It's that time again - where we round up the very best of London's eating and drinking in the year that's almost done. Here's our complete run-down of the very best of 2023 - including the city's best new restaurant.
Best new restaurant - Mountain
Soho - 16-18 Beak St, London W1F 9RD
Here at Hot Dinners, we like to think we can spot pretty early when a restaurant is going to be a hit, but you’d have had to be completely clueless not to know that Mountain was going to be a rip-roaring success from week one. Tomos Parry’s follow-up second album to Brat exploded in Soho to a frenzy of great reviews and is still packing them in a half year later. It's a perfect combination of a great menu (the fresh cheese with raw prawns was one of many spectacular dishes) matched with a welcoming, buzzy room, led by a notably diverse brigade of chefs. If you somehow haven't been, make plans to fix that as early as possible in 2024.
Runner up: The Devonshire (Soho) After the Guinness-fuelled maelstrom of the bar at The Devonshire, the upstairs dining room at The Devonshire would look like heaven if it wasn’t for the fiery furnace at one end. Grab a seat and enjoy the food of Ashley Palmer-Watts and Jamie Guy while being ministered to by the always-on Sujan and his team.
Best scene - The Devonshire
Soho - 17 Denman Street, London W1D 7HW
For most of 2023, this was the most hotly-anticipated opening of the year. So when Oisin, Charlie and Ashley finally unveiled their Soho boozer it wasn’t a huge surprise that it turned into a bona fide party palace. A pub so popular it kept running out of Guinness and saw Lewis Capaldi tinkling the ivories in the back room, it single-handedly turned this corner of Soho into the place to be any night of the week.
Photo by Ashley Palmer-Watts
Runners up: Over in London Fields, the folks at Papi were always up for a good time and in Notting Hill, Wild turned out to be a place that lured in both locals and A-listers in their droves.
Best looking - Midland Grand Dining Room
King's Cross - St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Rd, London NW1 2AR
How do you take a 150-year-old dining room from a renowned British architect and turn it into the kind of restaurant that attracts Parisians and Londoners alike? Well, it helps if your owner has an eye for detail like The Midland Grand’s Harry Handelsman does. He brought in Hugo Toro, with whom he'd collaborated with previous success at the hotel's Booking Office bar and restaurant. And suddenly, what had seemed like a fairly austere space became a warm cocoon perfect for enjoying chef Patrick Powell’s amazing food.
Runners up: Just down the road from 10 Downing Street, the unveiling of The OWO marked the culmination of years of building works and millions of pounds spent transforming the former government building into a five-star hotel.
Best out-of-town - Estelle Manor
Eynsham, North Leigh, Park OX29 6PN
If you unashamedly want the sybaritic pleasures of London when you venture out into the English countryside then Estelle Manor very much has your number. This luxury take on country house chic gives you all the roaring fires and country pursuits you could want, while also offering perfect dim sum in the Chinese dining room or a marvellous glass of Mezcal in the bar. Can we move in, please?
Runners up: The opening of The Suffolk proved to be the icing on the cake for the lovely seaside town of Aldeburgh, offering fabulous hospitality in a super relaxed fashion. And if it’s coastal dining you’re after then Adam Handling’s Ugly Butterfly is our hot recommendation for those who want to enjoy seal watching while they work their way through an inventive tasting menu.
Most transformed area - The South Bank
The Brutalist architecture of the National Theatre proved to be fertile ground for new and exciting restaurants this year as Kerb came on board to help curate the theatre’s food and drink offering. First up was a street food market Kerb Table with communal seating for 200 at one table. Next was the arrival of Lasdun, an elegant restaurant from the folk behind The Marksman. The final piece in the puzzle arrived late summer with the opening of Forza Wine and its huge riverfront terrace. Culture, great food and iconic London views - what’s not to like?
Runner up: Borough Market continues to improve, with restaurants like Kolae and Akara being among the best to open this year.
Best place to perch up at the counter - Humo
Mayfair - 2 St George's Street, London W1S 2FB
Cooking over fire fans get a front-row seat at the counter at Humo where chef Miller Prada and his team preside over a 4m long wood grill using oak, cherry, walnut and beech to flavour the dishes. Sure, you could sit elsewhere in this elegant Mayfair dining room, but you’d be missing out on all the fun (and pyrotechnics).
Runner up: Humble Chicken completely reinvented itself this year, upgrading the counter dining experience in the process from fast and furious yakitori to more considered omakase.
Best classic revisited - The Ritz
St James - 150 Piccadilly, St. James's, London W1J 9BR
In the decade since we’d last been to the Ritz things had only got better. Executive chef John Williams had finally won his Michelin star (long overdue in everyone’s estimation), the room was still a rococo delight, the service was faultless and there was very much a special occasion frisson involved in dining here. If you love a bit, or even a lot, of tableside theatre you couldn’t do any better than booking a table here.
Best snack - Fermented rice cake with crab at Chishuru
Fitzrovia - 3 Great Titchfield St., London W1W 8AX
This was actually one of three snacks served at the start of a fabulous dinner at Chishuru’s new home in the West End. Chef Patron Adejoké Bakare is cooking up a storm here in Fitzrovia and this arrangement of sinasir (fermented rice cake) topped with white crab meat, pumpkin & sorrel purée was memorably good.
Runner up: The snack of fried semolina at The Grill by Tom Booton at The Dorchester was definitely a one-bite job, filled with warm gouda and topped with salami.
Best side - Grilled potatoes at Sune
Broadway Market - 129A Pritchard's Rd, London E2 9AP
Newly open on Broadway Market, Sune roared into our list of great London restaurant openings for 2023. Their sides game was particularly strong with this dish of grilled potatoes, topped with a brown butter and creme fraiche sauce with loads of cracked black pepper - a definite crowd pleaser.
Runner up: The Ratatouille Byaldi at Dovetale is a homage to chef Thomas Keller’s confit biyaldi (that’s the one served in the Pixar film too). A side dish at Tom Sellers' newest restaurant, it's a must-order.
The one that got away - Sonora Taqueria
As always, there are a few places we didn't manage to get to in the past year and top of the list is Sonora Taqueria's first permanent space, over in Stoke Newington. Everything we've heard about the new place has been great and it's at the top of our places to catch up on in the new year.
Another one we missed was Rambutan. We've been hearing very good things about Cynthia Shanmugalingam's Sri Lankan restaurant in Borough.
Previously published as "part one", the awards continue below
Best dish - Scallop with lentils & beurre blanc at 64 Goodge Street
Fitzrovia - 64 Goodge St, London W1T 4NF
When the Woodhead group (Portland, Clipstone, Quality Chop House) opened this small but perfectly formed restaurant they said it would be “a study in French classical cooking”. This dish featured a perfectly seared scallop with lentils that had been cooked to sweetness without losing any of their structural integrity, finished off with a classic beurre blanc. We'd give this an A+.
Our 64 Goodge Street Test Drive
Runner up: Mountain's Fresh cheese with raw prawns. A dish that perfectly sums up the kind of place that Mountain is, both the stracciatella cheese and bread were made in-house before being topped with the freshest of prawns.
Best plant-led dish - Braised leeks, pecorino sauce and smoked mushrooms at The Parakeet
Kentish Town - 256 Kentish Town Rd, London NW5 2EN
There's a lot to love about this Kentish Town pub with ex-Brat chef Ben Allen in the kitchen. And while there are both meat and fish on the menu, the vegetable dishes in particular stood out. Most impressive was this beautiful mess of leeks, cheese and mushrooms that has become one of the favourite dishes at the pub and shows that plant-led dishes can often bring out the best of a kitchen.
Runner up: Studio Gauthier's pithivier. A spin-off from Gauthier, Studio Gauthier also adopted one of the original's top dishes and created an astonishingly good mushroom pithivier.
Best glow up - Quo Vadis
Soho - 26-29 Dean St, London W1D 3LL
At almost a century old this Soho classic is still going strong, but even a classic restaurant needs a bit of TLC. When Barrafina moved in next door, Jeremy Lee’s restaurant was downsized to a very small space but a dramatic makeover this year doubled the size. It brought the restaurant back to its former glory, while retaining every bit of its lovely ambiance. There’s no place like it for a long boozy lunch that ends up spilling over into dinner.
Runner up: The Portrait. Twenty years after he first got roped in as a consultant, Richard Corrigan is now running The Portrait Restaurant on the top of the National Portrait Gallery giving the space a new lease of life and turning it into a place where the food now lives up to the views.
Best reason to save room for dessert - the ube choux at Donia
Carnaby - Top Floor, Kingly Ct, Carnaby St, London W1B 5PW
It’s perhaps no surprise that the restaurant group behind the fabulous Panadera bakery in Kentish Town would also be the winner of our best dessert this year. This choux sandwich with a filling of ube ice cream made with the sweet yam that’s so popular in Filipino cuisine was a standout from an excellent meal at their new Carnaby restaurant.
Runners up: We love a custard tart here at Hot Dinners and both the classic version at Noble Rot Mayfair and a fabulous fennel seed iteration at Counter 71 both stood out for us.
Best cocktail - The McBean at Larry’s
National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's Pl, London WC2H 0HE
As anyone who follows us regularly on social will know we are very partial to a martini and equally fussy about how they’re made. So literally everything cheered our hearts about the dirty martini McBean being served up at Larry’s dive bar underneath the newly revamped National Portrait Gallery. Pre-batched and poured into a frozen glass by mixologist Vito Verrengia, this was a martini to die for.
Photo by Melisa Coppola
Runner up: If you can tear yourself away from the fabulous views across London at Brooklands' bar it's worth feasting your eyes on the Morello - a contemporary take on the Gimlet made with cherries, dried sultanas and scotch.
Most obvious new trend - Snails
From the snail and garlic bon bons at 64 Goodge Street and snail flatbread at Bistro Freddie (not to mention snail pasta at The Portrait Gallery) these gastropods are like they are in some gardens - absolutely everywhere. This year, we particularly loved the snails on top of pommes paillasson at the Midland Grand but our favourite take was the snail bolognese on toast at Story Cellar - a fantastic umami-packed dish.
Runner up: Whole chickens. It certainly seemed as if nearly every London restaurant had a whole roast chicken on their menu for sharing this year.
Best reason to grab your passport - Nordelaia in Piedmont
Back in March, we left a wintry London behind for the Piedmont countryside, landing at this gorgeous hotel up in the hills outside Cremolino. With a London-born chef in the kitchen serving up extraordinary food, this is a perfect foodie getaway. The fact that it’s surrounded by amazing vineyards and other food and drink destinations doesn’t hurt one bit.
Best use of a deep-fat fryer - Buttermilk oyster at Pearly Queen
Shoreditch - 44 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT
Tom Brown's follow-up to Cornerstone has a menu that's full of incredibly good (and complex) dishes, but this deceptively simple deep-fried oyster, covered in buffalo sauce is hands down one of the greatest things we've had all year. We see a lot of oysters on London's menus at the moment - but we'd be happy if fried oysters became even more of a big thing in 2024...
Runner up: Akara - The deep-fried treats are right there in the name of this West African restaurant in Borough Market and they're just the starting point of an excellent menu.
Biggest on social - Harrods Dining Hall
Knightsbridge - 87-135 Brompton Rd, London SW1X 7XL
Do you know what works well on Instagram? It’s the allure of somewhere seriously bouji, plus some big-name chefs. Our preview visit to the newly revamped Dining Hall at Harrods had both of these, so it wasn’t perhaps all that surprising that it racked up just under 600k views.
Runner up: The Devonshire. Coming up behind just Harrods, our reel on the smash-hit Soho pub got just under half a million views.
Most missed - Russell Norman
Normally, we feature a restaurant in this section but this year there was really only one possible choice. There can be no question about Russell Norman’s contribution to the London restaurant scene with his influence clear on so many new openings even now. But more than the significance of his professional effect on our restaurants was the great love and affection the restaurateur was held in. From pouring out Negronis in Brutto to spotting him around town in Soho it was always such a pleasure to bump into him. He is London hospitality’s greatest loss this year.
Photo by Richard Vines
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