LDNGuide

The Hit List: New London Restaurants To Try Right Now

We checked out these new restaurants—and loved them.
A spread of Italian dishes like spaghetti and meatballs on a marble-look table.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

When new restaurants open, we check them out. This means that we subject our stomachs and social lives to the good, the bad, and more often than not, the perfectly fine. And every once in a while, a new spot makes us feel like Paul Hollywood at Mr Kipling's house. When that happens, we add it here, to the Hit List. 

The Hit List is where you’ll find all of the best new restaurants in London. As long as it opened within the past several months and we’re still talking about it, it’s on this guide. The latest addition might be a sceney new restaurant with an abundance of Salomons and burrata. Or it might be a takeaway-only spot where you’ll eat life-changing jerk in a supermarket car park.

New to The Hit List (28/03): Dream Xi'an


THE SPOTS

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Chinese

City

$$$$Perfect For:Dining SoloCatching Up With MatesCasual Weeknight Dinner
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Tower Hill—a void between the City and the Tower of London—is somewhere we never want to be. But thanks to Dream Xi’an, there’s now a reason to visit. It’s from the people behind beloved Xi’an Impression and Master Wei, and the standard of these excellent Xi’anese dishes is just as high. Wonderfully chewy beef tripe and bean curd skin skewers come bathing in a nutty, spicy sesame and chilli oil sauce. And the noodles—liangpi and biang biang—are delicious. Come solo with a good book or for a big group three-hour catch-up: the staff make the inviting, red-accented place somewhere you can settle into, welcoming you in with a big smile and endlessly topping up water in teapots.

Morchella is an airy restaurant and wine bar in Clerkenwell full of stylish design touches that will make you look at your Ikea Brimnes shelves with uncontrollable self-loathing. Unusual for a restaurant this good-looking is that Morchella brings style and substance together at pretty much every juncture. The green-tiled kitchen counter, with nifty fold-out stools and views of the room and chefs, is the perfect place to acquaint yourself with a menu of modern Mediterranean bits. Snack on wonderful spanakopita or juicy mussel pil pil, and swill a glass of cloudy Greek wine while couples tuck into sea-scented vongole. Bigger plates, like salt-baked poussin, are perfect for a candlelit evening in one of the cushy booths at the back.

photo credit: Camille

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If linen curtains on gold rails, blackboard menus, and flickering candles get you going, you’ll love Camille. If not, the shatteringly crispy confit potatoes will make you fall for this Borough Market spot. The French bistro first woos with nooks perfect for a tête-à-tête and vases of fresh flowers that’ll make you go all doe-eyed after a hard day. Servers charm you with a wink as they top up your wine glass. But it’s the incredible things the chefs do with fat that’ll seal the deal: the generously salted, creamy butter with fresh baguette, tender, rich ox tongue draped with chanterelles, crisp pastry base on the sweet shallot tatin, and completely decadent burnt milk tart.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Grasso is a Soho restaurant that specialises in good-times energy and big plates of comforting Italian-American food. The music is loud, the disco-themed toilets demand an impromptu karaoke session, and smiley servers deliver fishbowl-sized spritzes. This is the perfect setting for a third date when you’re ready to go full Lady and the Tramp over a plate of massive meatballs. Or a birthday dinner when you won’t get any side-eye for a little bit of shrieking and ordering wine before you’ve sat down. The food isn’t perfect but order the penne alla vodka and chicken parm, and you'll leave happy and full, with a doggy bag and plans of returning.

The Dover in Mayfair is a dimly lit Italian restaurant with big-plate aubergine parmigiana and an if-you-know-you-know feel to it. Walk into the unmarked spot, past the heavy maroon curtains, into what feels like an invite-only members' club. Except at this one, it’s all smiles and "buon appetito" from the friendly servers, and the food is actually great. Everything from the complimentary bread, to rich chocolate paste topped with crunchy hazelnuts, and the citrussy dover sole in between is a hit. Bring a date and flirt on intimate corner tables, or come with a gaggle of friends when feeling fabulous is a priority.

At Kolae, the focus is on southern Thai flavours and marinated things cooked over a very hot coconut—and some of those things are very, very good. A gently steamed mussel skewer is a revelation and instantly one of London’s great molluscs—even if that category isn’t exactly overcrowded. Similar exclamations can be said about the deep-fried prawn heads. The slick, three-floor spot in Borough Market suits all kinds of get-togethers, but the kitchen counter is where the action is and where Kolae feels most alive. Go upstairs and the thrills of the grill dissipate a little. Kolae’s soul is in the food and you want to be as close to it possible.

This tight-knit Malaysian restaurant has gone from street stall, to pop-up, to food hall concession to, now, its own small but superb space in Clapton. Flavours at Mambow dance around Malaysia and Singapore, from five-spice pork and prawn bean curd rolls, to sensational Sarawak black pepper chicken curry, to fiery otak-otak prawn toast. It’s all deeply flavoured, aromatic, and enlivening stuff. The kind of food that will have you scraping the plastic plates clean and doing a little jig. Not that there’s much room for that, mind. But the music is pumping, the wines are juicy, and this is somewhere for Mambow to finally call home.

Plenty of restaurants are inspired by faraway cuisines or concepts, but only certain places do a good job of transporting you there. At Alley Cats Pizza, a walk-in only, NYC-style pizza spot in Marylebone, the exposed brick and checkered tablecloths take you to the streets of Williamsburg. There's a dimly lit lamp on each table, a projector plays The Sopranos, and diners fill the buzzy industrial-looking room, dipping chewy margherita crusts into fiery scotch bonnet sauce, and getting messy with a sweet onion jam-heavy mushroom slice. The pizzas are thin and crisp, covered in a rich tomato sauce, and big enough to share. And they’re up there with some of the best pies in the city.

The upstairs dining room at The Devonshire is the kind of place we’d like to be during a blizzard, perusing a handwritten menu of comforting British classics—lamb hotpot, creamed leeks, sticky toffee pudding—while the wind howls outside. Come for one of London’s best pints of Guinness, some of the city’s best British food, and to mop up leftover gravy with duck fat chips. If you don’t manage to book the Grill Room, the downstairs bar of this Soho spot is a charming, crowded place with the kind of wood panelling and burgundy paint job that feels very Dickens-meets-Mad Men

There’s something about Tashas that makes us feel like we’re in an alternate reality where the sun is always shining on Battersea and passion fruit granitas are a routine part of our day. Maybe it’s the Pinterest coffee shop feel or the fact that you’re not hurried along and time seems to slow down. Whatever it is, we’re hooked. Plus the food is great too. Excellently creamy chicken pasta comes with chunky slices of woody mushrooms, and is the perfect post-work dinner. Spending time in the virtual queue is worth it (the all-day cafe is walk-in only), to wind down, share a hefty steak sandwich, and scour the menu for something sweet to end on. Only you won’t want it to end.

The Maginhawa Group is building a Filipino empire across north and central London (with Mamasons, Panadera, and Ramo Ramen, among others) but in Donia they have their best restaurant of the lot. An evening around Carnaby Street can make dinner in the bowels of hell seem appealing, but Donia acts like noise-cancelling headphones to the stresses of Kingly Court. The room has a warm modernity to it which is matched by chummy service and elegant Filipino dishes with a sprinkling of Soho pizzazz. When dishes sing here, they belt. Chicken inasal is vibrant with vinegar, the lamb caldereta is one of the best pies in London, and the ube choux will have you coming back to Carnaby Street weekly.

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