London restaurants best for... Counter dining

Now moved to a larger location, Prawn on the Lawn is a fishmonger and seafood bar - with a wine bar on the side. Expect the usual fruits de mer platters and whole crab as well as some more tapas-style dishes like scallops ceviche and their signature dish - the prawn on the lawn which is toasted soda bread with avocado and prawns.

After beginning life in a shipping container as one of the first restaurants in Pop Brixton, Kricket has come far. Inspired by Indian cuisine, they offer an ever-changing menu of Indian small plates. And they feature what may be one of our favourite snacks in town, the samphire pakora dish.

An immediate hit when it opened, this West London restaurant serves up a range of very of-the-moment food, encompassing small plates, tasting menus and a good vegetarian offering too.

This is the sibling restaurant to the hugely popular The Palomar. It features food from the Barbary Coast of North Africa to Jerusalem and it's a solely counter dining restaurant.

This latest expansion for Moro sees them head outside of Exmouth Market with a new all-day kitchen. Expect food from Spain, Morocco, Turkey and Crete - with a focus on dishes new to London.

Back in 1997 when Moro first opened, Exmouth Market was still a scruffy Clerkenwell street and this restaurant with its implausibly good looking bar staff and open kitchen was the second most exciting thing to happen to the area food-wise since The Eagle threw open its doors. Run by the marvellously-monikered Sam and Sam Clark, it's still turning out great food in a room that's packed every day of the week.

One thing you know you're going to get at any branch of Barrafina is great food. The counter seats might be gone minutes after service opens, but that only proves that the early bird catches the milk fed kidneys.

Tredwells is from Marcus Wareing, but it's run by Chantelle Nicholson who has taken this "casual but informed restaurant" and turned it into a popular Covent Garden haunt with a strong focus on veggie dishes.

The Manor sees the Dairy's Dean Parker heading up the kitchen in this restaurant from the people behind Clapham's hugely popular The Dairy. As the new restaurant is just down the road from The Dairy, they'll still be able to use the produce from the rooftop garden and beehives, while Delicatessen will supply the homemade charcuterie.

Hands down one of the best counter dining experience in town, albeit not the quietest one. Expect a Jerusalem-style menu here, with additional influences from Southern Spain and Italy, North Africa through to the Levant. You can grab a table at the back - but try for the full-on counter experience if you can.

This is the third London opening for the oyster and seafood restaurant, following Soho and Borough Market. Expect a similar offering of seafood and oysters at this Spitalfields location - but with a huge seawater tank into the middle of the restaurant stacked with 10,000 shellfish allowing diners to choose their own live crab, lobster or oysters.

This sees Angela Hartnett taking over the site in St James which used to hold Gordon Ramsay's original Petrus restaurant (and where she was Head Chef). Expect "regionally focused dishes, at an accessible price-point, in a relaxed and informal atmosphere – the kind of restaurant I would enjoy eating in every day".

Martin Morales is also behind Ceviche, although this restaurant takes a slightly different approach. It takes its influence from Peruvian ‘picanterias’, traditional family run restaurants serving local people from breakfast through to dinner.

This restaurant is by Rob Green and Brett Redman, the blokes behind the super-popular Pavilion Cafe at Victoria Park. Its aim is to be 'showcasing the best of Borough Market and supporting craft and artisanal producers'.

This restaurant is from Jason Atherton and, to date, his only one in Soho. Expect a very British menu, with plenty of starters in jars too. As with all of Atherton's places, the bar is just as important - so make time to head upstairs for a cocktail or three.

Donostia serves up Basque-style tapas and pintxos in this Marylebone restaurant (the sibling restaurant of Lurra, across the road). Here you'll find top pintxos, perfectly done tortilla, plenty of txakoli and more Basque delights.

The tiny Sushi Tetsu is both one of the best sushi restaurants in town and also one of the hardest to get into. With only half a dozen seats inside, each item served to you will be almost a work of art. This may well ruin other sushi restaurants for you...

Staffed by folk who previously worked at Hix in Clerkenwell, expect a small menu featuring the group's favourite dishes from around the world, created with seasonal British ingredients. Plus there's "bring your own vynyl" approach which lets you play your own tunes on the turntable.

Russell Norman's Polpo was a hit the minute it opened its doors. This smaller successor is billed as 'a sort-of speakeasy with food; like a machine-age downtown NYC Italian diner' and seats just 30 people. It's a particularly good spot to hit up for late night dining.

From the same stable as Salt Yard and Dehesa, this serves tapas-style dishes in a refurbished pub setting. Their teeny Iberico pork and foie gras burgers are worthy of the trip here alone.

Fans of counter dining have long known that one of the best lunches in town was to be had up dining up at the bar in Sheekeys, if you could get a table. Happily the move sideways into an neighbouring building has allowed Sheekeys to create a brand new Oyster bar while seemlessly giving it the Sheekey magic touch.

Jacob Kenedy's Soho Italian wins universal praise for its cuisine, a well-chosen wine list and for one of the most beautiful counters in town - a top counter dining spot.

Daniel Boulud is one of the top chefs in Manhattan, where his restaurant Daniel has been the favourite of many a critic. This is his London base and he was one of the trailblazers for non-UK restaurants making a base in London. Here it was all about getting things right - service is top notch, and the famed burgers are some of the best in town. Always a good bet in Knightsbridge.

In an area of town more usually associated with after-office binge drinkers and faux American burger joints, the arrival of a new, cheerful Bistro offering great comfort food to the weary masses can only be a good thing.

At Roka it's all about the robata grill. Start with sushi or sashimi and work your way up through dishes like black cod to various yakitori sticks.