London Victoria Restaurant Guide

“He’s won my heart, and my taste buds…” – Andrew Wong’s Pimlico venture “a short walk from Victoria Station” is the survey’s No. 1 Chinese nowadays due to its “absolutely amazing”, “elevated cuisine, beautifully plated and full of flavour”. At lunch time, the attraction is “dim sum as you’ve never tasted it before” – “mouthwatering and so delicate”, with special mention to the “incredible soup dumplings” – while at night there’s “a brilliant tasting menu, taking you on a whistle-stop tour of Chinese culinary delights”. “Happy” and “super-efficient” staff also rate special mention. “Plush the decor is not” – in fact the ground floor can seem “an oddly canteen-ish environment” – but, by contrast, the basement bar “has a beautiful ‘secret club’ feel to it”. See also Kym’s.

Thomas Griffiths’s stall in Spitalfields Market receives very consistently high ratings from reporters (and he now also has a unit in Market Halls Victoria too). The street-food style fare – brisket sandwich, dumplings, fried-chicken sandwich – belie a sophisticated and sustainable ‘modern British, nose-to-tail cooking’ approach.

“Delicious food just keeps coming” at this rather “unique” Venetian cicchetti (small-plates) outfit, attached to a hotel near Victoria station, whose “fun” style has helped it acquire a major following. There’s “charming service from a close-knit Italian team” who treat children with “welcoming joy”.

“Not Japanese nor pretending to be” – this Danish fusion-chain offers a suspicious-sounding-but-successful mix of “fancy sushi” with “plenty of other stuff on skewers” (i.e. yakitori ‘sticks’). “Some of the non-traditional additions don’t quite work, but those that do are lovely”; and as a group, “where so many others fail, it delivers well on consistency”. Its “big and spacious”, Scandi-style branches create a “vibrant and exciting” environment too, “but, oh my word, the prices…”

In less than 20 years, Danny Meyer has transformed his New York City hot-dog cart into a global fast-food brand giant with eight outlets in London – including a Covent Garden flagship that was revamped earlier this year. Ratings remain remarkably solid for “a chain that does what it’s supposed to do”.

“For a pre-Hamilton meal”, this D&D London operation has proved “a welcome addition to Victoria eating choices”: “perfect for a better-than-quick, better-than-casual, meal”. It’s not an area over-blessed with options, though, and there is an element of ‘in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’. The cuisine – no longer with Nordic influences since Helena Puolakka left in early-2019, but now, under Bjoern Wassmuth, in the ‘Grand European Café’ mould – is “variable, if nothing to complain about”. And the modern setting – to fans “the most characterful option in the new Nova development canyons” – can feel “like eating in an airport”.

Adding to the ever-increasing restaurant scene in Victoria (once a dining desert) is a new Chinese venture offering a modern take on Sichuan food and Far East-influenced cocktails.

Grilled cheese kiosk outside Victoria's new Nova development with an imaginative range of fillings for its San Franciscan sourdough sandwiches, including Korean BBQ pork and lobster and sweetcorn.