In the wake of the brexit vote last year, rousing billboards began to appear across the capital proclaiming "London is open". The messages, commissioned by the mayor's office, were to remind everyone who lives in the city — whatever age, nationality, religion or hue — that this is a place where all-comers are welcome (with "all-comers" meaning "especially French bankers"). Perhaps nowhere is this inclusivity more visible than in London's restaurant scene, which now boasts more quality and variety than perhaps any other city: and yes New York, we're coming for you. So, to celebrate the capital's culinary expansiveness, and also to mark London Food Month (1–30 June), we present our list of the 15 best new restaurants to have opened here in the past 12 months.
We've all accepted that London's boiled-turnips-for-tea reputation is now ancient history and you can eat well and widely in the city, but our own very begrudgingly conducted research shows that international diversity is greater than ever. We ate Thai barbecue at Kiln, Jamaican jerk chicken at James Cochran EC3, Taiwanese buns at Bao Fitzrovia, Indian puffed rice at Kricket, Roman pasta at Palatino and Turkish kofte at Yosma (and then some Rennie). We did not eat any hamburgers because these days that's shooting fish — OK, high-grade beef patties — in a barrel. And while we can personally vouch for London right now being a veritable mor fai (a Laotian hot pot, like you didn't know), some trends did start to emerge.
Hoarders despair, for it seems that sharing plates are going nowhere, partly because it's more sociable, and partly because, let's face it, it stealthily hoiks up the bill. Don't expect many tablecloths and do expect informal waiting staff who talk to you like you've just popped by to rent a surfboard. No-reservation policies are still common, and eating at the counter in front of an open kitchen is more popular than ever, so you can watch your dinner being flame-grilled (or in the case of one restaurant we visited, a junior chef, for incorrectly arranging some bread). Also, for the record, both pasta and fried chicken are clearly "things" right now. Which is fine by us.
So, if you want a little taste of the best of London's current restaurant scene you could do a lot worse than visit one, some, or all of the establishments listed on the next few pages. Because happily, as far as eating well is concerned, (and with apologies to anyone who remembers Colin Farrell's sex tape), London is still very much open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Compiled by Alex Bilmes, Miranda Collinge and Tim Lewis
Photographs by Ana Cuba
EL PASTOR
6–7A Stoney Street, SE1; tacoselpastor.co.uk
Before we ever tasted tacos al pastór, we published a 4,000-word piece about it. The story, an Esquire profile of the Hart brothers Sam and Eddie, London's most influential restaurateurs, was an intriguing tale of obsession. Sam and his friend Crispin Somerville had fallen in love with the pastór — a Lebanese-Mexican shawarma, made from pork not lamb in a corn tortilla — while living in Mexico City in the Nineties.
Back in London, they wanted to reverse-engineer and perfect it. It was a relief then that, when we finally tasted tacos al pastór, it turned out to be rather good. The meat is pork shoulder, marinated for 24 hours, and it is served with caramelised pineapple, guacamole taquero, white onion and coriander.
The hardest thing to get right though for Hart and Somerville was the tortilla. When you go to El Pastór, in an arch beside Borough Market, there is an entire mezzanine given over to its production, featuring a handmade grinder that pushes criollo corn through huge volcanic stone rocks. On one level, it's an act of madness to go to that much effort to make a sandwich — but then you taste it and it kind of makes sense.
The rest of the offering at El Pastór is similarly authentic. The menu is short, nothing costs more than £8.50, and when you've overdone it (which you will) there is no finer digestif on earth than a glass of mezcal.
What to eat: Tacos al pastór — obsession on a plate and just £2.50.
What to drink: Probably the biggest selection of mezcals this side of the Atlantic. Del Maguey Mezcal Iberico is distilled with a piece of Ibérico ham.
YOSMA
50 Baker Street, W1; yosma.london
"This place is a bit like Istanbul," is the thought that pops into your head as you enter Yosma on Baker Street. A menu is presented and across the top is printed: "A Turkish meyhane, mangal and raki bar inspired by the streets of Istanbul."
Right, excellent, good job. Istanbul is one of the truly great food cities on the planet, but too often in the UK we get the simplified, unsophisticated version of the glorified kebab. Yosma sets out to be a truer representation of Turkey's diverse and brilliant cuisine and it's exactly that.
A small lexicon might be helpful at this point. "Meyhane" is a smash of two Persian words: "mey" (wine) and "khāneh" (house). "Mangal" means both "grill" and the solemn art of barbecuing, often done seated. Raki, the national drink of Turkey, is an aniseed-flavoured spirit sometimes called lion's milk. It is a serious beverage, presented with ceremony, as it is here at Yosma, that can make you behave in a very silly way.
At its heart, Yosma is a silly, serious place. Outside the door, a board reads: "Today's Special… And so are you." Where they don't mess around is with the food: impeccable manti, perfect lamb kofta — and now you don't have to fly east for five hours to eat it.
What to eat: The simit (served at breakfast), dipped in mulberry molasses and sesame, and served with honeycomb and kaymak clotted cream.
What to drink: Raki, raki and more raki.
KRICKET SOHO
12 Denman Street, W1; kricket.co.uk/soho
The idea of Indian food as tongue-torturing, post-pub endurance test and the restaurants — or, rather, curry houses — it is served in as flock-wallpapered temples to kitsch was never entirely fair, and in any case was shown the door years ago by a string of fine dining subcontinental establishments, culminating in the magnificent Gymkhana in Mayfair.
Now, thanks to Dishoom, Hoppers, Tandoor Chop House, Gunpowder and so on, innovative Indian cooking in smart surroundings seems as obvious a combination as poppadoms and mango chutney. Latest entrant into the market is Kricket Soho, the first permanent restaurant from the people behind the 20-seater Kricket Brixton, which is housed in a south London shipping container (yes, sahib).
You might think of it as diffusion Gymkhana. The décor and atmosphere is standard issue contemporary catering — exposed brickwork, open kitchen, counter dining, sharing plates, leather booths, hipster waitstaff — but the food, marrying British ingredients with Asian spices, is a cut above. Start with a Pink Lady (gin, rhubarb, chilli, lemon soda), then work your way through small plates of meat, veg and fish. Plus, no After Eights with the bill and no sitars on the soundtrack (it was all Springsteen all day on the afternoon of Esquire's visit).
What to eat: Keralan fried chicken dipped in fluoro-yellow curry leaf mayonnaise with pickled mouli.
What to drink: The wine list is punchy, but we like a beer with our curry, so it's Reliance Pale Ale from Brixton Brewery.
THE BARBARY
16 Neal's Yard, WC2; thebarbary.co.uk
And so it came to pass that Machneyuda in Jerusalem begat The Palomar in Soho. And The Palomar begat The Barbary, in Covent Garden. And The Barbary was small and often had really long queues — and most people had very little idea what they were ordering — but it did amazing things with aubergines and octopus, so everybody fell in love with it anyway. There are menus that you look at and think, "I'd eat anything on that." And then there are menus that prompt a bemused, "What the hell is that?" The Barbary in Covent Garden falls into the latter camp. A map on the place mat in front of you hints at the type of food to expect: the Barbary Coast is a now-defunct term for a strip from Libya in the east through Tunisia, Algeria to Morocco. And a look at the kitchen, which is approximately six inches from all 24 no-reservation seats, placed around a horseshoe bar, suggests that the food will come from a grill (or a-la-esh) rather than the Josper oven that is at the heart of The Palomar, The Barbary's sister restaurant. Best then to put yourself in the capable hands of your server. You may never know what zhug is (full disclosure: it's a Yemeni hot sauce) or what they've done to the chicken to make it Abu Kalmash (beats us) but the experience will be like nothing you've tasted before.
What to eat: Octopus mashawsha, a long tentacle of octopus braised for four hours and then charred on the grill; served with chickpea stew.
What to drink: The shot they will offer you at the meal's end, whether you like it or not.
SMOKESTAK
35 Sclater Street, E1; smokestak.co.uk
At the heart, soul but mainly loins of this operation in Shoreditch, east London, is a 10ft-long Ole Hickory barbecue pit imported from Missouri. The beef briskets and pork ribs, from America too, are dumped in here for nine hours. They are removed, wrapped in butcher paper, to stay moist, then put in a secondary smoker for nine more hours. The end product is meat so tender you scarcely need to chew it. And so deeply flavoursome it needs the most minimal embellishment: pickled cucumber for ribs, red chilli and ketchup for brisket.
The Dickensian dungeon vibe could be oppressive but feels somehow right. There's a dive bar where things can quickly get messy. You've probably eaten your share of barbecue, but nothing quite like this.
What to eat: Brisket, straight or in a bun; also crispy ox cheek; hot croquettas with flaky salt and anchovy mayo.
What to drink: A Quince + Thyme: "burnt butter" bourbon served with lemon and caramelised quince.
BAO FITZROVIA
31 Windmill Street, W1; baolondon.com
If you need a reason to visit this, the new, bigger sister restaurant of Taiwanese sensations Bao in Soho and the original Bao Bar in Hackney's Netil Market, here are three words: cod black bao. It's a little black-sesame bun, inside which nestles cod dipped in squid ink and deep-fried to heavenly oblivion, and it's only available at Bao Fitz. If you need another, there's the fact you can skip the infamous Bao queues and book a table downstairs (though the horseshoe bar in the airy upstairs dining room is lovely). S
o what else to eat? If you're on a date, order half a spiced chilli chicken with spiral-shaped spring onion bao, which is made to share. Again, if you're on a date, do not order the crispy cabbage with Sichuan powder, which tastes like an upmarket version of crispy fried seaweed (yes!) but comes in big strips that will leave your teeth resembling those of a 17th-century prostitute. It's food that is fun and fast but not frenzied, and most importantly, tastes damn fine.
What to eat: A toss-up between the cod black bao and the short rib bao (but it's win-win, basically).
What to drink: A Taro White Russian.
SAKAGURA
8 Heddon Street, W1; sakaguralondon.com
There is no shortage of posh Japanese joints in Mayfair. Where else would hedge funders and fashion mavens go to inhale their kaiso salads, while jabbering into their iPhones? But Sakagura, on pedestrianised Heddon Street, is the most exciting and original to come along in some time. It boasts a darkly seductive interior, knowledgeable and attentive service and a saké menu so comprehensive it's broken down by region. There's even a saké sommelier. But the real winner is the food, or washoku: traditional Japanese cuisine.
We were ushered to a curtained booth and asked if we wanted the chef to choose for us. We did. We got a huge, iced plate of sashimi to start, with the wasabi grated for us at the table from the root, using a sharkskin paddle. Maguro tartare was served on a wooden fisherman's tray. Main courses of salmon teriyaki and Wagyu beef aburi steak were simple, unfussy and outstanding. And to finish? Raindrop cake: a sort of clear jelly with cherry blossom and gold flake. Elegant, delicious, and, while not inexpensive, much cheaper than flying to Tokyo.
What to eat: Wagyu beef.
What to drink: Saké.
L'ANTICA PIZZERIA DA MICHELE
125 Stoke Newington Church Street, N16; +44 20 7687 0009, @damichelelondon
The original da Michele, founded in 1870 in Naples and still doing a brisk trade today, might just be the most famous pizzeria in the world. Behind an unremarkable frontage in a not especially salubrious part of town, it keeps things deliciously simple: signor can have either a Pizza Margherita (tomato, cheese, basil) or a Pizza Marinara (tomato, garlic, oregano). If he's feeling particularly peckish, he can have a maxi rather than a normale, and cheese nutters may add extra mozzarella to Margheritas. That's it.
The first outpost of da Michele — in London's Stoke Newington of all places — doesn't mess much with a winning formula, adding two guest pizzas to the menu, dropping the ticketing system of the original, and offering a slightly less intense dining experience, not necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise, it's business as usual: no booking except for parties of six and over, long waits at peak times, and — most importantly — spectacularly good pizza, base and toppings in perfect harmony, sizzling and bubbling just like you'd expect at… well, at the most famous pizzeria in the world.
What to eat: Erm, pizza?
What to drink: A Birra Moretti with your Margherita.
LUCA
88 St John Street, EC1; luca.restaurant
There's a joke about today's provenance-obsessed restaurants that the ingredients present themselves at your table with their CV. You are told how old they are, where they grew up, their impeccable qualifications for being selected for you to eat them. And Luca, the "Britalian" from Clove Club's Isaac McHale, is no different.
For example, you'll know more about the rare-breed Vacca Bianca Modenese cows, responsible for some elegant cubes of Parmesan, than about most of your colleagues — no bad thing, actually. But Luca is also different, more refined. In an age where service gets ever more laid-back ("Hey guys!") they are shooting for something more rarefied: invisible, unflappable competence.
You can ask anyone anything, it seems: when you want to find out how the hell they make those Parmesan fries, which you will, you can buttonhole a member of staff, at random, and they'll know. It's old-fashioned, maybe, but the clientele — a healthy mix of old and young, rich and trendy, heavily Italian — suggests Luca is on to something.
The word "Britalian" is downright terrifying, but in practice it mostly means British produce and Italian techniques: Morecambe Bay shrimp with spaghettini, say, or tartare of Herefordshire beef cured in nebbiolo. Maybe it shouldn't work, but Luca somehow splices together the absolute best of the two cultures.
What to eat: The Parmesan fries, a kind of savoury churros made with flour and cheese, not potato, are rightly a sensation.
What to drink: The wine list is all Italian, aside from the Champagne, but no evening is not significantly improved by starting with a Campari soda.
TEMPER
25 Broadwick Street, W1; temperrestaurant.com
Anyone but red-blooded carnivores should give this place the swerve. Those who like lamb served with a side of beef and a pork jus with goat to gnaw on between mouthfuls could do worse than gather around the subterranean smoke pit at the swank new Soho home of Neil Rankin (Pitt Cue, Smokehouse), where even the comfy upholstery can't disguise this is blood and guts cooking.
Below one of those bland glass and steel towers colonising what was once one of London's most distinctive districts (it's on the same street as Esquire's offices, if you must know), it retains some of the raw unruliness of Soho at its best. It reeks of wood smoke and sizzling fat, for a start. In the pit, flames lick, sparks fly.
On the plates, various meats, ordered in 100g portions, come on flat bread or, if starters, on tacos. Go for lunch, skip dinner. A bit macho moderne, but in a good way.
What to eat: Burnt end Thai larb; aged cheeseburger tacos; smacked cucumber.
What to drink: Red wine. Maybe a Malbec to go with the Argentine-style grilled meat.
BERBER & Q SHAWARMA BAR
46 Exmouth Market, EC1; shawarmabar.co.uk
Packed, noisy, casual, intimate, convivial, the new spin-off of the celebrated east London Middle Eastern grill house Berber & Q in Haggerston offers a sectional menu that gets straight to the point: Mezze (try labneh with pistachio and dill); Hummus (four styles); Pita/Rice; Meats (sumac lamb shawarma, Joojeh chicken thighs); Sides Etc; and Sweet.
Reservations preferred for larger groups only, strong cocktails, very reasonable prices, shabby chic décor: all very 2017, you might think, but the cooking is timeless.
What to eat: Cauliflower shawarma with pine nuts and pomegranate seeds.
What to drink: The golden house ale with za'atar, sumac and orange zest.
108 GARAGE
108 Golborne Road, W10; 108garage.com
As she's talking us through the day's menu, which includes mackerel with turnip, apple and cheese yoghurt and Wye Valley asparagus with egg yolk and matcha, our waitress at 108 Garage on west London's Golborne Road gives us some advice. Halfway down she stops at the Jacob's ladder with wild hop shoots and secreto tartare. "I'd definitely recommend that bad boy," she tells us. Can a beef short rib really be described as a bad boy? And more to the point, should it? Well yes, it can. This one's a very bad boy indeed.
The word-of-mouth hype surrounding 108 Garage when it opened in January was intense because of the exceptional modern British food, by artist-turned-chef Chris Denney who — amazingly — was recruited on Gumtree.
In fact, the informal setting of bare brick walls, dim lights and bar stools that look like refashioned scaffolding poles belies the quality of the cooking, as do the prices: the £35 five-course set lunch is a certifiable steal.
What to eat: The "bad boy", of course, however Denney's cooking it that day.
What to drink: A generously poured negroni.
PALATINO
71 Central Street, EC1; palatino.london
Does anyone in London go out for Italian any more? Instead, we go for Venetian (Polpo) or Sardinian (Sardo) or Milanese (Il Cudega) or, at Palatino, Roman.
Occupying part of the ground floor of an office block in well heeled Clerkenwell, Palatino — a bracingly minimal space, warmed up by mustard yellow leather seats — is the newest restaurant from prodigious chef Stevie Parle, whose previous hits include Dock Kitchen and Rotorino.
The food of Rome is more robust, stronger, saltier, less polite or instantly accessible than other Italian cuisines, but Parle's kitchen makes a strong claim for its greatness. Start with an appetite-whetting Palatino spritz, work through antipasti (mortadella, ventricina and prosciutto; fried courgette flowers and honey vinegar); primi (the pasta is exceptional, tonnarelli cacio e pepe is as good as any we've tasted); secondi (the pork chop with salsa rossa picante; sea bream with peas, onions and parsley); don't stint on the contorni and leave space for tiramisu.
Ever get that last-days-of-Rome feeling? Here's where you want to spend them.
What to eat: The moreish Bombolotti ragu "Marcella".
What to drink: A Palatino spritz.
JAMES COCHRAN EC3
19 Bevis Marks, EC3; jcochran.restaurant
We're told, at James Cochran EC3, that dishes can arrive in any order, but still there's an element of theatre that the fried chicken comes last — like the new band leaving their hit for the encore.
To be precise, we are waiting for the Jamaican jerk buttermilk chicken with a couple of dots of scotch bonnet jam and coriander. This is a breathlessly hyped dish — "the best fried chicken," wrote Fay Maschler in the Evening Standard — and it's hard to believe that anyone who comes to this odd spot in Aldgate, in the City of London, doesn't order it.
Long before the chicken shows, though, Cochran serves notice of his truly, properly remarkable talent. It's hard not to make him more enigmatic than he probably is, but biographic details are sparse: his heritage is Jamaican-Scottish, apparently, and he's worked mainly at The Ledbury, which has two Michelin stars, and the Harwood Arms, a fancy gastro-pub. He opened James Cochran EC3 after signing up with a service called Appear Here that connects entrepreneurs with empty shops — hence the fact he's ended up in an incongruous, so-uncool-it's-still-not-cool district.
The food really is faultless, though somewhat light on vegetables and almost Atkins extremist in the avoidance of carbs. And the chicken? It's crunchy, salty, maizey, dreamy — you'd have to live a very long way away for this to not be worth the journey.
What to eat: (Apart from the fried chicken) smoked salmon dice treacle-cured and served with whisky and apple jelly and cod's roe.
What to drink: JC's Zombie Mix, featuring house-infused Angostura dark rum, absinthe, grapefruit juice, cinnamon gomme and much more.
KILN
58 Brewer Street, W1; kilnsoho.com
The first thing you notice is the pots. Where other open kitchens flaunt Big Green Eggs and sous-vides, Kiln, opened by Ben Chapman of Smoking Goat fame, goes far more rustic: assorted clay pots filled with embers, over which the bijoux restaurant's excellent Northern Thai street food-influenced dishes are prepared.
Perhaps it's the simplicity of the technology that gives the kitchen an unusually calm, laidback feel. Perhaps it's the confidence that the cooking will speak for itself. Perhaps it's the reggae on the stereo. Whatever, you'll find a particular mellow joy — despite the occasional chilli hit — in baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab meat, or langoustines with kaffir lime and mint.
It's a hotly contested dining spot for walk-ins at dinner, but try mid-week lunchtime, to hang/pig out at your leisure.
What to eat: Slow-grilled chicken and soy appetisers.
What to drink: Perky orange wine, such as Australia's Rainbow Juice 2015.
NEW-NEW OPENINGS
Restaurants pop up in London like pimples on a teen, so a few exciting new ventures evaded our print deadline. Here are six extra-new openings worth checking out:
MONTY'S DELI
227–229 Hoxton Street, N1; montys-deli.com
Mark Ogus's late grandfather, Monty, would be chuffed with what his grandson has achieved in his honour, turning a Maltby Street stall into an East End hotspot serving the best pastrami and salt beef sandwiches gelt can buy.
RED ROOSTER SHOREDITCH
45 Curtain Road, EC2; thecurtain.com
Chef Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster in New York's Harlem is a Swedish soul food sensation, and now he's brought it, and his famous fried chicken, to new hotel complex The Curtain in east London.
WESTERNS LAUNDRY
34 Drayton Park, N5; primeurn5.co.uk
The team behind the excellent Primeur in Highbury have opened a new seafood-focused venture in the shadow of the Emirates Stadium, offering Arsenal fans a refreshing alternative to Tubby's chip van.
MACHIYA
5 Panton Street, SW1; machi-ya.co.uk
Queues at Kanada-Ya ramen joints are deserved, and another quickly formed outside this sister venture off Leicester Square. Light on noodles but heavy on omurice (rice wrapped in an omelette).
XU
30 Rupert Street, W1; baolondon.com
You've bunned out at Bao, now try upmarket Taiwanese cuisine at co-founders Erchen Chang, Shing Tat Chung and Wai Ting Chung's newer — and even hotter — dining establishment.
HENRIETTA
14–15 Henrietta Street, WC2; henriettahotel.com
Ollie Dabbous shuts his eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant this month and opens his next one, at the boutique Henrietta Hotel in Covent Garden. Our belts are loosened and breath bated.
