Leonie Cooper

Happy hours in London come in all shapes and sizes. Some are in hidden backstreet boozers, some in posh restraurants, some in classy cocktail bars, and some in tasty little breweries and taprooms. Others start early, others kick off late. What all the happy hours on this list have in common though are decent prices at surprisingly decent locations, and – of course – some excellent drinks. After all, we have some of the best drinking establishments on the planet. We’ve pulled together a list of our favourite happy hours in London right now. These lot make it cheap and easy to get marvelously merry every single day of the week. So follow our lead and save yourself some money while having a good time.  RECOMMENDED: Here are the 50 best pubs in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Fancy a drink? You’ve come to the right place. This is Time Out’s list of best bars in London, our curated guide to London’s drinking scene, which features the greatest bars in the capital right now. These are the places we’d recommend to a friend, because we love drinking in them and have done many times over. From classy cocktail counters to delightful dives, sleek hotel bars, rooftop bars and places to sip wine, London’s got them all. You’ll find historic drinking holes here as well as brand new openings. But what makes a truly good bar? Our critieria is simple; a menu of great drinks is important, but so is the overall vibe – there’s no point having the perfect paloma if you have to drink it in a bar that smells of bin juice. To make it into our Top 50, a bar has to be fun, friendly, convivial and inclusive, as well as looking (and tasting) the part.  The best bars in London at a glance: 🍸 Best cocktail bar: Waltz, Shoreditch  🍻 Best dive bar: Big John’s Biltong Bar, Deptford 🍷 Best wine bar: Bonne Route, Harringey 🎶 Best new bar: Tramps, Islington  🍹 Best neighbourhood bar: Ellie’s, Dalston July 2025: Congrats to the newly-opened bars that have made the immediate jump into our hallowed Top 50, such as Ellie's – a lowkey Dalston cocktail bar recently anointed by Charli XCX, who chose it for the site of her wedding afterparty and wine pub Godet. They sit alongside some true London classics which have returned to this list due to their outstanding excellence and une

July 2026: If you fancy a theme to your bottomless brunching, then try 411's Cowgirls & Cocktails brunch in Angel, where donning a cowboy hat as you sink endless booze is actively enocouraged. Or if the summer calls for sangria, then head to old school tapas joint El Pirata in Mayfair.  Bottomless brunch. These words strike excitement – and also a slight sting of fear– into our hearts. The endless quaffing of wine, cocktails and/or fizz, usually within a 90 minute time limit, and some hearty breakfast foods seems like the perfect backdrop to catching up with mates on a weekend. Simply bash your cash down and let the London restaurant of your choosing do the rest. Will you get drunk? Most likely. Will you be so full of food that you may explode? Also possible. Are you in? Yes, of course you are. In London, you’ll find bottomless bubbles and bloody marys, as well as options with wine, beer and cocktails. The food doesn’t have to be straightforward breakfast stuff either. Brunch can be anything from bao to barbecue and sushi. Time to go hard then go home. All that sounds a bit too much? You could just stick to regular old brunch. RECOMMENDED: Find more great breakfasts in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

It’s the neighbourhood where all the cool kids go out to play, so it’s hardly surprising that you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to drinking options in Hackney. Cocktail bars are cutting edge, but in a way that’s not too try-hard. Wine bars bring high-end vino down to earth. And some of the country’s best breweries are found in the area, with hip, hop-heavy taprooms for the beer-loving public to explore, as well as two of London's most hedonistic heavy metal dive bars. Browse through our list of the area’s best bars for boozing inspiration come day or night thoughout Hackney – including Stoke Newington, London Fields, Bethnal Green, and Hackney Wick. If you're hungry, here are Hackney's best restaurants. And if you’re looking for the best bars in Dalston, there are so many there’s another list dedicated entirely to them.  The best bars in Hackney at a glance: 🍻 The best dive bar: Blondies 🍸 The best place for a cheap martini: Rasputin’s 🥃 The best spot for whisky: The Natural Philosopher ⏰ The best place for a very late drink (until 4am): A Bar With Shapes For A Name 💀 The best heavy metal bar: Helgi’s RECOMMENDED: Try out the very best bars in London.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor, and has done far more than her fair share of drinking in Hackney. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

London is a great place to get a cocktail, but knowing where to look can be daunting - there is far too much choice. This is where our extremely helpful list of London’s best cocktail bars comes in handy. Here you’ll find everything from fancy hotel spots to secret-ish speakeasy-style bars, as well as party palaces and hidden basements. What they all have in common is drinks that will impress. The best London cocktail bars at a glance: 🍸 Best for a martini: The Connaught Bar, Mayfair 🍊 Best for a negroni: Bar Termini, Soho 🧂 Best for a margarita: Satan’s Whiskers, Bethnal Green Some of these joints stick loyally to the classics, while others experiment to create some of the most wildly original cocktails around. Umbrella Workshop in Shoreditch is a test kitchen for creative cocktails which we really should gatekeep but are feeling far too generous to do so. Either way, you’re guaranteed incredible drinks and a great atmosphere, whichever bar you choose from our curated list of London’s best places to sink cocktails.  Want something a little less swanky? Here are the best pubs in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

July 2026: Soho remains London’s best place to spend a evening. Soho’s pubs are unmatched and have been around for decades, but the area’s bar scene is a little more dynamic. So as well as old faves such as Bar Termini, The Social, Bar Italia and Garlic & Shots, our list of the area’s best bars includes some newer openings, including chic cocktail bar Three Sheets, Italian hideaway Bar Lina, the ever-entertaining Stormzy's House Party and Below Stone Nest.   For centuries, Soho has been London’s playground: packed with spots for boozing, carousing, and soaking up the best of the city after dark. And even though it’s largely cleaned up its once-sleazy reputation, it’s still packed with fine drinking spots, from moody basements to high-end cocktail bars. Whether you join the crowds hopping up and down its network of streets or settle in for the duration, you’re guaranteed a brilliant, boozy night out in Soho and neighbouring Chinatown. Word to the wise: you might want to line your stomach at one of Soho’s best restaurants. Now head to the heart of the West End to make sure you don’t miss a thing. RECOMMENDED: These are London’s very best bars. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor, and you’ll probably find her at Trisha’s. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

July 2026: This list highlights some of London's latest and most intriguing afternoon sarnie sessions. Indulge at a themed tea, such as Fortnum & Mason's current Winnie The Pooh-inspired offering to celebrate a century of the beloved bear or a Monet-inspired tea at Rosewood London in Holborn. You could also embrace the sun and channel some English country cottage energy at Petersham Nurseries over in Richmond. London’s best afternoon teas at a glance: 👛 Best value: The Wolseley, Piccadilly  💸 Best for splashing out: Palm Court at The Ritz, Mayfair 💃 Best for a modern take on tea: London By Lily Vanilli at Four Seasons Tower Bridge, Tower Bridge 🌷 Best for tea in a greenhouse: Petersham Nurseries, Richmond  Afternoon tea is what makes a trip to London truly iconic – even if you already live here. You’ll find some of the best at London’s chicest hotels and restaurants, and even art galleries and theatres. We’ve worked out what makes an afternoon tea a truly memorable (and delicious) experience. It’s not just perfect pastries, the most elegant of teeny tiny cakes and chic little sarnies with the crusts cut off, but swish service, the option to have something boozy and bubbly and a characterful room in which to enjoy it all. From The Ritz to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, there’s truly something for every cake-munching tea-drinker in this round-up of London’s best afternoon tea spreads.  Expect to pay in the region of £50 to £100 for the pleasure per person, but you’ll be i

The smog and stress of London can really take its toll on your skin. That’s why there’s nothing better than a regular facial (or a one-off treat) to give you that much-needed top-up, leaving you feeling glowing, fresh-faced and dewy.  Just thinking about what we put our skin through is enough to give you frown lines. That’s thanks to the combined efforts of pollution and air-conditioned offices, as well as the added bonuses of harsh weather, booze, sun exposure, dehydration and – our least favourite – the inevitable passing of time. Happily, there are loads of great spas, treatment rooms and estheticians in London who can give your face a break and a much-needed zhuzh. Whether you’re after a relaxing, soothing facial massage, some instant radiance, a total skincare overhaul or something a little more intense such as microneedling or laser treatment, read our pick of facials in London.  RECOMMENDED: The best spas in London. 

July 2026: There's a brand new Number 1, with the exceptional Impala in Soho taking the top spot as our favourite new restaurant in London. Other fresh additions include Auguste and Teal in London Fields, Jackson Boxer's Vesper in Clerkenwell, All Roads in Brixton, Bar Etna in Newington Green and the nearby Golden Tooth gastropub, as well as a sensational supper club at Haggerston cafe, Logma. Hungry yet? Every week, a frankly silly amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked in order of greatness and deliciousness. All of them have opened over the past 12 months and been visited by our hungry critics. So go forth and take inspo from this list, which is updated regularly. Check in often to find out what we really rate on the London restaurant scene. And look here for all the info about the best new openings in August 2026. London's best new restaurants at a glance: 🥩 Central: Impala, Soho 🍷 North: The Golden Tooth, Newington Green 🦐 South: The Victory, East Dulwich 🍝 East: Holy Carrot, Spitalfields 🥗 West: Maai by Nikita, Fulham Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. RECOMMENDED: The 50 best restaurants in London. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all o

Updated July 2026: Welcome to our new ranking of the Top 50 restaurants in London for the year. Every summer we give this legendary list a thorough makeover and announce a brand new Number 1, and that’s what we did last month. This is a snapshot of where London dining is at right now; a city of global flavours, hilariously varying budgets and some of the best food you’ve ever eaten. We’re extremely proud of what this city has to offer and especially pleased to crown Camille in Borough Market as the Best London Restaurant of 2026.  Best Restaurants in London: Our Critics’ Picks: ⭐ Best Michelin-star restaurant: St John, Clerkenwell - a London institution and inspiration for pretty much every great modern restaurant you’ve ever eaten at. 👛 Best affordable restaurant: Lanzhou Lamian Noodle Bar, Covent Garden - late-night noodles at a great price. 🥦 Best vegetarian restaurant: Holy Carrot, Spitalfields - a lively bistro with inventive plant-based dishes.  🍝 Best Italian restaurant: Tiella, Bethnal Green - a new school trattoria with old school energy. 🍻 Best gastropub: The Golden Tooth, Green Lanes - a proper pub with proper food. Order the stargazy pie.  London doesn’t stand still and neither do we. We’re constantly adding new restaurants to the list and taking away ones that no longer make the grade. From freshly starred fine-dining rooms and hidden gems to neighbourhood favourites, these are the 50 restaurants we think you need to be eating out at in London right now. M

Find the right London Irish pub and you’ll be forgiven for thinking you’re in the heart of Dublin – perfectly poured pints of Guinness included. These London pubs will whisk you away to the Emerald Isle, and are perfect places to spend St Patrick’s Day on March 17. They’re also pretty brilliant the rest of the year, too, and we’ve picked the best of the bunch, largely old-school boozers honouring Gaelic traditions. At some, you’ll find the country’s music, food and even dancing; at others, you’ll be served tasty Thai food. So get stuck into the craic: here’s a round-up of the best Irish pubs and bars in London. RECOMMENDED: London's best gastropubs.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Year round, London’s restaurants and breweries are ablaze with barbecues and smokey, live-fire cookery. Here’s our selection of the best grills the capital has to offer including street food hot spots as well as taproom pop-ups. Here you’ll find everything from Jamaican jerk and Scandi-style wood-fired cookery to Texas platters and Korean BBQ. Want to DIY during the summer? Then here’s a list of the London parks that will let you set up your very own grill. RECOMMENDED: A guide to the best fried chicken in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. 

We’re already huge fans of Hausu, the sassy restaurant inside the former waiting room of Peckham Rye station, with its Victorian tiled loos, complete with original wartime posters about venereal disease. Frankly, the lavs are worth the visit on their own. But now there’s yet another reason to check this place out. Venture up the enticing, mahogany-clad staircase and you’ll also find a beguiling cocktail bar, with inventive drinks, moreish bar snacks and giant vaulted windows from which to gaze upon the building of Peckham’s new public square. Inside it’s a simple but potent set-up; original brick walls are offset by flutteringly sexy red curtains, vintage 1970s classroom chairs, beige walls lined with vinyl and some largely unobtrusive decks in a corner. Yes, it’s another ‘listening bar’, but in this case, it just means you’ll likely hear some very good music (anything from Studio One reggae to winsome folk), which is what all bars should be aiming for, really. Salted daterini tomato martini is a light and elegantly savoury take on the most hyped cocktail around, while the fennel negroni is sweeter than you’d think, offering an ouzo-adjacent burst of aniseed and a pineapple sidecar hums with cognac and a fruity shrub.  Order this  The fennel negroni is barely a negroni at all (which is why I like it). Don’t forget the bar snacks, as these cocktails are potent. Oysters, topped with house hot sauce and lime leaf, are almost a meal in themselves, and on a warm day, sunsweet melo

Kumori is a classy place. A flimsy fabric sheet dances in the breeze of their (very good) aircon above a long granite counter, while the rest of this elegant dreamspace is bathed in a hazy purple light. It feels more like an expensive spa than a restaurant, but we’re quickly reminded it’s time for lunch rather than a facial as we’re handed a tick-box menu and a tiny pencil. Like Bao - and 1990s bookies - before it, you can indulge in Battleships-style menu marking before handing it over to your charming server. That’s when the true theatre begins.  There’s no denying the precision of this superior sushi joint Nominally a handroll bar (but there’s some torched nigiri and various sides, too), at Kumori you can opt for a set menu of three to five handrolls, or choose your own adventure with an a la carte option. Whatever you do, make sure you order what we’re boldly calling ‘the best of the handrolls’; spicy tuna wrapped in Kumori’s custom- made nori and placed on perfectly seasoned rice and laced with surprise crunchy bits. It is divine. The spiciness is more about hearty flavour than brainblasting heat, and were there not a whole range of other options to try, we would have totally ordered another one. The unagi and foie gras option is sweet and creamy, while yellowtail kosho offers a floral hit of fragrance. Baked crab in a pale soy wrapper might have been a little too sweet for us and the wrapper a little too beige, but there’s no denying the precision of this superior sush

Tavern has a lot going for it. There’s the marvellously warren-like dining room with airy, high ceilings, crisp clapperboard walls and stunning Victorian floor tiles that were already in place back when Tavern was Nest. Nest was a British restaurant with a reasonably priced tasting menu and a fixation on foraging. It was good, really good, but punters aren’t really doing tasting menus anymore, or at least they weren’t at Nest, so a fresh approach was needed.  Better still is a juicy pork and cuttlefish sausage A swift revamp and Tavern has appeared in Nest’s place. It’s still run by the same team (who are also behind the excellent Restaurant St Barts), but with the new name comes new branding, a stylistic revamp which suggests a kind of hard-edged, Dark Ages whimsy. The font that bears the restaurant’s name is aggressively gothic, their online presence is replete with chubby lairds drinking from bladders of mead, ragged sheepskins are casually tossed about the place and pewter tankards are used for serving shards of puffed pig skin to dip in a filthy little pot of moodily smoked cod’s roe. But this is where the medieval comparison ends, with Tavern’s menu less feudal chic and more contemporary global fusion with a side order of quirk. The best dishes at Tavern are impeccable. The ‘chunion puff’ is a tennis ball sized offering of choux pastry stuffed with creamy confit onion and cheesy custard before being showered in fluffy parmesan snow. It is a divine and decadent delight.

The founder of Hackney vegan restaurant Facing Heaven and adjacent dive bar Easy 8 has branched out into all-day dining with this spot inspired by the food and restaurants of LA’s vast and varied immigrant communities. ‘As Mexican, Jewish, Greek, and Japanese enclaves popped up all over Southern California,’ says California-raised Julian Denis, ‘so developed a movement of family-run, DIY eateries that became neighbourhood focal points and second homes for many people growing up in these communities, just as they did for me’. It’s open for breakfast on the weekends (come for breakfast burritos and chilaquiles) and for dinner Wednesday through to Sunday, where you can land crab tostada, patty melts and pastrami dip sandwiches.

Zylia’s high ceilings and bashed brick walls belong to another time. Tacked onto the side of the shiny new Arcade food hall in Covent Garden, this Renaissance-style pile was built in the 1870s as a department store. The room retains its historic grandeur, even if attempts have been made to convert it into a low-key taverna, complete with white-washed walls, a rash of rafia, stoneware urns, dried flowers and a breezy Mediterranean energy, not to mention the buzzy clatter from a packed room of eager diners.  Kaimaki ice cream hums with earthy mastic Zylia is the latest from former Kiln head chef and current co-owner of Singburi Nick Molyviatis and restaurateur Barry Karacostas. The former was raised in Athens and the latter is of Cypriot heritage; Zylia is their attempt to marry the two cuisines in a splashy central London location. Both nations are present in the bread basket, with grilled and oiled Cypriot bread and Greek pita puckered with oregano. An enticingly textured (lumpy but good lumpy) spicy feta and yoghurt dip with an undercurrent of roasted chilli is perfect for piling onto both, as is smokey coal roasted aubergine with sweet peppers, which is so elegantly plated it resembles a posh ceviche. Bouncy fried balls of Greek metsovone cheese are crunchy and glistening on the outside and stringy and pliable on the inside. A drizzle of thyme honey adds a touch of elegance to what are essentially high-end party snacks. Next; wild prawn saganaki (referring to cooking in a

Open daily from 9am, swing by this cosy courtyard location from St John for breakfast, small plates lunches and dinners, as well as lots of wine and bakery goods sold to take-away. 

While everyone was eagerly awaiting the re-launch of cult Kings Cross boozer McGlynn’s by surprise new owners - acclaimed artist Peter Doig and his gallerist partner Parinaz Mogadassi - the chic pair have covertly opened the best new bar in London.  The drinks offering is deft, impressive and nonchalant Just behind the eerie 24-hour McDonald’s on City Road, in a municipal room that used to be Doig’s studio, you’ll find Tramps Bar. A white-cube space next to the Victoria Miro gallery, it’s fittingly minimal, with an A4 sheet tacked to the heavy door with the bar’s name scribbled in felt tip, seemingly by a five-year-old. Inside there are just a few splashy, modern canvases on the walls and a knotted rug bearing the Tramps logo (Tramps is also the name of Mogadassi’s roving gallery) behind a curvy, freestanding vintage bar. Most imposing of all, are the room’s two mammoth-sized speakers, which allegedly once belonged to Florian Schneider of German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk. DJs occasionally crop up, with the likes of Nabihah Iqbal getting behind the decks, but on our visit, staff had selected a soothing dub playlist.  The drinks offering is deft, impressive and nonchalant. On a weekly changing A4-paper menu you’ll find house martinis, alongside an ‘Arnoldo’ - a tequila-spiked Arnold Palmer, a vermouth and soda with a gilda on the side, as well as wines starting at £9 a glass. Perch yourself on one of the five round tables, at the handful of seats up against the bar or on one

Tucked away in peak dreamy Somerset countryside, this painstakingly handbuilt cabin is the perfect semi-off grid getaway. You’d never know you were essentially down the back of someone’s garden (well, down the back of someone’s orchard) when ensconced in this surprisingly spacious and ultra romantic two bedroom retreat. Douglas fir cladding, hand-woven hazel panels, an oak and maple kitchen and a locally-fabricated fire pit all add to the artisan energy pulsing through this homely retreat in the village of Kingsbury Episcopi on the Somerset Levels.  What’s it like inside Craftsman’s Cabin?  This handbuilt cabin is surprisingly sturdy. It comes complete with a wraparound deck and an outdoor table for al fresco dining during the warmer months as well as a rocking chair, where you can live out your Little House of the Prairie fantasy. The best bit though, is the outdoor bath tub, which you simply must use whatever the season (don’t worry, the water is piping hot). There are two bedrooms, both with sizable beds and soft linen sheets, as well as a shower and bathroom, and the most charming and fully stocked kitchen; there’s an oven, induction hob, fridge, sink, kettle and all the crockery and cutlery you’d ever need. The living area features a cosy seating area, as well as an indoor dining table. All mod cons and then some. On arrival you’ll find tea and coffee, salt and pepper, olive oil, milk, bread, butter, eggs and jam waiting for you. There are also towels and robes, so you

Tucked away in peak dreamy Somerset countryside, this painstakingly handbuilt cabin is the perfect semi-off grid getaway. You’d never know you were essentially down the back of someone’s garden (well, down the back of someone’s orchard) when ensconced in this surprisingly spacious and ultra romantic two bedroom retreat. Douglas fir cladding, hand-woven hazel panels, an oak and maple kitchen and a locally-fabricated fire pit all add to the artisan energy pulsing through this homely retreat in the village of Kingsbury Episcopi on the Somerset Levels.  What’s it like inside Craftsman’s Cabin?  This handbuilt cabin is surprisingly sturdy. It comes complete with a wraparound deck and an outdoor table for al fresco dining during the warmer months as well as a rocking chair, where you can live out your Little House of the Prairie fantasy. The best bit though, is the outdoor bath tub, which you simply must use whatever the season (don’t worry, the water is piping hot). There are two bedrooms, both with sizable beds and soft linen sheets, as well as a shower and bathroom, and the most charming and fully stocked kitchen; there’s an oven, induction hob, fridge, sink, kettle and all the crockery and cutlery you’d ever need. The living area features a cosy seating area, as well as an indoor dining table. All mod cons and then some. On arrival you’ll find tea and coffee, salt and pepper, olive oil, milk, bread, butter, eggs and jam waiting for you. There are also towels and robes, so you

If you’ve ever dabbled with London’s craft cocktail scene, you’ll no doubt be familiar with A Bar with Shapes for a Name. The super late-night (4am!) Haggerston drinking den is regularly named as one of the World’s 50 Best, with its boiler suit-sporting staff and sleek, science based beverages. But the real magic happens up the road at the bar’s multifunctional sister space, Bauhaus Warehaus. It’s here in Dalston that they make and chainsaw their mega massive ice cubes, whip up pre-batched bottle cocktails in vast centrifugal machines and experiment with new recipes.  With a long airy indoor bar, and a sizable garden out back, Bauhaus Warehaus feels clinical yet cosy, slickly aligning with the Bauhaus movement’s principles of minimalism and mass production. Water comes in utilitarian plastic bottles, while the brown butter old fashioned and olive oil negroni both offer a creamy take on the classics. But try also their seasonal offerings, such as a very 1980s rhubarb gimlet and banana martini. Fun, but functional.  Order this The slinky ‘Haus’ marg is a steal at £8.50, humming with habanero.  Time Out tip  Why not embark on a crawl between Bauhaus Warehaus and A Bar with Shapes for a Name? It’s a mere 14 minute walk down Kingsland Road between the two, and if you get thirsty on the way, you’ll walk past some of London’s other best bars, including Ellie’s and Bar Lotus. 

Lardo has been a Hackney failsafe since the heady days of 2012. A blissfully fuss-free and reliable neighbourhood pizza parlour, its semi-industrial set-up on Richmond Road acted as a Swiss Army knife of restaurants; not only ideal for washing away Spurstowe hangovers, but for entertaining troublesome toddlers and dates you weren’t sure were definitely dates. A menu bristling with anarchic innovation It didn’t particularly need to switch things up (aside from tackling the hilarious trek through an apartment block foyer to find the shared toilets) but almost 15 years after opening, Lardo has reinvented itself by installing the idiosyncratic Marta Sandini in the kitchen. After stints at triple Michelin-starred Hiša Franko in Slovenia and the one-star Luca in Clerkenwell, as well as a little time in China, the Veneto-raised chef has been tasked with bringing Lardo up to par with east London’s new wave of trendy tablecloth trattorias (Tiella, Auguste, Dalla etc).  Rather than leaning into their sleek energy, she’s done it with a global approach to casual Italian cuisine that’s as playful as it is unhinged. Take, for example, a giant spring roll stuffed with smooshed potato and mushed-up mushroom, which rests its heroically crispy bottom on a puddle of parmesan cream and crispy chilli oil. Tuscan dining by way of Cantonese cookery, it’s an A-list take on a Findus Crispy Pancake. Insane? Yes, but whole-heartedly brilliant, too. Slightly more sensible, but only just, is a brined wa

Uncle John’s Bakery has been serving Ghanaian specialities to Tottenham for over 30 years. Set up in 1995 by John and Emelia Mensah, the family-run bakery is famous for its soft and brilliantly bouncy sweet bread, but also has a host of other tricks up its sleeve. There are bags of savoury chin chin snacks with cracked black pepper and warm bofrot doughnuts (try the addictive coconut version with a crunchy, deep-fried outer layer), as well as hot pies which are individually heated up for customers. Our favourite is the fish pie, where flakey and toothsome butter shortcrust pastry is stuffed with sardines, onions, tomatoes and Ghanaian spices. The ideal lunch to-go. As well as committed regulars who’ve been coming since the bakery opened, a recent visitor to Uncle John’s was John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana.

One of the best smash burger stands in London is branching out. Parisian burger pros Dumbo opened a first UK outlet last summer in Shoreditch and are now bringing the winning formula to Soho. This is good news, as the last few times we’ve swung by the east London location, the queue has been epic.  Dumbo’s second London burger joint will be opening late summer at 37 Berwick Street and will serve the same sleek cheeseburgers and fries as their Bethnal Green Road location. Count us in.  Dumbo ranks pretty highly in our top burgers in London list (and topped the ranking last year). Our last visit saw us praise the ‘perfect charred lacy crust on the edges of super succulent dry-aged beef.’ The double patty smash burgers are bulked out with gleaming American cheese as well as tangy, plump pickles and ketchup and mustard. Dumbo also offers a vegetarian ‘Earth burger’ option, as well as fries and nuggets.  Dumbo was founded in 2019 in the Pigalle district of Paris and now has a number of burger joints across the city (as well as an outlet in Milan).  Find London’s second Dumbo at 37 Berwick Street, Soho, W1F 8RS, pretty soon-ish by the sound of things.  🍔 The best burgers in London, according to Time Out. Plus: the 6 best new London restaurants opening in August 2026. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel. Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out London newsletter for the

The past few months have seen a bumper amount of new restaurants opening across the capital. Frankly, it’s been exhausting and nigh-on impossible to visit them all, so we’re grateful for this seasonal slow-down, meaning we can actually get out there and visit as many of the best new restaurants in London as possible.  There are still some pretty exciting things incoming this August, including a long-awaited comeback for one of 2025’s best pop-ups, Tasca, and new openings for some of London’s most-loved mini chains: Bancone, Superette and It’s Bagels.   The best new restaurants opening in London, August 2026 TascaTasca 1. The returning champ Tasca at Project 44, Shoreditch We loved last year’s wildly impressive Portuguese and Spanish-inspired pop-up Tasca and are chuffed to hear that head chef Josh Dallaway and sommelier Sinead Murdoch are back. They’ll be in the kitchen of Rivington Street cafe and wine bar Project 44 for the rest of summer, serving the likes of Cornish crab on requeijão cheese, Dexter beef tartare al pilpil, and mussel and chorizo rice.  Address: 44 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, EC2A 3QP Opens: Every Wed-Sat evening from July 29   Photograph: BanconeBancone silk handkerchief pasta 2. The big brutalist pasta project Bancone, Bloomsbury Pasta pro Bancone will be opening its sixth London location inside the newly spruced up Imperial hotel on Russell Square this summer. It’ll be a roomy one, with space for 140 diners as well as a 60-person terrace, where yo

We’re not shy about how much we like Bad Boy Pizza Society (one of Time Out’s best pizza restaurants in London) so it brings us great joy to let you know that there’s now another London location serving their serious slices.  You can now get their 12-inch pizzas at the newly-opened Village Underground Rooftop in Shoreditch. The rooftop terrace, which opened earlier this month, is on the top of east London venue the Village Underground.  This is the first time the general public has had access to the space, which as well as an lovely outdoor terrace, features recycled Jubilee line carriages on top of what was once a railway viaduct on Great Eastern Street. The rooftop bar is open Wednesday to Sunday. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Village Underground (@villageunderground) You can also score Bad Boy pizza at their very own pizza parlour in Bethnal Green, as well as at Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden, the Railway Tavern in Tulse Hill and Vinegar Yard in London Bridge. Our favourite is the ‘vodka-roni’, with pepperoni and vodka sauce. Bad Boy Pizza Society started out as a parody university society before they actually started making pizzas, then became a serial pizza award winner, including National Pizza of the Year 2022 and 2024. Inspirational, tbh.  🍕 The greatest pizza restaurants in London. 🍺 The best rooftop bars in London. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our T

With his legendary Endo at the Rotunda restaurant in White City still closed following a fire, Endo Kazutoshi has plans to open up a brand-new sushi joint. Endo will launch in October, in the building that was formerly home to Michelin-starred Chelsea restaurant, The Five Fields, which closed last year. A tiny, 10-seater omakase restaurant, there will be no menu, with guests dining at the whim of Endo, who will whip up whatever sushi takes his fancy on the night as they perch at a 200-year-old hinoki counter all the way from Kyoto. Classy stuff.  Above Endo, there will be a listening bar called Moga, with a cocktail menu inspired by various teas. At first it’ll only be open to guests dining at Endo, but any old folk will be able to visit from December onwards. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kazutoshi Endo (@kazutoshi.endo) Speaking about the launch, Endo has said: ‘This project is the next chapter of my journey, strengthened by a clear vision and grounded more profoundly in the past. Behind every piece of sushi is the work of many hands - those who catch fish, grow the rice, and create the objects to serve it. This is a story I wish to tell. Like Kintsugi, the scars of last year have become part of my history; they have made me return more deeply to my roots.’ Endo at the Rotunda remains closed, with no relaunch date on the cards. Over the past few months Endo at the Rotunda hosted a pop-up at Mayfair bar Annabel’s, which came to an end earlier

Time to celebrate. Our favourite place to eat in London is opening a brand new restaurant. You’ll have to wait a few more months before you can actually eat there, but the team behind Camille - which recently topped our list of the top 50 restaurants in London for 2026 – will be launching a new location in late autumn. The restaurant will be in Farringdon and will serve food influenced by head chef Elliot Hashtroudi’s grandmother and ‘delve into old regional British and Irish cooking using ingredients from the Isles.’  The new restaurant will honour both ‘Victorian tradition’ and ‘regional cuisine’, according to an announcement on Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Camille (@camille_se1) Camille, which opened in Borough in 2024, serves up French food with an offal-focussed menu incorporating everything from snout cassoulet to cocks comb schnitzel. Our review branded it as a ‘triumph of imagination, talent, and guts’.  Topping our best restaurants list, Camille has followed in the footsteps of Miga (2025), Mambow (2024), Cafe Cecilia (2023), Chishuru (2022) and Singburi (2021) as Time Out’s London Restaurant of the Year. It’s the first spot south of the river to score the position since Chishuru, which was based in Brixton when it secured the honour, however you’ll now find Joke Bakare’s acclaimed, Michelin-star scoring West African restaurant in Fitzrovia.  Read our full review of Camille here. Did you see that Dishoom is opening a mas

A new drinking destination is opening up at Battersea Power Station. The Hero’s Return comes from the same group behind pasta restaurant Bancone and will serve up a menu from former St John chef Jonathan Woolway. The food will apparently showcase the ‘Best of British’ and the ‘Best of London’, and feature such dishes as ox heart with chips and peppercorn sauce, as well as cold roast lamb with celeriac remoulade and pickled walnut, and grilled mackerel with rainbow chard and horseradish. The bar will open up later this summer in the space formerly occupied by No 29 Power Station West, which closed down at the start of 2025. You’ll find The Hero’s Return at Unit 29 on Circus West, just down from Wright Brothers fish restaurant at Unit 26. The bar will feature a 40-seat outdoor terrace which overlooks the River Thames.  Image: The Hero’s ReturnThe Hero’s Return Inspiration for the place comes from the band Pink Floyd – who have long been associated with Battersea Power Station after featuring the building on the cover of their 1977 album Animals. The song ‘The Hero’s Return’ features on their 1983 album, The Final Cut. Rendered images of the proposed interiors of the bar show Pink Floyd-related artwork on the walls, as well as an open fire.  Bancone is set to open another new spot this summer, with a 140-seat pasta restaurant inside the revamped Imperial hotel in Bloomsbury. It’ll be the sixth Bancone location in London, joining outposts in Covent Garden, Kensington, Soho, Bor

What’s better than eating one pizza? Eating lots of pizzas! Well, that’s what Michele Pascarella, founder of the acclaimed Napoli on the Road seems to think. The newly-opened Soho branch of the award-winning pizzeria has launched a pizza tasting menu, which will see a £65 per head offering of Italian classics, and, naturally, plenty (four!) pizzas.  The menu will begin with fritti, before an asparagus and anchovy colatura white pizza, topped with pecorino and anchovy sauce. Next is a classic margherita with slow-cooked tomato, as well as tomato jam, buffalo mozzarella and wild garlic pesto. Then there’s a pizza break, with a melon and cucumber salad, before a vitello tonnato-inspired pizza with veal and tuna sauce.  The fourth and final pizza is chef Michele Pascarella’s signature serve, topped with slow cooked cuts of beef rib, shin, oxtail and pork rib.  Then there’s a sgroppino sorbet and a trio of puddings; ricotta cream tartlet, zuppetta diplomatica and an ice-cream bar with dark chocolate and hazelnuts. A wine pairing is available for an extra £40.  Last month Napoli on the Road took home the top prize at the 50 Top Pizza Europa 2026 Awards for the third year in a row. Pascarella, who hails from Maddaloni near Naples, started his business on a three-wheeled Ape Piaggio truck in 2016 that travelled around London’s street markets. He opened a permanent pizzeria in Chiswick in 2019 and a second branch in Richmond followed four years later. The Soho spot opened earlier this

The American Midwest has long been disparagingly known as ‘flyover country’. Sure, transcontinental flights used to favour the bright, coastal lights of LA and New York, but there’s now finally a direct flight from London to St Louis, allowing British and European travellers to explore some of the lesser-travelled parts of the Midwest. In about nine hours, British Airways will whisk you from Heathrow to the middle of Missouri, home to one of the summer’s World Cup host cities, Kansas City.  I was given a preview of the new route – here’s what I got up to when I landed. RECOMMENDED: I visited Italy’s best-kept coastal secret – and it’s only a short drive from the Amalfi Coast If you know anything about St Louis, it’ll likely either be about the controversial World’s Fair that was held in 1904 (and the Judy Garland banger from the 1944 film Meet Me in St Louis) or because of the soaring Gateway Arch. What I didn't know about the arch was that you can go all the way up it. Was I keen? Not particularly. Did I do it anyway? I sure did.  Photograph: Leonie Cooper for Time OutThe Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri Built in 1965, it remains the tallest arch in the world at 192 metres. Considering my experience at the Pyramids of Giza, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect, but I will also do anything for the bit, so I boldly took a submarine-style pod on the three-minute journey to the top. Designed by legendary midcentury architect Eero Saarinen, it’s admittedly very chic, with curv

Gleneagles isn’t like other luxury hotels. Not only does this stately Scottish bolthole have a den full of ferrets, a deeply zen outdoor sauna and the kind of breakfast that puts Las Vegas’ bountiful buffets to shame, there’s also a spooky wine cellar where you can indulge in a Champagne-drenched feast. Oh, and they’ll let you shoot a gun. Beat that, The Ritz. If you’ve ever heard anything about Gleneagles Hotel, it’s probably thanks to its world-renowned golf courses. Politics purists might remember its stint hosting the 2005 G8 Summit, when Blair, Bush and Berlusconi hobnobbed over haggis. If you really know your rock’n’roll lore, it might even be to do with Oasis’s gig there for Sony Records execs in 1994. That said, it’s more than possible to keep yourself entertained at this Perthshire paradise if you have zero interest in birdies, bogies and Britpop. It’s not in the list of the Leading Hotels of the World for nothing. I’m not hugely concerned with any of the above (Oasis aside), but Gleneagles’ brand of luxury is pretty easy to enjoy, even when the hotel’s grey stone facade matches the gloomy sky. However, as we’re told approximately 50 times during our stay, in Scotland you’ll experience all four seasons in a single day. This 1924-built cathedral to hospitality is glorious, a sprawling pile that’s The Traitors castle minus Claudia Winkleman, but complete with fleets of Land Rover Defenders. And it’s even more glorious when the sun comes out. Photograph: The Leading Ho

One of London’s most acclaimed cocktail bars closed temporarily in May because of a fire. But Tayēr + Elementary aren’t letting the fact their Old Street original is shut stop them from serving drinks.  Tayēr + Elementary will be opening up a pop-up bar in the basement of new Covent Garden cocktail spot Cato for the rest of the summer. Casual by Tayēr will run from July 15 to August 22. Speaking about the residency, Tayēr + Elementary’s co-owner Monica Berg commented: ‘Casual by Tayēr is our way of staying connected to the people who have supported us, even as we navigate an unexpected moment of change. This residency gives us the freedom to be playful, responsive, and a little spontaneous to create something that feels fresh while still rooted in the values that define Tayēr + Elementary.’  What does this mean? This means cocktails! The semi-legendary One Sip Martini will of course be on offer, as well as a number of the bar’s other classic serves. It’ll be open every Wednesday to Saturday from 6pm to 1am. Tayēr + Elementary took an impressive 5th place in the 2025 ranking of the World’s Best Cocktail Bars. It was one of seven London establishments that featured in the latest list of Europe’s 50 Best Bars. Read our review of Cato here. The bar opened earlier this year and is named after pioneer of American cocktail culture Cato Alexander.   Find Casual by Tayēr at 17 Mercer Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9QJ.  🍸 The best bars in Covent Garden, according to the expert drinker

We know that London is a great place to eat, so it stands to reason that it’s also a great place for chefs.  Well, last night at the Catey Awards  – the Caterer magazine’s annual hotel and restaurant awards – held at JW Marriott Grosvenor House, the winner of the rather bluntly-titled ‘Chef Award’ was London’s own John Williams. Head chef at The Ritz Restaurant, Williams has been working at the prestigious hotel eatery since 2004. The Ritz Restaurant received its first Michelin star in 2017 and its second in 2025.   Our most recent review of the restaurant praised its ‘delightfully curious’ food and ‘Tasting menus bristling with the best British ingredients, and cooked with French precision and flair.’ It also features in our list of the most romantic restaurants in London.  Other London winners at the industry panel-voted Catey Awards included David Moore, founder of Pied à Terre in Fitzrovia. It opened in 1991 and is London’s longest-standing Michelin-starred restaurant, holding a star for over 30 years. Moore scored the Lifetime Achievement award. The inaugural Pastry Chef of the Year Award was won by Ross Sneddon, executive pastry chef at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, and the Balmoral in Edinburgh. The 50 best restaurants in London. Did you see that legendary restaurant St John is serving breakfast for the first time since 2020? Plus: a popular al fresco street dining area will return to south London this weekend. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news an

After years of waiting, one of the best breakfasts in London is back. St John’s iconic (and we don’t say that lightly) bacon sandwich has returned in bun form at its newest opening, St John Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden. Until the pandemic, St John Bread + Wine was known for its heroic buttie, which briefly returned in take-away form in 2021. However, you can now sit down and enjoy the bacon bap from 9am until 11.45am daily at the cosy Covent Garden location, which opened at the end of last year.  The breakfast menu will also include a bacon and smoked cod’s roe buns as well as an anchovy bun, while doughnuts and pastries will also be served, alongside coffee and – if you’re feeling bold – a breakfast bloody mary. They’ll also be offering breakfast wine pairings, with a breakfast perry suggested to go alongside the bacon bun, and St John Blanc de Blanc 1er Cru NV for the smoked cod’s roe bun. View this post on Instagram A post shared by St. JOHN Restaurant (@st.john.restaurant) St John Neal’s Yard can be found at 6 Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, WC2H 9DP, opposite its former bakery location, which closed last year to make way for the new eat-in restaurant and wine bar.  If booze for breakfast sounds a bit rich for your blood, then the Neal’s Yard location is open daily until 10pm (9pm on Sundays) for wine and snacks such as asparagus and Ticklemore cheese, mussels, devilled chicken hearts and prune skewers as well as the ever-popular St John rarebit.  🍳 The b