Smoked by AI · London
Culture of place.
How London eats: the habits and patterns that belong to the city rather than to any one room. The people who make the food live on their own page: producers.
Jollof, and where it travelled
how it is eatenWoolwich, Peckham, Brixton and Greenwich, and then St James'sJollof is long-grain rice simmered down in onions, tomatoes, peppers and stock, and Adejoké Bakare calls the smoky version party jollof. It is the dish every West African kitchen is judged on, and in London it now runs from a Woolwich counter to a tasting menu in St James's.
- best version at Ikoyi The smoked jollof has been on the menu since the room opened, now served under a lobster and scotch bonnet custard.
- best version at Chishuru Adejoké Bakare cooks across the region rather than one country, and the egusi arrives as a stuffed cabbage.
Where to eat one: the West African London card on the London list has the rooms.
The New York Times T Magazine, on what else is on the counterThe World's 50 Best, Josh Ong, on the signatureTime Out London, Leonie Cooper, on the opening biteHot Dinners, Gavin Hanly, on how Bakare got a restaurant
Fergus Henderson, Trevor Gulliver and Jon Spiteri opened St John in a former Smithfield smokehouse in 1994 and put roast bone marrow on the first menu. Trevor Gulliver's account of the reception: "people were shocked by it." Thirty years on the marrow has never left the card, and the cooks who learned the method there run kitchens across the city.
- best version at St. John The practice starts in this room, and the bone marrow has been on the menu since the first service.
- best version at St John Bread and Wine The bakery turned into a restaurant, and the snacks handed over with the loaves were London small plates before the term existed.
- best version at St. John Marylebone Marylebone opened in 2023 and rewrites its menu like the other two.
- best version at The French House The Hendersons opened this Soho dining room two years before Smithfield, seven tables over a pub.
- best version at Marksman Public House Tom Harris and Jon Rotheram took the method into a Hackney pub and left the room alone.
- best version at The Camberwell Arms Mike Davies came through Bread and Wine, and the Sunday roast is what this room is known for.
- best version at The Anchor & Hope Jonathan Jones cooked three years at St John before this kitchen, and the menu is rewritten every service.
AnOther Magazine, Mina Holland on what the reputation missesThe New York Times T Magazine, James Lowe on Mike DaviesCondé Nast Traveller, Cass Farrar, 31 January 2026, on how the pair metThe Caterer, Caroline Baldwin, 10 February 2021, on the French House partnership
A pie and mash is a minced beef pie, a scoop of mash and a ladle of parsley liquor, with jellied or stewed eels if you want them. Fourteen shops once carried the Manze name and most of them have gone, the last of them in Deptford, listed building and all.
- best version at M. Manze (Tower Bridge) It is the oldest eel and pie shop in London, and the pie still sits between a suet base and a flaky lid.
- best version at Mēs Pies & Wine It is the one pie and mash shop in London to have taken a British Pie Award.
Where to eat one: the Pie, mash and liquor card on the London list has the rooms.
Time Out London, Leonie Cooper, on the scale of the lobbyingTime Out London, Leonie Cooper, on why Deptford shutM Manze, own site, on the eelsLondonist, Joanne Gould, on how to eat it
Siu mei is the Cantonese roast meat counter, the one with the lacquered ducks hanging in the window. A duck takes three days before it is chopped to order, and the three uncles who took it out of Chinatown built a business on the bet that nobody else would.
- best version at Three Uncles Three days of marinating, drying and roasting stand behind a ten-pound plate of rice and greens.
- best version at Three Uncles (Camden) The roasting happens on site in ovens shipped from Hong Kong, and the prep is done centrally.
- best version at Dim Sum Duck Roast duck and chestnuts go inside a bun that is steamed first and then pan-fried, off Irish Silver Hill duck.
Where to eat one: the Cantonese roast meats card on the London list has the rooms.
Restaurant, James McAllister, on what happens to the carcassesThree Uncles, own site, on why they thought there was a gapHarden's, reporters on the cookingJimi Famurewa, Evening Standard, quoted on the Three Uncles site
Italian families fitted out London's best caffs in the years after the war, and Historic England has listed one of them: E. Pellicci in Bethnal Green, whose 1946 interior a customer carved on credit. Maria Pellicci has cooked there every day since 1966.
- best version at E Pellicci One family has run it since 1900, the 1946 interior is listed, and the fry-up comes with a hash brown whether you asked or not.
- best version at Terry's Cafe A Smithfield butcher founded it in 1982, and it is the only caff in London with its own brand of tea.
- best version at Café Deco Anna Tobias took over a greasy spoon of the same name and kept the name.
- best version at Koya Soho The fry-up arrives here as a bowl of udon, with smoked bonito in the dashi standing in for the bacon.
Where to eat one: the The caff and the full English card on the London list has the rooms.
Historic England, list entry 1391332, on why it was listedJesse Burgess, quoted in Time Out London, 15 May 2025Foodism, Molly Codyre, on the glassThe New York Times T Magazine, on the tea and the vegetarian option
The Eagle opened on Farringdon Road in 1991 with a cook's menu chalked up behind the bar, and Jeremy Lee's line is that the room "kick-started the whole movement". London is still arguing about whether the rooms that followed it are pubs or restaurants.
- best version at The Anchor & Hope Jonathan Jones cooked at St John, his partner came off the Eagle's kitchen, and the menu is rewritten for every service.
- best version at The Camberwell Arms It answers the format's whole checklist, and the Sunday roast is what made the room a byword.
- best version at The Devonshire A wood-ember grill and a basement butchery feed the same menu to the pub floor and the dining rooms.
- best version at The Harwood Arms The kitchen's venison comes off a herd the chef-owner keeps himself, and the vegetables off a roof.
- best version at Marksman Public House Two St John alumni run it, and the chefs who eat in it refuse to call it a gastropub.
- best version at The Pelican James Gummer converted it in 2022, and Harden's reporters call it a pretty perfect gastropub.
- best version at Canton Arms The Evening Standard names it as one of four rooms it will not count as pubs.
- best version at The Waterman's Arms Sam Andrews came off the Camberwell Arms pass, and the Standard names this room in the same breath as the Eagle.
Where to eat one: the The gastropub card on the London list has the rooms.
The New York Times T Magazine, Jeremy Lee quotedTime Out London, Laura Richards, 13 August 2023The Morning Advertiser, Mark Taylor, on the menu disciplineTime Out London, Leonie Cooper, 24 June 2026
The ocakbasi grill
how it is eatenDalston, Stoke Newington, Harringay's Green Lanes, Edmonton and EnfieldAn ocakbasi is a long charcoal grill set in the dining room, and the cook works it in front of you. Ali Dirik arrived from Istanbul in 1987 and his family's account is that he opened London's first on a Dalston back street; the form now runs the length of Green Lanes and out to Edmonton.
- best version at Umut 2000 Harringay The New York Times panel picked this Green Lanes room out for its lamb ribs and an ezme made to order.
- best version at Yeni Umut 2000 Dalston The Dalston half trades under separate ownership, and it asks whether you want the ezme spicy.
- best version at Mangal 2 Restaurant Ali Dirik opened this second room and his sons run it now, with the rule that something on every plate has been over the coals.
- best version at 19 Numara Bos Cirrik II The grill sits by the door, and the room takes the smoke with it.
- best version at Neco Tantuni ve Künefe Salonu There is no charcoal here at all. The meat is steamed, then finished on a hotplate under bread that soaks up what comes off it.
Where to eat one: the Turkish ocakbasi card on the London list has the rooms.
Claire Ptak, quoted in The New York Times T MagazineMangal 2, own site, on the second roomWallpaper*, Ben McCormack, on the second generationTime Out London, Kitty Drake, on what the grill does to the service
The cook's name goes over the door and the food is the cook's; the money, the site and the operation belong to Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi, who put their initials on JKS. The rooms run from a Mayfair Indian to a southern Thai cafe over a food court.
- cooked with at Gymkhana The guide names the group by this room, and every later partnership gets measured against it.
- cooked with at Berenjak Soho Kian Samyani came up through the group's own kitchens, and then he got a name of his own over the door.
- cooked with at Hoppers Soho It was still on the books in 2025, when the trade press listed who the group was backing.
- cooked with at Sabor Nieves Barragán Mohacho opened this one first, and her second was measured against it.
- cooked with at Legado The same chef opened this with the same backing, and the 2026 guide starred it.
- cooked with at BiBi Chet Sharma cooks here, and the backer compares the demand to Gymkhana's opening.
- cooked with at Plaza Khao Gaeng Luke Farrell opened this one first with the group, upstairs over their own food court.
- cooked with at Speedboat Bar Farrell's second room is where the partnership took a company name of its own.
- cooked with at Arcade Food Theatre The group runs this food court at the base of Centrepoint, and Plaza Khao Gaeng opened upstairs from it.
- cooked with at BAO Soho JKS backed BAO out of a Netil Market stall in 2015 and sold its position in 2025, after seven London rooms.
- cooked with at Som Saa Restaurant This one went to the public for its money instead, and raised it.
- cooked with at Kolae The crowdfund eventually bought this, Andy Oliver and Mark Dobbie's own second room, with nobody's initials on it.
The Guardian, Jay Rayner, on Luke Farrell's glasshousesRestaurant, Joe Lutrario, on the other partnership that endedTime Out London, Tania Ballantine, 18 December 2023Harden's, on Berenjak's spread