The Best New Restaurants & Bars In London

Understatement alert: there are a lot of new restaurants and bars in London.

So we’ve sifted through them to bring you only the creme de la creme de la creme of recent openings in the city. So tuck in to our pick of the best new restaurants and bars in London…
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Want to know what’s coming up? Well, luckily there’s a guide to London restaurants opening soon, too.

Noci | Battersea

Battersea Power Station’s added another Noci to its restaurant bedpost: this is the sophomore branch for Islington’s buzzy fresh pasta spot, with affordable dishes & spritzes served in an iconic setting…
Opened: 16th May
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Blacklock Canary Wharf | Canary Wharf

Blacklock has opened its fifth location in Canary Wharf. And yes, five officially makes it a chain now… but then Blacklock does not taste like a chain restaurant. The meat is cooked on a charcoal grill and flattened with a 200-year-old clothes iron. And here, they’ve moved into a warehouse tucked under the railway tracks by the North Dock of Canary Wharf…
Opened: 15th May
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Lasdun | Waterloo

Theatregoers, rejoice. Because the Southbank finally has a really great new restaurant. It’s set within the National Theatre itself, and it’s headed up by none other than The Marksman team…
Opened: 11th May
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Carlotta | Marylebone

The Big Mamma Group are now the Even Bigger Mamma Group, thanks to a new location in Marylebone, in the former home of the Natural Kitchen. The space itself is a suitably sizeable two-floor affair, and it’s been amped up with the kind of decadence that would make Caligula blush…
Opened: 10th May
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The Campaner | Chelsea

A little slice of Barcelona’s food scene just arrived in Chelsea with The Campaner, an all-day Spanish spot that boasts an open kitchen, a terrace, and its own kitchen garden… as well as some stunning views onto Chelsea Barracks.
Opened: 8th May
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BAO Mary | Marylebone

BAO Mary might just be your new best friend. It’s the latest spot from the BAO team who seemingly can’t put a foot wrong – and this time, they’ve turned their attentions to Taiwanese dumplings…
Opened: 8th May
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Harvest | Kensal Rise

Chef Jesse Dunford Wood appears to be singlehandedly turning Northwest London into his own personal restaurant fiefdom. After opening Parlour in Kensal Green, and Six Portland Road in Notting Hill, he’s just headed back to Kensal Green to cut the ribbon on Harvest…
Opened: 4th May
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Vinum Bar | Mayfair 

Amethyst is a real gem.

It was one of the best restaurants to open last year (and which honestly serves spectacularly good food), it’s now just gotten an intimate 16-seater subterranean wine bar below it called Vinum. There are just 16 seats in total, but its small size only adds to its intimacy and buzzing atmosphere.
Opened: 2nd May
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The Midland Grand Dining Room | St Pancras 

The Midland Grand Dining Room has just opened its doors, and it’s every bit as grand as you’d hope. And, in a second stroke of luck for Londoners, it’s absolutely nowhere near the Midlands. It occupies, without exaggeration, one of the most architecturally stunning settings in the city…
Opened: 2nd May
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Smokey Kudu | Chelsea

London’s favourite bar-named-after-an-antelope… has eloped. Smokey Kudu has left its Peckham railway arch (soon to be re-occupied by Little Kudu) for the RIXO flagship store in Chelsea, where the team are shaking up classic cocktails with South African ingredients, right among the clothes rails…
Opened: 14th April
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Maene | Shoreditch

Rebecca Dickson

The last time Nick Gilkinson opened a restaurant, the entire country was plunged into lockdown a couple of weeks later. So when he announced another, it almost felt like a threat. But then, the fact that the eatery in question, Townsend, is so good (and is still here) could only bode well for Maene, which has now taken up residence atop a four-storey former Victorian clothing factory in Spitalfields…
Opened: 10th April
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Eric’s Bakery | Dulwich

Anton Rodriguez

As Alexander Graham Bell once said ‘When one Flor closes, another door opens’. And that door is to Eric’s Bakery, the new East Dulwich spot from flour-jockey extraordinaire Helen Evans…
Opened: 8th April
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Noble Rot Mayfair | Mayfair

The Rot is spreading. At last, London has a third outpost of the wine-drenched, flavour-packed romantic rendezvous that is Noble Rot, serving excellent Modern European dishes & even more excellent wines to go with them…
Opened: 6th April
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Story Cellar | Covent Garden

Tom Sellers does rotisserie chicken. That’s the short version. Two Michelin Star chef Tom Sellers opens a sibling venue to his legendary restaurant on a colourful corner of Neal’s Yard, in which he’s serving rotisserie chicken, charcuterie & terrines in an elegant space with counter dining and a walk-in wine cellar. That’s the longer version.
Opened: 1st April
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London Shell Co Swain’s Lane | Highgate

The London Shell Co team have headed into unchartered waters… by opening their third restaurant on land. It’s a fishmongers, bottle shop and seafood bar rolled into one neat little space by Hampstead Heath, where the catch of the day is whipped into elegant small plates…
Opened: 28th March 2023
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Giacco’s | Finsbury Park

Giacco’s is a new independent wine bar on Blackstock Road, combining a curated list of low-intervention wines with Italian cheese & salumi sent over by the owner’s mother in Florence. And considering the quality, we’re all very lucky that he’s chosen to share them with us…
Opened: 17th March
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The Parakeet | Kentish Town

The Oxford Tavern has flown the nest, and in its place is The Parakeet – a smart new local with a dining room headed up by a couple of ex-Brat chefs, who are doing amazing things with an open-fire grill…
Opened: 17th March
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Rambutan | Borough Market 

Rambutan is a restaurant from chef Cynthia Shanmugalingam, who was born in the UK to Sri Lankan parents. Here she’s exploring her roots with a Sri Lankan restaurant that, in classic British style, plucks bits and bobs from other national cuisines, too.
Opened: 17th March 2023
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Nessa | Soho

Tom Cenci left his position overseeing the menu at Stoney Street in April, and the city wept. Well, a few die-hard foodies did. But the good news is that he’s opened his own Modern British bistro in Soho…
Opened: 13th March 2023
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Izakaya at Dreams | Notting Hill

Unexpected item in the bagging area: a couple of chefs from some of the city’s top sushi restaurants are popping up after hours at the Supermarket of Dreams in Holland Park, serving an exquisite omakase menu around a communal table…
Opened: 8th March
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Archway | Battersea

Trust us when we say that the loveliest, most romantic Italian meal you’ll have had in a while is waiting for you in a railway arch by a roundabout in Battersea. And it’s all thanks to a talented ex-River Café chef…
Opened: 3rd March
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Equal Parts | Bethnal Green 

From Michael Sager, the grape-corralling luminary behind one of London’s best wine bars – Sager & Wilde – comes a cocktail bar. And would you know it, it seems like he’s not too shabby at delivering those, too…
Opened: 3rd March
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Papi | London Fields

HOT4U just got their very own restaurant and, frankly, we shall all be hot 4 it. Because the food that they produce manages to be both highly inventive, and highly comforting at the same time. And sure, you may claim that’s impossible, but if you do have a bite here, you’ll be eating a lot more than just your words…
Opened: March 1st
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JOIA | Battersea

Battersea Power Station seems to be collecting great restaurants an ever-increasing pace. The latest, JOIA, is on the 15th floor, and comes to us from Henrique Sá Pessoa, who’s come over from his double Michelin-starred restaurant in Lisbon to run the show…
Opened: 21st February
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Want to know what’s coming up? Well, luckily there’s a guide to London restaurants opening soon, too.