Late night in London
Published 29 April 2025

David Carter (of Manteca and Smokestak fame) has transformed an entire building at the heart of Borough Market into a modish homage to Greek-inspired cuisine. Upstairs is the more refined Oma, while the ground-floor space is occupied by boisterous, no-bookings Agora (be prepared to queue), a place that positively sizzles with frenetic energy. It’s noisy, buzzy and utterly infectious. The interior is standard-issue industrial chic – low lights, concrete floors, limestone countertops, booths and communal tables, with a giant souvla rotisserie at the centre of things.

To eat, there’s a roll call of colourful meze ‘spreads’ (our tahini dip with red zhoug was excellent), ahead of salads, skewered meats and specialities from the rotisserie, all accompanied by loads of pillowy Wildfarmed flatbreads, perhaps the warm, salty tomato version with anchovy fillets. The combination of a meltingly tender, juicy slow-cooked chicken thigh with a textbook Greek salad (complete with carob ‘rusks’ and Cretan galomizithra cheese) is Hellenic perfection, while Middle White pork (fired in the souvla with best-in-class crackling) is lifted by a zingy parsley and garlic dip that has its roots in the island of Syros.

As for drinks, nine fruity cocktails share the billing with a line-up of creditable European wines, including a dozen by the glass. Prices are kind, but it’s the atmosphere that makes Agora so special – ‘we found ourselves happily swept along by the vibe and the enthusiastic service'.

As the hurricane of voguish London dining whirls on, it is momentarily easy to forget how much of a gust of fresh air Bocca di Lupo was when Jacob Kenedy opened it way back in the distant land of 2008. If places can struggle to get noticed in the Soho bustle, Bocca suffered no such indignity. Getting in at all was more often the problem. It still delivers an infectiously dynamic ambience, the best seats being the counter perches facing the kitchen, while the menus still change fast enough to make yesterday vanish without trace. Home-baked bread is the business – focaccia and ciabatta are served gratis with olives and oil while you ponder. What the kitchen deals in is regional Italy, not just generic Italy, with ancestral dishes accorded their provenance, no matter how recent or ancient the tradition. Pasta is naturally everything you would expect: a generous plate of orecchiette in a vibrant green sauce of chard, garlic and pecorino, or even simpler rigatoni coated in a luscious cream sauce of nutmeg and more pecorino. Main-course proteins are hearty presentations of top-spec ingredients. A pork T-bone is grilled golden and neatly sliced, awaiting a side of, say, datterini tomatoes and borlotti beans, plus some glisteningly braised chard for good measure. Eye-catching fish dishes could include a collar of grilled amberjack with gremolata or bream baked in a 'sarcophagus' of salt. Bocca's famous salad of radish, celeriac, Parmesan, pomegranate, truffle and parsley still gets an outing, and is still worth trying as an object lesson in the combinatorial arts. Finish with the Gelupo ice creams (also starring just over the road), or something like crème caramel with rhubarb. Service could relax a little, and it could be a little more clued-up. A regionally discerning collection of Italian wines adds to the lustre. Prices at the more affordable end seem pretty reasonable for the location, with small glasses from £5.80.

Frequent queues stretching out of the door are testament to the daily popularity of this trendy modern Italian, which is marked by an ornamental boar's head suspended above the entrance. Manteca is that sort of place, a Shoreditch resource named boldly after a variety of fat – lard, to be precise. Ground floor seats offers views into the open kitchen, while downstairs refrigerated cabinets of home-cured charcuterie whet the appetite (salumi and prosciutto are tip-top and not to be missed). An infectious buzz animates the whole restaurant, augmented by piped tunes that some may find passably funky.

The kitchen is deadly serious about sourcing from the best suppliers, menus often change several times a day, and the chefs have the autonomy to put new dishes together on the fly. The result is a much less formulaic repertoire than is often the Italian case. A plate of line-caught sea bass crudo dressed with green strawberries was a seasonal treat on our most recent visit, while a dramatic swoop of rich, silky duck liver parfait was served with black date jam and a pile of craggy chargrilled bread. Hand-rolled pasta stars in fazzoletti with duck-fat pangrattato or tonnarelli with brown crab cacio e pepe, ahead of mains from the wood-fired oven – perhaps John Dory, plaice or a premium cut of longhorn beef. Finish with a doorstop helping of almond cake with stone-fruit and vanilla gelato.

A minimal-waste approach sees some of the beef fat turning up in the fudge with coffee, while the copiously unusable bits of globe artichoke might eventually find their way into the house cynar liqueur. Service is temperamentally patchy – mostly hail-fellow, occasionally glum. However, eminently kind pricing earns the places bonus points, especially as Italian wines on tap start at £5.50 a glass. Adventurous imbibers, meanwhile, should home in the sections of the list entitled ‘down the rabbit hole’.

David Carter (of Smokestak and Manteca fame) is a dab hand at opening dynamic contemporary restaurants that know how to put on a show where it matters – on the plate. He’s gone all out with his latest opening. Part of a two-tiered operation in Borough Market, Oma sits above its more casual, non-bookable sister Agora, and echoes of the rawness and cacophony of the action at street level add to the vibrancy of the perfectly pitched dining room and covered terrace.

Jorge Paredes (ex-Sabor) heads the open-plan ‘live fire’ kitchen, delivering dishes that are Greek in spirit but also draw inspiration from the southern sweep of the Mediterranean basin. He achieves striking results, attracting hordes of punters intent on grazing on some seriously inventive dishes (booking is a must). The breads are a highlight – believe your server’s enthusiasm, they really are delicious. We teamed some Wildfarmed laffa (hot, fluffy flatbread) and açma verde (a green-flecked bagel-shaped bun) with a creamy mound of labneh topped with salt cod XO, while a serving of smooth houmous came topped with whole, crispy chickpeas, green zhoug and plenty of sumac.

Gilthead bream ceviche in a spiky green tomato and apple aguachile was another knockout dish – likewise squid-ink giouvetsi (squid ragù and orzo pasta), impressively rendered in a prawn-bisque stock to a state of almost criminal lusciousness. But the standout, by a whisker, proved to be spanakopita gratin – a bowl of melted sheep’s and goat’s cheese with spinach, accompanied by malawach (a flaky, Yemeni flatbread). To conclude, a beguiling combination of olive-oil gelato and fennel pollen with extra olive oil made the perfect finale.

The well-considered, 450-bin wine list has treasures in abundance to match the kitchen’s cavalcade of flavours, although there is precious little under £40 a bottle. Still, £5.50 will buy you a 125ml pour from the house selection.

Whether you’re in the mood for some affordable ’drinking food’ or fancy a ‘riotous all-out feast’, this fun and funky hangout beneath Brat in Shoreditch is one of the hottest Thai tickets in town. The large tables, loud music and big plastic plates lend themselves to a casual evening’s eating with plenty of booze to keep things motoring, while the vibe channels Bangkok’s late-night street-food canteens.

There’s no dumbing down when it comes to authenticity, spice levels or the use of offal, and the regularly changing menu is praised for its variety – though it's fair to say most regulars seldom deviate from their order of 'chilli fish sauce wings' (an easy-to-love fixture that never seems to get old). You can pick and mix or dip into each section of the menu: kick off with snacks such as mussels with nam prik pao, try one of the seasonal laabs (monkfish with green garlic), introduce a cooling element (plum, pear and rhubarb som tam, say), and share a larger dish from the grill – perhaps BBQ beef heart with herbs, smoked mutton with Thai basil or a spicy ‘pad phet’ stir-fry with hake ‘throats’.

The produce is notably good and sourced from top suppliers such as Flourish, Gothelney Farm and Kernowsashimi. To drink, there are craft ales, bottles of cider, cocktails (who could possibly resist a Maggot Brain?) and a short selection of natural wines with flavours and textures to temper the chilli-fire of the food.

It may live a little in the shadow of Plaza Khao Gaeng as the super-spicy, ‘authentic’ Thai place from Luke Farrell, but the chef’s latest opening is earning its stripes. The Soho site has been part of JKS Restaurants for some years - formerly as Xu, then home to Farrell’s Viet Populaire bánh mì pop-up. In this latest iteration, the Speedboat Bar feels like a canteen – full of bright colours, metal tabletops, laminated menus, plastic napkin dispensers, basic crockery and Thai football shirts adorning the walls. Upstairs is dominated by an actual bar and a pool table, plus more tables for dining. We thought the cooking good value. Purple aubergine with chilli, Thai basil and crisp, bronzed sweetcorn fritters were easy to like (especially if you're happy with chilli heat) as was a plate of minced beef with holy basil stir-fry, rice and a perfectly frilly fried egg – two keenly priced dishes from the lunch menu. Elsewhere, a salad of cashews, pork crackling and dried prawns was all about the classic Thai balance of salty-sweet-sour, while the tom yam dish was particularly good: generous, with large, plump, perfectly cooked prawns, thick slices of pork belly (with crisped-up crackling) and squid in a tangle of tender tentacles. The highlight of our meal – surprisingly – was a pineapple pie, visually reminiscent of a McDonald’s apple pie, but far, far superior with flaky pastry and juicy, caramelised chunks of sweet fruit; the accompanying lavender-coloured taro ice cream was delicious, too. Service is sharp enough – or at least it’s easy to catch someone’s eye when you need something – and the drinks menu is definitely geared towards the bar side of the operation: Thai-themed cocktails and a selection of chasers, Singha beer, and a brief list of spice-friendly wines.

Opened without fanfare or PR bluster towards the back end of 2023, this slick New York Italian is the brainchild of former Soho House COO Martin Kuczmarski, a man who knows a thing or two about running restaurants. From the off, it looks absolutely fabulous, with swathes of Art Deco-inspired wood panelling, proper tablecloths and proper candlelight lending a radiant glow to proceedings. A vinyl soundtrack of 70s disco and soul keeps the good times rolling, although it never intrudes or ruins conversations across the table.

The menu is stuffed with the kind of comfort food that people just love to eat – from lobster rolls, mini hot dogs and bowls of Tuscan minestrone to textbook chopped salad and a raft of pasta classics (spaghetti with meatballs, hot penne arrabbiata etc). Burgers and ribeye steaks are present and correct too, as is ‘The Dover’ sole (suitably finessed with chilli, lime and samphire), while the beef arrosto with mash is up there with the dishes you’d find at the best trattorias in Florence. As expected, desserts hop from New York (baked cheesecake brûlée) to Italy (vanilla panna cotta with summer berries) – and if you fancy a Baileys Shakerato or an Italicus Sgroppino dessert cocktail, they’ll mix that too.

Pre-prandial sips at the bar are a must, and the wine list kicks off at around £40 a bottle, which is reasonable for this part of town. There's also no need to book if you fancy a drink and a snack at the bar out front. In short, this Mayfair hot spot offers some of the best hospitality in London right now, with a side order of irresistible food, in one of the capital’s most alluring dining rooms.

Bang opposite Queensway station, the Park represents the triumphal return of Jeremy King to the London dining scene. Located on the ground floor of a new residential development, it's a warmly inviting space that wears its luxe touches lightly – a place that already feels like an old friend. Booths and banquettes in tan leather, torpedo light fixtures with a touch of Art Deco, colourful prints and wide-screen windows overlooking Hyde Park add up to a seductive ambience, which is further enhanced by a consciously retro menu.

All-day brasserie dining has always been the King thing, an accommodating mode at which his venues have always excelled. A line-up of American favourites – hot dogs, cheeseburgers, lobster rolls, chargrilled ribeyes with fries – sounds the populist note, but consider less obvious choices such as grilled swordfish with sweetcorn and bacon succotash or seared mackerel with caponata. First off, tear and share some soft and savoury ‘monkey bread’, before cruising on to the creamy, briny New England clam chowder. To follow, a golden-brown ham hock pie filled to capacity with pink meat, peas, fava beans and potato under crumbly pastry elicited high fives from one hungry visitor.

Don't stint on the wicked sweet stuff either, especially as the menu invites you to build your own sundae. Elsewhere, Mississippi mud pie has become a kind of dark chocolate cake topped with white chocolate, while the 'red velvet' is an eye-catching classic. Breakfast and brunch are sure to lure in the throngs, as will the neat Negronis – and if you like your wines Italian or North American (and there isn't much of the latter on restaurant lists these days), you've come to the right place. Sicilian house recommendations are £9 for a regular glass.