London Paddington Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Perfect coffee every time” keeps caffeine fiends crawling back to this small and serious chain. “Baking from Fortitude Bakehouse is a good complement”.

2023 Review: There’s an intriguing background to this quite smart venue near Paddington station, founded as a meeting place for international journos and snappers, and whose walls display iconic news photographs from around the world. Feedback has shrunk over the pandemic period, with the odd unsettled report, but it has in the past offered a useful dining option in this thin area, so we’ve included it but without a current rating.

“Aussies know how to do a breakfast”, and this “always-friendly” outlet of the ‘Daisy Green Collection’ (big modern cafés generally in recent developments; of which there are about 15) is also well-located by the canal in Paddington (“every restaurant we’ve been to in the Green collection has been good but Bondi Green is in a lovely location as well”). “Try the Shakshouka or the Fancy Bacon Roll if you’re a sinner or the Healthy Start if you’re not. Either way, the coffee is excellent”.

“A Classic for South Ken and after all this time still the best curry house there is!” – this family-run “local favourite” has lasted over six decades and is “always jammed and lively”. Service has mellowed over the years – it’s quite “amusing” and “friendly” nowadays. The cooking? “Pretty standard stuff, but perfectly good and consistent”.

2021 Review: Canalside in Paddington Basin, and with massive windows providing water views, this large bar/restaurant – occupying the high-ceilinged ground floor of one of the area’s blocks – has an attractive, if not super-individual, semi-industrial design. Feedback is limited on its gastropub-ish dishes, but suggests it does what it does well.

2022 Review: Hidden beneath Smith’s Bar & Grill in the Paddington Basin development – a spring 2020 Peruvian newcomer named for the Ayllu community of the Inca Empire, and serving Peruvian-Japanese fusion dishes and cocktails.

“Good-to-very-good dim sum”, “excellent seafood” and “good duck” are the hallmarks of this “wonderful Cantonese” venue in a modern basement setting in Paddington Basin – although it has yet to recover the stellar ratings it achieved before the pandemic. Top Tip – it’s often recommended for a family meal with kids in tow.

2021 Review: The “scruffy basement of a pub” in Bayswater is the setting for what some in the fooderati believe to be “hands-down the best authentic Thai cooking in London” – “food like you’d have in Thailand”. Top Tip – “the bbq pork neck is melt-in-your-mouth”.

2021 Review: A “wealth of wines by the glass” and “tasty nibbles”, help make this growing group of self-service wine bars a “fun way to try a selection of vintages from a multitude of small producers”. At the Battersea Power Station branch’s school you can educate your palate towards Wine & Spirit Education Trust certification and watch wine being made from grapes grown in Oxfordshire and Surrey.

“Back with a bang!” – this survivor from the 1990s near Edgware Road has served “gold-standard” Indian food in a comfortable setting for decades. One regular opines that it has “improved considerably after a bit of a blip” during the pandemic – although there’s still the occasional “variable” report. “Service is friendly but professional”.

“Only for cheese lovers… and that’s me!” – the clue is in the name at Mathew Carver’s “fun and different” venue – a 96ft custom-built, double-decker barge permanently moored in Paddington Basin, which showcases “a great selection of British cheeses with interesting pairings”. “Out-of-town visitors love it”. Top Menu Tip – “The curried cheese curds are amazing”.

2021 Review: “Don’t let the shabby interior put you off” – this “wonderful, simple Iranian café” off Edgware Road serves “excellent and authentic Persian dishes” including “superb lamb”. “I love this place” – “small, squashed and full of character”, it all but defines “cheap ’n’ cheerful” (“and BYOB”).

Towering over Paddington and the station, this rooftop venue sits atop a new glass cube of a London landmark created by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. It’s a biggie, spanning the 17 and 18th floors that will make it West London’s highest rooftop restaurant. with over 400 covers. On Level 17, the restaurant will seat 180, with 124 in the bar/lounge, with a further 120 covers on the floor above. The operator has siblings in Singapore, Dubai, Taipei, and Tokyo and the cuisine will be modern Asian.

Near Paddington station, taking over the ground-floor dining room of the Frontline Club, an institution for international journalists and news photographers, the latest branch of this high-quality Neapolitan pizza brand.

2024 Review: No less a figure than Queen Azizah of Malaysia (while she was over for Charles’s coronation) cut the ribbon for the May 2023 opening of this first European venture from one of Malaysia’s leading restaurant groups – a steakhouse in Craven Road, Paddington, that takes its name from the meeting of Eastern and Western food cultures. No alcohol is served and the meat is fully halal, with cuts flavoured by infusion in Asian marinades. Reports please!