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Inn the Park
This stunning wooden café and restaurant has cakes and tea, as well as substantial and quality British food. It gets quite busy in the summer, but if you're up for a special dining experience, come here for dinner, when the park is quiet and slightly illuminated.
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Inside
With white and panelled wooden walls, modern art and linen tablecloths, inside looks quite stuffy, but they won't bat an eyelid if you turn up in jeans. The crisp food typically includes fresh pea and mint soup, smoked haddock and chives with risotto cake, and desserts such as rhubarb crumble. This is acknowledged to be Greenwich's best restaurant.
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Ivy
The Ivy's fame seems incidental compared to its magnificent menu and buzzing atmosphere, both intimate and exciting, in the heart of London's theatreland. The fare consists of glorious versions of British staples like shepherd's pie (doubtless the best in town, so probably the best in the world), steak tartare and kedgeree, and desserts are superb.
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J Sheekey
Many Londoners prefer this smart, historic institution to its sister, the Ivy. While you might spot a famous face, it's less impressed by the celebrity circus. The signature dish is a scrumptious fish pie, which by a handy coincidence is the cheapest thing on the menu.
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Jakob's
This charismatic Armenian-owned restaurant serves delicious and wholesome (and sometimes organic) salads, vegetarian lasagne, filo pie, falafel and kebabs that you choose at the counter after having laid claim to a table in the back. A plate of three/four choices is around £7 /9.50. Desserts are very good.
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Jason's
Jason's has cosy outside tables and a main dining room in a high wooden-ceilinged boathouse that feels almost alfresco. After a total overhaul and refit, the restaurant has moved away from serving predominantly fish and seafood dishes and has headed south to the Mediterranean. Weekend brunch (Saturday to , Sunday to ) is a treat here - especially in fine weather.
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Jen Café
This is the best place in Chinatown to come for homemade wonton soup and dumplings - bar none. And you can be assured of their freshness by looking through the plate glass window where they're in the process of being made.
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Jin Kichi
A disproportionate number of London's Japanese residents live in Hampstead, and a disproportionate number of them eat at this slightly shabby and cramped little place. It's a particularly good bet for sumiyaki (char-grilled meats) with sets at around £9 and around £11 , though they do standard stuff like sushi, sashimi and tempura. Be sure to book.
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Joe Allen
This long-established late-night (open till most nights) restaurant is always packed with West End actors and crew members and remains star-spotters' paradise. There's a real buzz here and it gets crowded, so book ahead. Starters and main dishes (lamb chops, grilled halibut etc) are varied, but you won't find its legendary burgers on the menu; just ask. Come here too for breakfast (from weekdays) or weekend brunch (from ).
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Kastoori
If you're a true curry junkie and neither Brick Lane nor Whitechapel will do, the capital's contemporary hotspot is in the suburban wilds of SW17 - or Tooting. Near Tooting Broadway and Tooting Bec tube stations, you'll find rows of neighbouring curry houses, from Bangladeshi to Sri Lankan, including Kastoori. Here you'll get excellent Gujarati cuisine, by way of Africa, which is obviously lovingly homemade, rather than churned out on an assembly line. It's like no other Indian you'll ever eat.
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Ken Lo's Memories of China
The late Kenneth Lo brought Chinese food to new levels in London, and the service and décor of the place reflect that position. The interior is elegant, oriental minimalism and the noise levels are agreeably low. There are several set menus (around £20 - including a vegetarian one and an unforgettable 'Gastronomic Tour of China' (around £31 r person) - and all the well-proportioned dishes feature a splendidly light touch and wonderful contrasts of flavours and textures.
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Kensington Place
This restaurant has an impressive glass frontage, a design-driven interior and consistently good food, but seating seems cramped and the acoustics are bad. The attached Fish Shop and its mounds of fresh seafood should help you to make up your mind when ordering.
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Kerala
Oxford Circus may seem an odd place to go for Indian food, but this little gem gets consistent thumbs-ups for its South Indian dishes. Try one of their distinctive biryanis or the prawns cooked in masala sauce.
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Kettners
This Soho institution founded in 1867 has three dining rooms serving all manner of Modern European food but most people come here for the fabulous pizzas (from £9 ), enjoyed with a glass of champagne and in a wonderful atmosphere of gently fading grandeur and a piano tinkling softly in the background.
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L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon
The multiple Michelin star-holding French chef who taught Gordon Ramsay and other top London chefs is taking them on, with this sister to his Parisian restaurant on a historically unlucky site near the Ivy. Robuchon's food has won plaudits, but the original no-booking policy for the informal, open-plan dining room downstairs was abandoned quickly for lunchtime - and by now might also have been for dinner.
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L'autre
How this small restaurant in Shepherd's Market came to serve dishes as incongruous as borscht and burritos is a tale too complex to tell here, but the food and the atmosphere (mock Tudor décor with Georgian elements) work well together. Overall, though, we'd head east for dishes like golambki (stuffed cabbage) and Polish roast pork (around £14 ) rather than south of the border.
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La Fromagerie
This branch of a celebrated French cheese shop in Highbury has a small café attached that turns out exquisite French-inspired dishes at lunch. You can also enjoy breakfast from opening time and afternoon tea daily from .
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La Gaffe
This comfortable, family-run restaurant in an 18th-century cottage that is now a hotel is a Hampstead landmark and serves reliably good Italian dishes. The choice of fresh pasta dishes (from around £7 to £10 ) is especially good. There's a three-course set lunch (around £13 ) available weekdays.
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La Poule au Pot
Lit by candlelight even at lunch, the 'Chicken in the Pot' is a long-established country-style French restaurant that is long on romance and cosiness and somewhat shorter on what it serves. Still, the alfresco front terrace is a lovely spot in the warmer months.
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La Trouvaille
Just what its name suggests it is, the 'Find' is perfect for a romantic dinner. Here you'll find a gorgeous, warm space perfect for candlelit canoodling and an excellent menu of rich traditional French cuisine - quail and foie gras terrine, guinea fowl hotpot - on a quiet backstreet.
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Lahore Kebab House
This restaurant with a large kitchen viewable through glass is not an aesthetic experience, and ever since City workers discovered it the standard of cooking seems to have slipped. Still, it remains popular with the local community and has some excellent meat and chicken biryanis.
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Le Café du Marché
Tradition is a watchword at this quaint French bistro housed in an exposed-brick warehouse down a tiny alleyway near Smithfield Market. The food is mostly gutsy French fare - hearty steaks with garlic and rosemary flavours, fish soup with aioli - and there's piano playing and jazz upstairs. Meals are set-menu only.
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Lemonia
Some people's favourite Greek restaurant in London, this attractive and very popular taverna offers good-value food and a lively atmosphere. A selection of meze costs around £14 per person and the vegetarian moussaka is excellent. There's a two-course set weekday lunch for around £8 .
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Leon
A definite stand-out among Soho's budget eateries, Leon is delightful - cheap, friendly and perfectly located. Serving such delicious treats as chicken with herb oil and lemon, Moroccan meatballs and sweet potato falafel, Leon puts labels on everything so you know just what you're getting. What's more, it's licensed. There are five other outlets including a Spitalfields branch.
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Les Trois Garçons
Walk through the door of this enormous erstwhile pub and your jaw will surely drop: giraffe heads stick out from the wall at a right angle, stuffed swans wear tiaras, alligators are crowned and the mirrors are listed. The food - classic French with the likes of duck confit, riz de veau and plates of pork charcuterie (sausage) on offer - is good if not excellent and at least one of the eponymous 'three boys' is usually on hand to meet and greet. Service can sometimes be so attentive as to be almost overbearing.
