Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Blackfriars
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Blackfriars restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 50 restaurants in Blackfriars and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Blackfriars restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Blackfriars Restaurants
1. Obicà Mozzarella Bar, Pizza e Cucina
Italian restaurant in City
Unit 4 5 - 7 Limeburners Lane, - EC4M
These “upscalish Italians” – part of an international chain – serve pizza, pasta and other lighter dishes, featuring the trademark ingredient. It can be that the “quality of the food is a pleasant surprise”; they inspired nothing but positive feedback this year.
2. Club Gascon
French restaurant in Clerkenwell
57 West Smithfield - EC1
“Reliably inventive Michelin-quality tasting menus with quirky-but-good wine pairings” continue to inspire joy at Pascal Aussignac and Vincent Labeyrie’s long-standing foodie temple to the cuisine of southwest France, which occupies a stately former Lyons Tea House near Smithfield Market. It partly achieved its renown originally by serving everything with foie gras, but nowadays a “superb vegetarian tasting menu” is also a feature.
3. Hare & Tortoise
Pan-Asian restaurant in City
90 New Bridge St - EC4
“Where else can you get ramen and laksa in the same place?”, ask fans of this “efficient and friendly” pan-Asian chain founded almost 30 years ago in Bloomsbury’s Brunswick Centre and now with branches in Ealing, Putney, Kensington and Chiswick plus two delivery-only kitchens.
4. On The Bab
Korean restaurant in City
9 Ludgate Broadway - EC4
2022 Review: “Top Korean street/junk food”, say fans of Linda Lee’s K-pop-styled pit stops, known for their funky fried chicken and other luridly flavoured bites. In the second half of 2021, she closed her Covent Garden branch, leaving just Shoreditch and St Pauls open, but north London and Nine Elms branches are coming soon apparently.
5. Humble Grape
British, Modern restaurant in City
1 Saint Bride's Passage - EC4
James Dawson’s wine shops/clubs/bars are “great places to catch up with friends over a bottle you might never ordinarily have tried”. “The staff are super-helpful, with lots of suggestions” of bottles from independent and sustainable producers. The food is “OK if a little uninspiring”, but “who cares when there’s one evening a week when you can drink wine at retail prices”.
6. CORD
British, Modern restaurant in
85 Fleet Street - EC4Y
“Doing a grand job of showcasing the school” – “seemingly simple small dishes done with exemplary refinement” (“perfect pork belly and a delicate citrus tart slice”) impress diners at this year-old restaurant, where you can sample the work of the august Le Cordon Bleu culinary institute (founded in Paris in 1895). Set in an “well-spaced, light-filled” dining room in Fleet Street’s Grade II listed former Reuters building (designed by Lutyens), it also has a “clean lined and attractive” adjoining daytime café worth visiting for its “accurately toasted” sandwiches and cakes.
7. Epic Pies
British, Traditional restaurant in
53-55 Carter Lane - EC4V
2022 Review: The name says it all about this new ‘Britisserie’ (an ‘authentic British patisserie’), which opened on a corner site near St Paul’s in December 2019. Owners Daniel Jobsz and his mum honed their classic pie-making skills at markets, festivals and pop-ups from 2015 before they found the site, which incorporates a small courtyard. Full English breakfasts (in a tart, of course), plus epic mash and a good list of beers and other drinks complete the formula.
8. Burger & Lobster
Burgers, etc restaurant in City
Bow Bells Hs, 1 Bread St - EC4
“The lobster roll is just lovely” at this surf’n’turf-meets-burger chain, where you’ll find “plenty of very tasty grub”. “I was expecting to be disappointed, but the food was excellent”. A dozen years on from its launch, the group’s nine London venues tend to be “full of people done up for a big night out, taking lots of selfies for their Insta”.
9. Paternoster Chop House
British, Traditional restaurant in City
1 Warwick Court - EC4
Punters are often drawn to this D&D London operation because of its association with TV show ‘First Dates’, for which it was famously the location. Originally it was conceived by the group as a classic City steakhouse kind of place, but has never really made waves in that department. Still, the odd report says it’s a “useful” option in the area (although, note, if you haven’t visited for a little while, it’s moved – it’s no longer overlooking St Paul’s from Paternoster Square and is now on Ludgate Hill).
10. Oxo Tower, Restaurant
British, Modern restaurant in Southwark
Barge House St - SE1
“The view is incredible, especially in the evening” from the posh section of this South Bank landmark – “anything with a view of St Paul’s wins high marks in the romantic stakes”. But too many of those acknowledging the “wonderful location” feel it “needs a revamp”, or find the experience “very overpriced for the quality of food and service… One can’t help but feel that OXO Tower trades off of its name and outlook rather than the actual virtues of its offering”.
11. Oxo Tower, Brasserie
British, Modern restaurant in Southwark
Barge House St - SE1
“A table right by the windows here – overlooking the river – is frankly still one of the best restaurant views to be had in London”; and some diners feel that the brasserie at this long-established Art Deco landmark provides a good all-round experience. It still gives rise to more than its fair share of disappointments, though, and the perennial complaint that “you get a wonderful vista but a very disappointing experience”.
12. High Timber
British, Modern restaurant in City
8 High Timber Street - EC4
“Hidden away on the north bank of the Thames” by the ‘Wobbly Bridge’, directly opposite Tate Modern, you’ll find Neleen Strauss’s “well-executed Western Cape restaurant”, which is “big on steaks” but arguably most notable for its “very good and well structured” South African wine list. Top Tip – “I bring all my City contacts here”.
13. Sea Containers, Mondrian London
British, Modern restaurant in Bankside
20 Upper Ground - SE1
This swish and “buzzy” hotel dining room on the South Bank walkway – designed by Tom Dixon with full-height windows and a terrace overlooking the river – makes a most “enjoyable place to meet friends” – “and there’s a great bar” by Ryan Chetiyawardana, aka Mr Lyan. On the debit side, it’s certainly “not cheap”, and the food “could be so much better”.
14. Tate Modern, Kitchen & Bar, Level 6
British, Modern restaurant in Southwark
Level 6 Boiler House, Bankside - SE1
With its “great view over the river”, the sixth-floor restaurant in this converted power station opposite St Paul’s Cathedral is a “really rather splendid place for a decent set lunch”. The food is “better than expected, perhaps better than it needed to be” – “appropriately arty”, too, with dishes inspired by artists on display in the gallery. (Over at Tate Britain, “the Rex Whistler dining room is sorely missed and a real loss” – its closure brought about by a combination of Covid and dilemmas about the depiction of slavery in its Whistler murals, nowadays deemed ‘unequivocally… offensive’.)
15. Brigadiers
Indian restaurant in City
Bloomberg Arcade, Queen Victoria Street - EC2R
“Standards remain high” at JKS Restaurants’ “Anglo-Indian sporting and military-themed eaterie” in the Bloomberg Arcade – “a go-to lunching spot (albeit that City lunching is significantly less prevalent than in days gone by)”. The “amazing and different dishes” are “full of flavour and spices”. Top Menu Tips – “the tandoori meats in particular are excellent” and “dum beef shin and bone marrow biryani is a must try!”
16. Bleecker Burger
Burgers, etc restaurant in City
Bloomberg Arcade, Queen Victoria Street - EC4N
“Still the best burger in town in my opinion” is a widely shared view of this independent chain with four sit-down and three delivery-only kitchens. “No matter how many burgers I try in London, I can’t beat Bleecker” – “they get the simple stuff right: quality of meat, how the patty is made, doneness, ratio of meat to bread, and it adds up to a serious burger”. Zan Kaufman, a former New York corporate lawyer, launched her brand from the back of a truck 12 years ago, naming it after a Greenwich Village street.
17. Vinoteca City
British, Modern restaurant in City
Bloomberg Arcade, Queen Victoria Street - EC2R
“An exceptional list of wine with so many to choose by the glass that it’s always possible to try something a bit different” is the key selling point of this popular modern wine bar chain. Its culinary attractions are less reliable – the food can be “surprisingly good” but is too often “essentially average”; service can be “accommodating” or “rushed”; and the ambience can be “better if you can sit outside”. But its “excellent value” drinking and “lively” style carry the day. In particular, the “conveniently placed” King’s Cross branch has a “great location, which makes it a winner”. Top Tip – “creditable set lunch at a pretty restrained price”.
18. Koya
Japanese restaurant in City
Bloomberg Arcade, Queen Victoria Street - EC2R
“Love the original Koya, sitting at the long counter with a bowl of udon – even if you do have to queue”, say fans of this Soho noodle bar. Top Tip – the “definitive zen breakfast” is well liked, too, both here and also at the Bloomberg Arcade and Hackney spin-offs.
19. Ekte Nordic Kitchen
Scandinavian restaurant in City
2-8 Bloomberg Arcade - EC4N
Soren Jessen’s “slick, Nordic cafe in the City of London” occupies part of the Bloomberg Arcade and contributes to the development’s renown for offering “good food in the dry desert of the Square Mile”. It majors in Danish smørrebrød (rye bread with toppings): “nice for a change”, but “you can rack up a fair bill eating these delicate one-bite-and-they-are-gone appetisers” (though “there there are decent main courses such as fish, schnitzel and venison fillet”). On the downside, results can end up seeming “not as Scandi and varied as expected” – “I prefer IKEA meatballs, even if they are not as prettily presented!”
20. The Ivy Asia
Pan-Asian restaurant in
20 New Change Passage - EC4M
“Wanted to hate this chain but it’s actually really good” – Despite being totally un-PC in its level of cultural appropriation, it looks like Richard Caring’s is going to make a go of this “extraordinary” new sub-branch of the Ivy brand (which has opened five further branches around the UK). True, “it’s part of a big corporate machine with little intrinsic character”; the über-“kitsch” styling is “love-it-or-hate-it”; and some diners feel “these places are ghastly and overpriced”. But even if “the jewelled floor is more interesting than the food”, most folks feel that the “OTT decor” “justifies the trip in itself” and that the long, pan-Asian menu is “so much better than expected”.
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