Where to dine in London in November 2026

If there is a best time to eat out in London, it is November. The Christmas lights go up across the West End and the restaurants follow, some with nothing more than a wreath and a few more candles than usual, others going all in with baubles across the ceiling and a queue of people outside taking photographs of the front.

It is also the sensible month to book. December belongs to office parties and set menus for twenty, and the best tables may have gone in September. In November the rooms are full but not frantic, the kitchens are cooking the food they actually want to cook, and you can still get in on a Thursday if you ask nicely. Here are ten places to do it.

Bouchon Racine

Image courtesy of Bouchon Racine.

#FLODown: Walk past The Three Compasses on an ordinary evening and you would have no idea that what some call the best restaurant in the country is one flight of stairs above the bar. Henry Harris cooks French food in the old bourgeois tradition, with a blackboard menu that changes often, and in June the restaurant took the number one spot at the National Restaurant Awards, up from fifth, along with the title of National Restaurant of the Year. The judges singled out the comfort of the food and how well the place looks after people, which is a polite way of saying it beat two Michelin stars at The Ritz by being nicer to be in. We agree. It is a delightful place for really good comforting food, in a setting to match.

Location: The Three Compasses, 66 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6BP. Website: bouchonracine.com; Instagram: @bouchonracine

Camille

Image courtesy of Camille, Borough.

#FLODown: Another French restaurant to have on your radar is the Borough Market favourite Camille, a must in the festive months for its intimate candlelit space, its open kitchen and its position a few steps from the buzz of the market. (Love it or loathe it, Borough Market is a national treasure.) Camille was opened in early 2024 by Clare Lattin and Tom Hill, who also gave London Ducksoup and Little Duck, with Elliot Hashtroudi in the kitchen after years at Trullo and St John, and the cooking looks to the French countryside more than the Paris bistro. Nose to tail, and changing daily. There is a new wine list this year too, and if you enjoy your time at Camille, the same team opens B Penhale in Clerkenwell on 12 November.

Location: 2-3 Stoney Street, Borough Market, SE1 9AA. Website: camillerestaurant.co.uk; Instagram: @camille_se1

Singburi

Singburi, Shoreditch. Image credit MTotoe.

#FLODown: Singburi spent twenty five years in Leytonstone as the Thai restaurant everyone recommended and nobody could get into, a family run room with a blackboard menu, no website and a bring your own bottle policy. It closed in 2024 when Tony and Thelma Kularbwong retired, and reopened in June last year in Montacute Yards off Shoreditch High Street, with their son Sirichai now leading it alongside Nick Molyviatis, a founding chef at Kiln, and Alexander Gkikas of Catalyst. The cooking is regional Thai, ordered in small plates for the table, with a grill in the middle of the room doing much of the work. Crisp pork, grilled fish and seafood, salads built on fresh herbs and lime, and curries that are properly hot. This is not a kitchen that tones things down for London, so say something when you order if chilli is not your thing, and keep a beer within reach.

Location: Unit 7, Montacute Yards, 185-186 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6HU. Website: singburi.london; Instagram: @singburi_e1

34 Mayfair

Image courtesy of 34 Mayfair.

#FLODown: Every year the dining room at 34 Mayfair disappears under several thousand Christmas baubles, across the walls and over the ceiling, and people book months ahead to eat underneath them. It is Mayfair at its most committed, and it is in good company, with the Ever After Garden lighting up Grosvenor Square outside and Annabel's doing whatever Annabel's has decided to do this year a few streets away. Under all of that is a serious grill. Open since 2011 and built to feel much older, with art deco interiors, burnt orange banquettes, low lamps and a doorman, it cooks over charcoal on the grill and the rotisserie, and there is live music on Thursdays. Come for the decorations, stay because the food is better than it has any obligation to be.

Location: 34 Grosvenor Square, entrance on South Audley Street, W1K 2HD. Website: 34-restaurant.co.uk; Instagram: @34mayfair

Trullo

Image courtesy of Trullo, Highbury

#FLODown: Hand rolled pasta, charcoal grilled meat, and the sort of north London dining room that suits a cold night. We fell a bit in love with Trullo this year after eating at the space they set up inside the tent at Frieze Masters. Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda opened it in 2010, long before Padella made them famous, and Conor Gadd now runs the kitchen. The pasta is rolled by hand every morning and the menu is rewritten constantly, but fifteen years on the standard has remained. There is a wine bar next door at weekends if you arrive early. Highbury and Islington station is a minute away, so for anyone not based in north London, there is no excuse.

Location: 300-302 St Paul's Road, N1 2LH.
Website: trullorestaurant.com; Instagram: @trullo_restaurant

Cafe Kowloon

Cafe Kowloon, London Fields. Image credit: Studio Hahn

#FLODown: Finding it is half the fun. You walk into Wonton Charlie's, the noodle bar under the railway arch by London Fields station, carry on through, and the back opens into a neon lit dining room with no windows at all, which in November is less a flaw than a mercy. The kitchen cooks modern Cantonese, with the menu looking to Hong Kong's cha chaan tengs, dai pai dongs and dim sum houses, and it is built for ordering across the table. It opened in February from the 6 of 1 group, the team behind Mr Bao, with Budgie Montoya in the kitchen. There are cocktails, there are DJs later, and there are film screenings and mahjong nights if you follow them closely enough to catch one. Groups do best here, and the booths were built for exactly that.

Location: 392-393 Mentmore Terrace, London Fields, E8 3PH. Website: cafekowloon.co.uk. Instagram: @cafe.kowloon

Kolamba

Image courtesy of Kolamba

#FLODown: Aushi and Eroshan Meewella opened Kolamba on Kingly Street in 2019 and it has been one of the best rooms in Soho ever since, which is a crowded field to be good in. The menu draws on family recipes from Colombo and is built for sharing, the right format for a group that cannot agree on anything. The cooking is home style rather than restaurant grand, built on coconut, tamarind and curry leaf, with plenty on there for vegetarians. The drinks follow the food instead of the usual Soho script, with Sri Lankan spirits across the cocktail list, mostly Ceylon arrack and Sri Lankan gin, and Lion lager from Colombo for anyone who wants a beer with their curry. It is a minute from the Carnaby Street lights and just far enough off the main drag to feel like a reward for knowing about it. Soho is the smaller and more intimate of the two, so for bigger groups head to their second site, Kolamba East, near Liverpool Street.

Location: 21 Kingly Street, W1B 5QA. Website: kolamba.co.uk; Instagram: @kolamba.ldn

PAM, Farringdon

Image courtesy of PAM Farringdon.

#FLODown: The newest thing on this list by some distance. PAM opened properly on 3 November after a soft launch at the end of October, and it is the first restaurant of Karla Knowles, formerly head chef at Kiln, done with Edouard and Romain Bourrillon of Maison Vivantes. Thai cooking over live fire, British produce, and a name that stands for People Around Me. It is on Charterhouse Street by Smithfield, where the new London Museum is going in, with St John and Bouchon Racine as neighbours, which is a tough street to open on and a very good sign that they chose it. There is a large bar as you walk in, with one long communal table and a rotating art collection on the walls, so it works for a drink and a look even if you cannot get a table. Book now, because this will be on every list by January.

Location: 61 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6HA. Website: pamrestaurant.com; Instagram: @pam.restaurant.

Spiritland Bar at the Barbican

Spiritland Bar at the Barbican. Image courtesy of Spiritland Bar.

#FLODown: This is the spot for music lovers who want to essentially 'jam' and dine. Spiritland has been doing listening bars in London since 2016, long before every new opening started advertising its turntables, and in October it took over a room on Level 2 of the Barbican looking out over the lake. The residency runs to the end of July 2027, ahead of the renovation work on the centre, so don't miss out, it is a limited run. The sound system was built for this room by Living Voice, the house rule is nothing compressed, and the programme covers jazz, soul, classical, ambient and electronica, with an album playback every day at five, a record played start to finish at proper volume while you eat. The food is European and Japanese, small plates and bar snacks with brunch at weekends, and there are cocktails. The easiest good decision to make before or after anything in the concert hall.

Location: Level 2, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS. Website: barbican.org.uk
Instagram: @spiritland

the new pub

The Last Exchange

Image credit The Last Exchange.

#FLODown: A new pub in the City is not usually news. This one is, mostly because of what it charges. Its own beer, The City Scribbler, is five pounds a pint, which in the square mile reads like a typo. It opened on 12 October in Exchange Square at Broadgate, two minutes from Liverpool Street, and it is the first site from Publican Estate, a new company from the team behind Piccolino and Restaurant Bar & Grill, with Lee Bull overseeing the food after years at Soho House, SUSHISAMBA and HIX. Pub classics cooked properly, open all day, with coffee on the terrace in the mornings and roasts on Sundays. Use it as the first or last stop of an evening.

Location: 11 Exchange Square, Broadgate, EC2A 2BR. Website: publicanestate.com; Instagram: @thelastexchange