Hardly any other city interweaves culinary diversity like London: here, chicken tikka masala, afternoon tea, dim sum and South African bobotie are not opposites, but a matter of course - served with British nonchalance and boundless flavor.
London has been the European capital of international cuisine for more than three decades. It all started with Indian restaurants - to this day, nowhere west of the Hindu Kush is there a greater concentration of good addresses. No wonder that the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared chicken tikka masala, of all things, to be the national dish in 2001. Veeraswamy, London's oldest Indian restaurant, has been serving the taste of cultural diversity for almost a century.
But London can do much more than just Indian - Chinese food is also better here than anywhere else in Europe. At the forefront is the two-star "A. Wong"; chef Andrew Wong has created a tasting menu based on traditional recipes, ancient cookbooks and the work of an anthropologist, which takes you across the provinces of China - and through 3,000 years of culinary history. At lunchtime, he serves dim sum, small, steaming dumplings from Cantonese cuisine that linger in the memory like good poetry.
Even younger, but just as influential: the African influences that are slowly but surely claiming their place in London gastronomy; above all the "Ikoyi" (named after a city in Nigeria) by Jeremy Chan and Iré Hassan-Odukale. The best British ingredients are used here, which Chan combines with West African spices to create an explosive, modern cuisine.
At the same time, some chefs have set out to rethink British cuisine itself. Fergus Henderson, for example, with his purist "St. John", is considered a pioneer of the nose-to-tail philosophy - everything from the animal is processed, nothing is wasted. Anyone who eats here understands how radical simplicity can be.
And then there are the classics that are hard to miss: a Sunday Roast in one of the time-honored houses, perhaps in the wood-paneled "Simpson's in the Strand"; an afternoon tea in "Claridge's", as elegant as a British gentleman; and of course fish and chips, preferably in the "Rock & Sole Plaice" in Covent Garden, which has been satisfying guests since 1871. Dishes that are as deeply rooted in the city as the fog over the Thames ...
MUST-EATS AND MUST-DOS
- Borough Market and Breakfast:
Bacon Butty, Oyster Shot and Flat White - just try them out.
- Brick Lane:
The East End of London smells of spices, curries, crispy samosas and homemade pickles late into the night. Be sure to order a mango lassi to go with it!
- Soho and Small Plates:
Bao, yakitori and natural wine - from bar to bar; discover instead of sinking!
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