Nestled in the backstreets off Oxford Street, Fitzrovia is one of my favourite London neighbourhoods for wining and dining, with plenty of hip restaurants and some truly great bars. There's not a huge amount to do otherwise, but head here after a day of browsing the shops to relax with a cocktail or tuck in to a meal at one of the areas many restaurants. It's also a prime location to base yourself if you're visiting the city, with a selection of plush hotels just a short walk from the city's main sights.
Start Your Day
Dalloway Terrace
If you're the kind of person who likes to photograph your food till it's lukewarm before you eat it (you probably are, you're reading my blog!), then Dalloway Terrace is the perfect place to start your day with brunch. Inspired by Fitzrovia resident Virginia Woolf's character Mrs Dalloway, the restaurant attached to The Bloomsbury Hotel has got to be one of London's prettiest dining spots, with seasonal floral displays that are even more beautiful and atmospheric in the flesh. They serve a solid menu of brunch staples (the eggs are good!), as well as lunch and dinner options throughout the rest of the day. If you want photos though I recommend going early, or reserving a table in advance. Also while you're there take a peek into the Coral Room bar, for cocktails in elegant surrounds.
I'll admit I was in two minds about whether to include this one, as I had a previously bad experience with an unfriendly waiter, however I've been back since to a much warmer welcome, so it must just have been a bad day! And yes, it is borderline Bloomsbury, however it's borderline enough that I'm including it!
Dalloway Terrace
16-22 Great Russell St
Fitzrovia, London
WC1B 3NN
EL&N Cafe Market Place
This one's for the Instagrammers! London's biggest Instagram cafe chain EL&N have an extremely photogenic location nestled away just off Oxford Street, serving up their usual fare of picturesque pastries and brunch dishes. I usually go for the eggs with salmon and avocado, plus their croissants come attractively striped in bright hues. There's plenty in terms of photo ops, with a dramatic flower wall decorated with neon writing, and a large floral wreath adorning the outside seating areas. I wouldn't recommend going solely for the food, which is decent if overpriced, but for photos, it's hard to beat.
EL&N Market Place
9 Market Pl
Fitzrovia, London
W1W 8AQ
Primp and Pamper
Rachel's Nails & Coffee
In London you can guarantee that even your local off license/dentist/garage will probably have an Instagrammable photo op these days, and it's certainly the case with the city's new wave of photogenic nail salons. Rachel's in Fitzrovia is a conceptual salon serving up coffee alongside a variety of manicure options. I'll admit I just popped in to snap some pics so can only attest to it's grammability, with cute corners like this aesthetically pleasing waiting area.
Rachel's Nails & Coffee
34 Windmill St
Fitzrovia, London
W1T 2JR
Stop for a bite
Kalifornia Kitchen
Veganism is sexy now, and LA-meets-London hotspot California Kitchen proves it, serving up a junk food menu of burgers and tacos in vivid surroundings (think teal walls, a hot pink staircase, and tropical print accents). They’ve even gotten in on the CBD trend, with a dedicated CBD menu if you’re looking for a little more chill on your lunch break. The food is far from the boring soggy tofu traditionally associated with veganism - there’s salads, sure, and yes you can get tofu, but there’s also jackfruit tacos, ‘fish’ and chips made with banana blossom, and ‘chicken’ replaced with oyster mushrooms. It’s also super grammable!
Kalifornia Kitchen
19 Percy St
Fitzrovia, London
W1T 1DY
Read More: 5 Great Vegan London Restaurants
Riding House Cafe
Riding House Cafe is the kind of place that offers something for everyone - go for a hungover brunch, a work meeting, cocktails with friends, you'll fit in whatever you choose. As such the spacious restaurant space is often crowded, but you can usually nab a space at the long communal table that takes up the centre of the room.
It's chic, but not pretentious, with airy, well lit interiors and grammable marble tables paired with teal accents. It has menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (as well as weekend brunch). Personally I think it's at it's best with breakfast and brunch, largely down to their incredibly fluffy, pillowy pancakes. I'm generally not a sweet breakfast gal, but they're hard to beat.
Riding House Cafe
43-51 Great Titchfield St
Fitzrovia, London
W1W 7PQ
Wine and Dine
Hakkasan
Michelin-starred Hakkasan is a London institution, and with good reason. Quietly tucked away in an unpresuming corner of Fitzrovia in Hanway Place, the restaurant is understated on first glance, but head down dimly lit steps to a generous space lined with dark wooden panelling, intricate oak latticework, and a heady, seductive ambience all contributing to the kind of space one might imagine the Daniel Craig incarnation of Bond sipping a Martini in, scantily clothed love interest at his side. However there are no agents prowling in the darkness, no villainous characters with thick accents, no hidden casinos (that I know of...), just a hefty menu of really good Cantonese food. Oh, and wines. And cocktails. Daniel Craig who?
I visited to try an exclusive collaboration between shoe designer Lucy Choi and Hakkasan on a limited edition menu, The Hakkasan Collection. The menu brings together some of Hakkasan’s classic dishes alongside a specially concocted cocktail and dessert. We started with a round of cocktails, trying the Choi Ling, a subtle combination of Tanqueray and Sipsmith paired with lemon sherbert, rhubarb and champagne. Neither my partner or I are particularly avid gin drinks, but these went down very smoothly.
The Collection menu has two options - the full Collection featuring 3 courses and a cocktail for £90pp, or a vegetarian option for £70.
To start things off we were presented an assortment of seafood dumplings alongside the famous Hakkasan crispy duck salad. These were swiftly (after we devoured them in a matter of seconds) followed by the mains - stir fry black pepper beef, spicy prawns and grilled sea bass, with a side of jasmine rice and pak choi. Each dish was better than the last, the beef tender and the sea bass almost melting in the mouth, delicately flavoured with a sticky honey glaze.
For dessert we tucked into the exclusive “Lucy Loves”, which saw black tea poured over a foam, dissolving to reveal poached pears in a thick sweet cream. It was decadent but not heavy, a perfect ending to a really rather perfect meal.
Hakkasan Hanway
8 Hanway Pl
Fitzrovia, London
W1T 1HD
Pali Hill
In this age of choice overload, branding is everything. It's all fine and dandy to be a good restaurant, with a few nice dishes and decent decor, but with a hotly competitive London restaurant scene where 9/10 of new ventures fail, that extra something makes all the difference. More often than not those that beat the odds have taken a conceptual approach, offering diners a more immersive experience with creative storytelling that is showcased through not only food, but attention paid equally to curated drinks, decorative touches, and branding materials.
Pali Hill, and it's underground bar Bandra Bhai, do just that. The former is an affectionate ode to the building societies of Mumbai and the communities that thrive within them, whilst the latter evokes a fictitious retro smugglers den inspired by the closed economy and resulting black market operations of 90s India. These concepts are executed with an attention to detail, particularly within the bar - think retro Bollywood posters, nostalgic furnishings, and a playful cocktail menu incorporating Indian flavours in unusual combinations.
We tucked in to pre-dinner tipples downstairs, before heading to the restaurant for the main affair. The food menu offers a selection of sharing plates, which range from small starters to tandoori grills and bigger dishes, all designed for communal consumption. Of the starters, the Papadi Chat with roasted pumpkin was a highlight, a light palate cleanser pairing the creaminess of a lightly spiced yoghurt with chunks of pumpkin and pomegranate. The Pondicherry Squid with crispy kale was unusual - generally kale does not make me sing with joy but deep fried with garlic aioli I have no complaints. The Kulcha, stuffed with cheese and topped with wild mushrooms, was delicious but perhaps better suited to a hip brunch menu than an Indian one.
From the tandoori selection we went for the Grilled Lamb Cutlets, well charred and juicy, the Tender stem Broccoli (an obligatory serving of veg, but not much more), and the surprising standout, the Chargrilled Baby Chicken, which was beautifully tender with a whiff of cardamom balanced with pickled onion. Of the big plates, the Dosa felt the most authentic whilst the Veal Shin felt the tiniest tad salty, though otherwise complexly flavoured.
Though stuffed, I managed to find it in myself to try dessert, lured by the promise of Carrot Hulva. Indian desserts I tend to find hit and miss, but this was wholeheartedly a hit. The cardamom ice cream and sprinkling of toasted pistachio added layers of texture that made it far more interesting than hulva generally tends to be - I'd definitely recommend keeping some room for dessert!
Pali Hill & Bandra Bhai
79-81 Mortimer St
Fitzrovia, London
W1W 7SJ
Hot Stone
Japanese cuisine is probably up there as one of my favourites, and Hot Stone is probably my favourite of London's Japanese restaurants, so you can tell this review is up to a good start. At it's core it's a steak and sushi restaurant, but to bill it simply as such would be doing it a disservice. The sushi is an offering of sashimi, carpaccio, and maki rolls, all of which are delicately balanced and complex in construction, prioritising high quality ingredients that sing through the subtle flavours. The steak is prime kobe or wagyu, which, inspired by the ancient Japanese art of cooking on volcanic stones, is cooked at your table on an eponymous hot stone. Then there is the Omakase (meaning "I'll leave it to you") tasting menu of 17 courses, each one a small morsel of impeccably prepared high-end ingredients that will leave you wishing it would never end.
Unsurprisingly, Hot Stone does not come in cheap. The rolls start at £15 and end at an eye-watering £55 for the wagyu, whilst the Hot Stone dishes vary from £39 to £120. But if you're a foodie with an eye for quality, its unmissable.
Hot Stone
3 Windmill St
Fitzrovia, London
W1T 2HY
Circolo Popolare
Dining at Circolo Popolare, the flamboyant follow up to East London Italian sensation Gloria Trattoria in Shoreditch, is an event. It is everything one might expect from a Big Mamma venue - theatrical, eccentric, loud, and oh yeah, there's truffle on everything. It's even more picturesque that it's East London compatriot though, largely thanks to the impressive sight of over 2000 booze bottles lining the wall. Alcoholism has never been so aesthetic.
So obviously, it's excellent Instagram fodder, but is it much more? Well actually, yes. You may feel a bit #basicbitch surrounded by selfie takers gramming their oh so #foodporn worthy truffle pasta, but once you've had a bite yourself, you'll understand. It's thick with cream, scents the air with a haze of truffle (I would buy a Circolo scented home fragrance in a heartbeat), and provides that decadent satisfaction that only carbs can. It's not the only winner on the menu though - their starters and pizzas are all well worth trying, plus they have a playful cocktail menu (which coincidentally includes a frozen daiquiri called Basic Bitch, I feel seen...).
The food isn't cheap, particularly if you want truffle (you do), but it's accessible, with mains starting at £12. Service is authentically Italian, fast-paced but friendly. It's a great spot to take a date, or host a boozy gals brunch.
Circolo Popolare
40-41 Rathbone Pl
W1T 1HX
Cocktail O'Clock
Mr Fogg's House of Botanicals
Great (and affordable!) cocktails in super aesthetic interiors plus a central London location? Mr Fogg’s House of Botanicals has become a fast favourite of mine for fairly obvious reasons. There’s the downstairs, with Tarzan-esque tropical decor and fresh, botanical-infused cocktails, or head upstairs to explore "The Language of Flowers", with the flavours of each cocktail presented in test tubes for your nose to do the deciding for you, presented in a space that looks a bit like an eccentric Grandmother's living room (in a good way, obviously!). It's hard to pick a bad drink, plus they also serve lunch and snacks any time of day, as well as a tipsy botanical-inspired afternoon tea. Really though if my photos haven't already convinced you, I don't know what else will!
Mr Fogg's House of Botanicals
48 Newman St
Fitzrovia, London
W1T 1QQ
