London

My husband and I are heading to London for Christmas. Any suggestions on where to eat?

Hi-

London is fantastic - I'm leaving for there tomorrow myself.

Where will you be staying? Any cost limitations?

Do you like, for lack of a better term, fancy stuff and/or high end restaurants??

I can make some suggestions-- but would prefer some parameters first...

-erb

Hi erb,

We will be staying near Marleybone station and Regents Park. As to parameters, we mostly just want good food. We like almost everything, except maybe Greek. When we travel, I usually check the Bib Gourmand listings, along with things like Yelp and Zagats. The only problem with the latter is that a lot of people are driven solely by price and quantity, not quality. Cost is a factor, but not the primary one.

Hope that helps and thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Recently returned from London. Here's a list of our favorite spots.

-Harwood Arms for upscale pub food
-St John for serious snout to tail dining
-Drapers Arms for Sunday roast
-Riding House Cafe for a full English breakfast
-Hoppers for modern Sri Lankan curries
-Happy Days for fish and chips
-Goddards for pie and mash (in East London, good spot for lunch if you visit Greenwich)
-The Ledbury for an upscale dinner

Turkob,

Thanks so much and we will check these out.

I will echo turkob's rec for Ledbury - one of the best meals I had of 2015. I wish I could say I enjoyed St John more, but it seemed like they phoned it in that night. For another upscale meal, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal was really nice and a good cocktail program to boot.

If you plan on stopping by Harrods, we had a pretty good lunch at Galvin Demoiselle.

incite wrote:If you plan on stopping by Harrods...

And you should, even if you have no other reason other than to visit their food hall.

Yes, great call. Their food hall is mesmerizing. I remember buying many types of salami and a baquette and going out to Green Park for a picnic. Have other stories about Herrod's but will leave that for another day. Do tour that food hall and have lunch there.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and I agree that the Harrods food hall is amazing.

Some favorites from last summer:

As mentioned in other threads, the Borough Market is a terrific place to spend an hour or two. Walk around and snack on whatever strikes your fancy, including a pretty impressive variety of sandwiches (from duck confit to goat).

London is in the midst of halloumi mania, for some reason -- from street carts to upscale restaurants, every menu seems to feature a halloumi dish. I thought Ottolenghi might be to blame, but his place was one of the few that didn't offer it, so who knows.

Another mini-trend seems to be Swedish bakeries. We liked Fabrique for cardamom buns and coffee (and surprisingly creditable croissants) and Bageriet for pretty much everything.

For fish and chips, Golden Union Fish Bar came highly recommended and did not disappoint. Tip: the "small" portion is plenty huge. Good mushy peas, too, if you're into that kind of thing.

Everything at Barrafina and Ottolenghi was outstanding.

Indian places of course proliferate, but it was hard to get reliable intel on what's good. We ended up at Dishoom which is a little fancier but not too overpriced. Compared to random curry houses, there are some unusual offerings and the flavors (sorry, *flavours*) are generally not dumbed down.

Our favorite (sorry, *favourite*) place was probably BaiWei in Chinatown, which has a mostly Sichuan menu with some Northern specialties thrown in, plus random dishes from all over, because who wants to be limited to only fifty choices of what to eat. Fuschia Dunlop is listed as menu consultant, which who knows what that means, but what I do know is that this is the only place we ate dinner twice and both times were stellar. With so many dishes on offer, there are bound to be duds, but we thoroughly enjoyed everything we had (and specifically stuck to dishes we can't find here, like thinly sliced lamb with green chilis and catfish in gravy with shredded pancakes). Funky space, too -- essentially a collection of alcoves spread out over three floors, with one or two tables in each nook.

The Black Penny was pretty close to where we were staying, so we hit it often for breakfast (sorry, *brexit*), but I think it would be worth a trip, regardless. Unpretentious but very high quality brunch/lunch, with homemade baked goods and good coffee. You can get muesli or oatmeal, or if you want the full English breakfast, you can get it made by someone who actually cares. That is, if you can manage to stop yourself from ordering the French toast with ricotta and rhubarb. This place is a gem.

Oh, and the crowds around Harrods (at least in the summer) make Times Square look like Tombstone. Maybe next time, but probably not.

What interests you more -- cutting edge hip food, or history?
Don't have a lot of experience with cutting edge in London, but I'm a huge fan of historic and traditional. Here are two posts I did on "London for Food Lovers" -- great food and stacks of culture, if that appeals to you. (And my first 2 trips to London were at Christmas -- good time to visit. Not so many tourists.)

Part 1 -- https://worldsfare.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... rs-part-1/
Part 2 -- https://worldsfare.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... rs-part-2/

(Noticed turkob's recommendation of Goddard's up thread -- and that's the place pictured at the end of part 2 -- great, classic place, and right near 0 Meridian in Greenwhich.)

Cynthia,

Thanks for the links with lots of good ideas. No we just have to decide what we have time to do and eat!

Geale's in Notting Hill–a 2-min walk from the tube station–is probably THE classic sit-down fish restaurant in London. Wonderful creaky wood floors, immaculate table linen, exquisitely fresh seafood, prepared equally exquisitely. I'll never forget my meals here. If you're looking for classic London eats, this one is not to be missed.

http://www.geales.com/notting-hill/welcome

Geo

Quick post, pictures later. Just got back.

Four Seasons, Queensway: Royal Chinese has a better rep, but their duck set dinner was 10 pounds more, and the ducks in the window at Four Seasons looked better. The duck was no Sun Wah, sadly, although pretty darn good. 21 pounds (about, per person at least two) got you (for two) a quarter duck (very good), pancakes and a plate of cucumber and scallion; crispy-fried beef (outstanding), gong po pork (not so good), egg fried rice (nothing special), stir-fried veg (nothing special).

Cote, Soho: French bistro fare. Sue liked her steak frites, my moules frites was way too salty (and I had to ask for bread? Bread and the mussel broth is the whole reason for moules). Appetizers of roquefort and apple salad, and pork rillettes were outstanding.

Nopi, Soho: Wow, really good. Everything was a hit here. Pork belly with butternut squash and apple-walnut salsa; venison with peanuts and blackberry; polenta fries with truffle aioli; courgette and manouri fritters with cardamom yogurt; spiced yogurt dip with multiseed lavosh. With a drink apiece and two desserts, we got out of there for just over 100 sterling, definitely worth it.

Last minute trip to London next week. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal booked. Cilantro, any idea which Ottolenghi spot to hit? Turkob's Sri Lankan rec sounds very interesting. Otherwise, maybe some Indian, classic pub food. Any more recs along those lines?

We went to the one in Islington -- among other things, the surrounding neighborhood is very pretty and made for a pleasant after-dinner walk. I have no knowledge of the other branches, but this one was both serene and low key. I was a bit skeptical going in, but the food --as well as the immaculately professional staff -- were across-the-board hits, dessert included.

Back from London, where I was visiting a friend, so here we go.

If you find yourself anywhere near the Shard, you absolutely must visit the Borough Market (part enclosed, part outdoor). Plenty of prepared food, yes, with so many stands offering British foods, Indian, Balkan, etc. But there's plenty of produce, meat, fish, bread, cheese and more if you'd prefer to go home and cook. I had a croissant, a fantastic steak and ale pie from the pieminister and some excellent Turkish delight.

Here are a number of pictures from the Borough Market:














Menu at pieminister



My steak & ale pie from pieminister, cut open slightly to show filling . . . outstanding




For another lunch, I visited the famed Brick Lane Bakery for the salt beef on a beigel. Yes, beigel. A little softer than the New York bagels I'm familiar with, but when topped with salt beef, pickle and mustard, I was pretty thrilled - a really fantastic sandwich.












I did visit one bakery in London, the highly touted Cutter & Squidge. I'll almost always choose pies and other sweets over cakes. Cakes just usually disappoint me. Well, the cakes at Cutter & Squidge are another thing. I shared coconut and matcha with raspberry and both were incredible. Cutter & Squidge is also famous for their biskies (soft cookie sandwiches), and the Bakewell version was outstanding.




Biskies at Cutter & Squidge



Matcha/raspberry cake closest, coconut the third in line




There was also a visit to the amazing Selfridges department store, and no visit is complete without a visit to the food hall. In fact, on my visit it was more like a cocktail party. There was a glass of champagne as I entered . . . some caviar . . . and a lot more, with clerks walking around the hall handing out samples.


For a quick lunch, I visited a pub near where I was staying, called The Barley Mow. A nice pub atmosphere, friendly folks and solid food. We opted for pies, which are the only items they do not make in-house, instead providing a well known British favorite, Dunkleys. We had steak & ale with a typical pie crust, as well as a chicken & mushroom which had a puff pastry crust. While both were excellent, I preferred my pie at the pieminister, which was every bit as good as what I get from Pleasant House here. The gravy was delicious, the chips just fine and the carrots and peas, scented with onions, surprisingly delicious.


Interior of The Barley Mow


Chicken & mushroom pie


Steak & ale pie




There was a fancy dinner, at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, and while the concept thrilled me, the meal was solid but didn't excite like the concept and 2 Michelin stars suggested. The concept is modern takes on classic and often very dated British food. On the back of the menu there is a link to the origins of each dish, some dating back to the 1200s and 1300s. But while the food was solid, it wasn't particularly memorable.

Let me give one example: a chicken liver parfait with Mandarin orange and bread. Here it is:





While it was certainly beautiful to look at and also very delicious, it was ultimately very rich with very little to cut into the richness. Also, there were three elements to the whole dish. This to me summed up the evening: solid food but greater in concept than execution and dishes seemed far more simple than 2 Michelin stars would suggest. If you're going to incorporate so few elements, you better knock every dish out of the park . . . and they didn't.



There was also a late-night dinner after seeing the musical Half A Sixpence (wonderful by the way if you happen to go there, or if it comes to Broadway). This was at J. Sheekey Bar (as opposed to the restaurant) and it's in the heart of the theater district. The bar area is slightly more casual, but a great atmosphere and some terrific food. For me, fish gougons that were crisp and delicious and served with tartar sauce, an even better Dover sole . . . and of course some chips for good measure. Great service too - highly recommended.


Fish gougons at J. Sheeky bar



Dover sole at J. Sheeky bar




But my absolute favorite meal was at Harwood Arms, the only Michelin-starred pub in London. Book in advance as tables are a bit tough to come by, and you do want to visit. Nice atmosphere, wonderful staff, fantastic food, a meat-lover's delight!

Here are pics of the bar and our table:







Here are the menus, including of course, the Sunday roast special:








There was some terrific Guinness bread and even better butter to start:





My starter of quail with a black pudding Scotch egg and chanterelle gravy will easily go down as one of the best things I've eaten this year:





The venison terrine with quince and toasted rye sourdough was excellent too.





Sunday roast was outstanding, with the beef, crispy potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, greens, cauliflower-cheese croquettes, smoked bone marrow gravy and horseradish cream.





Somehow, I managed to also consume this tasty blackberry trifle:






There were a few random pubs along the way, but also a visit to the awesome cocktail bar Oriole. Note: reservations recommended. We showed up at 1am and we got the last available table. Cool bar, cool glassware, great drinks. A couple of photos:








A quick . . . but delicious . . . trip. Until the next time.

Thanks so much for posting this, BR. I love London and am always saving up ideas for my next visit.

We just came back and while memory is fresh want to suggest

The Pig and Butcher in general but certainly for Sunday roast.
Obviously St John
Pollen St Social
Noble Rot

BR wrote:If you find yourself anywhere near the Shard, you absolutely must visit the Borough Market (part enclosed, part outdoor)

yep, looks good for sure:
https://boroughmarket.org.uk/traders/?b ... -and-drink

BR wrote:There were a few random pubs along the way, but also a visit to the awesome cocktail bar Oriole.

only 3/4 of a mile away from our hotel, excellent. It is on the list. While I plan to partake of quite a few British Bitter Beers in various pubs, we do enjoy a good cocktail.

We haven't been to London since 2001. So looking FW to this trip, especially with the current currency situation, it will be the cheapest trip to the UK we've ever had.

Yes -- Borough Market is amazing. If you want a bit of history, here's a post I did about it some time ago (on my blog, not here).
https://worldsfare.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... rs-part-2/

And my "must visit" restaurants are the vintage ones. Rules is the oldest restaurant in London, and they specialize in game. My favorite meal there is Stilton soup and wild Highland red deer. And if you go, go to the restroom -- not that they are special, but they are on the second floor, where all the private rooms are, where royalty and literary greats have hung out over the centuries.

As often as I've been to London, I'd never before heard of the Sightlines of London. I suspect others haven't heard of it, as the video that explained it is part of a series titled Things You Might not Know. But for anyone going to London, this is a fun bit of archane information that will likely add a bit of insight into why London looks like it does. https://youtu.be/AGXbiSwcqtM

BR wrote:For another lunch, I visited the famed Brick Lane Bakery for the salt beef on a beigel. Yes, beigel. A little softer than the New York bagels I'm familiar with, but when topped with salt beef, pickle and mustard, I was pretty thrilled - a really fantastic sandwich.

Been to London many times in the 90s, I had never had a salt beef sandwich, found a top 10 list FWIW: https://www.abouttimemagazine.co.uk/foo ... in-london/

https://www.thecheesebar.com/seven-dials/