london restaurants

i will stan for wahaca. surprisingly good food and fun for kids. unless they have zero tolerance for spice :(

I should have said, these particular friends are anti (ie. snobbish about) chains except for (until now) Pizza Express. I don’t mind a lot of them, especially with a child in tow. Our local Franco Manca is brilliant - they always give us a table by the chef and we’ve even had a hunk of dough to play with while waiting. I would totally go to Wahaca with different friends.

In our experience it is incredibly common for the adults’ food to arrive before the children’s, even though you’d think that was basic knowledge. Maybe it’s to do with the kitchen rather than waiting staff? Dunno.

Anyway, Mamuska is a good call, I liked the one at Elephant and I can imagine pierogis being a hit with the younger generation.

If it was just us, we’d probably go to Fishcoteque!

Well, provided they can quickly bring something (I think they can if the something is bread) to distract the littles I’d recommend https://www.casadofrango.co.uk/ aka Posh Nando’s.

There’s a branch of Tonkotsu behind Tate Modern which has branches but isn’t quite a CHAIN chain yet, plus all kids like a dumpling, which they do in addition to ramen.

ok on the strength of that eater guide i checked out red camel in leytonstone and BWAH YES. from the persian end of afghanistan. father and son team. incredibly sweet, funny dudes. absolutely amazing rice and mutton dish called qabily pallow.

In this piece he is developing what was compressed in the guide: https://london.eater.com/2019/4/17/18410090/london-east-end-food-poplar-regeneration

(warning: this has a quote by Walter Benjamin ;))

An astonishing number of people are hailed by name, their order readied before they even have time to speak. It’s the unique rhythm of a place, one of those rare ones, which is propelled by a business which is in it not for the love of money, or even necessarily the love of food, but for the love of people.

Walter Besant and Walter Benjamin...

There’s something about his writing style which seems to irritates me and bring out my inner contrarian, although I’m broadly sympathetic to his views.

Franzina Trattoria on Coldharbour Lane, Brixton is excellent I think. Husband and wife team that used to run out of the nearby box park (although often like hell, and with some deeply compromised decisions behind it, this particular box park is at least dedicated to local businesses and a few have graduated to bricks and mortar in this way).

Sicilian food. Although things have got a lot better, I'm generally wary of Italian restaurants, partly because the food just isn't as good a lot of the time as even a basic Italian trattoria (which are often very good ofc), partly because of the problem of good fresh ingredients - there are no tomatoes in this country. That latter problem is even worse for Sicilian. However, they manage it well through the mixture of a small menu, largely but not entirely vegetarian, with robust flavours (smoked aubergine and mint works very well, as do the cinnamon and sugar donuts). The pasta is excellent.

It's also comparatively cheap, under ten pounds for most of the pasta dishes, and the starter 'small plates' are generous. the interior is light and pleasant with the kitchen right in the middle. Extra points for the husband wearing a tall chef's hat.

Also recently got jerk chicken at Smokey Jerky in New Cross (though apparently the lamb is the one to go for) – emphasis is on the smokers, with the homemade jerk sauce going on after. Was great.

Ah sounds perfect for my next jaunt down! I know what you mean about the nearby box park but I do highly recommend the Alpes box which I visited about a month ago - great food (the pan-fried asparagus with Parmesan cream and shavings and a squeeze of lemon was simply perfect) and top-notch friendly staff (who really seemed to enjoy their job).

thanks for he recommendation: the food stalls there can be very good, eg zoe’s ghana kitchen. it can just get a bit.. contended... on a sunny weekend. (and as a box park it’s so much better than the Boxpark company examples at Shoreditch and Croydon).

The Turkish grocers on Green Lanes used to do by far the best fresh tomatoes I’ve come across but it’s literally years since I last went to Harringay.

Finally got round to putting together an interactive map of our ridiculous London world eating project. Some of these places have closed or are about to but there's a hell of a lot to recommend:

there are no tomatoes in this country

truth bomb

weirdly, it is possible to grow your own quite delicious tomatoes here, particularly if you have a greenhouse, so i'm kind of flummoxed that no one has offered Posh Tomatoes anywhere that i'm aware of

Matt i am extremely looking forward to your foodmap wormhole

Turkish grocery tomatoes are always good, as are the tomatoes at Notting Hill and Islington farmer’s markets (they are seasonal and grown in polytunnels).

I’m intrigued by this foodmap project. I’ve got a mental map of Melbourne restaurants I should lay down - I’m pretty sure you can find a representative restaurant of every province in China here.

I don’t know many of the restaurants in Matt’s list, but 2 that I do know I don’t rate at all: Baltic and Rules. Rules may be a joke inclusion, I guess

Yeah in all honesty I can't particularly recommend Rules unless it's to go to the bar upstairs. Thought Baltic was pretty good though.

Sorry - I’ve now had a chance to see this on a proper screen and get more of a sense of it.

I was quite a fan of Baltic maybe eleven or twelve years ago; I now work near there and get dragged along from time to time. My impression is that it's not as good as it was, but it's possible that I have just eaten more of that kind of food over the years and from being a taste sensation it now seems a bit average. (See also: Bodean's.)

Bodean’s is really hideous now because: chain food.

one of the best things about the bar at rules is that it’s always so quiet!

On the subject of boxparks, I think the quality of food has to be absolutely exceptional to justify spending any time in such unpleasant environments; I haven't been to the Brixton one but in the other two I haven't found anything exceptional or anything that seemed remarkably good value. To be fair they're not really meant for old gits like me so everyone's interests are probably best served by my finding somewhere more to my old git tastes.

see also: drinking craft beer on a trestle table on a windy industrial estate.

32 Great Queen Street is closing on Friday, apparently. I'll miss it.

Me too - they made us the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner last year and I was looking forward to making that a tradition. Hope and Anchor might be a possibility in future, maybe?

Right, Hope and Anchor and the Camberwell Arms continue to be excellent (the latter not part of the same company any more but the family resemblance remains), and I imagine the Canton Arms in Stockwell is good though I've never eaten there.

*Anchor and Hope, we both meant.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/712ud49XsaL._SY355_.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/2hPmuRAqKbOBmxOoY8UdVGxZNS8=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1660716-1254837036.jpeg.jpg

Bibendum was hideous and don’t clean or shuck their oysters properly.

Not sure who owns it now but places that were once part of the Conran Empire have not fared well. I had the misfortune to eat in quaglinos last year and, whilst it was never that good this was weatherspoons level boil in the bag muck. (I did not choose it)

"you should have have gone to mabel's"
— bryan ferry

Had a very good, albeit somewhat drunken, meal at Maremma on Water Lane in Brixton (two doors down from Naughty Piglets). It's the second v good Italian restaurant to open in the area after the cheaper and v homely Franzina Trattoria on Coldharbour Lane.

the “albeit” there is basically a way of saying my quality vectors may have been a little wired.

not a suggestion that drunken dinners in italian restaurants are a bad thing or reduced experience.

This is good news.

Have you been to Naughty Piglets also? If so is it good?

i have. it is. small plates. natural wine list. both of those can be mixed blessings imo. i have had v good wines there, especially when i’ve asked for recommendations, and good food, v good food on occasion, tho for some reason it’s never been a place that i’ve properly warmed to. maybe the plates are a bit *too* small or it’s not quite a place you can relax into.

I went to Barra Barra in Elephant and Castle to eat their reputedly amazing Dominican Fried Chicken and it was gigantic and crispy and delicious buy I feel like I've shaved about three years off my life in the process.

also, across london where i work, reineta in ealing is a more a cafe than a restaurant exactly, but the guy running it really cares about what he’s doing. gazpacho is garlicky and amazing, they do great, proper spanish style tostada, and the various tapas look awesome - i had cod and potato brandade with walnuts and boiled egg.

pastries from the hendone bakery in chiswick are the best i’ve had outside france - pain au chocolat with proper hard, dark chocolate in.

it’s in a completely soulless strip of new development as well. feel the need to promote it because there isn’t really a lot of footfall there at the moment. as i say, talking to him, he really cares about both his cooking and his ingredients and it shows.

really great for lunch, and only a couple of quid more expensive than a pret or similar.

in the same strip us Riding Wine Bar which is supposed to be excellent as well.

https://london.eater.com/platform/amp/maps/best-value-restaurants-central-london-cheap-eats-not-cheap?__twitter_impression=true

I went to Barra Barra in Elephant and Castle to eat their reputedly amazing Dominican Fried Chicken and it was gigantic and crispy and delicious buy I feel like I've shaved about three years off my life in the process.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 17 August 2019 bookmarkflaglink

Same but I had no breakfast so somehow managed it. I also went to Sabor Peruano which was superb. Working through the Elephant list..

Gunpowder by Tower Bridge and The Shed near Notting Hill Gate both excellent.

I hadn't realised that the deep fried vaguely beefy stuff I left on the side of my plate at La Barra was actually lung jerky. No regrets.

Lol I forgot I left that out too, too much fat on that iirc

Any good London based youtube food channels?

Inspired by a Fizzles tweet about the fellow who does the “best cheap restaurants” thing on London Eater, we went on a bus odyssey to Woolwich to eat at the Blue Nile, am Eritrean place that was really excellent. Nice people, great food you could eat really well there very cheaply if you spend less on booze than we did.

The Blue Nile is tremendous, they've been smart with the decor as well, not changing too much of that old butcher's shop look really adds something.

It was #1 on TripAdvisor for a while and got the kind of press treatment these places usually do when that happens.

Was thinking of going to Lina Stores next week, and decided to see if there were any reviews. It's a shame that I did because I read this paragraph from the Evening Standard and now I can't go any more

There was a carnivalesque atmosphere in Soho when we went, on the summery Friday night that kickstarted the bank holiday. My boyfriend, Laurie, says he always thinks of Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? album cover when he walks through the area, and the proud swagger that comes with being in a part of London with a pulse.

Any alternative suggestions very welcome. Going to Wun's Tearoom for cocktails after dinner so walking distance to there. Anyone been to Sola?