Even though the British are not famous for a healthy exciting food culture, London is today only third to Paris and Tokyo when it comes to Michelin star restaurants. The city has over 6000 restaurants and 43 of them have one star.
That position is partially achieved by the fact that food is offered from more than seventy different places in the world, and in numerous variations – particularly Indian. But traditional British food is also getting a revival, and top chefs make a virtue of transforming traditional British dishes, such as bangers and mash, into delicious meals. The well-known “afternoon tea” is still legendary and can be enjoyed in trendy teahouses and mundane hotels and cafés.
Inn The Park: St. James Park
Kick-start your day with a “Great Britain Breakfast”, which is just perfect at the bright drop-shaped restaurant Inn The Park in St. James Park. In addition, you get a beautiful view over London’s oldest park, created by Henry VIII.
In The Park, St. James Park
www.innthepark.com
Leon Restaurant
Organic food is a big thing in London, and if you’re into that kind of stuff for breakfast, Leon Restaurant in the East End can be recommended. Even though it’s a chain consisting of several restaurants, neither the food nor the interior design is watered down. On the contrary, it’s cool in a very London way, with a laid-back lounge area, where you can eat a healthy breakfast with organic sausage or bacon in a sandwich bread, a so-called ’bap’. And the prices are reasonable.
Leon Restaurant, 3, Crispin Place
Afternoon tea
If you’re searching for a true English experience, enjoy a traditional “high tea” in one of London’s exclusive hotels.
It can be pretty pricy, and you have to be nicely dressed, but then you’re ready for sandwiches, warm crumpets (a mix between a scone and a pancake) and lots of well-brewed tea. It’s such a popular thing that many places require a table reservation.
The Ritz, 150, Piccadilly
£ 36 and up
www.theritzlondon.com
The Savoy, The Strand
£ 35 - 43
www.savoy-group.co.uk
The Dorchester, 53, Park Lane
£ 29 - 39
www.thedorchester.com
Claridge’s, 55, Brook Street
£ 34 - 45
www.claridges.co.uk
Fortnum and Mason
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It’s not a hotel, but a department store with a “high tea” area and a wide selection of expensive cookies and teas that you can buy and bring home. Everything so neatly wrapped that you will want to keep the wrapping.
Fortnum and Mason, 181, Piccadilly
www.fortnumandmason.com
Eagle
The Eagle in Clerkenwell was the city’s first “gastro pub” – and in 1991 it laid the grounds for a new trend. Namely, traditional pubs that serve quality food. Eagle still ranks among the best ones. It’s airy and unpretentiously decorated and the Mediterranean and American cuisines influence the menu. You will spend around 30 pounds on a meal, and then there’s a great selection of beers!
Eagle, 159, Farringdon Road.
Sketch Gallery
The Sketch is maybe one of the most hyped restaurant/gallery/bar/club-complexes in London, ever since it opened its doors in 2002. But it’s worth visiting, either for dinner or for hanging out in the bars, the club or the gallery. Or just to enjoy the carried through postmodern decoration with colorful plastic, Louis-something chairs and Swarowski-sponsored toilets. It was particularly the £ 125 menu in the Library and Reading Room restaurant, which made banner headlines in the beginning, but you can actually enjoy a very good dinner at Sketch Gallery.
In the daytime, The Gallery serves as an art gallery, but at night it’s transformed into one of the city’s hippest brasseries, with an exciting and affordable menu. Around midnight, the tables are moved aside and the DJ warms up for clubbing. For lunch, Sketch Glade is also an obvious choice with light dishes at affordable prices.
Sketch Gallery, 9, Conduit Street
www.sketch.uk.com
Famous chef Gordon Ramsay, who also runs the Michelin kitchen at Claridge’s in London, added this restaurant to his empire in 2005 and it is really a gastronomical delight. What’s missing in the interior decoration, which lacks originality, is richly compensated for in the menu that offers French food with an Asian inspiration.
Maze, 10-13, Grosvenor Square.
www.gordonramsay.com
St. John
They serve British food with a controversial twist and the chef makes a virtue of using the parts of the animals that others would throw away. St. John is one of the restaurants, which in recent years have challenged the British kitchen, and very successfully. Even though you wouldn’t think that you would like to eat pig spleen and rook chicks, it’s not that bad! There is more traditional food to choose from as well. You can also try St. Johns Bread and Wine in Spitalfields, 94-96 Commercial Street, which has more ordinary British dishes in an updated version.
The area has become a kind of ghetto for good British dining. Another recommendable place is Canteen on Crispin Place.
St. John, 26, St. John Street
www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk & www.canteen.co.uk
Tayyabs
If you’re into Indian food and curries, Brick Lane in the East End is the place to go. Indian restaurants lie like pearls on a string, but you can also go to Tayyabs, a Pakistani restaurant in Whitechapel behind the East London Mosque. The long line outside on every day of the week may be annoying, but it indicates that it’s one of the best curry houses in the city. The food is traditional and the grilled meat and the curries are all very good – and cheap.
Tayyabs, 83-89, Fieldgate St, Whitechapel.
www.tayyabs.co.uk
By David Rich