Leonie Cooper

Afternoon tea. Yes, it's twee, but there is something quite fun about working your way through what's essentially dessert tapas, especially when you’re at one of London’s top hotels or restaurants. We've rounded up London's best afternoon teas in a city renowned for putting on some of the world’s best spreads – with tiny cakes, little finger sarnies and pots of perfect tea the name of the delicious game. Expect to pay in the region of £50 to £80 for the pleasure per person, but you'll be in for a treat and a half. Many of the teas have set times for seatings, so booking in advance is always recommended. RECOMMENDED: The best hotels in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now.

A city that has seen travelers pass through for millennia, you could say Rome has mastered its sense of hospitality over the ages. Italians are passionate people who are eager to break bread with you at the table, welcome you into their home and help you discover the wonders of their country. So it’s no surprise that the Eternal City is filled with hotels that transmit their warm spirit and elevate it with friendly service, style and classic Italian flair. If you’re looking for a place to stay, look no further. These handpicked hotels in Rome have local charm, excellent amenities and ideal locations for exploring the city. Whether you opt for a quirky boutique hotel in the heart of Monti, a historic palazzo near the Trevi Fountain or a palatial resort with views of the Vatican, this list has something for everyone. Looking for more inspiration? 🍝 Here are the best restaurants in Rome🍷 Get acquainted with Rome's best bars📸 Discover the best things to do in Rome🏠 Stay in the best Airbnbs in Rome This guide was recently updated by Rome-based writer Livia Hengel. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. While we might not stay in every hotel featured below, we've based our list on top reviews and amenities to find you the best stays. This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our

Oysters. Food of the gods. Sloppy globules of joy. But, more often than not, pretty pricey. Which is why the oyster happy hour has long been a firm favourite, letting mere mortals feast on these salty treasures for a more reasonable price. We've got together a list of the various spots across London that will offer you the chance to dine like a king, despite having relatively empty pockets. Don't forget your mignonette.  RECOMMENDED: The best seafood restaurants in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

The UK is a glorious place to eat, drink and generally be merry. Sure, there are loads of great restaurants in London, but there are hundreds more across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; ones where you'll make napkin-stained memories that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life. Especially if you head to Cumbria, which is home of the most Michelin stars in the UK outside of the capital. But as well as the diner’s paradise that is the Lake District, here's where else you need to head in order to sample some of the finest food and downright transcendent restaurant experiences the UK has to offer. Eat up.  RECOMMENDED: The best things to do in the UK.

Forget starchy and old-fashioned. London’s best wine bars are bringing the humble grape to cool crowds of discerning drinkers. Find cosy, bistro-style settings with great food, sophisticated bars that are perfect for date night, or hip Hackney hangouts where wine is the drink du jour. Discover everything from natural wines to grapes from far-flung vineyards, plus service from knowledgeable, approachable staff. One thing is for certain, you’ll find more than a bargain bin Sauv Blanc at these great grape-peddlers. RECOMMENDED: These are London's best bars.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

What's better than an amazing meal? An amazing meal, served up alongside a delicious pint in a cosy pub, obviously. London is the gastropub capital of the world, full of boozers that can compete with our fantastic restaurants in the culinary stakes – but they just happen to come with cracking Victorian buildings, as well as roaring fires, and the occasional dog. So whether you’re after fish and chips, a roast, an oxtail ragù, or a desi pub serving up sublime South Indian cuisine, you’ve come to the right place.  RECOMMENDED: London's 50 Best Restaurants. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

It won't come as any great surprise to you that Londoners like beer. You can't walk past a railway arch without spotting the tell-tale shiny tanks of a microbrewery, and it would be foolish not to enjoy them. So this weekend, why not enjoy your pint mere yards away from where it was made in one of London’s best craft beer taprooms? Here's our list of the most exciting spots to drink on draught, including craft beer behemoths, rough and ready spaces attached to burgeoning London breweries and legendary locations on the Bermondsey Beer Mile and the east London equivalent, the Blackhorse Beer Mile by Blackhorse Lane. Check opening times before you go, as some spots are only open at the weekend.  RECOMMENDED: The 50 best pubs in London. 

Dalston is synonymous with the late-night lash in London. Head to the mighty Kingsland Road and its surrounding backstreets and you’re be sure to stumble upon a great place to get into some (totally legal) trouble. Here you'll find chic cocktail spots, hip jazz bars, iconic queer venues, craft ale taprooms, trendy natural wine joints and banging DJ bars. There's something for everyone in this legendary Hackney neighbourhood. RECOMMENDED: Find more fun in the neighbourhood in our Dalston area guide. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. So east London it hurts? Follow our Time Out East London WhatsApp channel for the latest news, openings and goss from the coolest bit of the capital. (Yeah, we said it.)

Live music, lovely little wine spots and some of the city's best cocktails – Covent Garden has more brilliant bars than you can shake a stick at. The area's drinking scene is diverse, so check out our picks of the best places for after-hours drinking in the the middle of town; whether it’s female-founded beaujolais at Lady of the Grapes, rock'n'roll Martinis at Stereo, cabaret with your cabernet at CellarDoor or beers, so many beers, at Bierschenke. RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in Covent Garden. 

For centuries, French cuisine has been considered the world's very best. Although that golden crown might have slipped somewhat, French-accented cuisine is having a real resurgance in popularity. Its emphasis on technique and ingredients-first approach make it hard to beat when you fancy feasting on something rich, complex, and unimpeachably lavish. So whether you want an old-school onion soup or an elaborate, immaculately conceived dish served with undeniable je ne sais quoi, we've got you covered. Here’s our pick of the best bistros, brasseries and fine-dining spots in London spanning every budget, with everything from Michelin-star restaurants to petit back-alley bistros and chic cafes. RECOMMENDED: Here are London's 50 Best Restaurants. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Covent Garden is so rammed with restaurants that decision fatigue can easily threaten the quality of your dinner. Weave through the tourists and theatregoing crowds and you'll discover that this area hosts many of the best restaurants in London, including newbies such as Story Cellar, and The Portrait by Richard Corrigan, as well as old faves The Savoy Grill and J Sheekey. We’ve compiled a list of the best in the area, from cutting-edge eateries and classy counter joints to party-ready and casual hangouts, with pre-theatre favourites and cheap eats among them. Think of it as your Covent Garden bucket list. RECOMMENDED: The absolute best restaurants in Soho. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Want a drink? Well you've come to the right place. This is Time Out’s list of best bars in London, our curated guide to London’s drinking scene, featuring the buzziest booze dens in the capital right now. If it’s on this list, it’s excellent. These are the 50 places we'd recommend to a friend, because we love drinking in them and have done many times over. From classy cocktail joint to delightful dives, hotel bars, speakeasys, bottle shops, rooftops and wine bars, London's got them all. The latest additions to our list include the new Three Sheets in Soho, Bar Lina, an Italian aperitivo spot underneath the famous deli, Moko hi-fi listening bar in Tottenham, Oranj's vertitable wine warehouse in Shoreditch, and Helgi's, a suggestively Satanic rock bar in Hackney. Now go forth and booze. RECOMMENDED: Like bars? Then you'll love London's best pubs.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

It’s 10 minutes before the shutters at Spanish-styled fish bar Tollington’s come up for evening service, and already the kind of crowd who could just as easily be found smoking rollies at the RA summer party have gathered in the hope of grasping a much-desired walk-in ledge.  Tollington’s is the latest opening from the folk who first popped up as burger boys Four Legs at The Compton Arms. In 2021 they launched The Plimsoll, a hype-y gastro reworking of an old Irish boozer popular for twenty-something gorp-core blokes and Brat summer girlies, and now they’re bringing the coolest of cool kids to the equally trendy Tollington’s. Sassy smoked eel omelette, complete with a sultry yolk-y ooze, is the belle of the underwater ball But don’t let that put you off. With all the talk of Hackney reaching its final form and becoming just another Clapham, it’s surely time for North London to shine. Tollington’s has subsumed what was once a Finsbury Park fish and chip shop, and created something that 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. There are tables in the back room, but the party seems to be in the perching room-only front bar, where wrinkly Canary Islands-style spuds sit in the glass units that used to be home to battered sausages, and the fridges are stacked with bottles of effe

What looks like a pub and sounds like a pub, but isn’t really a pub?  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. On a sunny Friday lunchtime everyone here is ordering food and most of them are drinking wine.  It’s a savoury version of a chocolate lava cake, oozing ogleshield out of pastry that is essentially, nothing but crust What The Hero is though, is a great restaurant. And a beautiful one at that, with peachy plaster walls, stripped wooden floors, and a moneyed cottagecore aesthetic that give it the same aspirational energy as an extremely scrollable listing on The Modern House.  The latest opening from the team behind the ever-so-swanky and similarly pub-not-pub outings The Pelican in Notting Hill and The Bull in Charlbury, The Hero used to be the slightly more long-winded The Hero of Maida and before that, The Truscott Arms, and so on and so on all the way back to the 1870s, when it was built as the grand Victiorian lodging known as the Shirland Hotel. Which is to say that change is inevitable, authenticity is but a construct and we should just sit back and enjoy the cod cheeks.  Which we do, and enthusiastically. There are sizable snacks of sticky lamb ribs and a toastie bursting with dense ogleshield and a tart Branston-esque pickle. Better still i

Blessedly, the tyranny of the no-bookings London restaurant has dimmed. Five years ago you couldn’t move for walk-ins-only joints (hello Bao and Barrafina) with queues stretching down the streets of Soho as far as the eye could see. But bookings have been back, baby, for a while – however, so too is the dreaded weeks-long wait for a table at the hottest of hot spots. Think you’ll get a last minute four-top at Mambow? Are you quite sane? It’s refreshing then, to find a place you can simply stroll up to and sit down immediately-ish– or, at the very least, after an indulgent wait while perched on an al fresco ledge with a basil daiquiri or frosty fro-marg in hand.  Was it like a miniature Hawaiian pizza with ideas above its station? Yes. Was it sensational? Truly No-bookings Agora actually happens to be located below one of those oh-god-it’s-going-to-be-a-month-before-we-can-get-a-table places; the great, Greek-ish Oma, to which we recently gave a thumping five star review. Agora is run by the same man, Manteca mastermind David Carter, whose Midas touch shows no sign of fading. He’s here tonight, dashing between upstairs and downstairs as if he’s starring in a 1990s sitcom scene about someone on two simultaneous dates. Such flagrant two-timing is totally acceptable when the food is this bloody good. Dishes at Agora also take their jumping off point from Greece, but while upstairs is more fish-focussed and island-inspired, downstairs pays tribute to the rustic street food of Ath

The Clove Club means different things to different people. Opened in 2013, it quickly became proof that Michelin star restaurants weren’t all resigned to a Mayfair or Chelsea postcode (The Clove Club’s first star came in 2014, their second in 2022). To others, it was the final boss in Shoreditch’s decades-long journey to gentrification, and confirmation that rent in east London would never be affordable ever again.  What you’ll find a decade or so later is a place that wears its numerous accolades lightly, with none of the bluff and bluster of other highfalutin establishments. First, there’s the restaurant itself, tucked into a couple of demure, high-ceilinged rooms in the old Shoreditch Town Hall. Built in a time when municipal spaces were created with as much pride as a Hampstead mansion, this Grade II listed building boasts elegantly turned ceiling roses, parquet floors and big, airy windows, as well as one of the most memorable restrooms in London (an ornate Victorian loo that’s anything but bog-standard). It is nice without being flashy, cosy without being cramped.  A soft nugget of pine-salt dusted buttermilk fried chicken is served in a leafy wreath, like some kind of pagan KFC Longstanding master of ceremonies is Isaac McHale, The Clove Club’s Orkney-born chef-patron, who seems to have Forrest Gump-ed himself into the kitchen of every brilliant restaurant of the past 20 years. He started at Glasgow’s Stravaigin, before a five-year stint at The Ledbury and a stage at

You’ll find Julie’s at the very nexus of the Richard Curtis/Paddington axis of twee, where the smell of wisteria is so pungent it’s as if Jo Malone herself has piped it in. Opened on a residential Holland Park street in 1969 by Julie Hodgess, an interior designer who kitted out stores for high-end hippy fashion house Biba, her restaurant set the template for bohemian west London with stained glass, expensive antiques and fabrics bold enough to make your grandma blush. Over the next few decades Julie’s attracted grizzled rockers and glossy It girls alike. It was the kind of place where you imagine Patsy and Eddie from Ab Fab would get slaughtered on Bolly, while real life celebs of the Tina Turner, Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Kate Moss ilk were regulars. Owen Kenworthy's menu at Julie’s straddles the line between bistro staples and cheffy flair, with no room for passing fads The latest incarnation of Julie’s doubles down on the fabulous interiors, with fresh chintz, chicly mismatched furnishings and staff in Laura Ashley-esque outfits complete with frilled necklines. Back in the day, Julie’s was known more for a good time than a good feed, but new owner Tara MacBain is doing her best to change all that with help from chef patron Owen Kenworthy. After proving himself at both Brawn and The Pelican, his menu at Julie’s straddles the line between bistro staples and cheffy flair, with no room for passing fads. Burrata is banned. Avocado has been 86’d. Take for

‘Look at us,’ exclaims a woman in the 50-strong line trailing down Dulwich Road at 9.45am on a Sunday morning. ‘We used to queue for clubs and now we’re queuing for bakeries!’ Such is the way of modern London, where the sesh has, for many, been replaced by a got-to-have-it pastry that offers as much of a serotonin boost as anything that might happen post-midnight at Fabric. Bunhead Bakery is the bricks and mortar debut for Bunhead Bakes, a pandemic-born organic and sourdough-specific food market favourite from self-taught baker Sara Assad-Manning. After serving up seriously sticky buns for the past few years across south London, she’s finally found a forever home in a sweet little storefront opposite Brockwell Park and, if the queues are anything to go by, isn’t far off ‘local legend’ status. One bun is inspired by the Palestinian pudding knafeh, drenched with syrup and studded with wisps of shredded phyllo and rose petals. Simply gorgeous Assad-Manning’s Palestinian heritage is key to what makes her food so important. Of course, there are the buns; lovely, sticky hunks of sweet bread, from pink-glazed rose and cardamom swirls to a juicy baklava-esque take on proceedings and an OG cinnamon offering, as well as one inspired by the Palestinian pudding knafeh, drenched with syrup and studded with wisps of shredded phyllo and rose petals. Simply gorgeous. There are savoury options too, a ‘salty’ bun stuffed with zingy za’atar and crumbles of feta or a vegan-friendly musakhan with

The Ballardian sprawl of London’s loveless financial district isn't everyone's idea of an ideal dining destination. Yet the only way to savour the imaginative, full-throttle flavours of Roe is by traversing Canary Wharf’s labyrinth of shiny skyscrapers and suited city workers. Even Roe know that finding the restaurant is a ballache – as you pound the endless concrete, flapping Glastonbury-style flags appear, leading you to Roe's rather pleasant waterfront location, which happily makes the whole prospect a touch less Bladerunner-y. Some background; the massive Roe (there’s room for a sprawling 350 covers here, and more outside) comes from the team behind Fallow, the glammy St James’ spot that made its name by showing us that sustainability could also be sassy, via in-house grown mushrooms and viral sriracha-slathered cod’s head dishes.  The holy grail however, was a baked potato. Of course, the Roe version isn’t just any old jacky p Roe follows a similar ethos, cooking with regenerative crops, highlighting underused British produce and using ingredients that even Fergus Henderson might think a little outré. The slightly mad walls, covered with chunks of 3D-printed coral, are also compostable – and while we’re not sure if that’s going to save the world, it does give you something to talk about if your date has terrible chat.  Offering a vast array of picky bits – there is talk of snacks, small plates, skewers and flatbreads before mains are even mentioned – we settled on two t

For the past couple of years Corrochio’s has been the Dalston strip’s best kept secret. But as anyone who has ever overheard something scandalous in the garden of the Spurstowe knows, you can’t keep a secret in east London for long. This tucked-away taqueria was bound to break out of its basement home and Corrochio’s has finally leapfrogged up to street level.  The new restaurant is about four times the size of the original, with the added bonus of windows. Fans of the OG subterranean Corrochio’s (which Hackney-frequenting millennials may remember as cocktail lounge Ruby’s) do not fear, as that is reopening as Cinco, a bar dedicated to tequila, mezcal and other assorted agave spirits. Walls are draped with handmade rugs, colourful crucifixes, a few well-placed animal skulls and a giant Mary de Guadalupe statue What strikes you about the new Corrochio’s is the commitment to authenticity. Ignore the double decker buses chugging past and you could be in Mexico City. The sandy floor tiles of what was once a Turkish supermarket have been painted hacienda red and the walls are draped with handmade rugs, colourful crucifixes, a few well-placed animal skulls and a giant Mary de Guadalupe statue found in a gas station in Oaxaca.  Which would all be pointless if the food wasn’t also the real deal. Raised in Guadalajara, chef and founder Daniel Carillo knows what he’s doing. His short but punch-pulling menu revolves around regional specials (including huaraches, a flatbread-ish dish ra

The allure of the rooftop restaurant can be overplayed. Everyone likes dinner with a view, but said view is often far superior to the food, acting as a blessed Mary Poppins-esque distraction from the limp asparagus that sits, embarrassed, on your plate. Either that, or your top bins eatery is hemmed in by too-close 1970s tower blocks and direct sightlines into identikit offices.  Kioku however triumphs at both food and views, because of course it does. The latest opening from Endo Kazutoshi comes with the primest of positions, perched on the Swiss Army Knife of a building that is Whitehall’s lushly revamped Old War Office. Chashu pork ramen ravioli is a one bowl ballet of creamy meat packed into tiny pockets of pasta Although the superstar chef is taking a brief hiatus from Michelin sushi spot Endo at the Rotunda, he’s currently commandeering the capital with a string of other high-end foodie powerhouses. There’s the recently opened Niju, Humo (which scored a star just over a year after opening), Notting Hill’s Sumi and brand new Colombian chef’s table Abajo. Endo isn’t in these kitchens fulltime, but rather acts as ‘culinary director’ – a Martin Scorsese of the menu, if you will.  At Kioku that translates into Japanese technique filtered through all the lovely trips Endo’s been on in the Mediterranean. ‘Kioku’ means memories in Japanese, and to hammer the point home, entering this whopping Edwardian pile is something you’re unlikely to forget. ‘Ooh’ as you’re swept past gro

Since 2020 this Highgate boozer has been making waves as north London's only country music-themed US style honky tonk and dive bar. They're doing a pretty good job of it too, with walls covered in 1970s and 1980s music memorabillia, PBR on draught and a very American beer and bourbon shot deal, as well as a range of over one hundred different bourbons, whiskeys and ryes. There's live music too, as well as regular country karaoke, and wings, brisket and mac and cheese from rack city ribs. Come here and live out your Waylon Jennings or Dolly Parton dreams. It's damn sight cheaper than a flight to Nashville. 

The holy, semi-religious offering that is the In-N-Out cheeseburger aside, the greatest culinary gift the US has given the world is Creole cuisine. Born of both struggle and optimism in complicated, brilliant Louisiana, it’s a food impossible to separate from its knotty history. Here, humming gumbo, lacquered shrimp creole and creamy seafood etouffee provide a direct link to French colonial influences alongside the culinary heritage of slaves from west Africa, as well as Caribbean, Native American, Spanish, and German communities in the bustling port city of New Orleans.  Due to such deep geographical ties, Creole cuisine – and its sizzling southern neighbour Cajun cooking – is hard to come by in the UK, with only pop-up arch party kings Decatur and Islington’s Plaquemine Lock coming anywhere close to nailing the giddy, vital punch of southern flavour. A po’boy transmogrified into a saucy little eclair, stuffed with crunchy fried oysters and a mayo that zings satisfactorily with the Louisiana lifeblood that is Crystal hot sauce Louie, named in honour of New Orleans native and jazz zaddy Louis Armstrong, is a relative outlier, the only central London restaurant dedicated to serving southern-style plates. It’s a swish, camera-ready joint, taking up the plumb four story townhouse once home to L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon and next door to the original Ivy. Here the main dining room has shades of New Orleans’ more old-school joints – crisp white tablecloths, soft, carpeted floors a

Opening a restaurant in Borough Market is surely the truest real-life enactment of a blessing and a curse. Here you are in the world’s most famous food market, but surrounded by literally hundreds of other options for passing trade to choose from, not to mention a zombie-like parade of hangry tourists and an atmosphere as febrile as Paul Mescal’s DMs. Only a handful of spots are truly capable of rising above the rest to serve not just to serve the best food in the market, but in London itself. A month after Oma opens, we find a restaurant that’s worth the hype and, perhaps, a little bit more. Oma comes from – as unbearable people are fond of saying – ‘good stock’. It’s the latest opening from David Carter, the brawny Bajan chef and restaurateur who has been doing transcendental things with food since he moved to London to work with Gordon Ramsay, before launching live-fire forerunner Smokestak and the show-stopping Manteca. Oma is Greek in the same way that Manteca is Italian, which is to say that traditionalists would baulk at what Carter and Jorge Paredes (ex-exec chef of Sabor) are doing here, while everyone else would tell them to hush up and enjoy the tsalafouti.  Our meal started how, if I had my way, every dinner would – with crisps 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 welc

Don’t you just love to see a boozer come back from the dead? The China Hall in Rotherhithe shut down way back in December 2018. By 2021 permission had been granted for the upper floors of the Victorian-era pub to be turned into flats, on the understanding that the pub set-up on the ground floor would be retained. However, when Southwark Council enforcement officers visited the premises in early 2022, they found that the bar had been removed and fixtures stripped, reports London expert IanVisits. The ground floor, he writes, was basically an empty shell, and owners were about to convert the ground floor pub space into two flats. They then retrospectively applied for planning permission, which was refused. They then appealed, which was dismissed by the planning inspector, who has now ruled the pub was unlawfully converted into flats. And the best bit? It must once again be made into a public house. Justice for the pintsmen!  Photograph: Southwark Council Councillor Helen Dennis, Cabinet Member for New Homes and Sustainable Development, said: ‘This is a huge win for our planning enforcement team and local residents who worked together to save The China Hall as a functioning pub. Pubs are specifically protected by planning policy and for good reason. ‘I’m thrilled that such an important piece of Rotherhithe’s history and community has been protected. It serves as a warning that it is never acceptable for works for go ahead before a planning application has been approved.’ Of c

Turns out that our favourite restaurant in London is also the Good Food Guide’s favourite local restaurant in the capital. Mambow in Clapton, which we here at Time Out crowned the best restaurant in London earlier this year, has just been named London’s best local resto by the storied Good Food Guide, which has been out there reviewing restaurants, pubs and cafés across the UK since 1951.  Chef/owner Abby Lee’s rather marvellous Mambow was located in a food market in Peckham until 2023, when it moved to a permanent location in Clapton, east London. ‘To win is a wonderful surprise and a real testament to our incredible team,’ said Lee. ‘We are so lucky to work with people that are all equally passionate about showcasing Malaysian cuisine and culture, which has helped put us on the map.’   Speaking about Mambow, co-editor of the Good Food Guide Chloë Hamilton said: ‘The pandemic prompted a change of direction for so many chefs and in Abby Lee’s case it set her on a path to open the wonderful Mambow. The restaurant is always buzzing, and the cooking incredibly flavourful and reviving. It’s a true beacon of London neighbourhood dining.’ Mambow might have been the regional winner, but a fair few other London restaurants were given the nod in the big list of 100 great local joints. Find them listed below: London’s best local restaurants, according to the Good Food Guide 2024 Sam’s Waterside, Brentford Les 2 Garçons, Crouch End The Parakeet, Kentish Town Home SW15, Putney Jo

Sad times for those of us who like a little bit of culture with their cake, as the London Review Cake Shop has announced that it will be closing for good in August. The cake shop, which is located inside Bloomsbury’s London Review Bookshop, will be shutting next month after 17 years in business. It’s not all bad news though, as the bookshop isn’t going anywhere. Terry Glover, the Bury Place shop’s cake-maker extraordinaire, took to social media to announce the news. ‘The Cake Shop has been a hub, an essential yet irreverent expression of the LRB culture, bringing people together from the city’s cultural scene. ‘As time went on customers turned into regulars, shared stories, brought us book recommendations and gifts: apples, Libyan mountain thyme, Soviet champagne. Many became friends. A lot of people wrote books there, or their theses. I made so many people’s birthday cakes. The Cake Shop was meant to be enjoyed – and it has been, by so many people, in so many different ways. Now that it’s closing, I want to say: thank you.’ View this post on Instagram A post shared by London Review Cake Shop (@lrbcakeshop) Literary magazine the London Review of Books opened London Review Bookshop in 2003 and it was joined by the London Review Cake Shop in 2007. As well as a very decent and ever-changing cake selection (actor/director Lena Dunham got them to make her wedding cake), the cafe did a pretty decent line in sandwiches and savoury baked goods.  Farewell to

The Antic Hospitality Group, which runs a bunch of pubs across east and south London, has gone into administration. The company can no longer deal with its debts, meaning it either has to sell off its assets, pay everyone off, or liquidate the business. The Standard reports that a number of the Antic pubs have been having difficulties since the pandemic.  The pubs, which include the iconic Dogstar in Brixton, The Sun in Camberwell and the Clapton Hart in Clapton, will stay open and continue to trade while the administration process takes place.  Steve Absolom, the managing director of Interpath Advisory and joint administrator, commented: ‘This is an eclectic collection of well-known and popular pubs and bars located in prime sites across south London. The sites are expected to continue to trade as usual with the support of specialist trading agents at Licensed Solutions.  ‘We intend to bring these units to market in due course, representing a fantastic opportunity for investors and trade purchasers alike.’ This isn’t the first time Antic has run into trouble. A subsidiary group called Antic Limited went into administration in 2013 because of tax-related issues. All 13 pubs at risk then ended up being bought in less than a month. There’s hope then, that the 13 pubs at risk now will be snapped up and continue to operate.  The full list of Antic pubs in London that could close Dogstar, Brixton Gremio de Brixton, Brixton Balham Bowls Club, Balham East Dulwich Tavern, East D

Oh no! The excellent Weino BIB is closing down for good.  The natural wine shop, taproom and deli all-rounder announced the sad news on social media and will be shutting at the end of July. After a series of pop-ups starting in 2015, Weino BIB opened its permanent site on Balls Pond Road, Dalston in 2017. The ‘BIB’ stood for ‘bag in box’, and the store’s valiant aim was to democratise natural wine and make sustainable box wine more socially acceptable – rather than something you picked up at the last minute from Sainsbos for a festival, before carting the warm internal bladder around with you like a particularly unfortunate pet. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Weino BIB (@weinobib) ‘Please join us on Saturday 27th July as we endeavour to drink the bar dry! One more time before Weino BIB closes its doors. Thank you so much to all who crossed our threshold, many of you have become very dear friends,’ wrote founder Kirsty Tinkler on Instagram of the shop’s final day of trading.  Here are some other great wine bars to visit in London, now that we’re waving bye to Weino BIB.   The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now to tuck in. 

If anyone knows their way around London’s classic restaurants, it’s Lee Tiernan. Working at the iconic St John for a decade before opening the acclaimed FKABAM (formerly known as Black Axe Mangal) in Highbury, his classy, whole-beast cookery is deeply indebted to London’s traddest of trad spots, but brings everything bang up-to-date with roaring open-fire cooking, a quite unnerving obsession with offal and extremely decent soundtrack.  This month, Lee is Birkenstock Studio’s artist-in-residence. What does this mean? It means that Lee will be hosting all manner of demos and cookery workshops at the sandal folk’s swanky space at Dray Walk Gallery at 91 Brick Lane in east London all month long, including events with Time Out faves Mam Sham, Taste Cadets and ice cream sandwich supremos Happy Endings. Tonight (July 8), Lee will be hosting a cookout, serving up classic dishes from FKABAM, while comedy/food duo Mam Sham’s masterclass on how to create a supper club with a difference is on the evening of July 10. On July 18 there’ll be a blind chocolate tasting with Terri Merciea of Happy Endings, and Lee and Kate Tiernan will be in conversation with Taste Cadets on July 24. All events are free and start at 6pm. You can get tickets here.  Here are Lee Tiernan’s six favourite classic London restaurants. All killer, no filler. St John | Photograph: Stefan Johnson 1. St John, Clerkenwell Founded 1994 Lee Tiernan: ‘My number one restaurant is St John in London. Actually the world. This

One of the last proper old school Soho restaurants, Andrew Edmunds is a bit of a special spot. Which is why we’re a little miffed to find out that the French-ish date night classic will be shutting up shop for the rest of the summer. The Lexington Street restaurant will be undergoing ‘essential building works’ from July 12 until the end of August, which means no romantic rendezvous in the basement or long, picpoul-fuelled lunches in the cosy ground floor room.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Andrew Edmunds (@andrew.edmunds) The restaurant announced its summer closure on Instagram. We’ll be here, waiting patiently with knife and fork, for its reopening. Andrew Edmunds is named after the art dealer who opened the restaurant in a 18th-century terraced townhouse in 1985. Edmunds passed away in 2022, but the restaurant remained open.  The restaurant has had its fair share of celebrity diners over the years, including the late Vivienne Westwood, as well as Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry. It is also beloved of London’s finest chefs, including Quo Vadis’s Jeremy Lee. The actor Michelle Dockery of Downton Abbey also once worked there as a waitress. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now to tuck in. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.

Cooking over roaring live fire doesn’t have to be a lavish, medieval spit-roast hog style situation. It can be a delicate, precise form of cheffery, and barbecue cook and food writer Melissa Thompson is one of the experts. A mastermind when it comes to flame-licked foods, she’ll be returning to the annual flesh-fest that is Meatopia this summer to show punters how it’s done.  ‘I used to go as a punter and a few years ago I ​​got invited to cook there which blew my mind,’ she says. ‘It’s just the sight of it, the sounds, the smells; it’s such a celebration of amazing food, brilliant ingredients, and really fun people. I love it.’ Melissa won’t be cooking alone. She’ll be teaming up with south London legend Maureen Tyne, who also runs one of Melissa’s favourite BBQ restaurants in London, Maureen's Brixton Kitchen.  Here’s Melissa on the joy of Maureen’s, and five more of her favourite BBQ restaurants and take-out stalls and stands across the city. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Maureen's Brixton Kitchen (@maureensbrixtonkitchen) 1. Maureen’s Brixton Kitchen, Brixton Melissa: ‘I’ve been going to Maureen’s for a very long time. Everybody knows her now, but at the beginning she was a little more under the radar. She was always really popular within the local community, but she wasn’t really on social media until I helped set up her Instagram account. I discovered it just walking past and seeing all the jerk drums in the ya

There was much sadness among east London’s eating-while-drinking community when the mighty Ling Lings – maker of one of our favourite Sunday roasts – left her kitchen residency post at The Gun earlier this year. But a new cookery crew for the pub has now been announced – and from July 13 you’ll find the trio of chefs known as Rake serving up a storm at this Well Street boozer. Made up of Jay Claus, Peter Ward and Syrus Pickhaver, the chefs have done time everywhere from Acme Fire Cult to Brat and Quo Vadis, and will be cooking British classics and lost old school dishes, as well as focusing on whole beast butchery and with a menu brimming with sustainable Cornish fish. Benjamin McMahon You’ll be able to devour the likes of chicken fried John Dory, beer battered cockles, sausage spiced lardo, potted mushroom and stargazey pie. For dessert, there'll be rice pudding with strawberry jam as well as a garibaldi mille feuille. Ready for the new residents, The Gun’s dining room has had a little bit of a St John-ish revamp too, with whitewashed walls and crisp white tablecloths. Want to book? Go do that here.  And if you’re missing Ling Ling’s, then head to nearby Bambi, where they’ll be serving up their Chinese and Vietnamese-inspired dishes every Sunday for the foreseeable future.  The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now to tuck in. Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time

Vegetarians and vegans, avert your eyes: The 2024 list of the World’s Best Steak Restaurants has been revealed, and just one Miami restaurant has made its majestically meaty ranks. Coming in at No.42 out of 101 global restaurant selections, Klaw in Edgewater has been recognized as Miami's most impressive steakhouse. Helmed by meat master James Wright, Klaw offers mainly dry-aged US Prime Beef and American Wagyu prepared over an open fire grill. "With its stunning views of Biscayne Bay and a stylish, nautical-inspired interior, Klaw offers a sophisticated atmosphere that complements its innovative menu," touts The World's Best Steaks listing for Klaw. If you want really, really, really good meat—then maybe consider actually leaving Miami and go to the list’s number one; Parrilla Don Julio, which you’ll find in Buenos Aires’ Palermo district. Bodega El Capricho in Jiménez de Jamuz, Spain and Margaret in Sydney, Australia have taken the second and third slots, respectively. The World’s 101 Best Steak Restaurants has been running since 2019, and to get into the list a restaurant has to meet strict quality criteria, with "taste, terroir, character, marbling, cut and preparation" of the meat of extreme importance. The top 10 steak restaurants in the world Parilla Don Julio, Buenos Aires Bodega El Capricho, Jiménez de Jamuz (Spain) Margaret, Sydney Cote, New York Carcasse, Koksijde (Belgium) I due Cippi, Saturnia (Italy) Laia Erretegia, Hondarribia (Spain) Rockpool, Sydney AG, Stoc

Sufferers of vertigo, look away now. Plans have been revealed for west London's highest rooftop restaurant and bar, which will open next summer. It will sit atop the imposing Paddington Square development (which is right next to the entrance to Paddington Station) on the 17th and 18th floors of the newly opened retail and office block. The glamour!  Entry will be gained via two high speed glass elevators, and when you're up there you'll be greeted by views of Hyde Park. We don't actually know who will be taking over the rooftop space yet, but the Market Halls food hall folk will be moving onto two different floors in the building, which will also include a brand new entrance to the Bakerloo line, (a nice fact for the tube nerds, there), and a 1.35 acre public piazza down on street level. The space already includes branches of Gail's and Wahaca.   Justin Brand, from the building's developers Hotel Properties Limited has commented of the space: 'The opening of Paddington Square extends the regeneration of Paddington right up to the station’s main entrance. It provides local people, office workers and the staff at St Mary’s Hospital with a new place to shop, eat, drink and entertain. The public piazza will become a vibrant meeting point and through the public art programme enable visitors and travellers to enjoy work by internationally renowned and emerging UK-based artists.' If you can't wait a year for a rooftop restaurant, then don't worry, as here is our list of t

Regular readers of Time Out will know what we are lowkey obsessed with Mangal II. And now we can all have a little piece of the much-loved Dalston-based Turkish restaurant in our own homes, as they're releasing their debut cookbook. Hooray! Mangal II: Stories and Recipes will be published on October 10 and has been written by brothers Ferhat Dirik and Sertaç Dirik, sons of the restaurant's original owner Ali. Ferhat is the restaurant's current managing director, and chef Sertaç totally revamped the menu after the pandemic, jazzing it up by way of his fine dining training in Denmark, to help save Mangal II from going under. And it worked. It's now one of London's most talked-about places to eat, scoring a much-deserved place on our 50 Best Restaurants in London list. Mangal 2/Phaidon Sertaç left Mangal II at the end of 2023 with a view to opening his own place. He is currently to be found popping up at restaurants across the globe, including a recent residency at 107 Wine Shop and Bar (formerly P. Franco) in Clapton.  The book will include 60 recipes from Mangal II's history, since opening in 1994, as well as from its former site, Mangal 1, around the corner, which Ali opened in 1989. Early dishes will include ezme, grilled onion salad and Ali Dirik's lamb kebabs, while more contemporary Mangal 2 classics will feature mackerel in fried vine leaf, chickpea fritters with brown crab and tahini tart with apple butterscotch and cherry mahlep. Rapper and famous fan of Mangal 2