Plekken in London

The Maybourne sister to Connaught and Claridge's, Wilton Place, a rooftop pool over Hyde Park, and a 2024 redesign that finally looks contemporary.

The billion-pound 2023 opening at Hyde Park Corner, Brooklands by Claude Bosi on the roof, and the most architecturally serious new hotel in W1 in decades.

The 1893 hotel bar that wrote the cocktail manual the rest of London still reads

London's first authentic Antep baklavacı since 1993, Murat Üstünsürmeli's Grand Parade pastry house

Tomos Parry's Basque-grill flagship, whole turbot over wood, the room that reset East London cooking

A 15-cover Michelin-starred tasting room inside Blue Mountain School, cooking is the only headline

Claude and Lucy Bosi's Parisian-brasserie second site, the Marylebone room that opened where Daylesford Blandford Street used to sit

Mr Lyan's South Bank flagship, the first 3-PIN bar in the Pinnacle Guide, Thames at the window

The Dirik family ocakbaşı since 1994, the canonical Turkish address the audience takes London-Turks to

Rainer Becker's original 2004 robatayaki, the Charlotte Street counter Roka grew from, with Shochu Lounge in the basement

Frith Street's 1959 jazz room, the canonical London jazz club, two sets a night, low ceiling, red lamps

World's 50 Best No.5, two rooms that split the modern London bar in half

The Cut's no-bookings gastropub, what Waterloo eats before the National Theatre

Hauser & Wirth's reimagined Mayfair pub, Sunday roast under a Phyllida Barlow ceiling

UK's No.1 gastropub 2026, the Soho Guinness pour and the dining room above it

Dean Street's no-music, no-mobiles holdout, the Soho the audience first read about in the 80s

London's longest-standing Michelin-starred pub, Fulham backstreets, game and wild food

Piccadilly's grand café, the Viennese-Parisian brasserie that runs from breakfast to supper

London's oldest luxury hotel, 13 connected Georgian townhouses on Albemarle Street, a Michelin-starred Charlie's by Adam Byatt, and Rocco Forte stewardship.

The 2023 conversion of the Old War Office on Whitehall, Mauro Colagreco's Michelin-starred Saison, a Guerlain spa, and the most ambitious new opening in the city.

Corbin and King's 1920s-styled Mayfair townhouse, a 73-room Art Deco hotel with an Antony Gormley sculpture you can sleep inside.

The only hotel ever granted a royal warrant, fourth-generation family-owned in Belgravia, and the address that hosted Catherine Middleton the night before the wedding.

The Oetker Collection mansion at Hyde Park Corner, Regency interiors, a personal butler in every room, and Céleste under the cupola.

P. Franco's successor at 107 Lower Clapton, a 25-cover wine shop with a hot plate at the back, chef residencies kept

Milroy's reborn under the No. 3 door, Greek Street's whisky merchant and bookcase-speakeasy bar since 1964, rebranded 2024

Frith Street since 1949, the espresso bar Soho is built around

The Berkeley's pastry counter, Grolet's first London room, the trompe-l'œil fruits the audience has only seen on Instagram

The Brook Street Art Deco grande dame, afternoon tea in the Foyer, a Foyer Bar by Bryan O'Sullivan, and the most famous lobby in London.

Boundary Street's Bombay Irani café, the bacon naan roll Londoners queue for at breakfast

Green Lanes' top-edged Southeastern Anatolian ocakbaşı, kuzu pirzola the Anatolian standard

Seymour Place's Basque pintxos counter, the txuleta and the txakoli on the same Marylebone bar

Beirut's Mireille Hayek inside Harrods, the polished Lebanese set-menu room that translates Em Sherif Beirut's standard for SW1.

Piccadilly's 1707 grocery, the food hall, the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, the hampers everyone takes home

The Yavuz family's Green Lanes flagship since 1999, the polished mainstream of London Turkish

Hoxton Square's basement, the small, no-fuss cocktail room the trade has booked since 2010

Davies Street's fine-wine and rare-spirits cathedral, Coravin tasting bar at the back

Northern Chinese on level 33 of The Shard, the view-room and the dish where guests in town for a single weekend take their out-of-town parents.

St Martin's Court's 1890s seafood institution, Theatreland's pre-curtain Dover sole

Moxon Street's cheese reference since 1992, Patricia Michelson's affineur, walk-in tasting room

Pistachio-green Soho deli since 1944, pasta as Italian commute

Greek Street's 1871 patisserie, London's oldest French pastry shop, still hand-laminated upstairs

The original Ali Dirik ocakbaşı on Arcola Street since 1990, BYOB, walk-in only, untouched

The fresh-pasta queue London actually accepts, Shoreditch sister of the Borough original

Great Titchfield Street's all-day brasserie, the Fitzrovia office and the Sunday brunch in one room

David Carter's wood-and-oak smokehouse, the brisket Sunday lunch the chapter actually returns to

Seven seats, one chef, Edomae discipline, London's hardest reservation

Two-floor Old Compton Street cocktail room, aperitivo bar upstairs, three-hundred-whisky lounge below

The Mayfair townhouse hotel, three Michelin stars in the dining room, the world's best bar downstairs, and the address that defines W1.

Mayfair mews chophouse since 1952, beef Wellington and steak-and-kidney pie

The glass-roofed Manchester Square courtyard inside the Wallace Collection, Marylebone's quietest daytime room