Gelupo serves up rich, decadent hand-churned gelato in creative flavours like Salted Carmel & Toasted Corn and Honeycomb & Tomato. Skip dessert at sister restaurant Bocca di Lupo and trot across the street for a cone instead.

Part of Soho’s modern wave of Sri Lankan restaurants (along with Hoppers and Kolamba), Paradise is now tasting-menu-only and a little more experimental than its contemporaries. The pol roti is puffed up over charcoal and topped with a glazed freshwater prawn and a zingy coconut sambol. A traditional meat curry is made with beef sirloin from Kent and served with a rich Kandy-style sunflower seed curry that’s poured at the table. Bold, innovative flavours that haven’t had as much hype as they deserve.

While Lina Stores has spawned a number of perfectly good pasta restaurants across the city, the original Brewer Street deli remains the true trove. Offering the finest foods to homesick Italians since 1944, it stocks the best Parmesan, porcini and panettone. At lunch office workers visit for salami and mozzarella ciabattas made to order, and then take home parcels of fresh ravioli. While the closure of long-time competitor I Camisa & Son on Old Compton Street devastated many, Lina Stores has stood the test of time. 

Owned by interior designer Kit Kemp and her husband Tim, Firmdale has eight hotels in London; among our favourites are the Charlotte Street Hotel and the lesser-known, completely charming Number Sixteen in South Kensington. But when Ham Yard splashed onto the scene in 2014, it felt like something fresh. Both in its big, bright spaces but also in its creation of a new shopping enclave tucked behind Piccadilly Circus. Redefining the city hotel with its own urban hub, this is  a beautiful boutique stay on a big scale.