Would love recommendations for restaurants in London - not any chain restaurants, does not have to be especially cheap or expensive - just extraordinary delights. We will be there Jan 17 for a week.

Check out Time Out. I've pretty much agreed with them on dining, etc.

http://www.timeout.com/london/

Also check out www.toptable.co.uk for deals...they have reviews as well!

On a trip several years ago, we had a pleasant and excellently-priced dinner at Bumbles, a small place between Victoria Station and Buckingham Palace. It was recommended to us by a Blue Badge Guide, as a place they often frequent themselves.

What type of food do you like?

a few of our favorites:

Hummus Brothers in SoHo. A meal made out of hummus, and it is delicious. Cheap and fun.

Imperial China in Chinatown

Locanda Locatelli: Michelin starred Italian, considered by some to be the best in London. A good choice for a special meal, or a good deal for lunch

River Cafe: A london institution that recently just reopened.

101 Thai in Hammersmith: Excellent Thai food.

For views:-

Conran's Chop House, or Chop House Bar (the latter being considerably cheaper than the former). In Butlers Wharf (ie south side of the river across Tower Bridge). British fare (oysters, salmon, steak and ale pie, fish and chips, sticky toffee pudding etc). Great views of the river.

Skylon (South Bank again, Royal Festival Hall). There are sometimes offers on TopTable.co.uk for this one - try to get a window seat. Can't really think how to describe the cuisine, which is fairly eclectic - you are bound to find something you'll like.

One I haven't tried but fancy is Hakkasan (oriental), which regularly makes the worlds top restaurant lists, but has a slightly more affordeable menu than some of the other culinary hotspots that get raved about in the press.

London is huge and there are thousands of restaurants.

We really need some hints about your likes/dislikes, budget, and what areas you might be visiting.

Do any of the museums have nice restaurants as some of ours do, so you don't have to leave to eat?

The V&A has an excellent cafeteria style place, The Imperial Warmuseum is great and the Tate Britain and National Gallery are all good. On the whole I'd say that all I've the museum shops/cafes I've tried have been very good

Almost all of them have several cafes and restaurants on-site. Most have a posh - full service restaurant, plus one or more casual places.

Some of the museum/gallery restaurants are destinations themselves.

One of my favorites is Sea Shells at Lisson Grove . . One of the better old Fish & Chips places.

http://www.seashellrestaurant.co.uk/

I liked Arbutus. Modern British food in a nice location in Soho. Not particularly expensive.

Also a big fan of Yming, again in Soho. Excellent Chinese food.

St. John is definitely an adventure, if you want to try offal.

I'm drawing a blank on a couple of others that I recently enjoyed.

Have to pop in here. SemiMike mentioned "Bumbles" restaurant which I also visited a couple of times a few years ago. I loved that restaurant.

I was continually recommending it until one the Fodors posters jumped on me (3 different times) for mentioning a restaurant that had closed! This was before I started looking at my own posts.

I'm still disappointed it closed

Janisj,

Which of of the museums have restaurants that are destinations in themselves? The ones that Avalon mentioned or are there others?

janisj's letting her enthusiasm run away with her, I'm afraid.

No London museum or art gallery has a restaurant that's anything more than useful if you like that kind of thing. The National Portrait Gallery restaurant has a terrific view, though, and much of the expensive and mediocre catering at the British Museum is in its visually arresting Great Court. The National Dining Rooms at the National Gallery wants to position itself as a destination, but it's succeeded only in getting "well, pretty good for a gallery and jolly expensive at that" reviews. The Whistler Restaurant at the Tate once had a unbelievable (and unbelievably affordable) wine list: it's now just another overpriced eatery.

But frankly, "so you don't have to leave to eat" only has a value in lesser cities. All our major museums and galleries are close to densely-packed eating areas (none of this stuck miles from anywhere stuff you get at New York's Metropolitan Museum), and unlike the Louvre or the Vatican Museums have free and queue-free admission. It's just as quick to pop out to a competitively-priced real restaurant nearby as to pay through the nose for the pretentious mediocrity our galleries top up their inadequate finances with.

Not overly enthusiastic

The one's I was thinking about mainly are the two Tate's, the British Museum Great Court, and the National Portrait. But really - most every museum/gallery has at least one good place to get a bite or a full meal.

We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant on the 7th (?) floor at the Tate Modern. The mussels were good, and we had a heartening view of St. Paul's Cathedral directly across the Thames.

Also enjoyed dinner at Rules, in Covent Garden. When I say the fish pie was very good, not many Americans would respond, "Yum!" but really this was more of a mixed-shellfish bisque. It was a "pie" in the shepherd's-pie sense, with mashed potatoes piped around the top of the serving dish.

Rules, btw, touts itself as the &quot;oldest restaurant in London,&quot; open since Napoleonic days. It's the restaurant the lovers go to in Graham Greene's <u>The End of the Affair</u>.

No London museum or art gallery has a restaurant that's anything more than useful if you like that kind of thing.&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

*cough* Admiralty at Somerset House *cough*

ps Rules? Don't get me started. Grrrr.....

&quot;*cough* Admiralty at Somerset House *cough*&quot;

It's not actually IN a museum,though, is it? To be honest I've not heard good things about the food - but it does have a nice, destinationy, feel to it I'll grant you. Actually, getting into it DOES have a grandeur you don't find in the basement of the Sainsburys Supermarkets wing of the National Gallery. Or that awful 1950s Woollies cafteria Gary Rhodes set up in the Royal Festival Hall.

PS: I'd take something for that cough. All this flu going round, might easily get worse. And we all know how you council workers HATE having to throw sickies.