Soho

More community hub than just a café, this new addition to Soho’s coffee scene offers monthly live music sessions and rotating art installations. The food is exactly what we want when we’re in a hurry—Parma ham and white bean hummus on the best sourdough, a couple of fried eggs, and granola with thick-as-ice-cream Greek yogurt. The coffee is always perfectly made, but we tend to go for the iced matcha, which has a hint of lemon. At night, Over Under turns into a bar that serves an excellent Negroni.

Every Londoner who frequents Soho knows Lina Stores. The Italian deli has occupied the same spot for close to eighty years, keeping pantries stocked with obscure pastas and excellent tomato sauce. The owners have had the good sense to open a restaurant on nearby Greek Street, and we can confidently say the pasta here is better than anywhere else in the area. Sit at the bar—it’s always the best seat anyway—and watch the chefs prepare your dinner. Classic Roman puntarelle (a bitter chicory) is on the menu, doused, as it should be, in a salty anchovy dressing. Pappardelle arrives in a rich rabbit ragu. The crab pasta is spicy and citrusy, and the gnudi smothered in brown butter and sage are is so good we ordered two. Bonus: practically every dish costs less than ten pounds.

This recently renovated watering hole in Soho is a classic pub, a modern cocktail bar, and tiny restaurant, all in one. Downstairs, you can grab a craft microbrew or cider with other locals sipping pints after work. Upstairs, you’ll find The Mulwray for mixed drinks and wine, while in the basement, there’s an eleven-seat kitchen bar, Evelyn’s Table. This means you can eat lunch, have an afternoon pint, grab dinner and a late-night cocktail without having to leave the building. The bar snacks at the Blue Post is maybe our favorite thing about the place. Peanuts dusted in harissa, a fried fish sandwich, and the most perfect bar snack of all: the sausage roll.

How Soho can absorb one more hotel defies belief, but Kettner’s, in Nick Jones’s signature fashion, feels like it has been there from the start. The property dates to 1867, and if you believe the rumors, it was once owned by the chef to Napoleon III. Most recently, it has been restored to all its Georgian glamour. The hotel restaurant is straight out of Paris with mirrored walls, elaborately sculpted cornices, and lavishly upholstered seats. The champagne bar feels like an old-world lounge with an original mosaic floor, sink-into armchairs, and horseshoe-shaped marble bar. Each of the thirty-three bedrooms is a hybrid of an English country manor and a 1920s boudoir. The sofas are clad in rich buttery velvet, the wallpaper is vintage, and the sheets Egyptian cotton. Thoughtful touches like deep tubs and Cowshed products in the Georgian-style bathrooms, Roberts radios, and proper alarm clocks make it feel more like the home of an incredibly chic friend than a hotel. Go big and book into the Jacobean suite for a dose of period grandeur—wood-paneled walls, a bed the size of a small ship, a freestanding copper tub,…

The Blind Pig is a proper speakeasy. In other words, it’s difficult to find. (Look for the old-school optician’s sign and knock). Once you’re inside, the dark, moody interior feels a little illicit in the best way. The low ceiling is entirely mirrored, the bar is a long sheet of polished copper, and the booths are a rich brown leather you immediately want to melt into. The cocktails are tongue-in-cheek interpretations named after the figures from our childhoods—Peter Rabbit, Pooh, even Harry Potter—with a full illustrated menu to match. Aptly, the Harry Potter is a reimagined butterbeer bitter, butterscotch included.

Hovarda is technically an Aegean restaurant, but we like it better for drinks. Part of the appeal is that it's open late and serves great salty snacks until the early hours of the morning. Vegetable fritters and tzatziki with pita for dipping go especially well with a chilled glass of white wine. As evening becomes night, the music gets louder, the DJs set up shop, and suddenly Hovarda feels more like a club than a restaurant—but a club you would happily sit in for a while, with a yuzu margarita in hand.

What started as two school friends operating a small enterprise out of a ship container at Pop Brixton has grown into a beautiful restaurant in the heart of Soho. Kricket does Indian—flecked with Anglo influence—small-plate style. The menu is direct, divided into declarative categories, like meat and fish, rice, and vegetables. Our favorite: Keralan fried chicken and kulcha bread with date and pistachio, which is perfect for sharing. The space is all industrial: exposed pipes and brick, unexpectedly softened with pink leather stools, and pretty tile floors. Just arrive early; it’s near impossible to get a seat after 6:30 p.m.

How do you create what is possibly the perfect restaurant? Take a beautiful grey marble bar, put the kitchen right there in the bar, slide eleven seats around it, and serve rich, fresh dishes inspired by southern Europe. Come with one other person or go big and book out the entire restaurant. Then order the mackerel with pickled carrots, the rich duck capelletti, and the unexpected cuttlefish ragu with tapioca crisps. Whatever you order, you won’t regret. And finish it off with a bottle of…sake. The selection is impressive and unexpected (there’s also a wine list if you want to go that route).

Temper is chef Neil Rankin's first foray into London's culinary big leagues, with all the space, high design, and hype that goes along with it—and it's great. Greeting guests upstairs are a humble tortilla machine, some sacks of maize, and a few bottles of mezcal, innocently belying the dark, clubby man-cave below. Here, it's all about performance: All eyes are on the kitchen, where burly dudes grill, char, smoke, and blow-torch hunks of meat and fish, served up on beautifully handmade tortillas. While the Mexican roots here are undeniable, the tacos, grilled meats, and side-dishes here are otherworldly. After a couple rounds of blowtorched mackerel, beef fat and aged cheeseburger tacos, diners emerge from Rankin's cave stuffed, a little drunk, and reeking of barbecue, which only adds to the experience.

With its terrazzo-tile bar, kitschy neon lights, and Art Deco entrance, Corazón could easily be tucked away on a side street in Mexico City. And the menu, with its tribute to the city's famed tuna tostadas at Contramar, really drives it home. This place has the heart (corazón en español) and soul of an authentic Mexican comfort-food eatery with old-school snacks like shrimp cocktail Campechana-style, classic tacos, and arguably the best margarita in town. It's easy to while an afternoon away here, just like in good ol' DF.