The Best Restaurants In London Bridge
Brilliant as it is, the best restaurants in London Bridge aren't only contained to Borough Market. There's plenty of delicious and innovative food to be found around the area, and even the Shard – long disparaged as the capital's most unimaginative first-date destination – has launched some top-quality restaurants into the stratosphere.
That's why we decided to pull together a list of our favourite eateries in London Bridge, including a few from the city's much-adored food market (because sometimes you have a few hours spare to queue for linguine). Check them out below, and have a look at the best restaurants in the capital here.
Casa do Frango
Cuisine: Portuguese
Location: 1st floor, 32 Southwark St, SE1 1TU
Price: £
You are likely to have crossed paths with the high street piri piri chicken emporiums up and down the country but this is the real deal. The Portuguese take the art of rotisserie-grilled, spiced-oil doused chicken very seriously and Casa do Frango is the first site in the UK to show due reverence to the tradition. It’s not the kind of place you’d stumble across; a few hundred yards from the bustle of Borough Market and beyond the line-of-sight of lost-looking tourists. Chickens are sold by the half and whole and arrive (with chips, obvs) in the ubiquitous stainless-steel dishes found in every Atlantic-side Portuguese restaurant and café from the Algarve to Lisbon. While chicken and chips are the essential order, they are ably supported by a string of noteworthy sides. Octopus salad is charred, smoky and tender; tomato and onion salad makes for ideal acidity to load onto the fork with chips; and roasted chorizo relinquishes a sweet and spicy oil that you’ll probably end up slathering all over your bird. Arrive with a group and you’ll do well to spend more than £20 a head. As such, it’s an extremely popular lunchtime suggestion. Book a table to avoid being turned away and pointed in the direction of bustling Borough Market.
Giuseppe’s
Cuisine: Italian
Location: 47 Borough High St, SE1 1NB
Price: £
Not many people know about Giuseppe’s. But those that know, know. Now, it’s not for everyone: around 9pm every night sees a Pavarotti impersonator take to the mic and croon his way around the restaurant, shimmying past tables with the guile of a young Maradona. It’s fun and flippant and the food follows suit, with a big selection of hearty dishes that don’t take themselves too seriously. All trattoria classics are present and correct, from a weighty and cheese-dense lasagne that arrives so tongue-scaldingly hot, Lucifer himself would choose to blow the fork. Pizzas are solid, fresh from the wood-fired oven, with sizeable plates of pasta – vongole (clams, white wine and parsley), arabiata (chilli and tomato), putanesca (anchovy, olives, capers and tomato) – representing fine incarnations of the archetype. Michelin stars, this will never win – but if you like your pizza and pasta with a side-serve of irreverence, you will soon be in the know and humming O Sole Mio, too.
Fenchurch
Cuisine: Seafood
Location: The Walkie Talkie
Price: ££
Don’t be fooled by the fact this restaurant sits next to a viewing gallery: it’s far better than the sum of the ‘views for daaays’ posts. On the top floor of the Walkie Talkie building facing south across London, it does indeed have one of the best views of the city, although the restaurant, under the stewardship of hugely talented MasterChef alumnus Dan Fletcher, has lofty ambitions that hold a candle to the vista. Modern British is very much the vibe. Most of the produce is sourced from the British Isles and provenance is paramount. Beef comes from the prestigious Goodwood Estate’s longhorn herd, with fish sourced predominantly from the brackish waters of Brixham. Presentation is brilliantly delicate and subtle in its use of colour and height. An equally ideal spot for date night or business lunch.
skygarden.london/restaurants/fenchurch
Flor
Cuisine: French/Spanish
Location: Borough Market
Price: ££
When James Lowe and John Ogier – the cook and front-of-house maestro behind Lyle’s, the Shoreditch restaurant ranked number 33 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list – said that they were opening a ‘casual bakery-based restaurant’ in Borough, no one really believed them. Their first restaurant was all about stylish presentation and a lack of pretension, but always served with a studied heap of studied restaurant craft. They used all of this learning when creating the site: a slip of a building, accessed by a wrought-iron spiral staircase that must have had the builders verging on asthma attacks such were the sharp intakes of breath on realising they had to put a baker’s oven at the top of the stair. However it happened, they should be proud of their work. Not only is it now one of the best bakeries in town, but one of the finest purveyors of well-curated small plates, too. Galician anchovies come with a thin lardo layer atop, red prawns are served on their own with doused liberally with fine Spanish olive oil and roasted datterini tomatoes are the star player in an absolutely delicious thin-crust tart.
The Coal Shed
Cuisine: Traditional British
Location: One Tower Bridge, SE1 2SE
Price: £
There’s a new restaurant development in the shadows of London Bridge which might just be more inaccessible than The Box on a Friday night. You leave the station, double back on yourself half a dozen times and find a strip of restaurants and bars which are extremely unlikely to see out the first year for the lack of footfall. The Coal Shed, however, is here to stay. While it is probably making the most of the favourable development rates from the property developer, the attention is focussed on simply making a very good restaurant. The design is pure identikit: faux bookshelves and wrought iron room dividers, but the food served is better than the style affords. Seafood is the main game, shipped in daily from the British coast. A grill platter to start makes perfect sense: scallops in garlic-heavy butter, prawns simply grilled, calamari which keeps it light and crab legs which have been considerately pre-cracked to show a hint of the coral-pink flesh beneath. Day boat fish – think Dover sole, turbot, hake – sit alongside whole crabs, lobster, and big portions of properly seasoned fries. Order a large glass of finger-numbingly cold chardonnay and sit back.
coalshed-restaurantlondon.co.uk
Wright Brothers
Cuisine: Seafood
Location: Borough Market
Price: ££
When the brothers Wright opened their first oyster-specialist seafood restaurant in 2002, they probably mused on following the success of their namesakes’ first powered biplane flight in 1903. Eighteen years on and five restaurants later and their empire continues on a march for the skies. The Borough Market site was the first and many argue, the best. Hatchling in size – there’s barely enough room for 20 guests – a team of motivated front of house bustle between tables laying down plates of devilled whitebait and tartare sauce, dressed Devon crab, and sea trout, crushed cauliflower and hazelnut pesto. Each day, three one-off dishes populate an ever-popular Specials list where the fisherman is named after the catch. If you’re lucky and the skate is in-season, opt for the ray wing, sourdough croutons and capers.
thewrightbrothers.co.uk/restaurant/borough-market
Oblix
Cuisine: Modern European
Location: The Shard
Price: £££
It is of pristine importance here to request a window seat when booking. These plum spots on the 32nd floor of the Shard with northward views out over the Gherkin and the City’s sky-tickling landmarks elevate an already elevated experience to something seriously special. And if you don’t get one, you’re going to lament the smug folk that did. The restaurant is the brainchild of German restaurateur Rainer Becker, who brought Zuma to London with rave success. Oblix was the first upmarket eatery to open in the Shard in 2013 and uses its menu to cherry pick a random-seeming collection of dishes from California to Copenhagen but marry them all with success. Ingredients arrive daily from all corners to assist with the menu assimilation. Clam chowder features the best bivalves out of Boston, high-quality wagyu is treated with the restraint it needs, and Dover sole from our own coastline is given the faintest of kiss from the Josper grill for smoke and sear. It’s a landmark restaurants in one of London’s landmarks that continues to pull with its vistas that match its quality.
Caravan Bankside
Cuisine: Antipodean
Location: 30 Great Guildford St, SE1 0HS
Price: ££
It’s hard to put Caravan in a box. Its menu has a globetrotting magpie quality to it that makes the style of cuisine particularly hard to define. There are tropes from the Middle East, a leaning towards Antipodean food culture, and some fine iterations of modern European classics. Most come in the form of small plates where circa five can make for a substantial lunch. Classic orders are a burnt stem broccoli with charred sweet potato, green chutney, coconut yoghurt and curry leaf oil; burrata with sorrel pesto; and pork belly with tamarind caramel, celery and pickled red onion. The restaurant also does a strong line at breakfast and brunch, eggs served North African style in a spicy tomato sauce and arriving atop avocado toast a la Melbourne. Caravan also has a coffee roastery in north London and the blend is one of the best in town. A cortado at breakfast will set you up for the day; an espresso martini will ensure that your night is long and lively.
caravanrestaurants.co.uk/bankside
Hutong
Cuisine: Northern Chinese
Location: The Shard
Price: £££
London isn’t shy of high-end, high-priced Chinese restaurants. People, mainly tourists, seem only too happy to pay north of £50 for half a crispy duck, £15 for noodles and £10 for a vegetable side. And, if this is the going rate, you may as well make sure you’re buying the best. Hutong, on the 33rd floor of the Shard, is certainly right up there, with a view, dining room and food offering that meets the inflated standard. Its name refers to the northern Chinese province known for its high-spiced food and while these dishes are anglicised for the British palate, the food remains lip-puckeringly good. Cold pork belly comes with icy cucumber and light and a garlic- and ginger-rich dipping sauce, raw scallop is served with a beautifully balanced hit of citrus, and barbecued lamb rack is smoky, spicy and salaciously tasty at the same time. Duck pancakes are excellent and hand-rolled noodles complete the package to any splurge. A word on the toilets. Hutong is a contender for the crown of London’s best latrine: relieving oneself over the full-length glass panorama of the city below feels dually decadent and worthy of the price tag.
Padella
Cuisine: Italian
Location: Borough Market
Price: £
You’ll recognise Padella from the queue snaking round the block any day of the week. When it opened in 2012, it was an immediate hit and marked London’s first introduction to Roman-style pastificio that churn out paper plates of perfect pasta at breakneck speed. Dwell time here is low – you’ll be in and out in under an hour – but’s not the kind of place where you’ll be pondering a second bottle. Owned by the same team behind Islington’s excellent Trullo, the dishes here equal quality, although less stylised. The eight-hour beef shin ragu has successfully made the journey south of the river, as has a heady fennel sausage pasta and Trullo’s emblematic cacio e pepe – a marriage of pecorino, Grana Padano and parmesan cheeses with silken pasta and its starch-rich cooking water. Don’t linger for coffee and grab a fast slice of the almond tart before the table is turned; head straight to Monmouth for your postprandial caffeine which sits 50 yards away on the other side of the market.
Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more delivered straight to your inbox
You Might Also Like
