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Here are the best restaurants in London for tea, dinner, street food and more
For the “top gastronomic experience” in London, book a table at Marianne, a small, intimate restaurant. It took the top award at the Harden’s London Restaurant Awards 2017. Take a look at the other winners.
Recently, some of the city’s most influential chefs and tastemakers gathered at The Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square to hear which restaurant would be proclaimed top newcomer, top bar or pub, and most romantic dining destination in London.
Taking the biggest award of the evening was chef Marianne Lumb for her Notting Hill restaurant Marianne, where diners sit down to cooking of “peerless perfection.” An alumni of the 2009 edition of MasterChef the Professionals in the UK, Lumb opened her eponymously named restaurant in 2013, under a culinary ethos that favours local, seasonal ingredients.
Though menus change frequently, a sample dish could feature Scottish langoustines, for example, served with white asparagus; hot vichyssoise soup with Cornish salted caviar; and loin of Rhug estate lamb with green asparagus, morels and mint oil. Marianne beat out rivals The Ledbury, The Clove Club and Elystan Street for representing the “pinnacle of London cuisine,” said guide editor Peter Harden.
If you want to book a table, though, best be quick, as the restaurant is a small, intimate affair that seats just 14 diners. For this year’s awards, 8,500 people contributed 50,000 nominations. The final selection from the shortlist was made by Harden’s editors. London visitors looking to book the quintessentially British experience — afternoon tea — may want to book a table at The Berkeley Hotel’s Collins Rooms, which took the title of London’s Best Afternoon Tea spot.
The tea room is particularly popular among fashionistas for its Pret-à-Portea service, where cookies and cakes are designed after the latest catwalk trends. For diners with discerning taste buds and tighter budgets, Thai eatery Kiln in Soho was named best cheap eats, for its “palate-searing” fare, while Borough Market’s Kappacasein took the title of best street food for their cheesy raclette.
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