London's Best Restaurants
Come Taste the REAL London
I have been working on this post for some time and then today my Best Friend Richard Vines died - the legendary Bloomberg London Restaurant critic. So the article doesn’t change - It just becomes an homage to the most lovable food critic that ever wrote.
London Fine Dining - London has always had a reputation for uninspiring restaurants - but - there was a time in the early 2000 where London fine dining blazed bright like a shooting star. The chefs included Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck, Gordon Ramsey at Aubergine (Crab Cappuccino!), Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire, Nico at Chez Nico, Marco Pierre White, and the Roux family at Gavroche and Waterside Inn, It was an exciting time and everyone thought London had arrived and would join Paris, New York and Tokyo as a top tier destination for fine dining. It was not to be…they got famous, retired, or died and the shooting star flamed out. Sure you can find some decent fine dining like XXXX but that great period is fading into the past.
London's Best Restaurants - This post is dedicated to the amazing restaurants that are part of the fabric of English gastronomy specifically and - indeed - English History. Dining here will deepen your understanding and appreciation of one of the world’s greatest cities.
Hawksmoor - Full English Breakfast - DISCONTINUED 😱
This spectacular platter featured:smoked bacon chop, short-rib bubble and squeak, meaty grilled bone marrow, fried eggs, juicy sausages made with pork, beef and mutton, savory black pudding, grilled mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, trotter baked beans, unlimited toast and the house’s trademark gravy.
Can someone please recommend a replacement? Hopefully with black pudding and Bubble & Squeak?
Ginger Pig - Farmers, Butchers, Chefs
Ginger Pig is a well-known, highly respected old-school butcher with a couple of shops in London. Their pies and sausage rolls are amazing. Created with handmade all-butter puff pastry and bursting with filling, these are not for the faint hearted. Ginger Pig makes a few seasonal varieties throughout the year, like the Christmas sausage roll featuring pork, sage, Stilton cheese and cranberries. But the classics are available year-round.
Kappacasein - A near mythical grilled cheese sandwich
For more than a decade, grilled cheese fans have flocked to Kappacasein at London’s Borough Market. Cheese expert Bill Oglethorpe’s melty masterpiece consists of grated Montgomery Cheddar, Comté and Ogleshield cheese mixed with red and white diced onion, garlic and leeks. Cradled between slices of Poilane sourdough bread, the sandwich is toasted until it reaches golden perfection with cheese oozing out of its pores. Legendary American food writer Ruth Reichl described the sandwich as the "Platonic ideal" and the highlight of her trip to England. Don’t miss it.
Poppies Fish & Chips - Great family experience
Open since 1952, this retro diner fitted out in ‘50s memorabilia may be all British kitsch, but it serves the freshest fish delivered daily by a fourth-generation Billingsgate fishmonger. Every morning, Pat “Pops” Newland’s team filets whole fresh fish and peels and slices potatoes for his legendary chips. The freshest cod, haddock, mackerel, sole -- even classic jellied eel -- are grilled or fried in a crisp batter. The accompanying chips are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. See for yourself why Poppie’s won 2014’s National Fish & Chip Awards and is up for the award again this year. Now, all you have to decide is how much vinegar and salt you want to add. And whether you have enough room to order a second helping for takeout.
The Ritz - Afternoon Tea
Is there anything more Iconic than an English afternoon Tea? And is there anywhere more posh to sip it than The Ritz? That would be NO and NO. Take the plunge and dress up in your Ritziest outfit and you be Puttin’ On The Ritz.
Over the years, tea regulars at the Palm Court have included King Edward VII, Charles Chaplain, Sir Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh, Judy Garland and Talullah Bankhead who sipped champagne from her slipper during a press conference in the ’50’s. HighTea.com
This is a 3 part Tea experience with 1. Classic finger sandwiches 2. Apple and Raisin scones with house made strawberry jam and clotted cream and 3, Cakes. The harpist adds to the sense of occasion and royalty. I would not return - once is enough but this is definitely a once in a lifetime experience - €79 pp.
Rules - London’s Oldest Restaurant
Established by Thomas Rule in 1798, this classic English restaurant is the oldest in London. Original features have been carefully preserved in the main restaurant and cocktail bar, and the walls are decorated with sketches, oil paintings, cartoons collected throughout its history including a letter from Charles Dickens. Specializing in classic British cuisine like Dorset crab salad, steak and kidney pie, game birds like grouse (watch out for the buckshot) and sticky toffee pudding. The historic establishment is an essential part of London history and scoring a booking at Xmas is magical.
Here is further reading from Steve Rice
Quality Chop House - 1869
Around since 1869, the narrow, high-ceilinged rooms of this Spartan eating house have been lovingly re-created from the past, with narrow oak tables, padded benches and vintage, mismatched crockery. Chef Shaun Searley’s British menu is a mix of smaller plates served in the wine bar and set evening meals delivered family-style in the dining room. While selections change three times a day, don’t miss the Galloway beef mince on toast or the luxurious liver parfait. These are London’s most spectacular potatoes, prepared by the same man for 20 years, they are slow cooked, compressed, chilled, sliced into 2 dozen wafers and then pan fried until crispy, order a double portion to go with whatever is on the specials board (usually sourced from their butchery next door). For dessert, consider the al dente rice pudding, which arrives warm with a spoon of damson on top. The place features a cracking wine list too. Go.
More from Gourmet Gorro.
Anchor & Hope - London’s Best Gastropub
A frequently changing modern British menu is served in this no-reservations wooden-floored gastropub decorated with colorful art in Waterloo. Reservations are taken only for Sunday lunch, so expect to queue. Crowds form early for a chance at the dishes listed on the daily specials board, which might include a warm salad of snails and bacon, Middle White pork faggot and mash, grilled lemon sole with samphire, or fried ox cheek. Michelin inspectors gave it a Bib Gourmand. Right in front of the Young Vic Theatre - making this a perfect night out.
More about A&H from The Guardian
Goodman’s - British beef at it’s best
People always ask me where to get the best steak in London and I have never changed my answer. Goodman steakhouse is the pinnacle of the industry. I don’t know why they bother with USDA beef on the menu when they have a wonderful selection of British breeds on the chalkboard like Hereford, Aberdeen and Galloway. The beef is dry aged for 40+ days, these are the Rolls Royce of beef. Don’t expect a cheap meal but it’s so, so worth it. Pro tips: Order the bone in rib-eye medium rare and the spinach creamed with gruyère - Cracking wine list.
From about Goodman’s the Independent
Quo Vadis - Chef Jeremy Lee is a living legend
Karl Marx wrote much of "Das Kapital" his critique of the political economy, in a room above this landmark restaurant. Founded in 1926 by an Italian named Pepino Leoni, the eatery's name comes from the Latin phrase "Quo Vadis?" Or "Where are you going?" Scottish chef Jeremy Lee's take on old-English cuisine results in well-prepared, beautifully presented dishes of fresh, inventive ingredients that change daily in a lux-retro dining room festooned with floral arrangements, stained glass, art deco, parquet floors and an attentive staff. Alongside such menu regulars as smoked haddock fish cakes with aioli and crab and mayonnaise sits his epic smoked eel sandwich.
More about Quo Vadis from Conde Nast
St John - Pioneered and popularized nose to tail butchery
English chef Fergus Henderson founded St. John restaurant in London in 1994, He is considered the Godfather of nose-to-tail eating whereby every piece of the beast is cooked and eaten. His most memorable quote:
If you’re going to kill the animal, it seems only polite to use the whole thing.
Most of his dishes are derived from traditional British cuisine and the wines are all French. The menu changes daily at this whitewashed ex-smokehouse, but always includes his signature Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad. Typical dishes include pigs’ ears, ducks' hearts, trotters, pigs' tails and, when in season, squirrel. St. John is an essential stop on any London food tour.
More about St John’s from Sneaky Diner
St John Bonus Photo tribute to the founders - Fergus and Trevor:
Wiltons Serving oysters, seafood and game since 1742
Start with the oysters, move on to the Twice-baked Colston Bassett stilton soufflé before choosing the daily carving trolley. This is a wonderful table side tradition that has gone extinct. For a dessert? How about thier wonderful Wilton’s trifle with raspberries, almonds and sherry? Where better to travel back in time than at Wilton’s where an intense dedication to quality ingredients will wash away any concerns about stodginess. Essential London
More about Wilton’s from The Week
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal - From the dawn of British fine dining
Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant serves historical dishes based on recipes from the dawn of British cuisine. Set in the opulent Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel, the elegant dining room features floor-to-ceiling glass walls, giving diners a view of the kitchen. The menu, based on 14th- to 19th-century recipes, includes such highlights as the viral sensation: "Meat Fruit" which is chicken liver parfait which looks like a mandarin orange and sells up to 1,200 each week; and the “Tipsy Cake,” a luscious, spit-roasted pineapple. This gastronomic trip back in time, prepared with the most modern techniques.
More about Dinner from Jay Rayner and the Guardian.
So that’s the line up of great London restaurants that will enrich your knowledge and enhance your appreciation of London as no other set of restaurants can.
Below the paywall are 8 great London restaurants that don’t have the cultural significance of the above but are unique and delicious in their own right. These picks also reflect London’s deeply multi-cultural landscape - and of course that in itself is very London. Oddly, I prefer all of London’s 14 ⭐️⭐️ restaurants to the 6 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Michelin restaurants.- in the guide
The first restaurant listed below gets my vote for the best fine dining restaurant in the world!
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