Still looking for great eats in London
 

Looked through a lot of old threads. Great suggestions for economic budget travelers. I'm not looking for very expensive, but not looking for budget either. Just great eats! Found delicious suggestions for every place in the world except London. I know there are good eats in London. Help! Leaving in 7 days. I will pick up Time Out London, but want some personal first hand suggestions. Thanks.

Pop into a "Fish and Chip" shop while you're there.

What areas of town will you be in? My favorite "sure things" are the Wagamama and Pret a Manger chains. They're everywhere. I also like going to Pret or Marks & Spencer to pick up a picnic lunch and eating in one of the parks. Dionysus at Oxford Street & Tottenham Court Road is good (doners, gyros, etc). For our recent trip I found a place called Leon (several locations, one on the Strand, one in Bond Street, there are more) that looked fun and reasonable. We didn't end up going there, but it's on my list to check out next time.

there are hundreds and hundreds of good restaurants in central London. &quot;<i>Found delicious suggestions for every place in the world except London.</i>&quot;

Have you searched right here on Fodors?? There are so many recommended places your head will swim w/ the choices. What sorts of food do you like? What part(s) of town? And what sort of budget (Not expensive and not budget really doesn't tell us too much - what do you consider reasonable)

I've gone through many, many threads, doing searches with just London and reading them all, also London and restaurants and London and food. We would want &quot;traditional, cutting edge modern, or a great view, or ??&quot; I've seen several suggetions for Tea, Gordon Ramsey's Clardiges London, Woolsley on Picadilly and many many very budget places. These are on threads looking for restaurants with people budgeting $25 a day or less for all meals. We're not juist looking for sustenance, but for a memorable experience. I've tried asking the question in several different ways but have gotten very few responses. We would do 2 nights of dinner for 2 up to $100 and 2 nights for half that. Up to $40 for lunch. I guess we would budget $100-150 a day for food. Food and wine are a big part of our trips. We like both small simple family owned restaurants and something more formal- a real mix of places. I was looking for peoples favorites.Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

When my husband and I were in London two years ago, we celebrated our anniversary at Rules. I believe it's one of the oldest restaurants in London. It's pricey but isn't that true of everything in London.

I made a reservation a month in advance on their website. When we arrived, we were seated immediately.

If you go, be sure to have their wonderful warm sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

Rule's is always a good choice. Gordon Ramsey and Claridge's are well over your budget. In a fact I've oftn found that we could spend over 40&pound; at Ask, a pizza place. Although that usually included a salad, two mains,bread and a bottle of wine.

Here are some other suggestions that might work for you, but you do need to watch what you're ordering or else the bill could end up being twice your preferred budget.

Fifteen .... on Westland Pl.
Contempory cusine, very good (for lunch) dinner is more expensive and requires 6 months advance reservations.

Simpson's.... The Strand try their pretheater dinner

Clarke's ...moden British on Kensington Church St. Lunch

Langan's Bistro... Devonshire St

The Orangery... Kensington Park Lunch

Richoux's... Lunch/dinner There are several in London. I'm only familar with the one across from Harrod's and the one on Piccadilly. It's not a special venue, but I've always found it realiable with a good selection.

A number of good London restaurants offer a pretheater menu which is an excellent choice for anyone on a budget

Thank you Katie and History Traveler. We'll be there 5 nights so we can spend more one night and less another or have a nice lunch then go to the theater at night. Everyone keeps saying it's so expensive.

Last time in London we had dinner with friends before the theatre at Incognito on Shaftesbury. Both the service and food were quite good. You can check out the various restaurants in London on www.toptable.co.uk

We ate lunch in Giraffe (the one on Kensington High Street, although I understand they are scattered throughout London) - casual atmosphere, good reasonable (for Americans)food great music playing, newspapers and lots of British diners as well.

2 dinners in the Covent Garden area - both reasonable again with excellent food. One Turkish, called Sofra, and the other eclectic, called Palm Court Brasserie.

Pret-a-Manger if you want to pick up lunch and eat it outside.

The Orangerie in Kensington Gardens, both for lunch or tea, in a beautiful setting.

Bibendum in the Fulham Road - went years ago when it was new and trendy, but I hear it is still there and still good.
Jess

We enjoyed Randa Lebanese restaurant on Church St. off of Kensington High St. The food &amp; service are excellent. It's not too pricey:
http://www.maroush.com/pages/randa.htm

&quot;<i>We're not juist looking for sustenance, but for a memorable experience. . . . . . . . We would do 2 nights of dinner for 2 up to $100 and 2 nights for half that. Up to $40 for lunch.</i>&quot;

$100 is barely &pound;50 and that is not much for &quot;memorable&quot; for 2 in London - especially if that includes wine. I usually count on &pound;40-&pound;60 pp for my special dinners in London, and that is not at any of the upscale/famous places. And your $50 nights -- only &pound;25 -- for two - that will not be special by any stretch. You can have a nice modest meal for that - but it certainly isn't a splurge of any kind.

You can eat well (though not memorably)on your budget - though I'm not sure how you'd do it at at Clarke's, Langan's or Rules. It's downright nonsense to say &quot;isn't everything expensive in London?&quot; Everything's expensive only if you're dirt poor or incapable of looking for value, and even central London has loads of places (almost all ethnic) you can eat well, though lunch for 2 for &pound;20 is getting a tad tricky.

I wouldn't count on the one-line views of complete strangers on something that's so subjective if I were going to New York or Paris.

And I wouldn't depend on Time Out London. This is a weekly magazine - quite indispensable for plays, films art galleries and all the other things that change every week. But for food, all it does is carry a few reviews of each week's newcomers and a slightly odd list of a few dozen places that currently interest it. Most outside your budget.

What you need is to invest in a copy of Time Out Cheap Eats, which gives a careful account of why it makes each recommendation.

You might do well to log onton London Eating and TopTable and check out their 2 for 1 or 40-50% off offers. I'm afraid that might be the only way you can have a memorable meal for your budget.

One of this month's specials is Homage at the Waldorf...4 courses plus champagne ..&pound;28

Have a look at http://www.londoneats.com/
or http://www.hardens.com/
Hardens will let you search by price.

I definitely second Time Out Cheap Eats. You can sometimes find it in well stocked book stores in the States. But if not, just wait until you are in London. If you are limited to &pound;20 for lunch and &pound;25 - &pound;50 for your dinners, that book will be your bible.

You can have some wonderfull meals w/i your budget - but if you want memorable, I'd splurge on a lunch somewhere and scrimp at dinner. Lunch menus are often 30% less than dinners in the same restaurants.

Wow! Thank you, thank you all. I'll get Time Out cheap eats, and check out TopTable, Londoneats and Hardens and I guess I'll have to increase the budget.

Aside from fish and chips at small local places, definitely the best, my favorite meal in London was at an Indian restaurant called Cinammons. And here is why: I was alone, walking down the street looking for a place to have lunch. I had been sightseeing so was only dressed in pants and jacket, nothing fancy. I had never eaten Indian food in my life and wanted to experience this since I'd heard that London was one of the best places for it. When I entered I thought it might be too fancy for the way I was dressed and probably I was too late for lunch anyway. I asked the very elegantly dressed hostess if this was the case. She was lovely and very warm and nice and said that although they were at the end of their lunch period, she would call the kitchen to make certain. Seconds later I was escorted to a nice table and immediately greeted by a waiter. I explained that I was an American tourist (shock) and had never tasted Indian food so I welcomed his suggestions. He helped me more or less &quot;design&quot; a meal that would give me a taste of several kinds of Indian food and at the same time, stay away from very spicy things which I don't care for. Everything he brought to the table was so delicious and so pleasing to the eye. Every once in a while he would stop at the table to ask my opinion of the different dishes and sides. When I finished I was definitely not going to order dessert but guess what? Out came my waiter with a plate filled with small pieces of every dessert on the menu. Since the chef and the kitchen staff were aware of my first time Indian food tasting, they had decided that I must experience it all.

One of the things I do when traveling is to throw some souviners from my home country in my purse: key chains and refrigerator magnets. I live in the Keys so they are mostly dolphins and palm trees, etc. I like to give them out the wait staff and cab drivers along with their tip. This time I gave away all my trinkets to the staff at the Cinnammon who had been so extra nice in making me feel welcome and beyond well fed.

Sorry for the very long post but since you really seemed to be searching for a restaurant that offered that &quot;special touch&quot; I needed to go into detail. (insert blush smiley)

Also, sorry for adding all those extra mmmmm's in Cinnamon. I believe it only has one. :)