The Best New Restaurants in London

Broadsheet’s editors are asked one question more than most: “what’s the best new restaurant you’ve been to in London recently?”.

It’s a tricky one to answer – so we’ve pulled together this guide of what’s on our radar right now. It’s an edit of future classics, places that speak to how we are dining right at this moment in London and spots that could change how we eat forever. But what you can expect is a hitlist of restaurants perfect for right now, updated regularly and all of which have opened in the last six-ish months.

Another welcome product of the supper-club-to-permanent-restaurant pipeline (see also: Logma), All Roads is a 35-cover spot on the edge of buzzing Brixton Village, by hospitality couple Malika Green and Paschelle Brown. Dishes draw on the pair’s Caribbean heritage while also blending southern American, British and European influences: think sweet tea chicken, low-and-slow grilled meats and seasonal cobblers. Green (who designed cocktail menus for Cafe Kowloon and Daddy Bao) has created drinks that complement the dishes, like the AR Daiquiri with white rum, pineapple and scotch bonnet jam.

Italian restaurants opened thick and fast in London in the past 12 months – but only one focuses in on arrosticini: skinny, flame-grilled skewers, usually made with mutton or lamb, from central Italy’s Abruzzo region. They’re designed to enjoy messily (white tablecloth be damned) at this slick London Fields trattoria, washed down with £5 Campari spritzes and low-intervention Italian wines.

In a beautiful transatlantic pizza partnership, The Plimsoll’s Ed McIlroy has teamed up with Philadelphia thin-crust legend Joe Beddia (Pizzeria Beddia) to add to London’s ever-growing stable of US-inflected pizzerias. Here at this bright and slender north London space – inspired by mid-century Milan – diners choose from a short menu championing quality produce, including a pepperoni number with Neal’s Yard cheeses and a spicy, spinach-laden riff on saag paneer.

Sometimes, a restaurant doesn’t need to push the boundaries of cooking to be excellent. And with Brasserie Olivia, the first UK outpost by Parisian group La Nouvelle Garde, the joy comes from well-executed French cooking in a relaxed environment that feels worlds away from the traditional stuffiness that we might associate with French dining in London. Be transported by the red- and white-striped awnings and bistro chairs – plus vintage posters directly from French flea markets – and eye off the lobsters in the large tank (they’re great whole off the grill with garlic butter and fries).

What next after heading up the kitchen at one of London’s finest Italians for more than 15 years? For Trullo chef and co-owner Conor Gadd, it’s simple: spearhead one of the capital’s biggest openings of the year, and bring sharp Italian dining to Covent Garden. The sun-drenched Roman-inspired room is the backdrop for an elegant menu that doesn’t overcomplicate: vitello pan-seared in butter, whole lemon sole with prosecco and tagliarini with mussels and clams.

Thirty years ago he changed the members’ club scene with Soho House, and now Nick Jones wants to do the same for hotel dining with his strapping all-day restaurant Cafe Clement. It’s the first venue to open in the game-changing new St Clement hotel precinct at Temple, and Jones has enlisted River Cafe’s former head chef Danny Bohan to conjure an always-changing menu of dishes built around great produce (including a mind-blowingly lush gruyere soufflé). Whip-smart seasonal fare, a handsome dining room and Jones’s signature attention to detail – we’re calling it, this is the spot of summer 2026.

This little butter-yellow restaurant has many of the ingredients for a beloved neighbourhood restaurant. It’s BYO and walk-ins only: a decision made by chef-owners Jake Barwood (Brunswick House) and Celia D’Ortiz (The Duke of Cambridge) to give the place a relaxed feel, catering to locals who might decide to pop down on a whim for made-to-order tortilla de patata (Spanish omelette), tostadas (crunchy fried corn tortillas) topped with meat, fish or vegetables. The ever-changing blackboard menu blends D’Ortiz’s Mexican and Spanish heritage and Barwood’s British French style of cooking, and is driven by seasonal produce.

Vegan dining got a sexy makeover at Notting Hill’s Holy Carrot, thanks to its sultry design and chef Daniel Watkins’s clever cooking. Its follow-up is still all-veggie, but Watkins has introduced dairy and eggs and built a menu chock-full of hits. That includes a section dedicated to flatbreads and pizzettas made with fermented koji and silken tofu – including a version of Georgia’s cheesy flatbread khachapuri, topped with a baked egg.

Chinese flavours meet Texan barbecue at Hon’s BBQ, the first permanent restaurant by chef Man Hon Luk. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, he moved from a residency at All My Friends in Hackney Wick to an 80-seater in the former Silo space above Crate Brewery. And from that first bite of his barbecue, cooked low and slow on an outdoor smoker, it’s clear why his fans supported the crowdfunder. Hong Kong-born Luk trained under legendary pitmaster John Bates at Michelin-starred Interstellar BBQ, but adds Chinese flavours; take the Sichuan-glazed beef ribs, smoked for five hours, baked, then cut off the bone and finished with a Sichuan pepper glaze.

This might be Hoppers number four, but co-founder Karan Gokani and his team aren’t holding back. The new Shoreditch spot celebrates south Indian food – a slight steer away from the Sri Lankan focus at its predecessors – in an atmospheric space referencing old Indian homes. Visit for a short-rib biryani, and a dish of butter-fried dosa stuffed with paneer or lamb that’s inspired by a dish popular in India right now.

Most nights of the week, chef Meedu Saad can be found presiding over an enormous charcoal grill at his North African restaurant Impala – the newest member of the Super 8 stable (Smoking Goat, Brat, Mountain and Kiln, where he is co-owner and executive chef). Impala sees Saad channel long, hot summers visiting family in Egypt, along with the Turkish mangals of his native Tottenham. The result? Dishes like duck slow-roasted in molasses with fig sauce, and monkfish grilled over coals wrapped in grape leaves.

Storied Strand restaurant Simpson’s is back, led this time by almost-as-storied restaurateur Jeremy King. His reimagining of the 200-year-old institution sprawls across two restaurants and two bars. The Grand Divan is the main dining room, where the menu is classic British and meat is carved from roaming trolleys. Then there’s Romano’s: an elegant, affordable brasserie doing French-inflected British fair with King’s customary savoir faire.

Sally Abé (ex-The Bull, The Ledbury, The Pem, Harwood Arms) has gone east for her first solo restaurant, launching tiny Teal on Hackney’s Wilton Way. It’s a British bistro where Abé plates up historic British dishes like “knife and fork bacon” (tender bacon lifted with sour cream) and lockets savoury (think a can’t-stop-at-one rarebit made with stilton and sliced pears). It’s a pocket-sized winner.

Beloved Chelsea fishmonger and restaurant The Sea, The Sea has been reprised in a new, larger space across the road from where it first opened in 2019. The Sea, The Sea 2.0 is set across two floors: downstairs, a fishmonger that transforms into a seafood bar in the evenings and upstairs, a bistro that gives head chef Nick Marsden more latitude to deploy his creativity on the catch of the day. While seafood anchors the menu, Marsden’s dishes roam across cuisines – think cuttlefish ragu, a langoustine and crab consommé and a seaweed dumpling with lobster. It’s quiet but exciting cooking, and a noteworthy new addition to London’s seafood dining scene.

In an interview with Broadsheet, Jackson Boxer described his light-flooded new Exmouth Market restaurant as a tribute to London: a confident, cosmopolitan celebration of produce. Boxer (the chef behind Dove in Notting Hill and Vauxhall’s Brunswick House, among others) is known for his creative, globally inspired dishes, and Vesper’s daily changing menu is no exception. If the spring onion pancake is on the menu – a crisp, layered triangle topped with an unctuous bite of raw tuna and a salty, swirled-up cantabrian anchovy – order it. The same goes for its off-menu, gorgonzola-laced beef burger, of which there’s only be 10 available on a first-come, first-served basis each day.