Eating out in London

London, with its successive waves of immigrants from Europe, the Caribbean and the Indian Sub-continent, is one of the most multicultural cities on the planet. It should be a culinary melting pot, with an almighty restaurant scene. But for some reason it isn't.

It's true that London offers incredible variety - from sleek French bistros to hip pizzerias, modern Mexican eateries and bloodthirsty Brazilian rodizios, but its not easy to find quality at a reasonable price. In most cities, the "you get what you pay for" adage rings true when choosing restaurants. If you find somewhere cheap, it might be nice but otherwise it isn't surprising, while if you splash out a little more, you are likely to get a good feed in a nice atmosphere.

Unfortunately this isn't the case in London. Cheap food is usually just that - average pub meals or a very shady curry or limp noodle dish. Going upmarket doesn't solve the quality problems. Some of the more expensive restaurants we have tried have been alarmingly disappointing. They are so hit and miss, which makes it hard if you are new in town and picking restaurants out of a guidebook or from the internet.

 In many places, mid-range restaurants are incredibly reliable. They may not have the greatest atmosphere, but you can normally get quite reasonable food and not have to pay through the nose. Finding a nice restaurant that I would actually revisit has been a challenge in London. Many times I have thought the food was just ok, and then received a bill for £60 or more for two people (one course plus a bottle of wine).

London's Soho district, near the West End theatre precinct, is bursting with cafes and restaurants, but we have had some average meals. On Old Compton Street, a Japanese noodle joint called Taro was disappointing and pretty expensive. An Italian place called Little Sicily a few blocks over on Rupert Street was downright horrendous. Here, £6 buys you a limp looking wad of bruschetta, while the main size pastas were bone dry and almost devoid of flavour, and set you back up to £15. Adam said his £16 risotto was like forcing down dry cardboard.

Our Mexican dining experiences have been above-average in London, and far better than the usual "Tex Mex" horrors you might expect to find. Covent Garden's Cafe Pacifico has a lively atmosphere, but the food isn't all that amazing for the price. Chiquito in Leicester Square had some interesting combinations that you don't always see on Mexican menus, such as Jambalaya and Duck Fajitas. Cafe Sol, on Clapham High Street was unexpectedly good. We had deliciously melty enchiladas and juicy spiced sea bass. Boho Mexica in Spitalfields has an amazing Mexican pop-art interior, but will leave you with a much lighter wallet and not really fill you up with their trendy share plates.


Mexican fast food joints have really exceeded expectations. Poncho No 8 is a part of a chain, and not very glamorous - burritos are served subway style, in that you line up along a servery counter and choose your meat, other fillings, salsa etc. But you get a delicious burrito for £6 and you can wash it down with one of a wide selection of Mexican beers in their restaurant-style upstairs seating area. 

 On the whole, Thai restaurants we have tried have been pretty good, if a little formulaic. You can generally get a main curry or stir fry for £8-9, but generally the dish sizes were quite small and there was absolutely no taste of chilli anywhere, but I suppose they are catering to local tastebud settings. We were quite impressed with Thai Square in Islington, and it appears to be a chain as I have come across quite a few other places with the same name. 

There is a weird London trend to blend two or more types of cuisine into a bizarre "fusion with a twist" experience. This surgery is mainly performed on Asian food, like "Chinese-Japanese" food, or Thai-Korean-Malay." I have yet to seen hybrid versions of European cuisine, but I am hoping one day I will run into an "Italian-French-German" restaurant or a "Spanish-Slovakian-Dutch" cafe.

In the North London enclave of Fitzrovia is a bar-cum-restaurant called Jetlag, which has a great bar-like atmosphere, but can't really decide what sort of restaurant it is. It's a great place to go with a group who can't agree on what to eat. The menu is share-plate style, hence its better to eat there in a group, and in the same sitting you can eat Japanese gyoza, lebanese felafel and Indonesian satay. I found the concept incredibly bizarre, although it wasn't outrageously expensive.

Brick Lane's Ambala

East London does better on the variety front - there is a great range of food on offer at all kinds of prices. Once-gritty working class neighbourhoods of Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green are now firmly entrenched on the city's culinary map. Brick Lane is probably the best known restaurant strip in the area, which is curry ground zero thanks to its sizeable Bangladeshi population. But again, curry houses are pretty hit and miss. In my view the sweet shops are the highlight of Brick Lane. The best is Ambala, which also carries a range of delicious samosa, bhuji and other savoury snacks in addition to some of the sickliest sweets you've ever tasted.

A few blocks away on Commercial Street is the uber-trendy Spitalfields precinct. Centred around the Old Spitalfields market, which used to sell fruit and veg, it us now a highbrow flea market, selling vintage clothes, jewellery, quirky homewares and designs from independent and up and coming fashion labels.

Stjohnbreadandwine.com

Spitalfields may have felt edgy and urbane a few years ago, but now it is definitely on the hipster map, which means it is still cool but no longer cheap. Pretty much everywhere has a great atmosphere, and some London culinary institutions are well worth the splurge - St John Bread and Wine will stretch your meat-eating imagination, and radically overhaul your (probably dismal) view on English food. Hawksmoor, a kind of fine-dining steakhouse, I would love to go to but haven't tried, and is meant to be amazing.


Shoreditch also fares well in the budget-cuisine department, with an entire street of hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurants. Again, these are hit and miss, but at least your wallet is not being punished on every attempt. We ate at one place on two separate occasions, and had completely different experiences, so reliability is not a given. This makes it hard if you eat somewhere nice and then want to go back with a different group of friends - you can end up being burned.

Granted, this isn't a review of London's finest restaurants. Most times we are simply after a decent meal in a place with a nice atmosphere that won't cost the earth. But in this city, looks can be deceiving and you need to do your research in order to uncover the real gems.