This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London
2025 marks our third publication of the FT’s annual list of London’s best new restaurant openings of the year — a hat trick of coming to the same conclusion. It has been a bumper year for restaurant launches, despite the increasingly challenging economic environment faced by hospitality. That sentiment seems as potent as ever, as over the past 12 months announcements snowballed through our inboxes and fuelled endless conversations about how many new spots were joining the ranks this year, while industry figures across the UK increasingly joined forces to lobby the government for support. More than ever, it seems crazy to open a restaurant in London. So for another year running, we thank the mad for making our city such a thrilling place to eat.
Below are the FT’s top new London restaurants of 2025 (including one just outside of the M25, because how could we exclude one of Jay Rayner’s dishes of the year on a minor technicality?).
Bookmark this article for reservation inspiration, revisit our previous lists — and don’t forget to stop by your old favourites too.
Rosi at The Beaumont
8 Balderton Street, Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF
In a big year for Wagyu-heavy Mayfair openings, let’s hear it for Rosi at The Beaumont hotel and its menu by Lisa Goodwin-Allen full of loving tributes to another age: seafood cocktails, fish fingers and a glorious chicken Kyiv, all given a glamorous spin. The room, previously the Colony Grill, has had a serious makeover with delicious murals by the FT’s own Luke Edward Hall, and there’s a hefty postcode-appropriate wine list. But what matters is the cooking, which despite the obligatory caviar list cleaves to the idea of comfort with a capital C. Special mention must go to the reappearance of the leather tabard, last seen at The Game Bird at The Stafford hotel, to be worn while eating that Kyiv for fear of garlic-butter splashback. Such fun. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Jay Rayner, FT restaurant critic
One Club Row
1 Club Row, London E1 6JX
One Club Row is a capital V Vibe hidden behind a graffitied frontage — complete with tiny camp canopy — that could have come straight from the era of CBGB. Given its very NYC demeanour, I doubt this is accidental.
The food isn’t really the point here, it’s more the see-and-be-seen scene: on my last visit, there were five well-known authors in the one room. But don’t let that put you off — it’s all quite tongue in cheek, never quite fully up-itself, surprisingly genial. And, since the chef behind the resolutely crowd-pleasing menu is the assured Irishman Patrick Powell, the pork schnitzel will be crisp and succulent and inches deep, the burger worthy of JG Melon but with added au poivre sauce for dipping in, the moules frites fragranced with lemongrass and curry leaf, the pickled jalapeño gougères explosively good. Staff are friendly and knowing, and the martinis are mighty. There’s a sense here that anything might happen — in a good way. Website; Directions
— Marina O’Loughlin, FT Weekend Magazine columnist
Martino’s
37 Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AN
In 2023, Martin Kuczmarski opened The Dover restaurant in Mayfair with little publicity and, over a year, it turned into the hottest ticket in town — while feeling like it had been there forever. This year he’s done it again. Kuczmarski has stealth-launched Martino’s, the platonic ideal of a swish Italian restaurant with a 100 per cent solid cocktail bar and a menu of indisputable favourites, executed with consummate brilliance. It’s on Sloane Square, so off my beat in every way, but I’d happily drag myself there over broken glass, through a hail of bullets, to lick the plate of the last man who ordered the vitello tonnato. Website; Directions
— Tim Hayward, FT Weekend Magazine food writer
Singburi
Unit 7, Montacute Yards, 185‑186 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6HU
After the cult, no-frills, cash-only Thai restaurant in Leytonstone closed last year and reopened in June in a new office-and-retail complex in Shoreditch, there were bound to be grumbles about what had been lost in the move. The new industrial-style canteen looking out on to a concrete flyover may be less charming than the original. But you can now pay by card, make reservations online and there is even scope for walk-ins, all of which makes dining at Singburi now a lot more accessible than it used to be. With chef Sirichai Kularbwong still at the helm (following his parents’ retirement) and joined by ex-Kiln/Oma chef Nick Molyviatis, the food is better than ever. The staples include grilled chicken thighs, lamb riblets, smoked tomato salad and a superlative aubergine pad phet. With only about a dozen small plates on the menu, you won’t regret ordering the whole roster. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Ajesh Patalay, HTSI food columnist
Bonheur by Matt Abé
43 Upper Brook Street, London W1K 7Q
The news was interesting enough when it was announced that chef Matt Abé would leave the three-Michelin star Restaurant Gordon Ramsay to pursue a solo venture. When it later was revealed that Ramsay’s longtime protégé, with backing from his mentor, had signed a 15-year lease on one of the most celebrated sites in UK restaurant history (that of the former Le Gavroche), observers were sent into a tailspin. Bonheur by Matt Abé opened in November (the FT had an exclusive first look) as one of the most ambitious new restaurants of the year, completely transformed by Russell Sage Studios from its former clubby guise into a bright, Australiana-inspired space.
The restaurant is aiming for the upper echelons of the awards world with three seasonally focused menus: a five- and seven-course tasting, each entirely different from the other, as well as an à la carte option. Abé’s signature is 125-day-aged Cumbrian Blue Grey sirloin, the result of a years-long experiment between the chef and his suppliers, who sought to crystallise the flavour of the meat with an extra-long ageing process. While each dish showcases the skill and precision that Abé is known for, this is one I will be thinking about for the foreseeable. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Niki Blasina, FT Globetrotter deputy editor
Calong
35 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0NX
In London’s Stoke Newington at the tiny Calong, chef Joo Won, trained in the French classical tradition, has brought that European perspective to bear on the food of his native Korea without ever losing sight of the imperative of flavour. Korean fried chicken may well be a rather refined affair, but it’s still banging with fiery gochujang, and a familiar spring onion pancake, or pajeon, comes topped with a sesame oil-dressed rocket salad and a velvety fennel purée. Given Woo’s previous employment as head chef of the now-closed Galvin at Windows at the top of the Hilton on Park Lane, it is quite the transition. But he has made the small and intimate look effortless. Website; Directions
— Jay Rayner
Lilibet’s
17 Bruton Street, London W1J 6QB
Quiet luxury? Pfft. Lilibet’s laughs in the face of it. With its expanse of marble, scarlet velvet, silk-panelled PDR and the contents of designer Russell Sage’s antiques warehouse scattered hither and thither, this is a restaurant that celebrates excess. Joyfully.
Chef Ross Shonhan has spun away from his punky, mid-range fusion joints with this opulent temple to seafood named for Her late Maj. Caviar, oysters, lobster all present and correct, but there’s also an accessible set lunch for the non-hedgefund diner. The Fish Triptych — served raw, grilled and as a soup — is the big ticket order.
Lilibet’s is not a place to come with either belt- or wallet-cinched. Lean into it, order the fizz and all the tiny, perfect snacks, have a prego for “dessert” (the Portuguese steak sandwich often served after a seafood meal) and exit into the Elizabeth Line feeling like an overindulged Queen. Website; Directions
— Marina O’Loughlin
The Hart
56 Blandford Street, London W1U 7JA
The team behind London pubs The Pelican, The Hero and The Fat Badger (also new this year), as well as The Bull in Charlbury, have done it again and turned a stale old boozer into a hot new destination. Located in Marylebone on the corner of Chiltern Street and Blandford, this latest from the Public House Group is also the cosiest. The drinks-focused ground floor is a packed warren of rooms where you’ll be lucky to find a perch on busy evenings (ie, every evening). But ascend past the kitchen to the top two floors and you discover a smartly furnished set of dining rooms with gas fires and wood panelling that couldn’t feel more snug or serene. The menu serves up classic British pub food that comforts rather than wows. But how very comforting it is: pork pies, crab cakes, bubble and squeak, kedgeree, fish stew and steak with potatoes. Dining here you just feel in the best hands. Website; Directions
— Ajesh Patalay
Passione Vino (Exmouth Market)
58 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QE
When lockdown lifted, the first bar I returned to was Passione Vino in Shoreditch — this tiny vinoteca, with its huge heart and soul, was exactly what I craved. And Luca Dusi’s new outpost in Clerkenwell’s pedestrianised Exmouth Market is similarly convivial: noisy, bustling, informal and so full of Italians you feel like you’re in Italy. There’s no kitchen; instead, the food is prepared, deli-style, at a big red marble counter: duck rillettes, anchovies and pomegranate on oozing stracciatella, red prawns cured in orange with capers, smoked salmon with homemade pickles and wonderful bread. Sommeliers recommend wines based on what you like and bring several options to the table for you to taste. You’re in safe hands: Dusi’s import company supplies artisan Italian wines to everyone from Angela Hartnett and Noble Rot to the River Cafe. Surrender to it. Website; Directions
— Alice Lascelles, HTSI drinks columnist
Osteria Angelina
1 Nicholls Clarke Yard, London E1 6SH
When reviewing the shortlist for FT Weekend’s inaugural Business Lunch Awards last month, there was only one restaurant I hadn’t come across: Osteria Angelina in Shoreditch. A lunch was quickly arranged to correct this, at which I discovered what several FT readers clearly already knew: that the little sister of Dalston’s Angelina restaurant is a lovely, unusual place to break up the working day.
Like Angelina, the restaurant specialises in Italian-Japanese cooking. This not some new frontier in fusion but an established cuisine — Japanese in origin — known as Itameshi. Here, the concept carries through from the bread (nori focaccia) to the dessert (cheesecake with matcha gelato) and with particular attention paid to the pasta menu where kosho, kombu and lotus root all feature. There is, apparently, no right or wrong way to order from the menu — a freedom some diners might find startling, but which one judge for the awards told me he found reassuring as it means there is also no way to get it “wrong”.
Bonus point: there’s a pasta-making station in the window, which makes this one of the few restaurants where I would willingly offer to sit facing away from the room. Website; Directions
— Harriet Fitch Little, FT Weekend Magazine food and drink editor
Atush
20 Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4SX
My first visit to Atush, a new Uyghur restaurant in Clerkenwell, was on a whim. As I walked past it, hungry, the legend “Noodles Made to Order” hooked me in to find an eccentric room dominated a large TV, untouched by the hand of any interior designer. Mistake? Hell, no: the food started coming and everything became beautiful.
The big plate chicken — one of the stars of Uyghur cuisine — rings with an almost buzz-inducing amount of Sichuan pepper. Lamb skewers deliver a thwack of cumin and pepper. Fat, chewy hand-pulled leghman noodles are as fresh as billed, piled with beef and the funk of black fungus (also known as wood ear mushroom). When I first tried the manta dumplings, I described them as being Scotch-pie adjacent — a huge compliment in my book — with their elastic dough and the juicy filling’s depth of flavour. Stout-pastried samsa (savoury stuffed pastries) reveal a riot of beef mince and onions. Prices are gentle and, unlicensed, there’s no-corkage BYOB. Out front, Dad issues the warmest welcome; in the kitchen, Mum and son crank out those noodles. This is the best Uyghur cooking I’ve tried in the UK — I bless that whim. Directions
— Marina O’Loughlin
Shwen Shwen
1-2 Bank Street, Sevenoaks, kent TN13 1UN
In a surprisingly busy year for restaurant openings, given the harsh economic headwinds facing the industry, Maria Bradford’s small but perfectly formed Shwen Shwen in Sevenoaks stands out for introducing diners to the thrilling roasted spices and deep earth tones of her native Sierra Leone. The food and cooking of the entire continent of Africa has historically been shamefully under-represented in the UK up to now, so it’s a delight to meet this particular corner of it in Bradford’s terracotta-toned dining room. Her roasted bone marrow and puffed rice with fermented chilli-smeared flat bread is one of my dishes of the year. Website; Directions
— Jay Rayner
Legado
1C Montacute Yards, London E1 6HU
I’ll keel up to pretty much anywhere that has chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s name attached, so when Legado launched, I was there with unseemly speed. “Much anticipated” is an overused phrase re restaurant openings, but this dramatic room in a new Shoreditch development deserves the hype. Best design feature? Rows of gleaming, lacquered piglets on the counter (served quarter, half or whole), waiting for a plate to dramatically shatter their crème brûlée skins, giving way to the sultry meat below.
The (long) menu features some classics: gazpacho, black fideuà with shrimp, grilled paprika octopus. Plus the less familiar: impossibly rich mushroom rice laced with rosy ibérico pork; squid in its ink stuffed with prawns and girolles — both standouts. Even basic pan con tomate comes zhuzhed with cecina (air-dried beef) into something more complex without losing any of its sexy immediacy. You can also hit the bar for a few cervezas and a bocadillo de morcón or ox-tongue burger. It’s impossible to do the menu justice in one visit — repeat visits are essential. Website; Directions
— Marina O’Loughlin
Mezzogiorno by Francesco Mazzei
Corinthia london, 10a Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5AE
Italian chef Francesco Mazzei’s new restaurant promises “a journey through the soul” of Calabria, Puglia and Sicily in the plush high-ceilinged dining room of the Corinthia London hotel. And as Mazzei is celebrated for bringing the flavours of southern Italy to the UK — often credited with having introduced ’nduja, the now-ubiquitous spicy sausage, to the British palate — my expectations were high.
The restaurant’s website invites guests to “book your experience”. This, it turns out, is code for a bloody great four-course Italian blowout. Mezzogiorno is the kind of place where you should loosen your belt and follow the menu from pane e sfizi to dolce without a backward glance. We started with slivers of nutty Yorkshire pecorino, taralli and a fresh and delicate artichoke and puntarelle salad. “Will you be sharing your primi?” asked the charming Italian waiter, wearing a double-breasted seersucker blazer. Absolutely not! I had no intentions of sharing my plate of golden cardinal-hat shaped tortelli (made at the pasta station just metres from our seats), plump with a ricotta and burrata filling and afloat on a sea of melted butter and sage. However, at the point where my pink slices of lamb rump with creamy poverello beans and cavolo nero arrived, I was already psyching myself up to ask for it to takeaway. But we had heard about the giant tiramisu served tableside, so we soldiered on. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Rebecca Rose, FT Globetrotter editor
Poon’s
Lancaster Place, London WC2R 1LA
Amy Poon is from a restaurant dynasty (her father Bill was the seventh-generation master chef behind Chinatown’s influential Poon’s). She once told me she’d never open a restaurant.
I’m so glad she’s reneged on her promise: Poon’s, her new venture in Somerset House, is gorgeous. Her menu is a mix of the traditional with the odd surprise: claypot rice studded with the famous Poon’s wind-dried meats leaching an alluring sweet-smoky fattiness into the grains. A whole sea bass anointed with soy and ginger. More of those dried meats in a snacky sausage roll, which with the sour crunch of home-made pickles makes the ideal opening salvo. She also said she’d never serve sesame prawn toast, which is why her version — with lardo instead of bread — is titled “The Hill that Amy Didn’t Die On”. Her fat, taut wontons are unmissable.
And the place is beautiful, with murals painted by an old school friend that look entirely traditional until you spot the odd detail — perhaps a cigar-smoking lobster. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Marina O’Loughlin
Khao-Sō-i
9-10 Market Place, london W1W 8AQ
How do you like your khao soi? In northern Thailand, that’s a question as commonplace as being asked how you take your tea. The curry noodle soup can be spicy, extra creamy or . . . soggy (just add the crispy noodles traditionally served on the side and let them soak up the broth). Prior to this year, you’d be hard-pressed to find an authentic bowl in London. Thankfully, Khao-Sō-i, the cult Chiang Mai noodle bar, has remedied that with its recent arrival in Fitzrovia. The London proposition is much the same as its Thai sibling: house-pressed coconut milk, made fresh each day; thick, fragrant soup (the result of a 20-year-old family recipe); and an array of tempting snacks (beef larb, jackfruit salad and Thai sausage). Choose from traditional noodle toppings (chicken and slow-braised beef), or go for something more ritzy (scallops, Wagyu beef and langoustine). Eat at the bar and watch as each bowl is painstakingly assembled. Website; Directions
— Rosanna Dodds, HTSI commissioning editor
Humble Chicken 3.0
54 Frith Street, London W1D 4SJ
It is not exactly a new opening, but chef Angelo Sato’s relaunch of his acclaimed Soho restaurant is so dead serious that it could not be excluded by a technicality. Humble Chicken debuted in 2021 as an izakaya before Sato eventually pivoted to a more refined, omakase-style approach, earning a Michelin star in 2024 and a second earlier this year. Rather than embrace the newfound status, the chef, who is outspoken about his ultimate goal — three stars — closed shop for a total refurbishment and another rethink. It re-emerged over the summer as Humble Chicken 3.0, a 13-seat chef’s table with a surprise multi-course menu influenced by Sato’s Japanese and German heritage. With up-close views of the brigade in the kitchen and service largely led by Sato’s younger brother, John Paul, and sommelier/restaurant manager Aiden Monk, the 16-course menu is one of the most delightful meals I’ve eaten this year. The initial bites were a revelation — in particular two different servings of langoustine, including a brilliant prawn-toast-inspired dish — with later highlights including a chawanmushi (savoury egg custard) topped with chicken bone broth and miso-cured black cod, and a soothing dashi course revolving around dry-aged sea bream. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Niki Blasina
Dove
31 Kensington Park Road, W11 2EU
Here’s a challenge: head down to Dove and order one of 10 burgers that are available each service. They are not on the official menu. And nor, as chef-proprietor Jackson Boxer admits, are they the “best thing on the menu”. But they are obscenely delicious, with pink, 50-day-aged beef patties and a dripping layer of gorgonzola cheese.
Take that as incentive to try everything else this Notting Hill restaurant has to offer. Boxer opened Dove early this year after closing its predecessor, Orasay, on New Year’s Eve 2024. His goal was to create a more affordable dining experience with the same quality and care as a fine dining restaurant. This is a tall order in Dove’s neck of the woods, but somehow Boxer has managed it. Some of the best dishes on the menu — the plush potato pizzette with burrata and mortadella; the enormous Atlantic prawns grilled with garlic and lime butter — are priced below £20. There are sharing chops and half chickens for those who want them, but you will be equally sated (and welcomed) with a snack and a honey margarita. Website; Directions
— Rosanna Dodds
Norbert’s
5-6 Melbourne Terrace, Melbourne Grove, London SE22 8RE
In a year packed to the henhouse rafters with new spots offering premium rotisserie chicken — including The Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch and Harley’s in Hampstead — Norbert’s in East Dulwich is surely the most fun. This place is small (a cramped 16-seater), walk-in only and open Wednesday to Saturday. All of which could be annoying if it weren’t for the charm of the team running the show: its co-founders are veteran restaurateur John Ogier (Lyle’s, Marksman, Lasdun), who can be found mixing cocktails, and chef Jack Coghlan (formerly of Lyle’s and Planque). This is a neighbourhood restaurant that makes you want to be part of the neighbourhood, particularly on a Saturday night when diners wait for tables at the wine bar next door but one and a party vibe prevails. The service is jolly. The piña coladas punchy. And the simple menu revolves around juicy, bronzed half and whole roast chicken (£18 and £30 respectively) with chicken-fat potatoes, fries and salad. A chicken Caesar salad and “Dylan” torpedo sandwich with guindilla chillies, aioli and crispy onions are lunch-only options. Website; Directions
— Ajesh Patalay
Lupa
73 Highbury Park, London N5 1UA
This tiny corner restaurant is the vision of Ed Templeton, co-founder of Fitzrovia’s Carousel, and actor Theo James. Both Highbury locals, they wanted a neighbourhood spot to enjoy Roman-inspired cuisine. That means fried courgette flowers, pan-braised artichoke hearts and, of course, a great selection of classic pastas. All of this is under the jurisdiction of Bangladesh-born chef Naz Hassan, who grew up in Milan before moving to London to work in restaurants such as Clipstone, BiBi and Pidgin. The space is intimate, the drinks are well priced and — at the risk of inspiring uproar in the comments section — the carbonara is the best I’ve ever had. Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Rosanna Dodds
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High
22 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4BQ
Twenty-seven years on from opening his flagship in Chelsea, 2025 saw Gordon Ramsay bring his elevated take on French cuisine to the City of London. Elevated is the apposite word. On the 60th floor of 22 Bishopsgate, it’s the highest restaurant in London, the streets below like toys to a giant, with views from the intimate, modernist cocoon of the 12-seat chef’s table taking in the panorama from Tower Bridge to St Paul’s and beyond. Chefs, helmed by James Goodyear, formerly of Evelyn’s Table, beaver away behind guests, creating dishes that look like works of abstract art, with all the requisite curlicues of caviar and truffle and beds of gravel for seafood shells. But they defy the clichés by creating food that is hands-down delicious and delightfully fun: think pine crème lifting scallops, prune and cocoa deepening Sladesdown Farm duck — and a savoury pudding for the ages, a Basque cheesecake laced with the Provençal Rove des Garrigues. Who needs sugar? Website; Directions; Book via OpenTable
— Tim Auld, HTSI executive editor
Canal
Westbourne Park, 11B Woodfield Road, london W9 2BA
We now live in a world where your starter and main can be intercepted by a cheeseburger. This is largely thanks to Canal, the waterside restaurant from the team behind Crispin and Bistro Freddie that opened in June. Alongside what has been dubbed “the table cheeseburger” — its cushiony potato bun cut into four appealing corners — the menu offers the kind of dishes that you might expect to eat somewhere much sunnier and more inviting than London: sea-bream crudo with bergamot and green chilli, Mangalitza sausage with apple, a crispy chicken schnitzel coated in caper beurre blanc. This is fitting, given Canal’s enormous terrace, which in the height of summer could almost be mistaken for somewhere in the Mediterranean. With one of the restaurant’s olive oil negronis in hand, however, you’ll be fine to settle for canalside Westbourne Park. Website; Directions
— Rosanna Dodds
What are your favourite new London restaurants? Tell us in the comments below. And follow us on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter
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