The best new restaurants in London

The latest kitchen residency at The Compton Arms is, in essence, ruddy-faced British gentleman food, rethought for people who don’t own a cottage in the Cotswolds or even a Barbour jacket. Here, the spectre of St John is strong, with the likes of salsify and scotch broth, and bawdy devilled duck hearts on St George’s toast seeming straight from the Fergus Henderson playbook. But rather than ostentatious ‘I-dare-you-to-eat-that’ whole beast butchery, Rake’s approach to meat is more earthy and pagan. Order the rarebit oysters, the deep-fried cockles and the ray wing tenders; sweet, juicy and crunchy buttresses of fish, served on a medieval-looking crumpet.

4 Compton Ave, N1 2XD

This fizzingly warm and welcoming Korean restaurant has quickly become one of east London’s most talked about places to eat. Branded as a ‘modern take on Korean cuisine’, the family-run Miga is all about exhilarating dishes that smash your tastebuds with integrity and sass. Try yughwe, a ballsy beef tartare accessorised with skinny batons of Asian pear and a gleaming egg yolk, or maeun saeu – three pastel pink prawns on a perfect puddle of gochujang sauce. 

1 Mare St, E8 4RP

Head chef Drew Snaith has taken over the building that once housed Pidgin and things are going rather well. At Sesta, silliness sits comfortably alongside seriousness, with nduja-scotched olives, coastal cheddar and cider scones, smacked cucumber drizzled with sweet raspberry hot sauce, beef ragu toasties and funky-looking prawn and stone bass dolma with ouzo butter. It’s food dreamed up deep in the middle of a Saturday night session and then bought into reality with little concern for judgement from the purists.

If you’re willing to join the epic queue for a table – people have been waiting for months to get a sniff of Kirk Haworth’s vegan tasting menu – then we can’t recommend Plates enough. Opened in the summer of 2024, it quickly became the first plant-based restaurant in the UK to win a Michelin star. Expect everything from Kermit-green wild garlic soup dotted with potato dumplings, slow cooked leeks piled high with chestnut cream then splattered with potent jalapeno and gooseberry dressing and black truffle and artichoke risotto with juicy blood orange.

320 Old St, EC1V 9DR

From the gang behind Tamil Prince and Tamil Crown comes this fast, casual dining curry house. Without the loveable musk of an ex-pub, the space is much airier and restaurant-y, while the service is sharper and more attentive. Onion bhajis are as good as they get, as are the loaded chilli cheese dosa and  masala dosa. Centrepiece dishes are of the tandoori and curry persuasion. And the roti? Supremely fluffy, a mighty and worthy signature dish.

8 Caledonian Road, N1 9DU

A diner from the good people of Mondo Sando, this Camberwell luncheonette is great for grabbing a sandwich, but also a place to linger, to drink, and have fun without being trapped by the fanciness and fastidiousness of a Proper Restaurant. Somewhere in-between classic American diner and British greasy spoon – with a touch of NYC deli thrown in for good measure – Cafe Mondo might seem like a casual place, but the food is anything but. Try the patty melt and an MSG martini and thank us later.

42 Peckham Rd, SE5 8PX

The latest opening from David Carter, the chef and restaurateur behind Smokestak and the show-stopping Manteca. Greek food is the jumping-off point for a menu that begins on the Ionian islands before skipping off to the Levant by way of the Balkans, with a south American stop-off. There’s also a whole menu of crudo (with a raw fish ice counter welcoming you into the minimal, slate grey space) and another dedicated to skewers cooked over a large grill in the middle of this first floor spot, which cuts right through the middle of Borough Market with agreeable views of the Dickensian, cobbled Bedale Street. Everything is very, very good - but the xo salt cod and labneh dip is mesmeric. Can't get a table? Try Agora downtstairs.

2-4 Bedale St, SE1 9AL

John Chantarasak honed his craft in the kitchen at Som Saa and, like AngloThai, is half Thai and half British. Here, he reimagines some of Thailand’s most celebrated dishes using mystical-sounding, Tolkien-adjacent UK ingredients to mimic Thai food’s puckering sour notes. Try Carlingford oysters swimming in a vivid pool of fermented chilli and galangal, grilled flatbread slathered with shrimp butter, and Hebridean hogget in warm and fiery massaman curry topped with discs of gleaming black fig.

22-24 Seymour Pl, W1H 7NL

I liked the Lord Clyde. A spacious pub at the top of Englefield Road, it was the go-to boozer for Canonbury’s more down-to-earth residents. So, imagine my snort of patronising derision when I found out the Lord Clyde was being reimagined as a ‘bistro pub’ called The Brave. Isn't that sacrilege? The Man thinks he can come storming into a salt-of-the-earth boozer, put up some new tiles and then start slinging burrata and curds? Not on my watch, Sonny Jim. Not on my watch. It turns out: yes on my watch. Because ‘the Man’ in this case is James Cochran, formerly of Upper Street’s 12:51. And where James goes, flavour slavishly follows. 

Luke Ahearne – a dynamo of a chef, has finally been granted a room of his own after spots at The Clove Club, Luca, and Corrigan’s Mayfair, where he was head chef at just 29. Here, he's given full reign of the open kitchen to whip up ‘southern Mediterranean’ sharing plates. In reality this means lots of fish and lots of fire, and everything comes slicked with so much olive oil that the dishes are glossier than a Steely Dan outro. Ignore the pan con tomate with anchovies at your peril, and go hard on the raw fish starters. It's not cheap, but food this spectacular rarely is. 

7-9 Paddington St, W1U 5QH

In the kitchen of this cottage-core ready restaurant is Aaron Potter, heading up his first solo project following stints as executive chef at west London Italian Maria G’s and head chef at the Michelin-starred Elystan Street. Despite the Cotswolds-ian look of the place, the food is decidedly European, with a casual, non-denominational Mediterranean thing going on. Order sizzling hot moules farcies with garlic and parsley butter, grilled mackerel and sardine bruschetta, and cuttlefish and octopus fideua.

Newson's Yard, 57 Pimlico Rd, SW1W 8NE

The latest opening from Ed McIlroy and Jamie Allan, who first popped up as burger boys Four Legs at The Compton Arms. In 2021 they launched The Plimsoll, and now they’re bringing north London's cool kids to the equally trendy Spanish fish bar, Tollington’s. The space used to be a Finsbury Park fish and chip shop and still looks exactly like a Finsbury Park fish and chip shop, with its tiled floors, old school pine counters, and original sign intact. Which actually makes it feel more like a backstreet San Sebastian pintxos bar than any fancy refit ever could. The menu is nothing but small plates, and there are plenty to pick from. The best we tried was a sassy smoked eel omelette, complete with a sultry yolk-y ooze. Booze is plentiful and, happily, cheap. 

172 Tollington Park, N4 3AJ

Who doesn’t love a towpath eatery? Inis is in Hackney Wick, with seating for 50 out front, but also a big, grand room for those who don’t feel like an al fresco dinner before summer truly kicks in. Offering a warm, neighbourly embrace, as well as Irish-ish food, we enjoyed a raucous starter of potato scallops (aka, massive thick cut wedges halfway between crisps and chips) accessorised with a pot of creamy curry sauce. Neater, but no less delightful, was an impish slice of winter tomato and anchovy toast; tangy, salty and pretty enough to frame. Grilled prawns, kicking back like burly, sunbathing jocks in a bowl of luminous, chill-flecked bisque, were more Med than Meath, but when the cookery is this classy, who cares?

13 Rookwood Way, Fish Island, E3 2XT

You'll find Agora underneath the aforementioned Oma. It's also run by Manteca mastermind David Carter, and like upstairs, is inspired by Greek food. But while Oma is more fish-focussed and island-inspired, here they pay tribute to the rustic street food of Athens. Agora translates as ‘market’, and you can casually window shop as if you’re at one before you enter, with large hatches providing front-row viewing of a two-metre charcoal rotisserie. Dips are addictive and the skewers even better; get the chicken thigh, amazingly soft and yielding and with a layer of perfect skin.

4 Bedale St, SE1 9AL

Situated inside a roomy old factory building, Ibai is a chic industrial-style Basque steakhouse. Meat is majestic – go for the 1kg Gallician blond t-bone – but make sure you order some of the superlative starters too; carabinero tartate, Cantabrian anchovies and the immaculate Croque Ibai toastie; a crunchy, hot sarnie of prawns, boudin noir, Tomme de Brebis cheese and honey.

92 Bartholomew Cl, EC1A 7BN

The Hero might have many hallmarks of a proper British boozer (beer on tap, a slightly eerie painted sign swinging in the breeze, The Clash creaking out of the speakers) but you couldn’t just come here for just a pint. There are no stools at the bar, for starters. What The Hero is though, is a great restaurant. The latest opening from the team behind The Pelican in Notting Hill, the menu comes stacked with sizable snacks of sticky lamb ribs and a toastie bursting with dense ogleshield and a tart Branston-esque pickle. Better still is the cheese and onion pie, a sturdy and robust thing with pastry shorter than my attention span when someone tells me that I simply must listen to Charli XCX. It’s a savoury version of a chocolate lava cake, oozing yet more ogleshield out of pastry that is essentially and incredibly, nothing but crust.

55 Shirland Rd, W9 2JD

Italian-American restaurant right out of a Billy Joel song, Senza Fondo translates to ‘bottomless’ and that’s what they’re here to do - serve unlimited lasagna until you pass out/admit defeat/call an ambulance. But for all its TikTok-friendly flair, what’s really enjoyable about Senza Fondo is the fact that everyone here is really, truly having a laugh. There’s a live piano man in the corner busting out Daydream Believer, (Sitting On) the Dock of the Bay, and Moondance, and chatter is at a level best described as ‘unbridled’. On our visit someone was even wearing a shiny pink party hat. Bottomless lasagna might not be for everyone, but a good-time vibe like this can’t be beaten. 

1 Rufus St, N1 6PE

Jose Pizarro will not stop until every single shop front on the delightfully quaint Bermondsey Street is serving up unparalleled pan con tomate and endless boquerones, the cobbles awash with streams of sherry. Lolo is the street’s third (third!) joint from the convivial Spanish chef. Neither super-fancy Michelin star Madrid grill house nor a bare-bones Cadiz cava bar, Lolo is casual but content with its easy-breezy lot. The menu is short and divvied up into a series of enticingly snackable Spanish dishes with coyly British bent.

102 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB

Sael is a flashy, brash and extremely glossy production – the Starlight Express of central London brassieres, if you will, with Jason Atherton the sous vide-brandishing Andrew Lloyd Webber of the piece. The concept is, in decor at least, a kind of Britpop take on the nearby French bistro Brasserie Zedel, but with Toulouse-Lautrec prints replaced by Union Jacks, framed pictures of Bryan Ferry and Idris Elba, and a soundtrack provided by Oasis. The overall effect is more Dubai skyscraper than swinging London, and might all be rather cringe, were the cooking not so utterly phenomenal.

1 St James's Market, SW1Y 4QQ

A cosy French brasserie, with a menu overseen by Rob Aikens (brother and sometime-collaborator of twice Michelin-starred Tom). Despite access via a designated waterside bridge, there is nothing ostentatious or needlessly showy here. Rare is the Instagram-approved dish that eats as well as it photographs, but Marceline's ravioli dauphiné is just that. Mains are classic; moules frites; rotisserie chicken; a fillet steak au poivre, while desserts have a little fun with the formula. Profiteroles are elevated with slivers of banana (a game changer) and a substitute of cold, smooth ice cream instead of creme patissiere. Chic, delicious and worth it. 

5 Water St, E14 5GX