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...

While wandering home from Stoke Newington recently, I made a pit stop at  Batch Baby , a unique and welcoming coffee shop in Haggerston that puts filter coffee — including batch brew, of course — front and centre. Located on the ground floor of the Rose Lipman Building, a community space and creativity hub on De Beauvoir Road, Batch Baby occupies a colourful space with a relaxed vibe. There is plenty of seating, from the stools at the bar, to the tables of various sizes by the windows and a bench out front. The décor has a vintage feel, from the comfy leather dining chairs and wooden counter, to the pops of red and orange. The bright red La Marzocco that sits on the counter was the first thing I spotted, but my eye was soon drawn to the three bags of coffee beans sitting on the counter. These were the three coffees available that day as hand-brewed filter coffee (batch brew filter coffee is, of course, not just available but encouraged, but I soon got my heart set on this trio)....

Sometimes a new speciality coffee shop opens that just has it all: warm hospitality, beautiful design, a relaxed atmosphere and, of course, excellent coffee.  Nagare Coffee , which opened in Spitalfields at the end of January, lives up to all of these, and both of my visits so far have been a pleasure. I was disappointed when I found out that Montezuma's chocolate shop at 40 Brushfield Street had closed at the end of last year. I love their chocolate and peanut butter bites and it was the only place I could find them in London. But I'd always thought the small space with its period features was wasted as a shop filled with so many shelves of sweet treats. Nagare makes perfect use of the space with a wooden counter taking up the space on the left-hand side, while the rest of the room houses a few small tables dotted around the fireplace and window seats. Two big windows let in a lot of light even on the greyest of winter days. There are also benches outside offering additional s...