The best restaurants in Battersea

You’ll find millennials packing out this buzzing locals spot and sipping on fancy, natural wines. Try Parisian-style small plates full of seasonal vegetables, meat, and seafood, and more experimental dishes such as savoury eclairs stuffed with creamy, saucy Lincolnshire poacher cheese and a lamb and anchovy crumpet.

The first south London branch of Dishoom, this all-day dining chain is serving up its solid Indian cafe food in the shadow of the Battersea Power Station development. Come here for two floors of chilli cheese toast, bacon breakfast naans and black-spice marinated bhatti chicken – the latter can only be found at this particular branch. It's big, too – there's room for 235 covers, and it's the only branch of Dishoom where dogs are welcome inside, too. 

This Italian-ish restaurant proved a pretty much instant success, bagging itself an entry in the Michelin Guide only months after opening. Headed up by River Café veteran Alex Owens, it has a kitchen so open that diners can practically reach into the ovens. Starters are both delicious and hefty: a punchy burrata and flatbread with bone marrow butter, while mains are along the lines of Venetian liver with mashed potato and juicy chops.

Part of Battersea Power Station’s monumental makeover includes the second outpost of Arcade, the food hall with authentic street food flavours that has finally made the lower reaches of Centre Point the destination it always threatened to be. Dive into a global pick’n’mix with Cantonese comfort food specialists Siu Siu, Indonesian street food from Bebek! Bebek!, buns from Bao, Middle Eastern eats from Shatta & Toum, tacos from Mexa, hand rolls from Sushi Kamon, Nepali snacks from Tipan Tipan and loads more.

The queue for the OG Euston branch of RK makes getting your hands on some cheap, tasty roti an often laborious process. Battersea’s new branch of Roti King means you can get your hands on authentic Malaysian food much quicker. The roti canai is as delicious as ever: transcendentally light and flaky layered bread, ready to be messily dunked in richly spiced dahl. 

Seafood specialists Wright Brothers have washed up by the water’s edge in Battersea with one elegant-looking restaurant. The waterfront setting of this branch is a massive bonus, as is the neighbourhood vibe. Come for dressed oysters and fabulous fish dishes.

An offshoot of Covent Garden’s Terroirs, Soif is très jolie – the kind of neighbourhood bistro you’d expect in rural France rather than Battersea Rise. There’s also a subtle whiff of mid-century Parisian cool about the place, while the food is a mix of pure-bred charcuterie, Gallic staples and Mediterranean tapas-style plates. Soif’s unique selling point, however, is its huge list of organic and terroir-led natural wines.

Take to the top floor of Battersea Power Station for pasta and mostly fried starters inspired by Sicilian street food. There's brown butter cacio e pepe, beef shin ragu and juicy ravioli filled with ricotta and brown shrimp. A fun, intimate fresh pasta spot which doesn’t take itself too seriously.

A high-rolling kebab joint in Battersea? You better believe it! BabaBoom is like a pomegranate-coloured jewel glittering among the neighbourhood chains, a class act serving the real thing from a bespoke charcoal grill that comes complete with sections for ‘slow burning’ and ‘intense heat’. Ingredients are lovingly prepped, there are just four different fillings, portions are generous and staff are a fun-loving bunch.  

The younger sibling of Mien Tay on Kingsland Road, this family-run Vietnamese outfit brightens up Lavender Hill with its clear-flavoured regional cooking. Seafood is the top shout (anything from prawns wrapped around sugar cane to stewed Mekong-style catfish), but don’t miss the spicy, garlicky chargrilled quail or the stir-fried goat suffused with galangal. It also does a ‘mien’ pho topped with rare beef.

On the traffic-clogged road between Wandsworth Town and Clapham Junction, the stripped-back Hatched is for people who are ‘serious about food’. Service is genial, the pace is leisurely, and the cooking is bang-on confident – try the beef-cheek arancini, lamb chops with a pimped-up pot of moussaka or a brilliant pain perdu. Cheerful, yes; cheap, no – but this is W1 quality in SW11.    

Closer to Battersea Park than Clapham Junction, Santa Maria is all about steak – Argentinian, of course. First-class cuts from the parrilla grill lure in the punters, and SM’s high-protein flavour bombs come with an extra salvo of volcanically hot chips. We like Santa Maria’s stylishly robust look and its beefy Argentinian wines.

You’ll find Tozi Grand Café nestled in the art’otel London Battersea Power Station. This rather impersonal and corporate vista is redeemed by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon’s décor: felt sculptures dangling from a round skylight, warm lighting and playful tapestries sectioning off the booths dotted along the floor-length windows add an intimate touch. The food calls to mind Cecconi’s, with hearty Italian classics like calamari and zucchini fritters, focaccia, meatballs, veal milanese, ricotta ravioli, and tuscan bean stew.