facttime

Since I moved back to London 15 years ago, I have spent a lot of time eating my way around the city's increasingly diverse and impressive restaurant scene. To help me keep track — and for when friends and family asked for recommendations — I started jotting down my favourites in a Moleskine City notebook, which eventually evolved into a Google Sheet and then a blog post in 2016 . An update was long overdue and here it is: my 50 favourite restaurants in London.  My main criteria for the restaurants on this list are: quality of food, warmth of service and style/ambience of the venue. The list features a wide range of cuisines and price points — from budget to blow-the-budget. Because of where I live and hang out and where I worked, there's a bias towards SE and central neighbourhoods; sorry, West London, I'm working on it! I left out places where brunch is the primary focus because I already  created a guide to my favourite brunch spots . I've added links to my reviews w...

The  original Frequency Coffee  has long been a favourite of mine, and its King's Cross location was convenient for my office. Of course, working from home last year — and for the foreseeable — has meant I haven't been able to visit owner Justo and his team as often as usual. But when I stopped by on a staycation day in November, I found out that Justo was soon going to be opening a second branch, on Camden Passage in Islington. I called by the new coffee shop while on a long bike ride at the weekend. It's located in a small shop on Camden Passage, one of Islington's loveliest streets. The space used to be occupied by a stationery / lifestyle shop, which always felt a little poky, but the new fit-out has made very good use of the space. Like the original, elements of the design highlight Justo's love of music: the counter here also uses sound-proofing as a design feature, for example. The distinctive tables ( which you can buy ) feature here too, although there ar...