Eating in central London

London is a great place for many things – but after all the sightseeing and shopping, you’ll need to refuel! This is my guide to eating in the centre of London. I live here, and will make sure my journal is up to date, so you should be able to find information within it which is current and useful.

Whatever kind of food you like, you’ll find it in London town. Indian, Chinese, French and Italian are the most common foreign foods available, but you’ll also find many Thai, Japanese, Greek, Turkish, fusion, and fast-food joints here. And while you’re visiting, for the sake of the full English experience, you must try Fish and Chips, or an all-day fry-up!

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Driving is never a good idea in the centre, especially if you are planning to drop by a pub or two! The tube is great, but bear in mind it stops running at about midnight (varies slightly according to which line you are travelling on.) Night buses in London are great, but a bit harder to work out than the tube if you are a visitor here. Trafalgar Square is the best place to get a night bus from, and as you'd guess from the name, they run all night. London taxis are a great, if pricey, way to get about. The drivers always know every godforsaken alley-way in town, and you may well get a free lecture on politics thrown in! At night, taxis are not always easy to find, but be careful before getting into a minicab on the street. They are not allowed *by law* to pick up passengers by touting for hire, and there aren't therefore checks for criminal convictions on the drivers. Many have a casual attitude to matters such as insurance as well.

My boyfriend and I set out for a night away in our home town, courtesy of the IgoUgo travel club. I’ve never stayed in a hotel in London before, so it was an interesting feeling – I kept thinking we were having a weekend away from home, but the Halcyon is only perhaps some 4 miles from where we live!

We arrived in the evening, having come from work to meet in Holland Park. I arrived second, so the brief check-in procedure had already been taken care of. If you didn’t know there was a hotel here, you wouldn’t necessarily spot it! Holland Park is just to the west of Marble Arch and Kensington, and some of the newer countries (Ukraine, Uzbekistan) that haven’t quite made it to Kensington have their embassies here. The hotel is a pink-painted old building on the corner of Holland Park Avenue, with a porch entrance discretely open up a flight of stairs.

When we got to our room I was very impressed. It felt less like a hotel room than any I’ve been in, and more like a guest room in a very luxurious private house. The walls in room 42 are blue checks, and the furnishings are blue, yellow and cream. The large, comfortable bed and the window (leading to a small balcony) have matching canopies over them, giving the room a slightly exotic air. There is a comfortable two seat sofa, several chairs, a table, desk, and television.

Leading off the room are three smaller rooms. There is a small hall as you enter, with a selection of current magazines on a small table (including Time Out, a very useful guide to events in London). The other side of the bedroom is a dressing room with hanging space, mini-bar, and drawers. The bathroom is large, decorated in earth tones with a huge bath and a couple of enormous mirrors.

The whole hotel has an air of quiet, English luxury about it. There are no flunkies opening doors, and the whole place has an air of comfortable, understated luxury that is never pompous. A lot of thought had gone into making the room a pleasant place to be in, with all the things you might need for a long stay as well as an overnight visit. The one down side was that it was a bit difficult to get hold of reception by phone when we tried, just before we checked out.

This is a traditional British caff - otherwise known as a greasy spoon. It's open from 6am to 4pm, and caters to an eclectic mix of local builders, cabbies, law students from across the road, and a few office workers. It serves breakfasts all day - you want bacon, sausages, eggs, beans and fried bread, with strong, milky tea? If so, what you want is a traditional breakfast, and you can get it here for under 5 pounds. A bargain anywhere, and miraculous for this part of London.

As well as breakfasts, the caff does a roaring trade in jacket potatoes, omlettes, sandwiches, and soup. They bundle food and hot drinks up for take-away, or you can sit in one of about 35 seats inside, or 6 outside, and eat in. It's a friendly place, with regulars in at all times of day. For obvious reasons, it’s busiest between 1 and 2pm, and you might have to wait a minute or two for a seat at these times. The owners are friendly Turkish Cypriots, who have a cheerful word for any customer inclined to be amiable. It’s a smoking place, like every such place I’ve ever been in.

To get here, the closest tube is Holborn (central and piccadilly lines), and you then walk north-east for about 5 mins through Procter St. and Red Lion Square.

Fish and chips is a great British tradition - and this place does it both well and cheaply. Cod, chips, and a cup of tea will set you back just under a fiver here, and less (about £3) if you have it wrapped up in paper (lots of salt and vinegar) to take-away.

This is in many ways a typical fish and chip shop - the cooking area goes on down once side of it, behind a counter, and there are 5 tables with benches the other side. When you go in, go to the counter to order for take away, and sit down for service if eating in. On the menu are things like cod, haddock, skate, various pies (cheese and onion, beef, etc), sausages and rolls, all with chips. There are also the traditional side dishes of picked gherkins and onions, bread and butter, and tea, and well as soft drinks and coffee.

This is a good, friendly, busy place to try a traditional British meal.

Gigi’s is a great sandwich bar. It’s on the corner of Red Lion and Princeton Streets, and is open from 5am to 3pm. There are 5 tables inside the place, and a further 5 outside all times of year (although you might not fancy sitting there much in the dead of winter!). Most of their business is take-away, however. They specialise in high-quality, fresh breakfast and lunch food. Every day they have two choices of soup, usually at least one of which is vegetarian, and jacket potatoes. Their main food offerings, though, come between bits of bread. Set aside any stereotypes of sandwiches as being dull, though, the choices here are amazing!

First you pick your bread – baguette, ciabatta, olive or sun-dried tomato, rolls, or normal sliced bread. Then you pick from among the large number of fillings, and they make the sandwich up for you then and there. There are about 20 ready mixed fillings (tuna, sweetcorn and pepper, or ham and cheese, for example) and lots of ingredients that can be combined with each other, such a chicken slices, olives, cheese, bacon, and salad. Each day they do a special offer – today’s was chicken and avocado. The special offer is still made up fresh for you, but the price is lower. They also sell a good range of croissant and other pastries, fruit, and crisps.

All the normal drinks are available – coffee, tea, fresh fruit juice and canned soft drinks. There is no alcohol licence.

This place is near my flat, and I often drop in. I like it for the excellent food, the very friendly 6 people who work there, and the price – a sandwich and soup will cost you less than £5, on average. The nearest tubes are High Holborn (Central and Piccadilly lines) and Chancery Lane (Central Line.)

This restaurant is on the ground floor of the above-mentioned hotel. I've never stayed here (I live nearby), but don't be put off by the incredibly naff decor in the hotel lobby (and, indeed, the restaurant), the food is superb. I've eaten here 4 times, and each time tried something different. The food is sushi based - strips of tuna, salmon, white and flat fish are the most common, served with rice and soup. They also do some chicken-with-rice meals that are excellent, and some noodle dishes. You can order food as separate, small dishes, or go for the good value meal combinations, where you get fish or chicken, rice, and soup together at a lower cost. They also sell Japanese beer, and serve a fragrant Jasmine tea. The meal combinations all cost about 10 pounds, so with drinks the meal may be about 14 pounds.

The restaurant rarely seems crowded, and has a relaxed atmosphere. It is an especially good place to eat in this area on a Sunday, when many other places around are closed. (This is mostly a business area, and more places are open during the week than at weekends.) To get here, take the tube to Holborn station (Piccadilly and Central lines) and walk north about 300 yards along Southampton Row. The hotel is on the right hand side of the road, at the junction with the Theobald's Road, opposite Lloyd's Bank.

It's everything an Italian restaurant should be - amazing food, great service, fine wine. Not cheap, but worth every penny. The waiters never seem to be staring at you, but if you look round for one, he appears at once, and they are great at advising good wines for the food you've ordered, from an excellent and not too pricey wine list. If you want a really special wine, however, they have a few amazing offerings. They have great specials, often fresh fish such as Dover sole, and seafood for starters. Their standard menu is also good - my boyfriend loves their steak in red wine and pepper, and their fish selection of main courses is also excellent.

Better to go during the week; Friday and Saturday nights feature live music, which isn't as good as the food. I’m not keen on their vaguely folksy kind of offering in music, so I’ve never been during the weekend. We stuck our heads around the door one Friday and decided it wasn't for us! The restaurant does a good lunch (2 course) meal, which is served briskly for those who need to get back to work! My father quite often comes here for lunch - maybe once a fortnight, and brings clients with him. The cost for dinner for a couple sharing a bottle wine is likely to be about 80 - 90 pounds, and it's well worth it. Lunch tends to be cheaper, perhaps £50 for 2.

The nearest tube is Holborn - the restaurant is about 5 mins walk north-east, via Procter Street and Red Lion Square.

This is a basement restaurant, serving good, European food. There's a bar along one side of the room, plus seats and tables for about 50 people to eat at. I've been here about 3 times over the last couple of years - twice with a group of friends, the last time with my boyfriend.

When I came here with my boyfriend, we started with a drink at the bar, then he had a mozzarella based salad for a starter, and I had asparagus with a creamy sauce. Both were very good. I had a sublime grilled fish with spinach, and himself enjoyed a steak. The wine list is good and comprehensive, but certainly not cheap.

The decoration is theatrical - posters, memorabilia, and details. The atmosphere is nice - it's a busy place, candle lit, with a buzz to it. I can't quite work out why I'm not sold on this restaurant - the food is very good, and the atmosphere nice, but it just doesn't quite work for me. It's certainly not cheap, and it might just be that at nearly 70 pounds for the two of us I am fussy. A couple of my friends go here very regularly, and swear by the place, and if theatre-themed is your idea of fun, it's a good bet for you - I'm just not quite convinced.

It's pretty well essential to book here, especially at weekends, but you can easily book a table earlier in the day, in my experience. The nearest tube to the restaurant is Covent Garden (Piccadilly line).

This is a terrific place, a small chain of restaurants with 4 branches in central London.

Reservations aren't possible, you just turn up. For this reason, it's better to go about 7pm, later and you might have to queue for a while to get in. The restaurant is in a basement, decorated in cool whites and creams, with pine tables and benches. The tables are in long lines, with benches running along them, so it's not a good place for a private chat, as there will be people on both sides of you able to hear!

The food is essentially post-modern Japanese, no sushi, and all pretty healthy. My favourite thing there is a meal combination, called "Absolute Wagamama", where you get chicken, greens, and noodles in chicken stock dish, accompanied by a side dish and a glass of their amazing fresh, pulpy fruit and vegetable juices. They do many other dishes. Other favourites of mine are the fish cakes, and the spicy beef noodles. As well as the amazing fruit juices, they do a selection of Japanese beers, and fragrant teas.

It's a great place, with a good atmosphere, and I heartily recommend it. The whole restaurant is non-smoking.

To get here, take the tube to Tottenham Court Road (Northern and Central Lines), the walk about 20 yards north up Tottenham Court Road, turn right into Great Russell Street, second right, then first left. It's about 250 yards altogether from the tube station.

This is an amazing restaurant – it’s unspeakably vulgar, entertainingly naff, and wonderfully tasteless. It’s a great evening out. The restaurant, in the centre of London, Covent Garden to be precise, is not just a meal, it’s an evening out. It bills itself as "the show after the show", and it’s certainly that. I went on a Friday night with my boyfriend and 4 other people – one of them had been there a couple of weeks previously and urged us all along.

As you walk in, the décor makes you take a deep breath – it’s almost unbelievable. The floor is an odd mixture of stone, tiles, and mosaic. Every inch of the interior is decorated within an inch of its life in a riot of self-indulgent rococo excess – from red velvet table cloths and giant air blown lamps, to gold-coloured engravings and curves. The seats are patterned tapestry, the lighting is dark. Along the sides of the long room are balconies, each holding a table and chairs – underneath are the booths which are no more than 6 feet tall, tucked under the balconies. Down the middle is one long table, with parties of people sitting together. The toilets are surreal – the women’s at least has slightly impressionistic soft-porn painted all over the walls and doors!

We were in one of the booths off the side, and when you make a reservation it’s best to go for one of these, and it’s much more fun than in the centre. We got there at 8pm, and started (slowly) to order. The food is OK, nothing special, but we had a fantastic evening. Between us, we order 3 starters (houmous, and Greek cheese pancakes) and 5 main courses – monkfish, two lamb meatballs, a vegetarian bake, and a steak. While we enjoyed the food, I wouldn’t say it was great. We also managed, between the five of us, to get through 5 bottles of wine, 6 cocktails, and two after-dinner drinks. They made no effort to kick us out – we were there from 8pm to 12:45am, when we rolled out. (The other 4 went clubbing, but that amount of alcohol means bed for me.) I had a wonderful evening, and would recommend the place highly. It has to be seen to be believed.

On Sunday and Monday nights they have live opera singing, and on other nights there is piped opera at a good volume – it doesn’t drown conversation, but you can hear it if you want to. Have fun if you come here – I certainly did!

The Tandoori Raj, at the southern end of Red Lion Street, is a new Indian restaurant. The menu here is good, and more imaginative than many Indian restaurants - it's not all Chicken Tikka and Lamb Passanda. Last time we went, my boyfriend had a Duck Jalfresi, which was very interesting and most unusual, and I had a chickpea, tomato and onion effort that was very good indeed.

One criticism - the service is a bit slow, and the only way we got our bill was to get up and start putting on our coats - which worked nice and fast!

It's based over 3 floors, with a bar and tables on the ground floor, tables on the first floor, and cloakroom facilites on the third. As there's no lift, and steep stairs, it's not suitable for disabled patrons.

The nearest tube is either Holborn or Chancery Lane - walk along High Holborn (east from Holborn tube, west along it from Chancery Lane) and turn up Red Lion St. The restaurant is about 100 yards up the road on the left.

Pizza Express is a chain of restaurants; there are several in central London. I’ve been to one near Charing Cross, on the Strand, but the main one I’ve visited is on High Holborn, near the tube. It’s a good place to come with a group of people; there are large tables available and it’s a good group atmosphere.

The pizza here is much tastier and less diet-breaking than at most pizza chains. And not only pizza is on the menu – there’s quite a choice. Several times when I’ve been I’ve had dough balls as a starter – delicious tiny bread rolls that come with a pot of garlic butter; if you’re here on a date, better make sure you both eat them! I’ve also had a good tuna and bean salad here as a starter.

The main courses are about half-pizza, half-other. The pizza is very good – thin, crisp base, no oily sogginess, and a good variety of toppings such as spinach and egg, tomato with garlic and ham, and many others. The non-pizza main courses are also vaguely Italian, with lots of pasta on offer – filled cannelloni is a favourite of mine. There is a good selection of side salads, different breads, and other nibbles.

The décor in the High Holborn branch is very modern – steel framed chairs and tables, spot lighting, and clean-swept floors. The restaurant is on two floors – the basement has very interesting blue-tinged lighting which makes some people look very odd indeed!

A meal for two here will cost about £18-£20, excluding alcohol. There is a good choice of wine and beer, and all the usual soft drinks are available. The service is efficient but brisk.

The nearest tube in Holborn (Piccadilly and Central lines). Come out of the tube, turn right, and the restaurant is about 200 yards on the left.

This is a classic Victorian London pub. It’s a tall, fairly narrow detached building, standing on the main road, so it gets a fair amount of drop-in trade as well as regular office workers nearby coming in.

Inside it’s quite dark – the tables, stools chairs and benches, and the bar are all dark oak. The impressive carved oak bar is topped with a huge railway station-style clock – plain faced with Roman numerals for numbers and the words "Victoria" and "Albert" just above and below the centre respectively. (The name of the Queen from 1837 to 1901, and her consort who died in the 1860s.) It must be some 2.5 feet in diameter, and can be seen clearly from most parts of the ground floor. The walls are panelled oak as well, with the part above the dado rail painted the same old gold colour as the ceiling. The large windows are frosted up to 6 feet or so, and the curtains are an attractive pattern of dark red on old gold.

It’s a large pub – there were perhaps some 200 people there when I was last there, spread over the two parts of the pub ground floor and the restaurant up on the first floor. They also serve pub food downstairs but for more formal food the restaurant is the place to go.

On the last occasion I was there, I ate downstairs. As in almost all pubs, you go to the counter to order and pay (in some pubs they then bring the food to you, in others you collect it yourself. In almost all you pay when ordering, not at the end). If you wait for waitress service, you’ll go very hungry! The counter service is efficient and polite, and the bar offers a wide range of bitters and ales, as well as all the usual commercial lagers (none of which I tried last time, as I was grabbing a quick lunch in the middle of a working day!) I had Shepherd’s Pie - an English dish made of minced beef, tomatoes, onion and carrot with a layer of mashed potato on top – with peas and bread, and this together with a pint of lemonade set me back just under £5.50, which is pretty reasonable for the Victoria area. My lunch companion had a good, non-greasy, fish, chips and peas.

It’s not fine dining, but the pub serves good solid pub lunches downstairs, and more fancy (and pricey) concoctions upstairs. It’s a good bet for the money. It’s pretty handy for the Westminster area – the pub’s just west of Westminster Abbey and the spires can be seen from outside the building. To get here from Westminster tube, come out of the Houses of Parliament exit, walk past the Abbey and down Victoria Street, and the pub is a couple of hundred yards down the road on the right.