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‘Tiramisu, medium rare!’ calls our waiter with a wink. He’s dressed in a pale blue shirt, all smiles, and with an Italian accent as thick as guanciale. His colleague, a strapping Sicilian named Valerio, side-eyes him. He’s heard this one before.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon and my sister and I are sitting street-side at Ciao Bella. To our right, a pair of salt-and-pepper businessmen sip espresso and discuss their sons’ impending move to uni. To our left, a kid slurps his Diet Coke, legs swinging beneath the table beside his parents before he sucks on individual strands of spaghetti.
Hungry Londoners have been tucking into overflowing plates of more-is-more Italian cuisine at this bustling Bloomsbury trattoria since 1983. Countless birthdays, first dates and family gatherings have taken place under its blue al-fresco awning, which has stood virtually unchanged for longer than many of its patrons have been alive (us included.)
In the grand scheme of London’s historic dining scene, though, Ciao Bella is still in its infancy. Some of this city’s restaurants are really old. Like, older than the American Constitution kind of old (yes, Wiltons, we’re looking at you and your 1742 birth year). And these ancient eateries are having a resurgence.
Ambling down Thurloe Street in South Kensington, you’ll catch a glimpse of a maroon-painted shopfront and cream-coloured canopy. Daquise has been serving traditional Polish cuisine at the same corner spot since 1947. In a past life, exiled Polish president Edward Raczynski, KGB spy Yevgeny Ivanov and disgraced film director Roman Polanski were among its clientele. Now, its white clothed tables are occupied by a much more TikTok-literate crowd.
Ancient eateries are having a resurgence
Among them is Simona Mezzina. After moving from St Andrews to London in her early 20s, Mezzina was quickly introduced to the restaurant by a Polish friend. She’s been a Daquise stan ever since, even hosting her 26th birthday here. While sour rye soup and chicken schnitzel might seem unlikely temptation for Gen Z tastebuds, for Mezzina Daquise offers ‘something really comforting’.
‘The beauty of it is how unchanged it's remained throughout the years,’ she says. ‘You know that going there, you will always find the same vibes and quality of food and service.’
For those of us who have grown up in an era of Insta-friendly feng shui and selfie-ready bathrooms, the oakwood dining rooms and white-gloved waiters of yore have become a novelty.
Fliss Horrocks, who runs Instagram page @Ode_To_Dated_Restaurants, which pays homage to classic eateries, laments London’s current ‘sea of identikit small-plate restaurants with mood lighting and someone coming to you and saying “hi, is it your first time? I’ll tell you how it works…”.’
‘Come on dude,’ she says, ‘I know how it works – I order food, it comes and I eat it.’
For Gen Zs who grew up in Covid and were ‘starved of any real experience apart from looking at their phone and trying to connect to people’, she says food spots with a history ‘are magical in a way’. In other words, Gen Z diners want authenticity – a quality that the city’s older haunts have in abundance.
Take Sweetings. Having debuted in 1830, the spot is so old school that to this day it only opens for lunch. The bill is still handwritten on a form which includes a section for cigars even though it’s been almost 20 years since you could smoke one tableside. Simpsons in the Strand, which predates Sweetings by a couple of years, is still carting out the shiny silver carving trolley, too. A recent multi-million pound revamp left the building’s original Edwardian fixtures untouched.
Then there’s Oslo Court. Located in an art deco apartment block in St John’s Wood, it’s as much a hub for north-west London’s Jewish community now as it was in the late 1960s when it opened.
‘All of the tables know each other,’ says Lily Millar, whose family has been eating here for six decades. ‘When you’re in there, you’ll turn around and there’ll be a bat mitzvah party for someone you know, and then on another table it’ll be a Jewish couple from Essex celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary.’
Sure, the salmon-coloured napkins and shiny blue carpet probably aren’t aesthetically en vogue, but, having been a constant since the first time she ate there in the noughties, aged five, it’s the memories that keep her coming back.
‘It was my grandparents’ favourite restaurant, unironically,’ she laughs.
So fusty is back in fashion, and it’s just as well. Hospitality sites in the UK closed at a rate of three per day in the first quarter of 2026 alone. We’ve already had to wave a teary goodbye to some of the city’s classic joints this year; Notting Hill’s old-school Italian restaurant Da Maria shuttered in January after 46 years in the game, while St Moritz – an icon of old Soho – closed in June. Without a fresh set of hungry mouths to feed, more and more historic spots would soon be extinct, but Gen Z patronage is helping to keep their Edison bulbs aglow.
What’s not to love about an edible time capsule, anyway? If it was good enough for granny, why not for us too?
Read Time Out’s list of the 50 best restaurants in London.
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