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Coach & Horses
Just around the corner from London's original gastropub, the Eagle, this upstart is giving the competition a run for its money. Despite this, it's still easy to get a seat within its traditional walls and absorb the menu, which will include such things as a salad of duck hearts, beetroot and orange and braised ox cheek.
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Costa's Fish Restaurant
This fondly regarded local puts a Cypriot spin on the traditional chippy and has a huge array of fresher-than-fresh fish dishes at market prices, which many prefer to the more upmarket Geales nearby. Not to be confused with Costa's Grill at No 18 of the same street.
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Cottons Rhum Shop, Bar & Restaurant
Far more enticing than it sounds, Cottons is one of the most authentic Caribbean eateries in town, offering up robust island specials like jerk chicken and curried goat, and specialising in outrageously head-banging rum-based cocktails. The friendly atmosphere and cheerful surroundings will bring out the party monster in anyone.
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Couscous Café
This cosy and vividly decorated place does a faultless line in familiar favourites from all over North Africa but really excels with Moroccan-style couscous and tajines , pastillas (filled savoury pastries) and slightly exaggerated service. Alcohol is served but you can BYO (no corkage fee).
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Cow
Owned by Tom Conran, the son of renowned restaurateur Sir Terence, this gastropub's vintage top-floor dining room has long maintained its reputation as one of the best in west London. Fresh oysters with Guinness are a speciality. Despite its fair share of trust-funded Notting Hillbillies, it's still a great hangout.
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Criterion Grill
This beautiful Marco Pierre White restaurant is all chandeliers, mirrors, marble and sparkling mosaics - one breathless wag has compared it to the inside of a Fabergé egg - but its most spectacular feature is the classic French food, which ranges from the delicate tian of Devon crab to roast suckling pig mussel. The daily lunch specials (usually British favourites like shepherd's pie and fish and chips) are a snip at around £13 .
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Daquise
This place is a real dinosaur - but a loveable little tyrannosaurus indeed - and very close to the museums of South Kensington. It's a rather dowdy Polish café-cum-diner, with a good range of vodkas and extremely reasonably priced dishes, including the oft-seen bigosz , a 'hunter's stew' of cabbage and pork, and ravioli-like pierogi .
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Delfina
It's a crying shame that this upmarket artists' canteen with a woman chef at the helm serves just weekday lunches and one dinner a week as it really does offer some fine modern international cuisine (emphasis on poultry, fish and vegetables). The space is wonderful - large and light-filled - and the menu changes fortnightly. Coffee and cakes are served at the Studio Café Monday to Friday from to and to .
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Diwana Bhel Poori House
The first of its kind - and still the best on this busy street, in our humble opinion - Diwana specialises in Bombay-style bhel poori (a sweet and sour, soft and crunchy 'party mix' snack), dosa s (filled pancakes made from rice flour), and tasty treats from £7 . The all-you-can-eat lunchtime buffet £7 is legendary.
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Don Fernando's
The Izquierdo family have been serving superb cuisine from their native Andalucía for nigh on 20 years now, and their enthusiasm shows no signs of waning. With an exhaustive list of tapas (from £4 to £8 ), Spanish beers, wines and culinary specialities, including (unusually) some vegetarian options along with cheerful service, this makes a great place for a good lunch or a slow supper.
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Dragon Castle
It's hard to imagine that what just might be the best non-chain Chinese restaurant in London is hidden within one of the brutalist buildings of deepest, darkest Kennington. But it's true and even the incomparable food critic Fay Maschler of the Evening Standard concurs. The duck, pork and seafood (deep fried crispy oysters, crab with black bean) are renowned but come instead for the dim sum (from around £2 to £4 ), especially at weekend lunch.
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Duke of Cambridge
It may feel like a typical London gastropub, with bare wooden boards, tables and sofas, but the Duke can lay claim to being the only certified organic pub in London and the first - wait for it - in the world when it opened in 1998. Indeed, everything, right down to the lager is produced without chemicals or pesticides (though the cider is better). The Italian-/French-/Spanish-influenced menu is reliable enough and the idea of eating healthily a bonus.
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Eagle
London's first gastropub is still going strong after all these years. Even though the original owners and many chefs have left, the customers still come, at lunch or after work, for dishes that tend to nod in the direction of the Mediterranean. The atmosphere is nicely relaxed and chatty.
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Eat & Two Veg
One of the best vegetarian experiences in London, Eat & Two Veg is bright and breezy with charming, friendly staff and a smart 21st-century American diner look. The menu is international eclectic - Thai green curry, Lankawi hotpot - and the mock meat dishes ('sausage' and mash, cheeseburger and fries) would fool even carnivores. There's plenty on offer for vegans too.
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El Faro
An E14 address rarely signifies a destination restaurant but hop on the DLR (a picturesque and worthwhile ride) and travel the 'Lighthouse' for what are acclaimed as the best tapas and Spanish dishes in town. The location on a basin in the Docklands is quite restful and yet within easy walking distance of Canary Wharf.
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El Parador
This laid-back Spanish place has a generous selection of tapas - try the empanadillas de espinacas y queso (spinach and cheese dish) - from all over Spain. There's a walled garden for when the sun's out and you're feeling moderately Mediterranean; the reasonably priced rioja (from around £17 ) should help.
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El Vergel
This cheap and cheerful little cafe will help you start your day and put the beat in your veins with funky Latin American tunes and soulfully simple breakfasts of slightly crispy fried Chilean bread and bacon. Lunches include tasty specialities like empanadas, tacos and Peruvian flat bread sandwiches.
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Electric Brasserie
The name comes from the adjoining Art Deco cinema, but it's possible to believe that it's a comment on the atmosphere here too, as this place never seems to stop buzzing. Whether it's for brunch over the weekend, a hearty lunch or a full dinner, the Electric certainly draws a trendy and wealthy Notting Hill crowd with its British-modern European menu, which includes treats such as crumbed pollock, beetroot and goat's cheese salad and - a personal favourite - lobster and chips (around £28 ).
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Empress Of India
This exquisite, much welcomed pub conversion on the western edge of Victoria Park belts out excellent modern British cuisine, with such fine dishes as sorrel soup with Cheddar scone, saddle of venison and roast suckling pig. We love the elegant bar, the Raj-era murals on the wall, the chandeliers made of mussel shells and the seamless service. Breakfast is available daily from .
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Engineer
One of London's original gastropubs, the Engineer serves up consistently good international cuisine - from Moroccan roast lamb chump and coq au vin to miso-marinated cod - and is hugely popular with impeccably hip north Londoners. The splendid walled garden is the highlight.
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Enoteca Turi
The atmosphere at this stylish place is serene, the service charming. Enoteca Turi devotes equal attention to the grape as to the food, which means that each dish, be it a shellfish tagliolini or saddle of new season lamb, comes recommended with a particular glass of wine (or you can pick from their enormous wine list if you have ideas of your own).
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Esarn Kheaw
Welcoming you back into the 1970s is the very green interior of this superb restaurant serving food from the Esarn (or Issan), the northeast of Thailand where people munch on chillies like chewing gum. The house-made Esarn sausage and green papaya salad are sublime. If you can handle it the 'Tiger's Cry' of grilled strips of ox liver served with a fiery chilli sauce is as authentic a northeast dish as you'll find west of Nakhorn Ratchasima.
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Eyre Brothers
Geographically located in Shoreditch, but stylistically with one foot in the City, this dark-panelled, low-ceilinged den with lots of photos on the walls excels with an interesting range of fare inspired by the food of Spain and Portugal. Diners tuck into a largely vegetarian-unfriendly menu, including scallops with jamón (ham) Serrano , grilled Mozambique prawns piri-piri and Catalan-style rabbit stew. The Eyre brothers were behind London's first gastropub, the Eagle. They still know what they're doing.
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Fifteen
Now an international mini-chain with branches in Melbourne, Amsterdam and even far-flung Cornwall, this is celeb chef Jamie Oliver's gaff, where he trains and employs 15 young chefs and the profits go to charity. It's difficult to get a reservation, but one-third of the seating in the downstairs trattoria, where breakfast is available from on weekdays and from at the weekend, is kept for walk-ins. We've had mixed reviews about the food and bad ones about the high prices (around £8 for a fry-up?) but it's for a good cause. Expect a decent selection of fish and vegetarian dishes.
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Fifth Floor Café
On the same floor as the food hall, sushi bar and glitzy designer restaurant, this cafe used to be one of the most fashionable places to be seen. These days it's less trendy and more practical. You can enjoy light and innovative Mediterranean meals beneath a stunning metal and glass ceiling canopy or out on the terrace if the weather is fine.
