The best new restaurants in London

What is it? A new school Vietnamese with an adamantly no pho menu. 

Why we love it: Lai Rai has local roots (it’s run by the same family as nearby Peckham mainstay Bánh Bánh) but is a snackier, share-ier proposition than its big bowl-proffering sibling. Food here is is fun and flavour-packed: try the slow-braised pork belly pieces, sweet and sticky nugs of crispy, crunchy, and fatty flesh, or papaya jellyfish salad with pellets of juicy pineapple and smooshed tomatoes, all slugged together with peanuts, and a windowbox of fresh Vietnamese herbs.

Time Out tip: Ordering the mussels in coconut and lemongrass broth? Then also get the bahn mi baguette bits, so you can soak your bread in the fragrant liquid until it almost disintegrates. 

Address: 181 Rye Lane, Peckham, SE15 4TP.

Opening hours: Tue 6-10pm, Wed-Thu 12-3pm & 6-10pm, Fri-Sat 12-3pm & 6-10.30pm, Sun 12-3pm & 6-9pm.  

Expect to pay: Small plates £5-15, bigger plates £15-20.

What is it? The second outpost of the Dalston-based Italian-Japanese restaurant.

Why we love it: Because it’s absolutely, hands-down brilliant. A thoughtful rethinking of the OG comes with an entirely different menu, though the care, quality and spirit of the original outpost remain. Don’t skimp on the crudo, which is delectable and pasta-wise, you’re going to want to go for the tortellini, which was all fresh truffle and kelp. The big boys deserve a taste too; ox tongue with wasabi was gorgeously gamey, and went down a treat with a superb side of greens, suffocating in parmesan. 

Time Out tip: Avoid ordering the charcoal-coloured sesame cheesecake, which was so dense it could have stopped a door, but the chilli sorbet, served with fresh grapes and blueberries, danced on the tongue with a serious kick.

Address: 1 Nicholls & Clarke Yard, (Off Blossom St), Spitalfields,
E1 6SH.

Opening hours: Lunch Tue-Fri 12.15.2.30pm, Sat-Sun 12-3pm. Dinner Tue-Wed 5.15-9.30pm, Thu-Sat 5.15-10.30pm, Sun 5.15-9.30pm.

Expect to pay: Starters, salads and crudo £4-18, pasta £10-22, grill dishes £14-20, sharing dishes £30-90.

What is it? A glam, gallery-style space for posh seasonal food.

Why we love it: South Ken has been waiting for something like The Lavery for years. Bored of Profumo roleplay at Daquise? Then head to this grand Georgian townhouse in the shadow of the Natural History Museum for super seasonal, furiously fresh Med-inspired plates from former Toklas head chef Yohei Furuhashi. Miss, at your peril, the asparagus slathered with decadent fonduta.

Time Out tip: Cocktails are a strong point, we enjoyed a highly potent grapefruit daiquiri.

Address: 4 Cromwell Pl, South Kensington, SW7 2JE.

Opening hours: Tue-Sat 12-3.30pm & 5.30-11pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £6-21, mains £24-34. 

What is it? A sleek Ukranian joint.

Why we love it: Tatar Bunar is a very nice place for a meal and amid a Ukrainian food boom in London, things here feel exciting. Better still, prices here are genuinely reasonable, the food rich and decadent, and the portions generous. Get the pickled cherry tomatoes on a bed of lemon yoghurt with lamb chops that are deeply smoky and tender. The cheburek, a deep-fried pastry filled with tender minced lamb, is similar to Turkish börek, and the perfect crispy, puffy vessel for sour cream and ajika, a spicy, red peppery chill sauce.

Time Out tip: The lamb and beef tartare is the best thing on the menu, served in a whopping great wooden bowl with soft onion bread and sprats mayo

Address: 152 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, EC2A 3AT.

Opening hours: Mon 5-10pm, Tue-Fri 5-10.30pm, Sat 12-3.30pm & 5-10.30pm, Sun 12-3.30pm & 5-10pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £9-18, mains £17-31, dessert £9-11.

What is it? London’s most-loved Thai restaurant has relocated to Shoreditch.

Why we love it: For anyone who managed to score a booking at the Leytonstone original, the move is surreal. The new location sits under a railway arch and is a fresh, pared-back space with a stainless steel bar. Singburi 2.0 will be navigating a balancing act of nostalgia and renewal for a while. Some cult dishes haven’t made the jump. There’s no moo krob, salted fish rice, or stir-fried clams yet. But those that have been revamped feel even more accomplished; the fiery yet refreshing watermelon salad now stars peak-season strawberries. Lamb short rib is a revelation, as it their take on nam tok, where wobbly smoked pork belly is offset by nutty roasted rice powder.

Time Out tip: There’s still no dessert, but there is a wine list full of funky naturals, and cocktail menu. Try the lemongrass-infused paloma.

Address: Unit 7, Montacute Yards, 185‑186 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6HU.

Opening hours: Tue-Sat 12-3pm & 6-10.30pm, Sun 12-3pm & 6-10pm.

Expect to pay: Dishes £8-22.

What is it? The first standalone parlour for the Pembury Tavern’s resident pizza people.

Why we love it: Ace Pizza is good, old fashioned fun. On a sticky summer’s evening, the simple primrose and terracotta-shaded storefront is popping off. There are gangs of pals tearing into pizzas and pints, and sunburned couples bickering while queuing for collection. Ace Pizza does a good job of breaking up the undeniable smugness of Victoria Park Village with its uber-casual attitude, making for a great distraction-free zone dedicated to the business of eating pizza and getting a hot-honey margarita buzz on with friends. 

Time Out tip: Order the crispy fried artichokes, which are soft and yielding inside, but taut and tough on the outside, like a hardboiled 1940s gumshoe with a heart of gold. The Philip Marlowe of small plates.

Address: 128 Lauriston Road, Victoria Park, E9 7LH.

Opening hours: Tue-Wed 5-10.30pm, Thu 12-10.30pm, Fri-Sat 12-11pm, Sun 12-9.30pm.

Expect to pay: Pizzas £11.50-16.

What is it? A Victorian boozer that has found its final form; a southern Italian gastropub of sorts.

Why we love it: At once shabby and welcoming, there are cosy booths, naughty nooks and one long table for family-style dining at Elephant. Ex-Manteca chef Francesco Sarvonio cooks up seabass crudo, beef tonnato, hearty platters of ziti genovese ragu, and sublimely salty and crisp-edged rib eye steak? There are Neapolitan pizzas too, and short and potent cocktails and great Italian wine courtesy of Old Street pros Passione Vino. 

Time Out tip: Proof of their generous hospitality, kids eat free at Elephant.  

Address: 43 Lower Clapton Road, Lower Clapton, E5 0NS.

Opening hours: Wed 5-11pm, Thu 5pm-midnight, Fri 12pm-1am, Sat 12-3pm & 5pm-1am, Sun 12-10pm.

Expect to pay: Small plates £7-15, primi and secondi £14-29, pizza £12-16. 

What is it? A Roman-inspired trattoria in Highbury.

Why we love it: Lupa not only promises ‘Roman comfort food’, but the slim chance of catching sight of its Very Handsome co-founder, the actor Theo James. In the kitchen is the extremely capable Naz Hassan, who we last encountered during his tenure as head chef of the much-missed Pidgin. Try the deep fried courgette flower, stuffed with smooshy burrata, then draped with a fat anchovy. This isn’t a delicate menu of rural farm fare, but a ballsy offering of big, bold food, heavy with hearty guanciale that’s so salty it could feasibly replace the body of lost electrolytes during a heatwave. The carbonara is, quite frankly, insane. 

Time Out tip: Be bold and order the courageously savoury peach tart for pudding. Thinly sliced fruit on a bed of ricotta, it’s ‘giving spanakopita’, and somehow gets away with it. 

Address: 73 Highbury Park, Highbury, N5 1UA.

Opening hours: Wed-Fri 5.30-11pm, Sat 12-11pm, Sun 12-10pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £4.50-14, pasta around £15, secondi £16-19. 

What is it? A friendly, fun addition to the Camberwell Riveria of dining.

Why we love it: Their name might sound like a brand that makes hemp dungarees for toddlers, but Hello JoJo is a banging new south London bistro. Come for deftly whipped goat’s curd topped with a pool of luminous celery splodge, and a bunny chow doughnut, Hello JoJo’s confectionary-adjacent take on the savory South African street food. There’s something faintly medieval about the food here, with the feudalism and foraging-worthy likes of borage, loveage and ramsons dotted across the menu, but the fried potato and smoked cheese dumplings are rather more modern, tasting simultaneously like a midnight Maccy Ds and a dainty weekend in Provence. Lots of laughs.

Time Out tip: There are plans for the restaurant to soon open during the day for breakfast bakes. Keep an eye out.

Address: 31 Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, SE5 8TR.

Opening hours: Tue-Sat 6-11pm, Sun 12-5pm. 

Expect to pay: Snacks £4-5, small plates £8-10, big plates £13-25.

What is it? A surf and turf joint venture from Michelin star chefs Tom Brown and Brad Carter,

Why we love it: Vegetarians, you may as well stop reading now: there is nothing for you here. If the idea of surf and turf brings about memories of lunch at the local Harvester, then Brown and Carter have taken the old school concept and given it a thoroughly modern makeover. There are sumac mignonette oysters, beef tartare with prawn crackers that taste like massive Skips. Chicken wings are filled with prawn mousse and squid is stuffed with sobrasada sausage. A lot of fun. 

Time Out tip: Malibu and pineapple soft serve is akin to a rum and raisin ice cream with a fake ID. With raisins soaked in the coconutty booze so beloved of teenage drinkers, it’s nostalgic in the most specific of ways.

Address: Mare Street Market, Lewis Cubitt Square, N1C 4DY

Opening hours: Wed-Sat 5.30-11pm, Sun 12-4pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £12-26, mains £24-£70 for the sharing grill. 

What is it? A waterside west London bistro from the same team as the really very good Bistro Freddie.

Why we love it: The location is immaculate, with an outdoor terrace and glossy chrome tables and putty-coloured plaster walls inside. The staff too, may also be the best dressed in London, in baggy denim slacks and matching gilets designed by eternal cool guy Nicholas Daley. The chef too, has everything going for him. Some dishes by New York-born Adrian Hernandez reach the giddy heights of Bistro Freddie perfection. Mangalitza sausage, bream crudo with cherries, and honeydew melon with speck. Others need a little work, but Canal is basically a great restaurant, it just needs to remember to act like one. 

Time Out tip: Cocktails are made in collaboration with A Bar with Shapes for a Name. Ignore the overly sweet raspberry gimlet and go for the savoury olive oil negroni. 

Address: 11b Woodfield Road, Westbourne Park, W9 2BA.

Opening hours: Daily 12-10pm.

Expect to pay: Small plates £5-18, large plates £19-90 (for a sharing rib eye steak). 

What is it? A casual curry house. 

Why we love it: From the gang behind Tamil Prince and Tamil Crown comes this Tamila. Without the loveable musk of an ex-pub, the space is much airier and restaurant-y, while the service is sharper and more attentive. Onion bhajis are as good as they get, as are the loaded chilli cheese dosa and  masala dosa. Centrepiece dishes are of the tandoori and curry persuasion. And the roti? Supremely fluffy, a mighty and worthy signature dish.

Time Out tip: Try and get an upstairs table. Not only do you get to sneak a peek into the kitchen, but Cally Road buzzing by only makes Tamila feel more intimate.

Address: 8 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, N1 9DU.

Opening hours: Mon-Sat 12-10pm. 

Expect to pay: Snacks £7-14, dosas £9-12, curries £10-14.

What is it? A Michelin star-scoring Thai restaurant with British roots.

Why we love it: John Chantarasak honed his craft in the kitchen at Som Saa and, like AngloThai, is half Thai and half British. Here, he reimagines some of Thailand’s most celebrated dishes using mystical-sounding, Tolkien-adjacent UK ingredients to mimic Thai food’s puckering sour notes. Try Carlingford oysters swimming in a vivid pool of fermented chilli and galangal, grilled flatbread slathered with shrimp butter, and Hebridean hogget in warm and fiery massaman curry topped with discs of gleaming black fig.

Time Out tip: Order a glass of Aubretia, the aromatic Austrian house white.

Address: 22-24 Seymour Place, Marylebone, W1H 7NL.

Opening hours: Tue 5.30-10pm, Wed-Sat 12-2.30pm & 5.30-11pm.

Expect to pay: Lunch tasting menu is £65, and dinner tasting menu is £125. There’s a £95 drinks pairing in the evening.

What is it? An Irish-ish diner by the canal towpath in Hackney Wick.

Why we love it: With seating for 50 out front, but also a big, grand room for those who don’t feel like an al fresco dinner before summer truly kicks in. Offering a warm, neighbourly embrace, as well as Irish-ish food, we enjoyed a raucous starter of potato scallops (aka, massive thick cut wedges halfway between crisps and chips) accessorised with a pot of creamy curry sauce. Neater, but no less delightful, was an impish slice of winter tomato and anchovy toast; tangy, salty and pretty enough to frame. Grilled prawns, kicking back like burly, sunbathing jocks in a bowl of luminous, chill-flecked bisque, were more Med than Meath, but when the cookery is this classy, who cares?

Time Out tip: All all-day spot, Inis opens at 8am, perfect for a canal-side coffee and spot of breakfast.

Address: 13 Rookwood Way, Fish Island, E3 2XT.

Opening hours: Wed-Fri 8am-11pm, Sat 8-11.30am & 1-11pm, Sun 8-11.30am & 1-6pm. 

Expect to pay: Breakfast £4-16, dinner starters £6-16, mains £19-29.

What is it? A super swanky Chinese-Japanese fusion restaurant on the top, 28th floor of the London Hilton on Park Lane.

Why we love it: If you want to get a sense of the sort of person you’ll see at Shanghai Me, then consider this: there was a 12-year-old boy behind us wearing a Maison Margiela t-shirt. There was a desire to be cynical about Shanghai Me, but it’s actually fun. The interiors are surprisingly tasteful and the menu extensive. All the stars are here; wagyu dim sum, cod and miso, black truffle yellowtail, tuna tataki, chicken xiao long bao, broccoli in oyster sauce and prawn fried rice. If you’re going for a silly, opulent date night to rub shoulders with London’s anonymous elite, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this. 

Time Out tip: Request a seat by the window. Our view was punctuated magically by the fireworks from Wembley Stadium at the end of an Oasis concert.

Address: 28th Floor, London Hilton on Park Lane, 22 Park Lane, W1K 1BE.

Opening hours: Sun-Thu 12-11pm, Fri-Sat 12-11.30pm. 

Expect to pay: Signature dishes £28-98, small plates £6-42, salads £16-36, sushi £22-78, duck and meat dishes £28-135, seafood £28-90, noodles and rice £10-42.

What is it? A diner from the good people of Mondo Sando.

Why we love it: This Camberwell luncheonette is great for grabbing a sandwich, but also a place to linger, to drink, and have fun without being trapped by the fanciness and fastidiousness of a Proper Restaurant. Somewhere in-between classic American diner and British greasy spoon – with a touch of NYC deli thrown in for good measure – Cafe Mondo might seem like a casual place, but the food is anything but. Try the patty melt and an MSG martini and thank us later.

Time Out tip: The evening drinks menu is excellent; mini martinis, well-priced wine, pints of Murphy’s, Bailey’s slushies, Turkish soft drink Uludağ Gazoz or a ‘Camberwell handshake’ aka a can of Red Stripe and a shot of tequila. 

Address: 42 Peckham Road, Camberwell, SE5 8PX. 

Opening hours: Wed 12-4pm, Thu-Sat 12-11pm, Sun 12-4pm. 

Expect to pay: Lunchtime sarnies around £10, evening plates £10-15. 

What is it? The Most Controversial Restaurant in London™.

Why we love it: This weekday-only, lunchtime-only, cash-only bistro is pitched somewhere between a French village luncheonette and an interwar Lyons teashop. Belfastian chef Hugh Corcoran is behind an Irish and French-leaning menu ripe for a Beatrix Potter book; all crisp radishes, asparagus in butter and stewed mustard rabbit. As infuriating as it is delicious. 

Time Out tip: It’s cash only, so bring some. There’s a Tesco with an ATM across the street if you forget. 

Address: 20 Caledonian Road, King’s Cross, N1 9DU. 

Opening hours: Mon-Fri; sittings at 12pm and 2pm. 

Expect to pay: Starters £9-16, mains £20-28, cheeseplate £16.

What is it? A marvellous Med-inspired menu in a sweet, countryside worthy Chelsea space.

Why we love it: In the kitchen of this cottage-core ready restaurant is Aaron Potter, heading up his first solo project following stints as executive chef at west London Italian Maria G’s and head chef at the Michelin-starred Elystan Street. Despite the Cotswolds-ian look of the place, the food is decidedly European, with a casual, non-denominational Mediterranean thing going on. Order sizzling hot moules farcies with garlic and parsley butter, grilled mackerel and sardine bruschetta, and cuttlefish and octopus fideua.

Time Out tip: Looking for a more casual evening? Go upstairs for the breezy, indoor-outdoor al fresco bar with its very own pintxos menu.

Address: Newson's Yard, 57 Pimlico Rd, Chelsea, SW1W 8NE.

Opening hours: Tue-Sat 10am-11pm, Sun 12-4pm, Mon 12-11pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £12-21, mains £35-40. Set dinner menu is £75 a head, and served family-style.

What is it? An unlimited lasagna restaurant. You heard. 

Why we love it: An Italian-American restaurant right out of a Billy Joel song, Senza Fondo translates to ‘bottomless’ and that’s what they’re here to do - serve you lasagna until you pass out/admit defeat/call an ambulance - all for £20. But for all its TikTok-friendly flair, what’s really enjoyable about Senza Fondo is the fact that everyone here is really, truly having a laugh. There’s a live piano man in the corner busting out Daydream Believer, (Sitting On) the Dock of the Bay, and Moondance, and chatter is at a level best described as ‘unbridled’. On our visit someone was even wearing a shiny pink party hat. Bottomless lasagna might not be for everyone, but a good-time vibe like this surely is.

Time Out tip: To make the most of the lasagna offering, avoid any and all starters and commit to shoveling at least three helpings of lasagna in your face.

Address: 1 Rufus Street, Shoreditch, N1 6PE.

Opening hours: Tue-Thu 5.30pm-midnight, Fri-Sat 12.30-2.30pm & 5.30pm-midnight, Sun 12-9pm.

Expect to pay: Starters £4-12, pastas £17-19, bottomless lasagna £20 per person.

What is it? The latest kitchen residency at The Compton Arms.

Why we love it: In essence, this is ruddy-faced British gentleman food, rethought for people who don’t own a cottage in the Cotswolds or even a Barbour jacket. Here, the spectre of St John is strong, with the likes of salsify and scotch broth, and bawdy devilled duck hearts on St George’s toast seeming straight from the Fergus Henderson playbook. But rather than ostentatious ‘I-dare-you-to-eat-that’ whole beast butchery, Rake’s approach to meat is more earthy and pagan. Order the ray wing tenders; sweet, juicy and crunchy buttresses of fish, served on a medieval-looking crumpet.

Time Out tip: The deep fried cockles and clams on skewers are the best pub snack we have ever encountered. Salty and vinegar-y and a bit like licking the edge of the ocean. 

Address: 4 Compton Avenue, Highbury, N1 2XD. 

Opening hours: Kitchen open Wed-Sun.

Expect to pay: Starters around £8, mains up to £20.