Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in London Balham
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Balham restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 12 restaurants in Balham and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Balham restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Balham Restaurants
1. Haché
Burgers, etc restaurant in Balham
37 Bedford Hill - SW12
“Fab burgers with a posh turn” – including “awesome sweet potato fries” – still lead the charge at these Frenchified fast-food outfits, but they are transitioning into a brasserie group under the ownership of Hush Mayfair’s Jamie Barber. The 20-year-old original – a “great, cosy little spot in Camden” – and its Balham offshoot are all that remain as pure burger bars, while Kingston, High Holborn and Chelsea are now branded as brasseries with an extended menu to match.
2. Milk
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Balham
20 Bedford Hill - SW12
“The fish sando of dreams” is one item that comes highly recommended at this “über trendy” Antipodean-inspired café in Balham, known in particular as a key brunch venue. “The menu items regularly contain ingredients you’ve never heard of… doesn’t matter, all of them are delicious!”
3. Megan’s on the Hill
British, Modern restaurant in Balham
43 Bedford Hill - SW12
“Fairy lights, greenery and charming decor create a warm and cosy atmosphere” at this still-expanding group, which is most popular as a “reliable and friendly brunch option”. Its Med-inspired tapas is typically rated somewhere between “tasty” and “nothing special” and scores overall are dragged well down by those experiencing “chaotic service” and “food that doesn’t live up to the pretty dining room”.
4. Indian Room
Indian restaurant in Balham
59 Bedford Hill - SW12
2023 Review: “Very helpful staff” add to the appeal of this Balham High Street Indian, of over 15 years’ standing. Whether it should be a perennial inclusion in TripAdvisor’s top 10 London restaurants is debatable, but the (limited) feedback we receive says it’s worth a visit.
5. The Red Duck
Chinese restaurant in Balham
1 Ramsden Road - SW12
2023 Review: “Top-class Chinese food, served in canteen-style surroundings” has arrived in Balham with the pandemic-delayed opening of this first solo project from Chi San, former right-hand man to Alan Yau of Yauatcha and Hakkasan fame. The relatively short menu is filled with standard dishes from the Cantonese culinary canon, modernised through the use of high-quality produce, and there’s an interesting selection of beers, wines and teas.
6. Taro
Japanese restaurant in Wandsworth
193 Balham High Road - SW12
“Well produced, tasty morsels of delight” including “ace lunchtime bento boxes” are served at these “pared down” Japanese canteens, which provide “good value for money for what is generally an expensive cuisine”. Founder Mr Taro is not one for fast food: he conceived the idea of opening an ‘everyday dining room’ on a visit to London in 1979 and launched it in Soho 20 years later. Two decades on he is in expansion mode, and in February 2023 opened a sixth branch in a former Manze Pie & Mash shop in Walthamstow, with a Grade II listed interior now restored to its previous glory.
7. Dynamo
Pizza restaurant in Balham
16-18 Ritherdon Road - SW17
2022 Review: “Great pizza in a cycle-themed restaurant”, alongside high-energy breakfast and brunch, washed down by decent coffee, fuel the peloton that passes through Putney on the way to and from Richmond Park – “what’s not to like?”. The branch in Balham closed down in 2020.
8. The Avalon
British, Modern restaurant in Balham
16 Balham Hill - SW12
2021 Review: “A great pub!” (part of the Three Cheers Pub Co) down Balham way, with smart interior and gorgeous, big outside garden, and where steaks and ‘artisan pizzas’ are mainstays of a comprehensive menu: “even if the pub was boring, I’d come back time and again for the fantastic food!”
9. Yard Sale Pizza
Pizza restaurant in Balham
63 Bedford Hill - SW12
“Delicious thin-crust pizzas” win consistently high ratings for this 10-strong chain across north, east and south London. They are a socially conscious bunch who contributed 8,000 meals to NHS staff during the pandemic.
10. Zia Lucia
Pizza restaurant in Balham
65 Balham High Road - SW12
“It’s hard to be ‘special’ with pizza these days with so much competition, but the eye-catching options give an edge” to this popular nine-strong chain, whose calling card is a choice of four different 48-hour fermented pizza bases, including the distinctive black vegetable charcoal. Their latest opening is in Canary Wharf.
11. Balham Social
Indian restaurant in Balham
2 Station Parade Road, Balham High Road - SW12
The latest opening from the team behind Putney’s popular Chook Chook ‘Indian Railway Kitchen’ is a flamboyant Balham hangout in the former premises of long-serving Lamberts (RIP). A café by day, it switches in the evening to ‘high-end’ modern cuisine with an “interesting South Indian influence”, under head chef Imran Mansuri, whose Mayfair-heavy CV takes in Jamavar, Tamarind and Annabel’s.
12. Milk Run
restaurant in Wandsworth
16 - 18 Ritherdon Road - SW17
Close to Tooting Bec, a bakery spin-off from well-known Balham coffee shop Milk, a southwest London leader in Antipodean-style daytime coffee and grazing.
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