24 Pubs For Good Food In London Right Now

The Devonshire is the kind of place we could spend a whole afternoon, perusing a handwritten menu of lamb hotpot, creamed leeks, and sticky toffee pudding. Come for one of London’s best pints of Guinness, some of the city’s best British food, and to mop up leftover gravy with duck fat chips. If the dining room is fully booked, know the rooftop is open for walk-ins. The downstairs bar also serves snacks like sausage on a stick and toasties.

Few London pubs are as well-known as The French House in Soho: this place is a classic and the French food follows suit. While the downstairs of this drinking institution is still kept to just that, walk up the creaking 18th-century stairs and you’ll find a red-walled, yellow-lit dining room. This place is made for consumption. Specifically terrine, steak, coffee mousse and, of course, wine.

For a pub named after a giant predatory bird, this old-school Farringdon joint is pretty laid-back. It’s got a simple dining room with lots of mismatched wooden chairs, but don’t let the casual feel fool you. The classic Mediterranean dishes are excellent, and you need to get involved in their bifana. The steak sandwich is a whole meal between bread. This place is popular, so for large table bookings (between five and 10 people), give them a call.

The Guinea Grill is an old-school Mayfair pub with a reputation for a well-poured Guinness. The regulars might look like they know their way around a country estate, but this boozer attracts all sorts: wannabe wheeler-dealers, curious tourists, and serious steak people. The front bar area can be heaving but the back dining room is all ‘sirs’ and ‘madames’, with waistcoated staff bringing ramekins of moreish cauliflower cheese. It’s classic British food done very well.

The George is a delicious and decadent take on a pub. The downstairs bar is Fitzrovia’s usual mix of slurring suits and those trying to ignore them, while the upstairs is a low-lit den of a dining room. The staff, who are friendly rather than fawning, will encourage you to order a sticky toffee Old Fashioned and British classics turned fancy like cottage pie croquettes. Indulgent? Yes. Silly? Certainly. The Sunday roasts? Very good.

The Plimsoll in Finsbury Park is the kind of pub that lets Guinness rightfully rest while serving a whole lemon sole and other elegant British plates from the kitchen. The bar area is ideal to perch in with a pint, but make sure you book ahead if you want dinner in the week because the popularity of their famous cheeseburger hasn’t waned. And if it’s your birthday, they’ll stick a candle in your burger.

The Clarence Tavern is from a lineage of excellent London gastropubs, the Anchor & Hope and the Canton Arms. The Clarence on Stoke Newington Church Street is somewhere that feels like it’s been making roast cod, slow-cooked lamb shoulder with dauphinoise, and other modern European dishes forever. It manages to make lots of effort seem effortless, and its pies are up there with the finest in London.

Some pubs stay with you for much of your life, like a compliment your art teacher once gave you. The Drapers Arms is one of those. It’s an Islington stalwart that’s suitable for drinking, dining, and drowning your sorrows. The food is European, comforting stuff. Baked camembert, sardines on toast, pies, chops, and the like. It’s stuff you could make at home but often can’t be arsed, and is never as good as this.  

The Baring in Islington has the feel of a serious restaurant that just so happens to be in a polished pub space. The modern European menu spans cloud-like ricotta gnudi to crispy chips with garlic mayonnaise. Well-heeled families tend to fill the room in the day, especially for their great Sunday roast, but come night, the lights dim and things feel more intimate.

The Raglan in Walthamstow is Shankeys’ little sibling, and being an excellent host runs in the family. Meals are leisurely affairs where you’ll (willingly) be plied with pints and tater tot spice bags, until rolling out hours later than planned. The Indian-Irish food suits the groups drinking here: spicy, generous portions of crowd-pleasers like mac and cheese, and a vada pau with vindaloo pork more tender than our head the following day.

Upon opening the door to this Shoreditch pub, you’re greeted with a perfect post-work scene: a rotisserie with bronzed, slowly rotating chickens, happy pint-drinkers dipping into a majestic silver urn overflowing with packets of Taytos, and gravy-soaked baguettes finding their perfect carb sidekick in chicken fat-sponsored potatoes. At The Knave Of Clubs, it’s all about convivial fun—tables filled with work mates and couples tucked away in a nook, splitting toasties and Gs.

This old-school Shoreditch spot has been around since the Victorian times, with a proper mahogany bar, those little scallop lamp shades, and a modern dining room serving British dishes upstairs. These days you’ll find the Marksman serving Dorset crab kedgeree, bacon chops with hash browns, and some of the best savoury pies in London. Their three-course Sunday roast menu is always a good idea.

The Marquee Moon has got a lot going on. The Dalston pub is a moodily lit drinking den that also happens to serve exciting East Asian-ish food. Its rumbling hi-fi system means that pitching up at the bar for a butter and pandan Old Fashioned is just as good an idea as getting a few mates locked in for a meal. Start with deep-fried ‘Szechuan’ chicken drumsticks and don’t miss the beef rendang pie.

Ah, The Camberwell Arms. That smell of butter in the air. That big old-school dining room. This restaurant-y pub in Camberwell serves excellent food, from huge pork chops to luscious pasta dishes, but it still very much feels like a local where no one’s going to judge lunchtime drinking. The seasonal British menu changes daily but whatever they’ve got going on on their blackboard, you know you’re in safe hands.

The Waterman’s Arms is a riverside pub that sits on a pretty, leafy corner of Barnes, and it does the best Sunday roast we’ve ever had—and yes, we’re including our mum’s in that. The lamb shoulder is the one to go for. Crispy roast potatoes and braised, garlicky greens are the sides this glorious centrepiece deserves. During the week it’s all candlelight and chalkboards with a modern European menu, like pork collar with pig skin ragu.

The Old Nun’s Head, unsurprisingly in Nunhead, falls firmly into the ‘fun party pub’ category. See: the Britney shrine behind the bar, cool kid crowd, and 80-decibel-plus levels come the evening. Thanks to Dough Hands’ kitchen residency, it’s also serving some of London’s best pizza. The pizzas pair a thin, NYC-inspired base with pillowy, charred crusts, and balanced toppings. Our favourite is the spicy, citrussy, tuna-topped pie.

Anchor & Hope is a cosy boozer that serves some pretty amazing Mediterranean meets British food. From the outdoor picnic tables to the smoky dim lighting, this Southwark pub feels like your quintessential British local, only it makes things like three-cheese and hazelnut soufflé and crab beurre blanc. Once you’re sufficiently full, go for a stroll along the South Bank and reminisce over how good that baked poppyseed cheesecake was.

At the Canton Arms on the South Lambeth Road,  you’ll walk into a boozer that feels like it’s from another era. Where old boys toddle in for a glass of red and a haggis toastie, and families get together in the back dining room. The food is a touch European and a touch British—think a plate of braised peppers and burratina, combined with a pint.

Crisp Pizza W6 is a pop-up inside Hammersmith pub, The Chancellors, and it does the best thin-crust, New York-style pizzas in London. On the 360 days a year when it’s too cold to sit outside, the dimly lit pub makes for a perfectly nice room in which to eat an excessive amount of pizza. The gravity-defying slices somehow hold a rich tomato sauce, heavy with basil, and a perfect distribution of melted mozzarella.

Few London pubs are as devilishly good-looking as The Hero. This corner of Maida Vale is a hot spot for signet rings, pints of Guinness, and anecdotes about Greek island holidays. Book a table early and bask in The Hero’s rust-chic downstairs bar. Have a beer and eat a scotch egg. Count the Birkenstocks. For something more relaxed (but with a more serious menu), head up to the dining room.

This show-stopping pub on the King’s Road is glamorous on the eye but simply delightful when it comes to the British food served. The Cadogan Arms’ ham, egg, and chips is one of our top 10 pub meals. There’s pie, steak, and grilled fish, but whatever you do, make sure you get extra chips on the side—they’re excellent. There’s also an unmissable trifle which is a brilliant ‘80s dinner party throwback.

The Cow is a legendary Notting Hill pub-cum-restaurant that specialises in seafood and slabs of pâté on a plate. It’s got a dingy-glam saloon bar that seems to run on champagne, Guinness, and the potential for things to get out of hand, while upstairs is a red leather-clad dining room tailor-made for raucous dinners. You’ll want to order The Cow Special. Six oysters and a pint of Guinness rarely goes down badly.

If the Peaky Blinders made a real go of their bar, it’d be The Pelican. True, there are less flat caps, and more Adidas Gazelles, but the old-English pub aesthetic is alive and well—albeit a glossy food magazine version. Well-dressed Notting Hill locals pour in after work and families book out the semi-circle booth in the dining room for weeknight meals that involve cheese-dusted mince on toast and show-stopping beef and Guinness pies. 

The Harwood Arms is as close as you can get to being a fine dining restaurant while still being a pub. It’s on a Fulham street that’s more Cotswolds than London. Inside, you’ll find deer antlers and a posh 1920s bar that we cannot picture Peggy Mitchell standing behind. Dishes are a touch European with a big focus on British ingredients, like rabbit shoulder lasagna, apple parfait with shortbread, and plenty of fresh game.