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MY FAVOURITE LONDON RESTAURANTS

As of January 2024, revised July 2024

My list changes as restaurants open and close or simply change. Or perhaps as I change. And, of course, I may suddenly remember somewhere good, so expect additions as the times goes by. Anyway, these are the places to which I regularly return. I suppose most of them come under the very broad and rather vague category of Modern British in terms of cooking. Essentially that means – at its best – very good British produce, seasonal and spanking fresh, cooked straightforwardly without bells or whistles.

But there’s more, of course: Italian, Spanish, French, Chinese, Thai and those restaurants that draw on lots of influences.

The simplest way of presenting my list, I thought, is to do it in alphabetical order. Pretty much all of my choices are fairly central, because that’s where I tend to be; I reckon Chez Bruce in Wandsworth is as far out of town as I get most of the time (but a pilgrimage to The Sportsman in Seasalter on the Kent coast is always a joy).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these places as much as I do…

Tom Doorley

I’ve been going to Spanish-themed Barrafina since its first iteration in Frith Street in Soho. Under the same ownership as Quo Vadis (the Soho version is right next door) it’s all about Spain, with exemplary croquetas and padron peppers, terrific seafood and – one of my perennial favourites – the chicken leg and thigh with romesco. One of the few places where they pour Txakoli. There are now five restaurants and my regular one is in Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross.

Richard Corrigan used to work in Bentley’s when it belonged to a brewery and when it was more than a little rubbed at the edges. He bought it and did what petrolheads would call a bare metal re-build. Expect the best seafood, cooked with the utmost simplicity and served with supreme elegance by people who know and who care. Sit at the bar, eat oysters, drink Chablis or Picpoul and move on to the dressed crab. Maybe have a little lobster bisque, but always keep room for pudding such as beignets with custard and stewed rhubarb. Three minutes from Piccadilly Circus. (For his other restaurants, see below).

Jacob Kennedy’s Italian-themed Bocca di Lupo on Archer Street is another fabulous restaurant within spitting distance of Piccadilly Circus. It’s busy, informal but with great attention to detail. Expect impeccable pasta, a highly seasonal menu and adventurous cooking. Much more authentically Italian than virtually every actual Italian restaurant in London. The menu really does change twice daily and the lunch/early bird offers some of the best value in town. Truffles are treasured here. Charming staff and ace wine list. I usually sit at the counter. Gelupo, right across the road, is their ice cream parlour and it’s fabulous.

Oh how I love Bouchon Racine even if it’s virtually impossible to get a booking. Henry Harris used to work under the great Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum on the Fulham Road back in the day and more recently had Racine in South Kensington where I used to have an occasional solo lunch. This Bouchon is all about no-nonsense Gallic cooking, including the less fashionable bits of animals. Think oysters and chunky terrines and braised rabbit with mustard and… well you get the picture. But done exquisitely, with crisp table cloths, menu on a blackboard and lovely staff. A very short walk from Farringdon and the Elizabeth Line.

There was concern that Brasserie Zedel would suffer under a recent change of ownership. This vast subterranean Brasserie in the fin de siècle style was the creation of Jeremy King and Chris Corbin but is now owned by a Thai hotel group. Unlike Corbin and King’s other creation (and similarly Thai owned) The Wolseley, my last visit to Zedel was a happy one: excellent service and a €20 prix fixe menu of Vichysoisse followed by steak haché and skinny chips. The Wolseley featured chaotic service, a 15 minute wait for the bill which was wrong when they did manage to bring it to me. Now, after many years, it’s off my list. Zedel do a very proper dry martini in the American Bar.

I love the high-ceilinged, tall-windowed Brat in Shoreditch where Tomos Parry (late of Kitty Fisher’s in Mayfair) cooks with remarkable simplicity, mostly over a wood-fired grill. And who cannot love a drinks menu that kicks off with dry sherry? Brat is an old word for turbot and they do whole turbot here – at a price, i.e. a steep one. But it’s worth every penny. Like Smoking Goat downstairs, Brat is owned (in partnership, I think) by Brian Hannon, originally from Sutton. A short walk from Old Street tube station. (Update: Tomos now also has Mountain in Soho, which I have yet to visit).

The late Russell Norman, who brought us the lovely Polpo mini-chain went on to create this Tuscan-style bistro: Brutto  which means “ugly” but there’s nothing ugly or unpleasant about it. Last time I was there I had a Negroni, trofie with cavolo nero and hazelnuts, sausages with lentils and mustard and a glass of Rosso Piceno. It was all super, served with charm, and left change of sixty quid, including service. I rest my case. The only downside is that it’s very, very busy.

I strongly advise taking the train to Wandsworth in order to eat at Chez Bruce (or you can take the tube to Clapham South and have an appetite-enhancing walk.) This is one of London’s longest established Michelin star joints but don’t let that put you off. Owner Bruce Poole is hands-on in the dining room and chef Matt Christmas is always inventive but firmly rooted in tradition. There’s an outstanding cheese trolley, to boot, and, last time I was there, a very keenly priced set menu at lunch.

Will Lander’s Clipstone defines itself as a neighbourhood restaurant but it’s rather more than that. Will is the son of Nick Lander, former restaurateur, former critic with the FT, and Jancis Robinson MW and it shows. Think modern British with Mediterranean twists. There’s a €39 lunch menu which, for London, offers pretty decent value. Will’s other restaurants include the Quality Chop House and Portland. On my last visit I found that most of the staff had been to Ballymaloe Cookery School. Last time I was there, Miriam Margoyles was at the next table being exceptionally loud but no doubt this is not a nightly occurrence. Nearest tube is Great Portland Street.

The jewel in the crown of Richard Corrigan’s food empire is Corrigan’s of Mayfair where there is an emphasis on what I would call elegant heartiness, especially when game is in season. A haunt of captains of industry and Tory grandees of the old-fashioned kind, it’s not cheap but everything is done absolutely properly. Dickie’s Bar has become a Mayfair institution. The menu du jour at £38 for 3 courses is probably the best value in Mayfair.

Another Richard Corrigan restaurant, Daffodil Mulligan in Shoreditch replaced the short-lived but celebrated Nuala’s with a different kind of Irish establishment; and when it opened I said that this was where the great man’s heart is in terms of cooking: plenty of sharing plates, a wood-fired grill, an eclectic but always seasonal menu with a sound menu. Gibney’s (of Malahide) run the large and sometimes pleasantly rowdy bar in the basement where you can get good Guinness and proper (i.e. Southern) Tayto, sometimes called Free Staytos. A short stroll from Old Street tube station.

I have to thank a review by that remarkable duo Richard Vines and Pierre Koffmann for making me aware of the divine Daquise which has stood for decades opposite the South Kensington end of Exhibition Road. It’s fundamentally Polish and does glorious dumplings, borscht, schnitzels and raspberry vodka jelly to take a random example based on my last lunch there. Terrific value for money, especially at lunch and especially for SW7. Lovely dining room, full of regulars including lots of Guardian and Private Eye readers and the odd dowager from the shires. May it never change. (I hear, in September 2023, that Daquise is likely to be demolished as part of a major redevelopment of South Kensington tube station. That would be scandalous).

Britain’s best-known publican, Dubliner Oisín Rogers and Charlie Carroll of Flat Iron opened The Devonshire in November 2024 as a shrine to Guinness, the art of the pub, and brilliant food in the upstairs grill room. Probably the hottest ticket in London at the time of writing (January 2024) thanks to – well, just about everything. George Donnelly, formerly top man at The Ginger Pig is in-house butcher, Ashley Palmer-Watts, formerly head chef at The Fat Duck and Dinner by Heston, heads the kitchen and cooks over an open wood fire in the Grill Room. At the time of writing the brilliant set lunch is an incredible £29.50 for prawn and langoustine cocktail, hanger steak with chips and Béarnaise, sticky toffee pudding. All first class.

The seven Dishoom restaurants in London pay tribute to the old Irani cafés of Bombay of which few remain in India. No expense has been spared in recreating the fabric and the feel of such places and the food is truly authentic. It’s an occasional lunch spot for me – great value dishes to be eaten at the bar in my case – but my favourite is the bacon naan for breakfast (with superb free range bacon, incidentally). Oh, and the tea is first class. My usual one is in King’s Cross.

Perhaps my favourite London restaurant for a long lunch and a leisurely chat is Andrew Edmunds in Soho, a splendidly intimate place with an eclectic menu with a mild French influence, and a stupendous wine list at very fair prices, possibly the best value in town if you trade up (and the wine specials on the board are always worth a look). In fact food prices are very fair too and the staff are delightfully enthusiastic. Pol Roger NV is surprisingly affordable and you might occasionally find something like Vin Jaune by the glass as the suggested aperitif. The best tables for two are in the windows.

It was one of my daughters of who discovered Forza Win(e) when she lived in Peckham and that’s where it all started. Created by two childhood friends, Bash Redford and Michael Lavery, initially as a supper club, they do good Italian food and wine, served with panache and cheerfulness now on a rooftop in Peckham and rather more formally in Camberwell. You can also catch a form of it at the National Theatre on the South Bank. It puts a smile on my face.

It made quite a splash when it opened in 2007 but Hereford Road in recent years has been below the radar. What I most enjoy about it is that it hasn’t changed, it’s still doing carefully sourced British food, cooked simply and well with menus that read droolingly. This was the first restaurant I’ve been in that did brown crab meat on sourdough toast as a starter (around 2010). It’s that kind of place. Dining with a local there some years ago, I asked who the customers are. “Oh, largely American bankers,” was the reply. Actually, it’s a broader cross section of Notting Hill these days and there’s a smashing set lunch at €16.50 for two courses, €19.50 for three. That’s frankly unbeatable. A pleasant stroll from Notting Hill Gate station, a little longer from Holland Park, both on the Central Line.

I first visited Imperial China on Lisle Street because I had read several claims that it had the rudest service in London but I stayed for the excellent dim sum at very reasonable prices. In fact, the staff are very pleasant, service is brisk but not unfriendly and it’s full of all sorts of people, including large Chinese family groups with plenty of impeccably behaved children.

Claude Bosi made a name for himself at Hibiscus in Ludlow and latterly at Bibendum (which was first put on the map by the legendary Simon Hopkinson). His Bibendum operation is very much at the luxe end of the culinary scale but at Josephine Bouchon on Fulham Road he returns to his native Lyon and has created an airy, bright bistro with very affordable traditional French cooking and charming staff. When I was last there, in the Summer of 2024, a roast chicken to share, and enough for three, with potatoes and salad was £56 and the plats du jour, such as Toulouse sausage and mash, were £15. The stiff walk from Gloucester Road tube station hones the appetite.

The busy, small, noisy, smoky Kiln in Soho is a delight if you like exceptional Thai cooking, most of it done over charcoal-fuelled claypots. Like Brat and Smoking Goat, this is yet another outstanding restaurant from Dublin-born Brian Hannon and his partners. The quirky wine list, compiled by my good friend Zeren Wilson, is a joy.

I first visited Kitty Fisher’s many years ago when Tomos Parry (now of Brat) as chef was making it almost impossible to get a table. It’s small and friendly and not badly priced considering it’s in the heart of Mayfair. This is modern British food, very seasonal and almost entirely local(ish). A favourite of David Cameron. Make of that what you will, but don’t let it put you off.

I reckon Les Deux Garçons qualifies as the neighbourhood restaurant that I’d like to have in mine but unfortunately it’s in Crouch End not the townland of Carrigeen, Co Cork. This is the definitive, absolutely classic French bistro, the chef having once headed up Marco Pierre White’s Oak Room (God help him!) The nearest tube is Turnpike Lane and the very lengthy walk sharpens the appetite.

The original of the species was a revamp of an old shop in Greek Street, Soho, hence the name, and now there are six Lina Stores around London. They do good handmade pasta, produced in-house, the taglioni with Parmesan and truffle being a favourite of mine. Plenty of antipasti and decent, if limited, dolci. Remarkably good for a chain, even a small one, but there are cheaper options. Handy, though.

I’ve been going to Moro since it opened in 1997 and we even brought our children there when they were little. This is Sam and Sam Clark’s big, deliciously aromatic restaurant on Exmouth Market in which it landed well before it was such fashionable street. The cooking is based on the Moorish-influenced parts of Spain so you get Spanish flair with scattered outbreaks of North African spices. That’s crudely put, but generally correct. Robust food with sunshine and spice and punchy flavours. I sometimes see Julian Barnes there and he knows a thing or two about food apart from writing novels.

A restaurant that ticks all my boxes is Noble Rot – or rather the 3 Noble Rots: the original in Lamb’s Conduit Street, the cosy and intimate Soho version (that used to be the Gay Hussar) and one in Mayfair, just off Shepherd Market that used to be Le Boudin Blanc that I frequented in the 1990s (where I once heard one twinset-and-pearls say to another “That’s exactly what happened to us when we had the brewery in Africa!”, a true Alan Bennett/Maeve Binchy moment). Expect a fabulous selection of wines, all with a story, including some limited runs of mature and rare stuff, a brilliant house Champagne, good straightforward cooking, terrific lunch specials that are almost indecently cheap until you add the recommended wines. And why wouldn’t you? There’s also a quirky, rather iconoclastic magazine of the same name.

I happen to know that Oslo Court is one of Fay Maschler’s favourite restaurants and I can see why. This time warp, of which I heard first thanks to Tanya Gold, hidden in a 1930s mansion block in St John’s Wood, has not changed an iota since it opened in 1967, not even the acres of pink (napery, curtains, virtually everything). The wine list offers decent value without setting the pulse racing, the food is solidly nostalgic (prawn cocktail, steak Diane) and there’s waiter who always says “I managed to keep you some of the X” when it comes to pudding. A lot of people would absolutely hate it. I and everyone I have brought there love it dearly. A friend tells me it’s an essential part of a North London Jewish upbringing (and played spot-the-gentiles when we lunched there). You don’t go for the food, decent as it is, you go for the entire experience.

I have a story about Otto’s that’s very telling. A friend of a friend, who is disabled, was a guest at dinner here and his wife explained that he would need his meat cut up. When the dish arrived, the meat had been suitably sliced but impeccably rearranged to look perfectly whole. Otto’s is expensive and eccentric and quite unlike any other restaurant I’ve ever visited. Although distinctly French – a gleaming duck press made for a Provençal hotel in the 1920s is a key feature of the dining room – Otto, the supreme mâitre d’ is German. And he believes in service and doing things properly with just enough theatre. And the wine list, by London standards, is very fairly priced especially if you trade up. Last time I lunched there Neil Kinnock was at the next table and I was entertained right through my three courses by his indiscretions.

There are plenty of options for a pitstop in Borough Market but you won’t get better than Padella which specialises in their own fresh pasta with a few pleasing antipasti to get started. There’s a short but excellent wine selection and their drinks menu is good, as are the prices. Padella also has some of the nicest, friendliest staff in London. They are the real pasta evangelists. The nearest tube station is London Bridge.

A few years ago, Marina O’Loughlin told me about Popolo in Shoreditch and I’m very glad she did. It’s a small restaurant drawing on all the food regions of Italy, charges moderate prices, specialises in low intervention wines (not all of them at the extreme end of “natural”, and has a comfortable counter where you can watch the busy open kitchen. The Nearest tube station is Old Street.

The restaurant in which I reckon Richard Corrigan (and/or his team) cooks just the way he wants to is The Portrait at top of the recently revamped National Portrait Gallery where you get a terrific view of the rooftops ofLondon. It’s bright, airy and busy and I lunched there shortly after opening with the legendary Elisabeth Luard and Anne Dolamore of Grub Street, the publishers. The food? Think braised rabbit with past, roast guinea fowl with nduja and peperonata, steamed marmalade pudding with proper custard. The artichoke and crab dish pictured above was sensational.There’s a short wine list that covers all bases and frankly I could eat here every day.

Fergus Henderson was the man who introduced the idea of nose-to-tail eating and he’s certainly an offal enthusiast who revels in parts of animals that are often ignored. His St John Bread and Wine is my port of call, just for the bar food which is exquisite. Perhaps a whole crab with first rate mayonnaise or cold roast beef with radishes and anchovy or an Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese. This, of course, is the home of roasted marrow bones with parsley salad. On occasion, service can be a trifle snooty, which is odd for such a down-to-earth place.

Although technically a neighbourhood restaurant for the well-heeled of Holland Park, Six Portland Road got very enthusiastic reviews when it opened almost a decade ago. It’s small and friendly and very much modern British in the style of the menu. They know how to cook fish and vegetarians are well looked after. The wine list is exceptionally well chosen (with some odd and quirky choices) and they do good cocktails and mocktails. I once had a most enjoyable impromptu lunch here with Rowley Leigh whose Le Café Anglais on nearby Queensway I miss terribly. The 3 course set lunch menu for £28 is terrific.

In its original form, on Denmark Street, Smoking Goat, was small, hard to get into and famed for its chicken wings. Those wings still feature in the much bigger premises in Shoreditch to which it moved a long time ago now, and the menu has expanded. Be warned that some of these Thai dishes are authentically hot and can bring tears to the eyes of Europeans. But the flavours are vibrant, there’s a bracing freshness to everything, the place is big, airy, extremely busy and noisy. Essentially, a whole lot of fun if you like spice. On the floor above is the very different Brat with which it shares owners.

A decidedly superior Thai restaurant, but not an expensive one, Supawan is a bit of an oddity amidst the fast food joints on Caledonian Road in King’s Cross. It’s bright and colourful and so is the food, and there’s an eye for design that reflects the fact that the owner runs the superb florist’s shop next door.

My default place in Chinatown for Chinese street food (with some Malaysian for good measure) is TPT Café or, more correctly, Café TPT on Wardour Street and easily overlooked. Pretty basic in terms of the room but the emphasis is squarely on the food and the service is friendly. Oisín Rogers of The Devonshire is a regular.

Not far from The Eagle, the gastropub that put such establishments on the map and fed hordes of Guardian and Observer journalists when before they moved to King’s Place, the Quality Chop Houseis over 150 years old in a premises that still advertises “Progressive Working Class Caterer” but the present incarnation is all about very carefully sourced raw materials and good wine. Indeed there will usually be a bottle of some old and excellent open and available by the glass – at a price, of course. Who couldn’t love a menu that mentions dripping toast and brown crab rarebit. The €29 set lunch is on of the best value examples in London and work hopping on the Elizabeth Line for. (I have not been in The Eagle for years but I’m told it’s as good as ever. I’m long overdue a return).

Once a brothel and, at another time, home to Karl Marx, Quo Vadis is a very distinctive restaurant and home to a very distinctive chef and all round good fellow, Jeremy Lee. This is the best of British, executed with flair. Don’t miss the smoked eel sandwich and always consider the pie of the day, salsify and Parmesan is compulsory and never decline a kickshaw. There’s always grouse when in season. The QV aperitivo is always worth it too. This restaurant (and private member’s club) doesn’t have a dessert menu. It has a pudding menu, because that’s the way Jeremy rolls and I salute him for it.