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...

I've been spending more time in and around Elephant & Castle since I moved house earlier this year and although there are plenty of great eateries in the area, there aren't a lot of speciality coffee options. So, I was pleased to come across a new location of  Old Spike  — the Peckham-based coffee shop and roastery — mere steps from Elephant & Castle Tube on one of my lunchtime walks. I've long been a fan of Old Spike and their commitment to combining great coffee with social enterprise and social impact. As well as their Peckham Rye cafe, they have a coffee bar near Piccadilly Circus, which was formerly a Department of Coffee shop and, before that  Tonic Coffee . Their third coffee shop on Southwark Bridge Road opened up a few months ago. The coffee shop is located on the ground floor of a sleek residential development a block north of the infamous not-quite roundabout. It was a sunny day when I visited and light was streaming into the small cafe. There are limi...

Since I moved house in the summer, I often walk past the Bricklayers Arms, a former roundabout with a flyover, which connects the Old and New Kent Roads. It's a historically important location — it was a key stopping point on the pilgrimage route out of London, way back when — but isn't exactly a major point of interest these days. So, I was excited when I saw a sign just across the road announcing the impending arrival of Presse Books : a café, bookshop and arts venue. Presse Books finally opened last month and I've been in for coffee several times now. Architects Sanchez Benton have been working on several urban renewal projects in this area. Peveril Gardens is one such project: underused parking garages and a private walled garden have been transformed into a café and arts space with a public rooftop garden. Despite the cheerful pops of bright orange on the outside of the building, it doesn't feel out of place with the architecture of the rest of the area. There...