The plates that define London: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define London. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
The Sunday roast is a plate of roasted joint, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, seasonal greens and gravy, eaten in London pubs on Sunday lunch. The capital's defining set-piece since the nineteenth century.
Where: The Eagle, The Camberwell Arms, Quality Chop House, Blacklock Soho, The Jugged Hare
Price: £18-32
Battered white fish (cod or haddock) deep-fried with thick-cut chips, salt, malt vinegar and mushy peas. The defining British take-away dish, eaten in London since the 1860s.
Where: J Sheekey, Wright Brothers Borough
Price: £10-18
Brined and slow-cooked salt beef brisket, hand-sliced thick onto a boiled-and-baked bagel with English mustard and pickled cucumber. A Brick Lane lunch from a 24-hour counter since 1974.
Where: Beigel Bake, Reuben's, The Dusty Knuckle
Price: £6-12
Marinated tandoor-roasted chicken in a creamy spiced tomato gravy with butter and fenugreek. Britain's most-ordered curry, claimed by London and Glasgow alike since the 1970s.
Where: Tayyabs, Dishoom Shoreditch, Gymkhana, Trishna, Gunpowder Spitalfields
Price: £12-22
Pork sausages on buttery mashed potato with onion gravy. London's defining pub plate, eaten in gastropubs and chippies across the capital since the early twentieth century.
Where: The Eagle, Quality Chop House, The Camberwell Arms
Price: £12-18
Minced beef pie with mashed potato and a green parsley liquor, the working-class East End plate served at counters like Manze's since 1902.
Where: The Eagle, Quality Chop House
Price: £5-9
Bacon, sausage, fried egg, baked beans, grilled tomato, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread or toast. London's defining hangover plate, served all day at greasy spoons and gastro brunch rooms since the 1800s.
Where: Regency Cafe, E Pellicci, Granger and Co Notting Hill, The Wolseley, The Breakfast Club Soho
Price: £8-22
A soft-boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried, served cold in pub windows or warm at the bar. London's defining bar snack since the 1730s.
Where: Fortnum and Mason, Quality Chop House, The Jugged Hare
Price: £4-12
A small flaky-pastry round filled with currants, butter and brown sugar, topped with crystallised sugar. A classic British bake found at St John in Clerkenwell and bakery counters across London.
Where: St John, Quality Chop House, Toad Bakery, Lyle's
Price: £3-7
Finger sandwiches, warm scones with clotted cream and jam, and a tiered stand of cakes, with a pot of loose-leaf tea. A London hotel ritual since 1840.
Where: The Ritz, Fortnum and Mason, The Wolseley
Price: £70-120
The Sunday roast is a plate of roasted joint, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, seasonal greens and gravy, eaten in London pubs on Sunday lunch. The capital's defining set-piece since the nineteenth century.
History: The roast joint of meat on Sunday traces to medieval landowner kitchens and church-day eating. Industrial London pubs codified the modern format in the late 1800s: a single sitting, often midday to mid-afternoon, with one carved meat, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots, greens and a gravy made from the pan. The Eagle on Farringdon Road, opened in 1991, is usually credited as the first London gastropub to take the dish seriously as a kitchen-led plate rather than school-dinner fare. The form spread through Anchor and Hope, The Camberwell Arms, Quality Chop House and the modern pub crawl that defines London Sundays today.
Where to try it: The Eagle, The Camberwell Arms, Quality Chop House, Blacklock Soho, The Jugged Hare
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Battered white fish (cod or haddock) deep-fried with thick-cut chips, salt, malt vinegar and mushy peas. The defining British take-away dish, eaten in London since the 1860s.
History: Fried fish came to London with Sephardic Jewish settlers in the seventeenth century. Joseph Malin opened the first identifiable combined fish-and-chip shop in 1860 in Bow, east London, pairing the Jewish fried-fish tradition with the northern chipped potato. By 1910 there were 25,000 chip shops in Britain; London's surviving institutions include The Golden Hind on Marylebone Lane (1914), Poppies (Camden, Spitalfields, Soho) and the Sea Shell of Lisson Grove. The Friday-night fish-and-chips habit owes to Catholic and traditional working-class fasting customs that the chippy slotted into perfectly.
Where to try it: J Sheekey, Wright Brothers Borough
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish
Brined and slow-cooked salt beef brisket, hand-sliced thick onto a boiled-and-baked bagel with English mustard and pickled cucumber. A Brick Lane lunch from a 24-hour counter since 1974.
History: Eastern European Jewish migrants brought the boiled-and-baked bagel and the brined-brisket tradition to Whitechapel and Spitalfields from the 1880s. The Beigel Bake on Brick Lane (1974) and the rival Beigel Shop next door (1855, the older of the two) sell the form that London adopted: dense hand-rolled bagel, hot pink salt beef sliced to order at the window, English mustard and pickled cucumber, cash and card, 24 hours. Cabbies, theatre staff and clubbers anchor the queue from midnight onwards. North London delis like Reuben's and Brass Rail in Selfridges sell the upmarket sit-down version.
Where to try it: Beigel Bake, Reuben's, The Dusty Knuckle
Watch out for: Gluten, Mustard
Marinated tandoor-roasted chicken in a creamy spiced tomato gravy with butter and fenugreek. Britain's most-ordered curry, claimed by London and Glasgow alike since the 1970s.
History: Chicken tikka masala is a British-Bengali invention of the late 1960s or early 1970s. Multiple Glasgow Pakistani chefs claim the dish (Ali Ahmed Aslam at Shish Mahal is most frequently named), and London's Brick Lane curry houses popularised it through the 1980s. Robin Cook, then Foreign Secretary, called it a 'true British national dish' in a 2001 speech. The dish marries north Indian tandoor cookery with a milder Anglo-Indian gravy: tomato puree, single cream, garam masala and dried fenugreek leaf. Brick Lane's Bengali-run curry houses (Aladin, Sheba) and the Tayyabs Pakistani tradition both still serve it; Dishoom and Gymkhana plate the modern restaurant versions.
Where to try it: Tayyabs, Dishoom Shoreditch, Gymkhana, Trishna, Gunpowder Spitalfields
Watch out for: Dairy
Pork sausages on buttery mashed potato with onion gravy. London's defining pub plate, eaten in gastropubs and chippies across the capital since the early twentieth century.
History: The bangers-and-mash name came from World War One British troops, when sausages with high water content tended to burst (bang) in the pan. The pairing of pork sausage and mashed potato is older, with London piesmiths and butchers selling versions on Fleet Street and Whitechapel from the 1800s. Gastropubs revived the dish from 1990 onwards: The Eagle on Farringdon Road, Mark Hix at the now-closed Le Caprice, and S&M Cafe (1992) made it a kitchen-led plate. The modern London version uses Cumberland, Toulouse or Lincolnshire pork sausages, finished with a deep onion gravy.
Where to try it: The Eagle, Quality Chop House, The Camberwell Arms
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Minced beef pie with mashed potato and a green parsley liquor, the working-class East End plate served at counters like Manze's since 1902.
History: Pie and mash shops opened in east and south London from the 1840s, serving cheap minced-beef pies with mash and a parsley liquor made from the cooking water of jellied eels. F. Cooke (1862), M. Manze (1902 at Tower Bridge Road) and Goddards in Greenwich kept the form unchanged through the twentieth century: heavy ceramic plates, a knife and fork, optional jellied eels on the side. The trade declined as Cockney London moved out post-war; the survivors (G. Kelly on Roman Road, F. Cooke in Hoxton, several Manze's branches) trade as heritage spots in 2026.
Where to try it: The Eagle, Quality Chop House
Watch out for: Gluten
Bacon, sausage, fried egg, baked beans, grilled tomato, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread or toast. London's defining hangover plate, served all day at greasy spoons and gastro brunch rooms since the 1800s.
History: The full English derived from rural country-house breakfasts of the nineteenth century, codified by the Edwardian middle classes as a single plate to start the day. Mass production of bacon and sausage in the 1900s pushed it into working-class greasy spoons. The Regency Cafe (1946 on Regency Street, Westminster) and E Pellicci (1900 on Bethnal Green Road) still serve the canonical version: white plate, brown HP sauce, tea on the side. Modern London brunch rooms (Caravan, Granger and Co, Riding House) plate prettier takes; the survival of the form sits with the cafe institutions.
Where to try it: Regency Cafe, E Pellicci, Granger and Co Notting Hill, The Wolseley, The Breakfast Club Soho
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg
A soft-boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried, served cold in pub windows or warm at the bar. London's defining bar snack since the 1730s.
History: The Scotch egg is traditionally attributed to Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly, who claim the form from around 1738 as a portable picnic snack for the wealthy. The modern London pub-snack revival started with Scott Hallsworth at The Eagle and was made canon by Tom Norrington-Davies at The Cow in Notting Hill, then perfected at The Harwood Arms in Fulham, which won a Michelin star partly on the strength of its venison Scotch egg. The orthodox London bar version has a soft-yolk egg, coarse pork sausage, panko crust, English mustard on the side.
Where to try it: Fortnum and Mason, Quality Chop House, The Jugged Hare
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg
A small flaky-pastry round filled with currants, butter and brown sugar, topped with crystallised sugar. A classic British bake found at St John in Clerkenwell and bakery counters across London.
History: The Eccles cake is named for the town of Eccles in Greater Manchester, where James Birch began selling them commercially in 1793. London's enduring claim to the form comes from St John on St John Street (1994), where Fergus Henderson serves Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese as a counter-bakery and dessert plate. The St John recipe (flaky pastry, butter-soaked currants, demerara) is widely copied across modern British kitchens. Other London bakeries selling the orthodox form: Bea's of Bloomsbury, Lyle's, Toad Bakery.
Where to try it: St John, Quality Chop House, Toad Bakery, Lyle's
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Finger sandwiches, warm scones with clotted cream and jam, and a tiered stand of cakes, with a pot of loose-leaf tea. A London hotel ritual since 1840.
History: Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, is credited with inventing afternoon tea around 1840 to bridge the gap between lunch and a late dinner. The Ritz on Piccadilly began serving formal afternoon tea in 1906 in the Palm Court, and Brown's Hotel, Claridge's, The Savoy, Fortnum and Mason and The Lanesborough have served it continuously since the Edwardian era. The orthodox order: a pot of loose-leaf tea, three finger sandwiches (cucumber, smoked salmon, egg mayonnaise), warm scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, a tiered stand of patisserie. Booking opens months ahead at the marquee rooms.
Where to try it: The Ritz, Fortnum and Mason, The Wolseley
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Egg
Peak food season in London is year-round.
Local dining hours: lunch around 12:30, dinner from 19:30.
service is typically included; small extra is welcome but not expected.
If you only have one meal, eat Sunday roast. It is the dish most associated with London.