British food hasn't always had the best reputation, but nowhere in the country is that reputation being completely stomped on more than in London. The city has zoomed up the global gastro charts, and can now seriously mix it with the world’s top culinary heavyweights. No other city—barring New York—has the immense range of global cuisines that London has to offer. Standards have rocketed at
all price points and it seems like the London restaurant scene might be in the most robust health it's ever been in.
A bottom-up local foodie revolution and a top-down cascade of the city's wealth has juiced things up fabulously. Feel like eating the most-tender Kagoshima wagyu beef on planet Earth? It can be yours for £140 at CUT at 45 Park Lane. Want to try old English gastronomy from the time of Henry VIII with an ultramodern twist? Ashley Palmer-Watts is your man at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Do you only eat Sri Lankan hoppers? No worries, we’ve got just the thing: try Hoppers in Soho to get a taste of the south Indian pancake, for £3.50 a pop. Can’t stand any more snobby culinary nonsense? The low-key British wild game is so good at The Harwood Arms in Fulham that they’ve earned London’s first gastropub-based Michelin star.
To appreciate how far London has risen in the culinary game, just look back to the days of Somerset Maugham, who was once justified in warning, "To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day." Change was slow after World War II, when it was understood that the British ate to live, while the French lived to eat. When people thought of British cuisine, fish and chips—a greasy grab and gulp dish that tasted best wrapped in yesterday's newspaper—first came to mind. Then there was always shepherd's pie, ubiquitously found in smoke-filled pubs, though not made, according to Sweeney Todd, "with real shepherd in it."
These days, standards are miles higher and shepherd’s pie has been largely replaced by the city's unofficial dish, Indian curry. London’s restaurant revolution is built on its extraordinary ethnic diversity, and you’ll find the quality of other global cuisines has grown immeasurably in recent years, with London becoming known for its Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Spanish, Italian, French, Peruvian, and North African restaurants. Thankfully, pride in the best of British food—local, seasonal, wild, and foraged—is enjoying a renaissance. And you, too, will be smitten: you'll be spending an average 24% of your travel budget on eating out, but it'll be worth every penny.
