jay Claus chose a recently relaunched pub in Walthamstow, The Raglan, which is run by the same team as Irish-Indian fusion restaurant Shankeys in Hackney and features in our newly-announced list of the 50 best pubs in London. ‘It will come as no surprise to anybody that the Shankeys boys can throw down,’ said Jay. ‘The food is beautiful and the pub is annoyingly cool. It’s cool in a way that’s not trying to be cool. We feel very strongly about our roasts at Rake, because a roast can be the most disappointing restaurant visit you can do. You’re usually in a vulnerable, hungover state, too!’ Danika Magdelena NattyCanCook Ella Williams’ choice is the roast made by chef Nathaniel Mortley aka NattyCanCook, who is just about to open 2210, a new restaurant in Herne Hill, and has previously hosted pop-ups at The Greyhound in Peckham. ‘NattyCanCook has just opened a new place, and his roasts are famous,’ says Ella. ‘They’re Caribbean roasts, so not your average roasts. Ther

Pour one out for Sesta, a relatively new – and extremely great – London Fields restaurant which has just announced it’ll be closing at the end of the year.  Sesta opened on Wilton Way in September 2024, in a space previously occupied by Michelin-star tasting menu restaurant Pidgin. It immediately made the leap to Time Out’s 50 Best Restaurants in London list. Our five-star review praised head chef Drew Snaith’s imaginative menu, which included such dishes as nduja-scotched olives, coastal cheddar and cider scones, and prawn and stone bass dolma with ouzo butter.  ‘Every dish is simultaneously maximalist and minimalist; a triumph of having a laugh in the kitchen, and keeping that energy alive on the plate without it verging into parody. Pidgin is dead – long live Sesta,’ we wrote.  Sesta revealed plans to close on Instagram, writing: ‘It’s with a heavy heart that we announce Sesta will not be reopening in the new year. While we’ve loved every minute of bringing this little restaurant to life, sadly times are just too hard to make ends meet.’ Sesta isn’t the only new London restaurant to announce its closure in recent days. Hello JoJo in Camberwell shut its doors after only six months in business.  The final service at Sesta will be on December 20. The best restaurants in London. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out London n

Earlier this month Time Out revealed the three super talented names we’re tipping for greatness as our Best Young Chefs in London.  Ella Williams of Peckham’s Hausu, Jay Claus of Rake at the Compton Arms in Islington, and author and pop-up chef Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares were our chosen trio and we’ve asked them for their foodie favourites in London, starting with their favourite bakeries.  Panadera Ella Williams picked Panadera in Soho, a Filipino bakehouse and coffee shop which also makes Time Out’s own list of the very best bakeries in London. ‘I know Flo (Florence Mae Maglanoc) who runs it, and when you go somewhere like that and the food’s amazing as it is, it’s really nice to know that the person who runs it is equally amazing!,’ says Ella. ‘I don’t want to eat food from someone who’s an arsehole. I get the ube matcha, or they have a mango layered drink that’s very good. They do Filipino pandesal bread rolls, the cookies are delicious and they do very good sandwiches and a kind of sausage roll called longanisa.’ Young Chefs London 2025 Ararat Bread Jay Claus recommended Ararat Bread on Ridley Road in Dalston, which specialises in naan-style flatbreads. ‘It’s so good. We used them when I worked at Acme Fire Cult, we’d get 200 in a bag and the chefs would rip them open and they’d still be steaming. I got 300 of them for my wedding, and served the food on them and it was incredible.’ Toad Finally, Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares recommended the hype-y Toad in London’s coolest

The extremely good Som Saa will reopen next month, after closing in May due to a kitchen fire. The much-loved Spitalfields-based Thai restaurant will open up again on November 11 with a revamped menu that includes a new selection of bar snacks such as pickled mango with fried shrimp paste relish, and rice crackers with grilled cockles and chilli jam. There will also be a brand new selection of specials, including glass noodle claypot with smoked duck and garlic chives, as well as red curry with grilled pork, holy basil and green banana, and a coconut palm heart, prawn and Thai peanut salad. They’ve also given the interiors a bit of a spruce.  Chefs Andy Oliver and Mark Dobbie opened Som Saa on Commercial Street in 2016, after meeting at the now-closed Michelin starred Nahm in Belgravia. Som Saa started life as a residency in London Fields and opened its bricks and mortar restaurant thanks to crowdfunding. They opened a second space, Kolae in Borough Market, in 2023, and we gave it a five star review, praising its southern Thai cuisine and calling it ‘an immensely thoughtful restaurant’. Eleanora Boscarelli Our original review of Som Saa was equally effusive. We wrote: ‘The cooking at Som Saa will blow you away: literally and metaphorically. This is not somewhere you come for a cheeky green curry and a plate of pad thai. It’s food from Thailand’s north-eastern provinces, where nothing gets dumbed down and your tastebuds will be held up at gunpoint.’  Som Saa, 43a Commercial

We here at Time Out were quite excited when Hello JoJo opened earlier this year in a south London space once occupied by the very good Forza Win. So imagine our shock to discover that after only six months of trading, Hello JoJo has closed its doors for good. News of the Camberwell Church Street restaurant’s closure was announced on Instagram.  ‘Camberwell, it’s been brief but beautiful,’ wrote the owners. ‘After six months of dinners, drinks, buns and breads, we are sad to say hello JoJo is closing its lipstick red doors for the last time. Every part of this wonderful team gave it their all but we just couldn’t make it work. We are devastated... We have no idea what is coming next, we are focused on finding our amazing team new jobs (thank you to the local businesses that have already messaged us with their open roles).’ Our glowing four-star review of Hello JoJo praised the restaurant when it opened, writing: ‘There’s something faintly medieval about the food here, with the feudalism and foraging-worthy likes of borage, lovage and ramsons dotted across the menu, as well as something called “pyghtle”. It sounds like it should be an ancient hallucinogen but is, in fact, cheese, and comes finely shaved and dusted onto a muscular lamb-and-nettle croquette.’  Camberwell was recently crowned Time Out’s coolest neighbourhood in London, and even though there’s now one less cool place in Camberwell, we stand by it. Here’s our guide to the best 20 things to do in Camberwell, includin