Where to eat in City Of London
22 places
Planning a whole day here? Read the City Of London area guide.
Angler
££££A rooftop dining room at the South Place Hotel with an all-seafood tasting menu built around British fish and shellfish - the most formal fish cooking in the City.
Bancone
££Watch the pasta being rolled at the counter, at prices well below the Michelin Guide average.
Blacklock
££Chops pressed under a vintage Blacklock iron AND a proper dry-aged steak list from £16, at prices that undercut every other chophouse in central London.
BoxHall City
££BOXPARK's food-hall format (not containers this time) inside the 1912 Metropolitan Arcade - 14 kitchens and two bars across 800 seats, opened 2024/25.
Brigadiers
£££Built on the Indian army mess-bar idea - big rooms, sport on the screens, whisky, and barbecue over coals. The loudest Indian restaurant in the City, by design.
Darwin Brasserie
£££Inside the Sky Garden's glass dome at the top of the Walkie Talkie, surrounded by planting rather than just glass.
Sky Garden entry is free but ticketed; a restaurant booking gets you in without one.
Duck & Waffle
££££Forty floors up and open around the clock - the only place in London where you can watch the sun come up over the City with a plate in front of you.
Open 24 hours. Sunrise and late-night slots are the ones worth planning for.
Eataly
££Three restaurants, a market of Italian ingredients, a cafe, a takeaway counter and a cookery school, all in one building beside Liverpool Street. Terra has a two-metre wood-fired grill.
A venue rather than a single restaurant - the format varies by which counter or dining room you use. Useful as a wet-weather or with-children option in the City.
Hamilton Hall
£The former ballroom of the Great Eastern Hotel, off the Liverpool Street concourse - gilded plasterwork, chandeliers and cornicing kept intact, which is not what anyone expects from a station pub.
Grade II listed, and reopened after a long refurbishment. On the station concourse, so it is the most useful of these if you are killing time before a train rather than making a trip.
Homeslice
££Twenty-inch pizzas sold whole or by the slice, with toppings split across halves. Built for groups rather than couples.
Multiple central branches; Neal's Yard is the original.
Lina Stores
££The mint-green Brewer Street deli since 1944, now with restaurants attached.
Fresh pasta counter and deli; the restaurants came much later than the shop.
Lina Stores
££The mint-green Brewer Street deli since 1944, now with restaurants attached.
Fresh pasta counter and deli; the restaurants came much later than the shop.
Lutyens Grill
££££The old bank manager's office at The Ned, serving rare-breed Longhorn and Hereford off a carving trolley wheeled to the table.
Murger Han
££Named after the murger - slow-cooked meat packed into a flatbread bun - and one of the cheapest serious lunches in the City if you know to order it.
Polo Bar
££So committed to trading around the clock that it has no front door to close - a fry-up at any hour, beside Liverpool Street.
Open 24 hours. There is literally no front door.
Rosslyn Coffee
£A tiny City counter that consistently tops London coffee rankings and has almost nowhere to sit.
Sky Garden
£££A planted glass dome on top of 20 Fenchurch Street. Entry to the garden is free with a booked slot; the restaurants inside it are not.
The free-entry distinction is the thing readers get wrong. Free slots are released on a rolling window and go first.
SUSHISAMBA
££££An orange tree growing through an open-air terrace on the 39th floor - the highest outdoor dining in the City, with the lift ride as part of the experience.
Sweetings
£££Open since 1889, lunch only, no bookings, and you eat at a counter on a high stool.
Weekday lunch only. No reservations. Closed evenings and weekends entirely.
The Crosse Keys
£The former headquarters of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, opened 1913 - marble columns, a glass-domed ceiling and a banking hall the length of the room, at Wetherspoon prices.
Opens at 08:00 on weekdays for breakfast. Order at the bar or through the app; there is no table service by default and no music, which is the house style rather than an off day.
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
££Rebuilt in 1667 immediately after the Great Fire, down a Fleet Street alley, across warrens of dark panelled rooms and cellars.
Easy to walk past - the entrance is an unmarked alley off Fleet Street. Multiple floors including cellar bars.
If everything else is full
Reliable rather than remarkable. These are chains — worth knowing about when you need somewhere open, not worth a journey.
Marugame Udon
£A canteen where you walk the line past the open kitchen watching the noodles rolled, cut and boiled - the cheapest proper udon in London and the most fun to queue for.