Believe the hype: the hot London restaurants that matter right now

Everything about Bouchon Racine lends itself to a long lunch that turns into dinner. The menu is rich, decadent and delicious; a wholehearted embrace of the Lyonnaise way of cooking. Opt for jambon de noir with creamy curls of celeriac remoulade, orange-yolked eggs slathered in mayo, and escargot in deep green garlic butter, mopped up with baguette and more butter. Then, rabbit in mustard sauce with smoked bacon, or the fillet au poivre, to be ordered alongside the creamed spinach folded into foie gras. There is something old world and charming about this restaurant that makes it feel like it’s occupied the room above The Three Compasses for years.

_{Photo credit: Tom Jenkins}

The only remnants of the old Singburi in the restaurant’s new space in a shiny Shoreditch development are the infamous blackboard, two posters of tropical fruit, and the distinctive signage that once marked the location on Leytonstone High Road, but if you visit looking for the past, you may go wrong. Dishes arrive on pink plates, each one delivering a thwack of flavour: strips of fatty pork belly with a tangy, jammy dipping sauce, shredded kohlrabi salad to rinse the palette of fat, and tender pieces of fall-off-the-bone short rib in green curry sauce with crisp veg. The drinks menu pairs well with spice, cocktails skew sweet and wine is predominantly young and juicy; if you prefer something big and bold, BYOB and pay £33 corkage. 

Somewhere along the line, Hackney became a monoculture of small plates and natural wine. Teal is a disrupter in that sense – it’s a serious restaurant, a counterweight to the playful informality that has entrenched the one-mile radius surrounding London Fields, though still warm and welcoming. This is likely because Sally Abé is a serious chef, and the restaurant has been shaped by her time at culinary institutions, including The Ledbury. The food belongs to Britain: a tartlet of new asparagus and Old Winchester brings a clean, unadorned freshness, priming the palate for a haunch of deer with pickled walnut and cavolo nero, before things are neatly rounded off with a marmalade ice cream sandwich and a penny lick. 

The hype cycle of steak in London was pioneered by the dark, wooden-clad dining rooms of Goodman and Hawksmoor, before Flat Iron ushered in a more accessible era, which was followed by flashier restaurants cooking with fire and running on spectacle. The Devonshire sits slightly apart from that arc, stripping back the experiential elements to present steak in a more honest form. It’s a pub, turning out excellent cuts of meat and near-perfect pints of Guinness, with a robust wine list. In a city that has spent the last decade reimagining steak in ever more elaborate ways, The Devonshire makes a persuasive case for leaving it well alone. The set menu, available from Monday to Friday, is the best £30 you can spend in London.