Southwark, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“Fabulous small plates” which “combine simple ingredients to produce lovely food” inspire nothing but rave reviews for this “calm and quiet” venue on the South Bank from chefs Lucy Pedder & Natasha Cooke (an ex-professional event rider), who met working at Medlar. It’s “a small restaurant with quite a limited menu” but results really pack a punch: “delights like clams and savoy cabbage, grilled king oyster mushroom, or potato, bacon, smoked eel & boiled egg” – and service is “very friendly” too. Top Tip – “the weekday no-choice set menu is a bargain after a visit to Tate Modern or before an Old Vic matinee”.

“A popular chain with an interesting and varied international menu” – “V.G. value too” – these Kiwi-run cafés are “still seeing off all of the competition” for their many fans. In particular, they do a “great brunch, and they’re right to boast about their filter coffee” – and given the volume of feedback they generate, there is remarkably little negative criticism. Depending on the venue and the time of day, they work equally well for a “working lunch meeting” or “families out for the day visiting the sights”. Top Menu Tip – “the cornbread is to die for”.

An “extensive list of natural wines, niche grapes and producers, with regular changes to keep it interesting”, draws regulars back to Brett Redman’s bar and restaurant at Borough Market, where it was an earlyish arrival 15 years ago (a spinoff opened in Hackney three years ago). The food, much of it sourced from the market, is smartly cooked, with many plates available in two or three sizes to ease sharing. Top Tip – “get a window table and watch the market hordes go by”.

2022 Review: In late 2019, the team from well-known café, 26 Grains of Neal’s Yard, opened a big sister over the road from Borough Market. It’s a casual, tastefully decorated haunt serving simple food; and where at night, the vibe is less café, more wine bar. In late 2020, Tom Cenci (the ex Duck & Waffle head chef, whose own Loyal Tavern venture did not survive the pandemic) took over what has become an extended residency. The cooking (by him and one other chef) centres on sustainability, and less-used cuts of meat (particularly Irish beef).

2024 Review: “A unique experience!” – “For a dinner with a twist, sit ‘outside’ within Borough Market and enjoy a set menu with wine pairing” at Tomas Lidakevicius’s offbeat venture, attached to a greengrocer’s stall. “You’ve no need to choose anything and everything is good”: “the lovely setting helps for sure, but the great food from a tasting menu with seasonal veg as its centrepiece speaks for itself”. “Loved it!”.

“Unbelievable views” of the Thames and across to St Paul’s Cathedral are reason enough to eat at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre’s in-house restaurant. But the modern British menu is well-constructed around carefully sourced ingredients, and the Shakespeare-themed afternoon teas also go down well.

2024 Review: With its “great view over the river”, the sixth-floor restaurant in this converted power station opposite St Paul’s Cathedral is a “really rather splendid place for a decent set lunch”. The food is “better than expected, perhaps better than it needed to be” – “appropriately arty”, too, with dishes inspired by artists on display in the gallery. (Over at Tate Britain, “the Rex Whistler dining room is sorely missed and a real loss” – its closure brought about by a combination of Covid and dilemmas about the depiction of slavery in its Whistler murals, nowadays deemed ‘unequivocally… offensive’.)

As a “great place to have an afternoon tea” (themed for Peter Pan), this scenic dining room with commanding views from the 31st floor of the London landmark continues to win some approval. More generally, though, the experience of dining here continues to generate limited and mixed support: even those rating the food as good can view the experience as “overpriced” and with the hint of a “conveyor-belt” approach. Perhaps the June 2025 appointment of a new chef – Mark Abbott – who has worked in many top kitchens will pep up its offering: he arrives with the aim of ‘celebrating British produce and emphasizing seasonality’.

“Really stunning panoramas of course” are a high point of this 35th-floor perch, high up The Shard, which is open all day from early on, and which fans say is “a brilliant breakfast venue”. English-style Afternoon Tea is also a feature, but by night the cuisine turns Asian. Fans say “presentation here is first class and if you get a view it’s worth every penny”. There’s not sufficient feedback, though, for a really wholehearted recommendation as a culinary destination.

Rainer Becker’s 32nd-floor venue is divided into two dining areas – ‘Oblix East’ that’s more bar-oriented (and where there’s afternoon tea); and ‘Oblix West’ for more substantial fare. You get a “spectacular view” in either case and on most accounts some “pretty decent grub too”, with much of the food in ‘West’ produced on a charcoal grill (so there are many steaks, including a 1200g wagyu tomahawk for £245, but also chicken, pork, lobster, cedar-smoked black cod…). But while all feedback rates the scoff as good or better, nearly half say it’s nevertheless “overpriced”.

“The daddy of gastropub experiences, amazingly still firing on all cylinders” – this famous and “fabulous” pub near to Waterloo Station and the Old Vic (“so perfect for a pre-theatre supper”) is “still as good as it gets after so many years”, according to its large army of fans. “It’s hard to choose from the varied and ever-changing” Med-meets-modern British menu which “continues to come up trumps and still pulls something new out of the bag”; and “the knowledgeable front of house help you make an informed decision from a selection full of delights”. “It’s kinda noisy, but it’s a pub… what do you expect?”

2023 Review: “Imaginative Caribbean fine dining” is an unlikely find at any time – particularly considering the bland location of Anguilla-born Kerth Gumbs’s Bankside newcomer, which opened in early 2022 amidst the anonymous glass-fronted offices behind Tate Modern. The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famu thought his east Caribbean-inspired tasting menu to be “dumbfoundingly good… laser-honed… top end” cuisine, while one early reporter questions “is this a potential Michelin star at some stage”. Definitely “worth trying”.

“A cut above your average wine bar”: this 20-year-old group remains highly popular in our annual diners’ poll thanks to its “decent wines at fair prices” in “jolly” settings. “The food can be terrific – but not always”, and the overall performance shows signs of steadying after a tricky patch when the business was sold out of administration.