Journal
There is a quiet confidence to dining alone, and London, for all its bustle, makes room for it. A seat at the counter, a glass of something good, a book or simply the theatre of the kitchen: it is one of the most underrated nights out the city offers.
Counter dining is the natural home of the solo diner, and our guide to London dining is full of rooms that welcome a table for one.
Sit at the bar. You will talk to more people than you expect.
Dining Six London restaurants where the skyline or the Thames does real work, from Level 31 of the Shard to a riverside igloo at Tower Bridge. Where the cooking earns the view.
6 places Read guide →
Dining Where trading floor money meets Spitalfields grit, minutes from the departure boards.
6 places Read guide →
Dining The best restaurants in Chiswick: where to eat well, chosen on merit.
5 places Read guide →
Most great dinners in London are a means to an end. You eat, you talk, you move on to the bar, the show, the rest of the night. The tasting menu refuses to be that. It is not the warm-up. It is the whole event, the curtain up and the curtain down, three hours that […]
13 Jun 2026Read →
Afternoon tea is not a tourist trap. It is one of the last unhurried things London does on purpose. Lunch is rushed and dinner is a production, but the hours between belong to nobody, and that is precisely the point. You sit. You stay. You let an afternoon become long. In a city that measures […]
2 Jun 2026Read →
London does not fall for things loudly. It just keeps showing up. And over the last decade or so, the city has shown up for Japanese food again and again, until it stopped feeling like a special occasion and started feeling like a default. You see it everywhere now. The counter where one chef feeds […]
28 Apr 2026Read →