London was once the punchline of European cuisine. That era ended about twenty years ago. Today it's a serious argument for being the most exciting food city in the world: Michelin-starred restaurants in shipping containers, the best curry outside South Asia, natural wine bars in Victorian pubs, and markets that would draw crowds in any city on earth.
The original Monmouth Coffee shop on Park Street, a few steps from Borough Market. London's most legendary independent coffee roaster — the small shop has benches, fresh pastries and single-origin filter coffee made with obsessive care. Arrive early: it fills up fast and the queues at weekends are real.
Borough Market has been a food market since at least 1014. The current Victorian iron structure dates from 1851. Over 100 traders selling meat, fish, cheese, bread, vegetables, street food and international specialities. Don't eat before you come — the sampling alone is a meal.
The most-queued-for lunch spot in London — fresh pasta made daily, served at counter seats at fair prices. The tagliarini with pork ragu and the pappardelle with 8-hour beef shin are what people queue 45 minutes for. Worth it.
The more local, less touristy alternative to Borough Market — a railway arch market in Bermondsey running on Saturday mornings. The best artisan producers: Mons Cheesemongers, St John Bakery, the Kernel Brewery, and a rotating selection of street food under the arches.
A stretch of railway arches in Bermondsey has become London's most concentrated craft beer scene: Kernel Brewery, Anspach & Hobday, Fourpure, Brew by Numbers and Partizan all within 600 metres. Most have taprooms open from Friday afternoon. The Kernel is the most revered.
One of London's best restaurants for the past five years — a Basque-influenced wood-fire kitchen on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch. Everything is cooked over fire: turbot on the bone (the signature dish), whole lamb, Txakoli wine. Michelin-starred but not stuffy.
Bar Italia on Frith Street has been open 22 hours a day since 1949 — a tiny Italian café with a 1950s espresso machine, Moka pots on the counter and Juventus scarves on the walls. The double espresso is the best in London. Sit outside and watch Soho wake up.
Berwick Street is London's oldest surviving street market — open Monday to Saturday since the 18th century. Fruit and vegetable traders surrounded by some of London's best food shops: I Camisa (Italian deli, 1960s), Lina Stores (pasta and deli, 1944), and the Saturday covered market.
London's Chinatown is small but serious — particularly for dim sum at weekend lunch. Royal China on Baker Street or HKK for high-end Cantonese; for Soho Chinatown, Joy King Lau and Harbour City are reliable. The trolley service (traditional dim sum carts) is still going at the older restaurants.
The most important cheese shop in Britain, and the reason British farmhouse cheese survived: the original shop, hidden in a courtyard off Short's Gardens, stocks only British and Irish farmhouse cheeses aged in their own caves. Free samples always. The staff know every cheesemaker personally.
A seven-street junction in Covent Garden surrounded by some of London's best independent food specialists. Wild Food Café (plant-based), Monmouth Coffee (Covent Garden branch), and the Tin Can Coffee roastery. The covered market in nearby Covent Garden piazza has a regular artisan food market.
The most exciting restaurant in Soho — a narrow wood-fire kitchen where everything is cooked over clay pots, embers and a wood grill. Northern Thai cuisine: pork skewers, fermented fish laab, baked glass noodles with crab. No reservations; counter seating only.
Open 24 hours, 365 days a year since 1974 — London's most legendary bagel shop. Salt beef and mustard on a freshly baked bagel: £3.80. The plain bagels are baked every hour. The queue stretches out the door at weekend mornings and at 3am on a Saturday night equally.
Brick Lane's Bangladeshi restaurants are London's most competitive curry destination — over 40 restaurants on a single street all trying to out-cook each other. The standard is genuinely high. Most open for lunch and are BYOB (off-licences on the street). Aladin (131 Brick Lane) is the neighbourhood's own favourite.
Old Spitalfields Market has one of London's most varied covered food halls — 30+ traders in the Victorian iron market building. Try Bleecker Burger (regularly voted London's best), Vietnamese com tam rice plates, or the Japanese karaage chicken. Great for a relaxed weekend browse and graze.
St John Restaurant's bakery outpost sells their legendary doughnuts (the best in London, filled with Eccles cake mixture or custard), exceptional sourdough bread, and the famous Welsh rarebit. Tiny, always busy, worth any queue.
Dishoom is to London cafés what Borough Market is to food markets — it reimagined how London eats. The Irani café aesthetic with Bombay street food: black daal, cheese naan, bacon naan roll and the legendary house black tea. There are five branches; Shoreditch is the most atmospheric.
The restaurant that defined the new wave of British fine dining: a single set menu (lunch) or à la carte (dinner) in a converted sugar factory in Shoreditch. Michelin-starred since 2014. The cooking is restrained, seasonal and technically brilliant — ingredient-led at a level that earns every star.