London Restaurants

  1. 1 Lombard Street

    A totally impressive temple of power dining, 1 Lombard St used to be a bank. Now it's an airy, Michelin-starred restaurant (thanks to chef Herbert Berger) and serves a great combination of seafood, meat and poultry. The menu includes fillets of lamb, beef, venison and roast turbot fish on the bone.

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  2. Abeno

    This understated little Japanese restaurant specialises in okonomiyaki, a kind of savoury pancake from Osaka of cabbage, egg and flour that is combined with the ingredients of your choice (there are more than two dozen varieties, including anything from sliced meats and vegetables to egg, noodles and cheese) and cooked on the hotplate at your table. There is quite a range of set lunches from around £8 .

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  3. Acorn House

    London's first totally eco-friendly restaurant with 10 trainees as fresh as the seasonal ingredients they're working with, an open kitchen and monthly changing menus. The dining room is a bit narrow to our taste but it accommodates a well-stocked and very long bar.

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  4. Addis

    Cheery Addis serves pungent Ethiopian dishes like ye beg tibs , chunks of tender lamb cooked with onions and spices, and doro wat , chicken cooked with hot pepper and spices, which are eaten on a platter-sized piece of soft but slightly elastic injera bread. It's normally full of Ethiopian and Sudanese punters, which is always a good sign. The Addis Special Platter (around £16 ) lets you sample all the highlights.

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  5. Admiralty

    The flagship restaurant of the restored Somerset House has a traditional interior and modern French food. There's a lovely, calming terrace outside overlooking the Thames on which to while away your meal time. The degustation menus are truly sublime - and here's a rarity - there is even a full vegetarian one.

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  6. Afghan Kitchen

    This tiny gem with seating on the 1st floor serves up some of Islington's best-value and interesting cuisine: traditional Afghan dishes such as qurma suhzi gosht (lamb cooked with spinach) and qurma e mahi (fish stew) alongside a large vegetarian selection including borani kado (pumpkin with yogurt) and moong dall (lentil dhal).

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  7. Aki

    This charmingly shabby izakaya ('sake bar with food', or Japanese-style bistro) is an excellent and very authentic place for noodles (around £5 ), sushi (from £2 or one of the dozen sets, including tempura ( £22 ) at dinner.

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  8. Ali Baba

    Looking more like a slightly chaotic laundry than somewhere to eat, this tiny Egyptian double take is buried in between terraced houses in residential Marylebone - a most unlikely place to find such good (for the price) hummus, falafel and kebabs. You can takeaway or sit in a tiny room and watch Arab TV.

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  9. Amaya

    Hidden down a little arcade behind Starbucks lies a swish, stylish restaurant, with low-lit interior, colourful jewelled inlays in the wood, hanging crystal strings and chandeliers. But what will really hold your attention are the chefs at work in the open kitchen, as they slave over an iron skillet ( tawa ), charcoal grill ( sigri ) or clay oven ( tandoor ). Varied set menus (including vegetarian one and an express lunch put the emphasis on sharing dishes with your dining companions.

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  10. Anchor & Hope

    The hope is that you'll get a table without waiting hours, because unfortunately you can't book at this quintessential gastropub. The anchor is the gutsy, unashamedly carnivorous British food. The critics love this place but with dishes like duck hearts, pink lamb's neck and deep-fried pig's head, it's decidedly not for vegetarians. There is a second restaurant at Great Queen Street in Covent Garden.

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  11. Andrew Edmunds

    This cosy little place is exactly the sort of restaurant you wish you could find everywhere in Soho. Two floors of wood-panelled bohemia with a mouth-watering menu of French (confit of duck) and European (penne with goat's cheese) country cooking - it's a real find and reservations are essential.

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  12. Arbutus

    Minimalist-looking Arbutus burst onto the scene in 2006, winning three awards in quick succession, so here's hoping that doesn't go to its head. The changing menu is mouth-watering, with dishes like beef bavette tartare, saddle of rabbit, bouillabaisse and even braised pig's head. Wine handily comes in carafes.

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  13. Arkansas Café

    Good ole down-home Arkansas barbecue is what is served up in this unprepossessing unit on the edges of Spitalfields Market. Whether you're tucking into platters of pork ribs, corn-fed chicken or steak, you can rest assured they'll be of truly excellent quality, with lots of potatoes, coleslaw and other stuff on the side.

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  14. Asadal

    If you fancy Korean but want a bit more style thrown into the act than what you'll find at Assa , head for this spacious basement restaurant next to the Holborn tube station. The kimchi (pickled Chinese cabbage with chillies) is searing, the barbecues (around £7 to £12 ) are à table and the bibimbab - rice served in a sizzling pot topped with thinly sliced beef, preserved vegetables and chilli-laced soybean paste - is the best in town.

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  15. Asakusa

    This is not exactly the temple of lean, zen decor we often expect from our Japanese eateries. This somewhat scruffy (but clean) place has cheap sushi priced per piece, so you can get a neat selection without spending too much. There are also more elaborate set menus which are still reasonably priced, and better if you feel like something warm.

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  16. Asmara

    A rare Eritrean restaurant, Asmara serves spicy chicken, lamb and beef stews and vegetable dishes that you scoop up with injera , the flat, slightly spongy sourdough bread that is a national dish. Staff provide a flash of colour in their traditional costumes, while there's a nod to the former colonial power, Italy, with four pasta dishes (around £5 on the menu.

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  17. Assa

    The best of a trio of Korean restaurants behind the unsightly Centre Point building, Assa attracts a rough and very ready crowd of friendly young Asians who come for the cut-price soup noodles, bibimbab (rice served in a sizzling pot topped with thinly sliced beef, preserved vegetables and chilli-laced soy bean paste) and potent soju (Korean saki).

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  18. Atlas

    This cosy Victorian-era pub attracts a younger local crowd with its real ales, excellent food and with a lovely side courtyard. The gastropub menu features essentially Mediterranean-inspired dishes.

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  19. Awana

    London's (and perhaps the northern hemisphere's) first fine-dining Malay restaurant, Awana has all our favourite dishes (beef rendang, Hainan-style chicken, butterfish wrapped in banana leaves with herbs and char-grilled) in a dining room done up to look like a relaxed kampong (village) house. (The uninitiated may want to consider the Malaysian Journey sampling menu at around £36 .) The Satay Bar serves delicious skewers of chicken, beef, lamb and prawns accompanied by the restaurant's own spicy peanut sauce. We'll be back.

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  20. Bacchus

    The speciality of chef Nuno Mendes - sous-vide cooking in which ingredients are slow-cooked in a vacuum for hours and hours - is put to the test at this smart erstwhile pub and succeeds. The rabbit mousse is just this side of absolute perfection but you must try the langoustines with Catalan mix to experience one of Mendes' signature foams (in this case a hot garlic one). For mains, expect the likes of warm cod wrapped in chicken skin and sesame-crusted squab with foie gras.

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  21. Back to Basics

    There are two or three other options on the menu (see 'Fish not Your Dish'), but seafood is the focus at this superb corner restaurant run by a bevy of affable young Poles in what's become know as Titchfield Village. A dozen varieties of exceedingly fresh fish, and a dozen original, mouth-watering ways to cook them, are chalked up on a blackboard every day. Two-course set lunch is around £10 . There's outside seating in summer.

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  22. Balans West

    More relaxed than its Old Compton St cousin, this gay-friendly bar-grill is pleasant, although pricey for the fare it serves. Eye-candy waiters may be little else than that, but it's a nice spot to watch the world go by. The menu ranges from simple sandwiches to the more standard brasserie fare of well-realised salads and grills.

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  23. Bam-Bou

    This listed Georgian house attracts the media darlings from all over Fitzrovia with its winning colonial French-Vietnamese cuisine. It can feel a little cliquish and some of the staff are less than welcoming but the mostly modern Vietnamese fare (sesame prawns, pan-fried duck) is a regular winner.

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  24. Bamboula

    Decorated in the red, gold and green of the Jamaican flag, this takeaway/restaurant is cheap and cheerful, serving jerk chicken, oxtail, curried goat, ackee and saltfish, rice and peas, plantain and other Caribbean classics. Bread pudding laced with rum brings up the rear very nicely.

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  25. Banners

    This cafe is always buzzing - a bit too much so when the owner's kids start acting up - still, it's got an inexplicably magnetic power. The food can be hit and miss (veggie sausages and mash hit, cooked brekkies generally miss), the smoothies are invigorating, and the staff are friendly to locals and polite to strangers.

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