One of the silver linings in the cloud of Covid was that many of London’s formerly no-reservations restaurants decided that it was high time they offered bookings. Good news for anyone who likes to eat at a pre-ordained time, less so for those who prefer to dine out on the spur of the moment.
Still, that’s not to say that the capital no longer accommodates spontaneity. Below we’ve selected the central London areas with the greatest concentration of restaurants that don’t require planning ahead.
Bear in mind that many of London’s hardest-to-book tables have cancellations on the day — life has a habit of getting in the way of a table reserved six months in advance — and it’s worth turning up on the off-chance at a restaurant you are desperate to eat at. A smile goes a long way in persuading a maître d’ that their suddenly empty table has your name on it.
Otherwise, get ready to wait in line at one of the restaurants below. Because if London is the restaurant capital of the world, the British are the world leaders when it comes to queueing.
Barrafina Dean Street
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Soho has been the spiritual home of the no-reservation restaurant ever since the late Russell Norman opened the doors of the first Polpo on Beak Street in 2009. Even Polpo accepts reservations these days, but it’s still no-bookings business as usual at tapas bar Barrafina (26-27 Dean Street, W1D 3LL, barrafina.co.uk), which operates one of the most civilised queuing systems in London: as the line snakes around the marble dining room exposed to the garlicky aromas wafting from the open kitchen, small plates such as ham croquetas and pan con tomate can be eaten leaning on an elbow-height shelf while knocking back glasses of sherry and cava.
Kiln (58 Brewer Street, W1F 9TL, kilnsoho.com) is another Soho counter to know about. While reservations are taken downstairs, the real action is shoulder-to-shoulder in the no-bookings ground floor, where fiery northern Thai dishes are barbecued over charcoal before being handed straight to diners. Japanese Koya (50 Frith Street, W1D 4SQ, koya.co.uk), meanwhile, has been serving London’s best bowls of udon noodles for almost 15 years; try the full English udon with bacon, egg and shiitake mushrooms.
Prefer to sit at a table? Blacklock (24 Great Windmill Street, W1D 7LG, blacklock.com) has done for chops what Hawksmoor did for steaks and doesn’t take reservations after 6pm. And for anyone not even fussed about sitting down, smash burger sensation Supernova (5 Peter Street, W1F 0AH, supernovaburger.com) has nowhere to eat except at a stand-up counter, but if the weather’s nice, mill around outside and ask fellow diners whether the queue was worth it.
Covent Garden is less welcoming to no reservations — who wants to risk queueing for a table when there’s a theatre to get to? — but ramen bar Canada-Ya (64 St Giles High Street, WC2H 8LE, kanada-ya.com) is walk-ins only, while for a taste of how things were before anyone had ever heard of OpenTable, try Gordon’s (47 Villiers Street, WC2N 6NE, gordonswinebar.com), which opened in 1890. The nicest tables at London’s oldest wine bar are on the terrace by Victoria Embankment Gardens, but a plate of cold cuts or cheese washed down by bottles of serviceable plonk in the candlelit interior is a rite of wine-stained passage any Londoner should submit to once.
Chop Chop
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Who hasn’t found themselves hungry in Chinatown when everywhere else is closed — or everywhere else is fully booked? The choice of restaurants can seem bewildering to the uninitiated, but here are some places we recommend time and again. Note that the first three claim to take bookings over the phone but no one has ever answered when we’ve called, and we’ve never had any trouble getting a table by just turning up.
Golden Dragon (28-29 Gerrard Street, W1D 6JW, gdlondon.co.uk) is an old-school Cantonese of red-and-gold decorations and swirly carpets, where excellent daytime dim sum is followed by an evening à la carte of classic salt-and-peppers and sweet-and-sours. Don’t be deterred by the queue, there’s a first-floor dining room as large as the ground floor.
Roast meat specialist Four Seasons has a restaurant on Gerrard Street but the cooking quality round the corner at the smaller Wardour Street branch (23 Wardour Street, W1D 6PW, fs-restaurants.co.uk) has somehow always seemed better. Visit for bouncy prawn dumplings in chilli oil followed by crisp and juicy pork belly dribbled with a slick of chive oil.
A few doors up, TPT Coffee (21 Wardour Street, W1D 6PN, no website) somehow serves some of the best food in Chinatown from its tiny kitchen, which staff deliver piping hot to the table even if it’s journeyed up three floors. It’s open until midnight at the weekend, when the signature dish of Macau-style pork chop with onions, chilli oil and béchamel is at its most appealing.
For an even later supper, Four Seasons spin-off Chop Chop in the Hippodrome Casino (Cranbourn Street, WC2H 7JH, hippodromecasino.com) is open until 3am serving dim sum, roast meat combos and splashy lobster dishes for anyone who’s won big on the gaming tables. Be sure to remember some over-18 ID to clear security on the front door.
Sabor Counter
Marcus Cobden
London’s priciest pieces of prime real estate might not seem like the most obvious areas to wander into unannounced but should one find oneself on the most expensive squares of the Monopoly board without a booking, here are two excellent options.
Flavor (35-37 Heddon Street, W1B 4BR, saborrestaurants.co.uk) is the Mayfair showcase of Bilbao-born chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho. Her upstairs El Asador serves big plates of Spanish specialities such as Segovian suckling pig but the no-reservations downstairs Counter is even better, where chefs in the open kitchen send out contemporary takes on classic tapas.
Walk across Oxford Street, meanwhile, and Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote (120 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2QG, relaisdevenise.com) is the West End outpost (there’s another in the City) of a French chain famous for only serving one thing on the menu: steak-frîtes accompanied by a “secret” sauce (basically a mustardy béarnaise). It’s not the best steak in the capital but the fact that the £31 cost includes a second helping guarantees a constant queue.
King’s Cross and Euston
Dishoom King’s Cross
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Few things are more likely to get the heart racing faster than a wait for a table when there’s a train to catch. On the other hand, if the sun has unexpectedly made an appearance, there are few places in London lovelier to end up after an impromptu canal-side saunter than the waterside steps at Granary Square in King’s Cross.
Good-value Indian chain Dishoom (5 Stable Street, N1C 4AB, dishoom.com), a contender for the capital’s most famous no-reservations policy across its seven London restaurants, has an outpost just off the square, and its terrace is dog-friendly too if you’ve walked here with your pooch.
Head south towards Euston Road to find two of the capital’s best purveyors of affordable Asian cooking. At tiny Dim Sum Duck (124 King’s Cross Road, WC1X 9DS, @dimsumandduck) the pitch-perfect selection of dim sum has the edge over the decent roast duck, plus there are classic Cantonese large plates such as beef ho fun that is anything but ho hum.
Back towards Euston, Roti King (Euston House, 40 Doric Way, NW1 1LH, rotiking.com) has long been an insider-secret for fans of Malaysian and Singaporean street-food, as well as being a hit with homesick students from nearby SOAS and UCL; with a plate of beef rendang or mee goreng clocking in for under £12, it’s also one of the best cheap eats in the capital. Newer branches at Waterloo and Battersea are likewise no bookings.
London Bridge and Bermondsey
Now
Gilles Draps
All of Borough Market is basically a no-reservations food hall to graze greedily from stall to stall but if you’d rather stay in one place, Athenian-inspired Now (2-4 Bedale Street, SE1 9AL, agora.london) is a new wine bar serving mezze and Greek wine. There’s more chance of scoring a table here than a reservation upstairs at more formal sibling Oma, one of 2024’s hottest openings. Or try Pan (6 Southwark Street, SE1 1TQ, padella.co), which introduced Londoners to the idea that pasta can work well as small plates, even if the must-order cacio e pepe is too delicious to share.
There’s more pasta on offer at Flour & Grape (214 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3TQ, flourandgrape.com). Basement bar Two One Four lubricates those waiting for a table with happy-hour G&Ts before heading upstairs for spaghetti carbonara and tiger prawn linguini.
Further along Bermondsey Street, José (104 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB, josepizarro.com) is chef José Pizarro’s ode to the tapas bars of his native Spain. Each day’s dishes are chalked up on a blackboard and scoffed at tiny counters while sitting on high stools; wine barrels on the pavement outside accommodate elbows and copitas of sherry while waiting for a spot to become free.
Maltby Street is the other big-name food market in SE1. 40 Maltby Street (40 Maltby Street, SE1 3PG, 40maltbystreet.com) shares a railway arch with Gergovie Wines, which provides a clue to the house speciality of wines (many by the glass) sourced from small-scale European producers, though the seasonal cooking is more British in inspiration: smoked haddock and leek croquettes, say, or warm roast beef with fried Jersey Royals.