The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse and Prince have all played Koko. But after a fire in 2020, the otherwise unchanging music hall took a beat. These days there’s a restaurant making good pizzas as well as a private members’ area with a piano room, a vinyl listening bar and a recording studio. London’s most iconic music venue, but stepped up a notch.

The man in charge of the onion bhajis and okra fries is ex-Roti King chef Prince Durairaj, while serious drinkers will recognise Simone Pugi from Soho’s Bar Termini. You’ll want to order extra roti to mop up all the sauces, possibly the cocktails too. One of London’s much-loved pubs that is no longer a pub, serving some of the city’s best curry.

This simple restaurant is one of the most wonderful places in town for crispy roast duck and authentic dim sum. It doesn’t take bookings, so it’s best to arrive before the queue forms – an hour’s wait isn’t unusual at 1pm – for the handmade soup dumplings and prawn-filled tofu-skin rolls. 

Those who haven’t been to the restaurant formerly known as Black Axe Mangal have almost certainly heard of it. Despite the post-lockdown name change, FKABAM is still as loud as ever, dishing up plates that sit somewhere between the nose-to-tail flavours of chef Lee Tiernan’s former employer, St. John, and the Turkish mangal grills that proliferate in the area. There’s no better example of his cooking than the signature oxtail and bone marrow gratin with charred flatbread.