The five-course menu, developed by Akokomi and Chilila over many months (Akoko is the Yoruba word for 'time'), is a reimagining of the traditional dishes found in Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana in particular – those they grew up eating. It kicks off with a generously portioned trio of starters, presented on a tray with bespoke ceramic plates inspired by mid-century-modern Nupe pottery. There's a Ghanaian yam croquette piled with truffle shavings and filled with mushroom puree; grilled plantain topped with cashew cream and spiced peanuts ; and a savoury doughnut filled with beef cheek.
Jollof rice is underplayed as 'just a popular West African dish' by the waiter but here it appears in beautiful earthenware pots with a theatrical puff of smoke, served under sticky goat leg given smokiness from a blast in the Big Green Egg. Then it's yassa again – essentially a rich onion stew with lemon and mustard – this time alongside a dainty barbecued quail. And finally, a not-at-all sweet lemon sorbet with mint and cucumber preps the palate for the delicious dessert; goat-milk ice cream with Ghanaian cocoa cream, African nutmeg and uziza oil for a peppery hit to cut the richness. The menu doesn't bow down to gimmicks or trends; instead, it's a showcase of seasonal, locally sourced high-quality ingredients. Kick off with a few small bites – squidgy sourdough with whipped Marmite butter or crispy vegetable tempura with a herby crème fraȋche to dunk into are good places to start.
Small plates include stringy burrata with sweet pickled grapes to offset the cheesy richness, crab served in a pool of buttermilk and tarragon oil, and wafer-thin slices of beef carpaccio with pickled Asian mushrooms and a drizzle of citrussy ponzu sauce. There are a lot of different components to each dish – some of which would probably be too fiddly to recreate at home – but they're all packed with bold flavour. If you like to be in on the action, book a seat at the counter where you can watch the chefs crisping up 'nduja and garlic mascarpone flatbread pizzas in the wood-fired oven or smoking and searing rib-eye steaks before they're slathered in chimichurri. Octopus is served with a sticky lemon and saffron marinade, while there's a daily market fish special based on what comes in fresh each morning. Don't scrimp on the vegetables; a dish of charred hispi cabbage with spiced coconut chutney and a tart lime dressing was one of the stars of our supper. And save room for pudding – the chewy, gooey, salty-sweet miso caramel skillet cookie is cooked to order and served piping hot, and is easily the highlight of the menu.
Devoid of clanging pots and hollering chefs, an unusually quiet open kitchen exposes the focused dedication of the chefs as they glide around in an evidently well-rehearsed routine. Harnessing their South American roots and intercontinental experience, chefs Paulo Airaudo and Rafael Cagali add flair to European dishes with clever additions such as Argentinian chillies or 40-year-old Italian balsamic vinegar. Choose between the eight- or 11-course blind tasting menus (you won't be given any kind of menu on arrival), and sit back to experience traditional recipes inverted and elevated – a sense of familiarity is retained as new flavours and techniques are introduced. A punch-packing, crystal-clear tomato consommé is then poured around the centrepiece, followed by a vibrant green basil oil. Similarly, the Portuguese dish farofa, a toasted cassava or cornflour mix usually served with meat, is topped with sweet chillies and served with barbecued Hampshire pork and black-bean purée, and a herb bouquet wrapped in a sliver of melt-in-your-mouth pork fat.
The menu, designed by executive head chef Johnnie Crowe and head chef Joe Laker (formerly at Farringdon's Anglo restaurant and Belgravia's Liv), consists of à la carte options and a chef's set selection offering smaller tastes of the full menu's best bits. We went for the set menu, seven dishes served on speckled china plates and thin tree-trunk cross sections. Kicking things off was FFC , two perfectly crunchy bites of deep-fried chicken thigh served with a dollop of pea-green wild-garlic cream. This was an absolute novelty for me – as someone with a gluten intolerance, simple delights such as fried chicken have been off the table .
Luckily, Laker also has various dietary requirements, so most of the dishes can be adapted. Second was a slice of freshly made bread and cultured butter, followed by beef tartare with fermented chilli, sprinkled with chives and drizzled in a punchy smoked oil. It's all about the noodle soup here, and to make life easier there are just two bases to choose from – the Taipei- and the Tainan-style broth. The Taipei is punchier in flavour and is topped with slow-cooked beef cheek and short rib in a rich soup with spiced beef butter . The Tainan broth comes with a rare beef rump in a light soup, with 400-day-aged soy and a cured egg. Of course, this wouldn't be BAO without a selection of buns and sharing plates to order too.
The soups are hefty, so we recommend just one bun each, adding a couple of small plates if you're feeling particularly hungry. We went for the sweet crunchy pao tsai pickles, the Taiwanese fried chicken – an essential – and boiled cull yaw dumplings swimming in a delicious broth, a new dish that is exclusive to BAO Noodle Shop. First-timers should order the classic, with juicy pork and peanuts packed inside a fluffy pocket. If you have room for pudding, the fried Horlicks ice-cream bun is another go-to; the fried bun tastes a little like brioche while the ice cream is made from the creamy malted drink. The menu is inventive, and largely plant-based, but with seriously hearty French flair. There's more Comté on the main menu to start – it comes dusted on the top of some of the fluffiest fries we've tasted, with a dollop of saffron aioli for dipping.
Other starters include a soft slice of Boudin Noir with a tamari-cured egg yolk and sharp endive, and a bowl of creamy stracciatella paired with salted plums and crispy buckwheat. A caramelised-celeriac ravioli sits in a pool of butter and lovage oil, paired with a deliciously comforting crunch of roasted Jerusalem artichokes. Bigger plates, made to share, include a beautiful half pie layered with dauphinoise potatoes, black trompette mushrooms and a layer of vacherin. There is also a Gloucester Old Spot pork chop served with sweet potato and miso or roast halibut with sprouting broccoli.
There's too much on the list, to try it all, so if you can't make up your mind, opt for the Chef's Menu, a reasonably-priced selection of five dishes picked for the table to share. For pudding, the puffed half-moon tarte tatin or the doughnut choux filled with espresso cream and topped with caramelised hazelnuts are excellent. Chef Johnnie Collins helms the open kitchen and puts the focus on bold seasonal sharing plates – modern British dishes with East Asian and Italian influence.
Start with yakitori sticks such as Swaledale chicken thigh with preserved yuzu and tropea onion, soft monkfish with black sesame and pressed pork belly with red glaze before trying more substantial small plates. Crispy fried artichoke with spicy cashew green chilli resembles Roman carciofi alla giudia, while Japanese Namayasai English radishes with wild garlic mayo cleanse the palate before bigger mains. We opted for a plate of crab cappelletti with brown crab chilli butter, a dense plate exploding with flavour, although everyone else at the restaurant seemed to go for the half roast chicken with curry sauce and chips. Pudding is limited – a crumbly croissant comes stuffed with rhubarb-miso ice cream and sesame but the slice of Simon Hopkinson dark chocolate tart infused with cream and sea salt takes the win. It's hard to give the food at Trivet a particular identity; instead, dishes take diners on a globetrotting journey inspired by the duo's love of travel. There's reference to Lake's work in Italy with his hand-made pici pasta served with red mullet; nods to trips to Spain with smoky Iberico pluma; and memories from a tour of Japan with the use of shiitake mushrooms and sake.
Plump scallops come with pomegranate, black sesame and bitter endive; artichoke is served in a pool of sourdough broth and topped with a fan of black truffle shavings; and delicate pastry puffs are sandwiched together with sour cream and caviar. The chicken glazed with a vinegar sauce and plated up with mashed potato may sound deceptively simple, but the result is an impressive display of Lake's precision. However, it's the puddings that really show off his talent, fusing flavours that many people won't have tried before. Mille-feuille topped with wafer-thin slices of baked sweet potato and filled with buttery white chocolate and sake mousse isn't just delicious, it's a revelation.
One meatless option is the pounded yam balls in egusi and spinach soup, presented in a playful tricolour of green, red and yellow. My favourite was the sinasir and miyan taushe – rice pancakes for dunking in a pumpkin and peanut sauce. Starters include moi moi, a steamed bean tart with red peppers and onions. The jollof quinoa makes for a fluffier, healthier take on the classic rice version, while the raw okra with honey-chilli vinaigrette is one of many sweet-savoury contrasts that are a running theme at Chuku's. The sugariness is a departure from traditional Nigerian recipes, many of which – plantain excluded – err on the savoury. But incorrigible carnivores can take comfort in the chicken wings coated in caramel infused with kuli kuli – a nod to dishes from northern Nigeria.
Suya, a northern spice mix, is traditionally slathered on skewered beef, but here it's more subtle and used on pan-fried king prawns, in a honey sauce. It's novel, without straying too far from the original, recognisable flavour. One of the most Spanish-style creations is ojojo, another sweet-savoury combo of yam and smoked mackerel croquetas on a bed of Scotch bonnet jam. And dodo, or fried plantain, is a reliable standard – diced and tossed in cinnamon sugar and coconut, it makes a delicious counterpoint to the salt of the suya-peppered meatballs. Unless you live nearby, you might not have ventured to Borough Market since lockdown began. While it would typically be swamped with visitors, these days it's been reclaimed by locals, with room to move, shop and even dine as many of the stalls and food joints have set up al-fresco seating after-hours.
With the idea to make the most of the day's leftover produce, owner Charlie Foster has teamed up with Tomas Lidakevicius, former executive chef of Jason Atherton's City Social, to create a supper club. The influx of outdoor dining options means it's a buzzing, veering on noisy, place to be. But what you're really here for is to see and taste what Lidakevicius can do with the day's ingredients from his converted-shipping-container kitchen. First came Primeur, which set up shop in a former motor garage in Canonbury and served up impeccably sourced, Italian-inspired small plates and natural wines with such infectious enthusiasm that people have been known to trek here from south of the river.
Then came Westerns Laundry, in an obscure corner of Highbury, which did the same thing, albeit in a former launderette and with more fish, and was one of our restaurant highlights of 2017. Now co-founders Jeremie Comotto-Lingenheim and chef David Gingell have opened an all-day bakery-restaurant on Newington Green – which means it's theoretically possible to have breakfast here, lunch at Westerns and dinner in Primeur in the same day. Despite the name there's no rhinestone here but bare walls etched with tiny bits of graffiti, more pencil-case than Banksy, and a raw-plastered, scented bathroom that wouldn't look out of place at Amangiri. We kicked things off with garam masala labneh with fenugreek-chilli butter and spiced chickpeas, and pork and Chinese chive potsticker dumplings with black vinegar and chilli oil. Other starters include jamón and San Simon croquettes or San Daniele prosciutto, but it's best not to over-order and move on to the main-sized sharing plates. Choose from veggies such as the Jerusalem artichokes with tahini and pomegranate in a mint sauce, charred aubergine with saffron buttermilk dressing or sweetcorn in salted pandan coconut milk.
For pudding there's an incredible dark-chocolate and rye custard tart with blackberry cream, which has the perfect consistency but is – like most things on the menu – best shared unless you're starving. There's one option if you want a full meal – the six-course set tasting menu. It changes regularly to suit what's in season, but is grounded in De Cecco's Italian heritage and modern, inventive cooking. Home-made sourdough bread, served happily as its own course and in the mould it was raised in, starts our meal off, along with a salty, spicy, freshly whipped jalapeno and cod's roe butter on the side. Next up, a complicated pile of tagliatelle is dressed with beef fat, monk's beard (a grassy Italian herb grown in the restaurant's own garden) and butter-soft chunks of cuttlefish. Then there's a duck-confit potato, smothered in a savoury cream sauce, and a fresh take on dukka that has all the usual crunch and spice plus a hit of finely chopped herbs.
And for pudding there's a punchy chilli sorbet with pickled rhubarb and a black-bean paste – strange-tasting elements on their own, but combine them in one spoonful and they create flavour alchemy. Casa do Frango translates to chicken house, which vastly undersells what's happening here. The menu kicks off with a round of sharing plates to start – 'some of them really aren't that small,' our waiter warns us. We tried chewy potato sourdough served warm with whipped butter that was topped with chunky flakes of salt, smoky grilled chorizo which left a trail of scarlet oil in the dollop of black olive mayo that came with it, and Piri-Piri prawns that packed a garlicky punch. For the main course, there's just one option – the house half chicken, brushed with Casa do Frango's signature Piri Piri sauce, it's charred on the outside and juicy in the middle, perfect for ripping into with a group.
Load up on the sides – we particularly liked the African rice, which came with crispy chicken skin and soft plantain. For pudding, make like the Portuguese and order the Pastel de Nata – the chefs here have perfected the balance of flaky pastry casing and oozy, custardy filling. Tortillas are made daily in the team's tortilleria in Bermondsey – the first indicator that this place plates up an authentic, fresh-as-can-be menu. To start, the sea bass ceviche is fiery and tart , while the scallop tostada spotlights paper-thin, slightly sweet slices of scallop. Order a few and share them all – we tried the flaky fried crab, served on a soft blue-corn tortilla, which was zingy and refreshing, and the mushroom iteration, smothered in an almost indecent amount of Oaxaca-style cheese. The showstopper is the namesake Al Pastor – pork shoulder, sticky caramelised pineapple and avocado salsa.
New to the Soho spin-off is the crispy-duck sharing platter – big enough for four, it comes with bottomless tortillas. For pudding, the dark-chocolate and ancho-chilli fondant has a real kick – order it with the roast-corn ice cream, which adds a cooling element to the dish. The cocktail list here is as creative as the food menu, drawing in spices, floral ingredients, vermouths and house shrubs .
Dishes may be tweaked from week to week, but the big-hitters, sourced through consistent channels, rightfully retain prime position. For those who like charred morsels to start with, the corn ribs are great gnarled wefts of sweetcorn cut from the cob and fried swiftly on a high heat, dripping in spiced butter. We'd go so far as to say they're better than their meatier siblings, the smoked-beef dandy ribs, which are served medium rare but still fall off the bone.
Mushroom parfait with shiitake and black truffle is earthy in flavour and silken in texture and arrives alongside freshly baked sourdough. The signature namesake dish comes in the form of fallow tartare, peppered with flecks of hazelnut and pickled onion and, once more, a slab of the delicious bread that aids the all-important mopping. For a larger sharing option, order the whole lemon sole with bacon-butter sauce, brought to the table in its entirety and left to serve at your own pace. There are English beans and Isle of Wight tomatoes to consider, but we were rightfully told to head straight for the kombu fries – miso-heavy and so moreish you'll end up finishing the entire bowl by yourself. When head chef Jonny Lake and master sommelier Isa Bal announced they were leaving Britain's most famous – and probably most expensive – restaurant, The Fat Duck, after a collective 24-year tenure, expectations for what was to come next were sky-high. Heston Blumenthal's three-Michelin-starred spot may trade on its circus-meets-science-experiment brilliance, but diners at Lake and Bal's new project won't find any liquid nitrogen or snail porridge on the menu.
In fact Trivet, squirreled away down a quiet side street a stone's throw from foodie hub Borough Market, opened three months ago to little fanfare. There's no kitchen wizardry, no theatre, no gimmicks; just a reassuringly simple three-course menu. With its muted Scandi edge, even the styling is restrained – bar the flash of colour from the yellow banquette seating and the warm glow of the open kitchen.
In the daytime, pick from beef-short-rib suadero, pork cochinita and cauliflower al pastor tacos. But come Thursday evening, the addition of crispy crab tostadas with guajillo chilli and tamarind, plus Baja-style fried-fish tacos with white cabbage and fennel, makes it the table to book. The red guacamole with circular tortilla chips is a step above most in London and all salsas, rubs and sauces are made in house. Sharing dishes include a smoked suadero short rib which slides off the bone, served with burnt onions and pomegranate, and a whole grilled brill with English peas and jalapeños.
Whatever is on the menu, you can be sure it's made with the best ingredients, and from scratch. But if you order just one thing, make it the corn doused in pasilla mixe and cheese shavings. Pujol is the most sought-after reservation in Mexico City, if not the whole country, currently number 12 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. And since his time in the kitchen there underneath Enrique Olvera, chef Nicholas Fitzgerald has been cooking at London joints including Breddos Tacos and The Mexican at Annabel's.
His first bricks-and-mortar stall sells tacos by day, as well as homemade hot sauces and cocktails, but every Thursday, Friday and Saturday it opens up into the market space for a sit-down supper. Fitzgerald has named his pop-up All My Friends, and so the plates are made for sharing and the flavours are fun. Pull up a stool at the white-tiled counter – between the recently reviewed Turnips and Erev – and get stuck in; this is finger food. There might also be tiny, wafer-thin tartlets of Isle of Mull cheese made into a custard with burnt apple purée and textures of celery, and incredibly warming hen of the woods mushroom tea with toast.
All three pudding courses are a standout, using seasonal flavours such as bramble, juniper, apple and clementine, but the winner is the deliciously rich combination of chocolate and salted ricotta. As a nice little touch to top off the evening, each diner gets a mini spice-packed bun to take away for breakfast the next day, fresh from the oven at the end of service. First up, the homemade sourdough served with bright, peppery Fiorano olive oil and burrata that has to be some of the best in the city – crucially not served too cold.
Always on the menu, and always worth an order, is the famous worm-like pici pasta swimming in creamy cacio e pepe – a satisfying smack of flavour. But it's the silky pappardelle with beef-shin ragu, made with eight-hour-cooked Dexter beef, that could potentially make a three-hour wait for a table seem worth it. Other highlights include fettuccine laced with Cobble Lane cured 'nduja, mascarpone and lemon and a new nobbly cavatelli with slow-cooked broccoli, garlic, anchovy and chilli – all arriving doused in a healthy layer of Parmesan. We're sure puddings are good, but they're not really what you've waited in line for.
Maybe you have your heart set on eating exactly one big spoonful of mac and cheese along with a single rib, a piece of fried chicken, some candied yams, and either four or five green beans. There aren't a lot restaurants that can make this happen, but fortunately, there's Jacob's. It's a buffet where you scoop your own food and pay by the pound, and it has everything from okra and oxtails to spaghetti and fried chicken.
Just grab a styrofoam container, and fill it up with everything your heart desires, along with several things it doesn't desire currently, but might desire later. It's $6.49 per pound, and you can either eat in the little dining room to the side, or take your food to go. To paraphrase Michael Bolton, love is all very well, but a decent neighbourhood restaurant is a wonderful thing. A place to pop by when you can't face buying 25 ingredients for that Ottolenghi recipe, or for a quick bite before a film, or a lazy weekend brunch.
Salon, which enjoys a prime people-watching position upstairs in Brixton Market, has gone from strength to strength since chef Nicholas Balfe opened here in 2013. And this September, Salon unveiled a lovely, redesigned dining room (marine-blue with reclaimed timber and grey fabric) with a snacky menu for the groundfloor bar, which also sells syrups and preserves to take home. Shoreditch restaurant Lyle's is not only one of the best restaurants in London, but it's ranked 33 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants list too.
