Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in London Stratford
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Stratford restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 9 restaurants in Stratford and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Stratford restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Stratford Restaurants
1. Passyunk Avenue
American restaurant in Stratford
Westfield Stratford, Level 1, World Food Court - E20
2022 Review: This ‘Philadelphia dive bar’ in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, has certainly “got the American vibe”, with “US-style beer and bar food” giving a real taste of the City of Brotherly Love. Philly street food classics such as the hoagie and cheesesteak are on the menu – and “it’s not health food, that’s for sure”. Reporters are divided on the results – “defining the category” for fans, “pretty underwhelming” for sceptics. There’s now a second site at Westfield Stratford, complete with baseball batting cages, but a 2021 crowdfunding bid to raise £150,000 for a massive bar under the railway arches in Leake Street, Waterloo, struck out.
2. Bumpkin, Westfield Stratford City
British, Traditional restaurant in Stratford
The Street - E20
2021 Review: “A sort of neighbourhood bistro, just beyond the touristy influence of the South Kensington museums” – the main survivor of an erstwhile chain (there’s also a Stratford sibling no-one talks about) “offering British upmarket pub food”, which is variable to good. It’s “a nice and warming place”, but it can become “rather busy and noisy”; and “service, while cheerful and pleasant, is extremely variable”.
3. Shake Shack
Burgers, etc restaurant in Stratford
The Street, Westfield Stratford - E20
2021 Review: In less than 20 years, Danny Meyer has transformed his New York City hot-dog cart into a global fast-food brand giant with eight outlets in London – including a Covent Garden flagship that was revamped earlier this year. Ratings remain remarkably solid for “a chain that does what it’s supposed to do”.
4. Rosa’s
Thai restaurant in Stratford
Westfield Stratford City - E15
2021 Review: The “lovely Thai food” at these reliable cafés is “impressively authentic given that they are a chain” – “excellent value” and “fast”, if occasionally let down by “iffy service”. Founded in 2008 by Saiphin and Alex Moore, who inherited the name of their first East End site, the group has 18 branches in London and expanded to Liverpool, Manchester, Reading (delivery only) and Leeds following the sale of a majority stake to US investors. The couple also have two spin-offs, Lao Café in Covent Garden and the new Chinese noodle bar Hoh Sek in St Katharine Docks.
5. Pasta Remoli
Italian restaurant in Stratford
3 Fresh Food, Great Eastern Market, Westfield Stratford City - E20
2021 Review: From its Finsbury Park base (next to the Park Theatre), this “cheerful” group of “good neighbourhood pasta-stops” subsequently expanded to Ealing and then onto Wembley branch (there’s also an outlet in Westfield Stratford); all deliver “well-cooked”, affordable pasta.
6. Five Guys
restaurant in Stratford
Unit LR09, Westfield Stratford City - E20
2021 Review: “When all you want is an old-school burger”, these US-based arrivals of recent years really “hit the spot” – you can “build your own”, with “tons of accessories”; plus “seriously addictive fries”, “thick milkshakes”, and “more soda flavours than is reasonable”. “The eat-in experience is as depressing as McDonald’s”, though, in fact perhaps more so – “some branches have a strangely gloomy ambience” – but fans feel that “if you don’t mind 1980s-rock, a trip can still be surprisingly fun”.
7. Tonkotsu
Japanese restaurant in Newham
Unit 1, Endeavour Square - E20
“Tasty, good-value noodles” in a “relaxed environment” make this 12-year-old London chain (14 branches, plus Brighton and Brum) “worth a visit”. The “ramen is deep and fabulous” if “limited in range (no fish-based dishes except prawn)”, and is augmented by “quite acceptable katsu curry”. Aficionados should head to the Haggerston branch to watch the noodles being made.
8. Figo
Italian restaurant in Stratford
17 Endeavour Square, Westfield Avenue - E20
2022 Review: By the Stratford entrance to the Olympic park, this all-day Italian restaurant and café arrived in autumn 2019 and has since spawned a couple of Essex-based spin-offs. The space – with big windows – is modern, but the food is traditional: arancini, pasta, pizza from the oven…
9. Popeyes
Chicken restaurant in Stratford
Westfield Stratford City, Montfichet Road - E15
2023 Review: “You get the best fried chicken, but practically nothing else” at this new Westfield Stratford outlet serving Louisiana-style fried chicken sandwiches: the first location of a big US fast-food chain that breezed into town in November 2021 and is aiming for 350 branches in no time flat. “There were huge queues even months after it was opened” and “the ambience is that of a food court”, but fans (unexpectedly including The Times’s Giles Coren) say “the chicken is worth it”.
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