Right now, London is gagging for full-throttle flavour and a decent dose of fat. Restaurants across the capital are boldly blanking Ozempic culture and serving the sort of rich, decadent fare that leaves GLP-1s cowering in the corner.
Our newly launched list of the best restaurants in London for 2026 giddily embraces the city’s current fondness for such indulgence. Opulent steak tartares, lavish langoustines, stargazy pies brimming with shrimp and chicken, and so much high-octane pizza – our favourite dishes in London are all a little extravagant. Time Out London’s new Top 50 of the finest places to eat encompasses original players in the OTT cuisine game, such as relaunched temple to gout Simpsons In The Strand, pasta paradiso Trullo and old school icon Oslo Court. It also features relative newcomers, with family-run chophouse Gina, fulsome Italian trattoria Tiella, disco dining at Bambi and Filipino flavour bombs at Belly Bistro, right through to our brand new Number One; the casually debauched and offaly good Camille.
Though you might be charmed by its quaint appearance – candlelit tables, a chalkboard specials slate and outdoor seats that spill onto the edge of Borough Market – Camille isn’t a delicate kind of a place. Camille is a beast. A hedonistic hideaway for gourmands after unrestrained, anything-goes feasting, this bloodthirsty bistro doesn’t shy away from the more visceral components of French cuisine. Picking on a salad is simply not an option in this robust dining room. On my first visit, I gorged myself on thick toast piled high with plump mussels, and on my last, I was served a pig’s snout resting on a bed of creamy cassoulet, a cock’s comb schnitzel, and pig skin puffs topped with smoked eel. Camille is a restaurant with guts (quite literally), and a place where hearty cookery is embraced. Head chef Elliot Hashtroudi learnt his trade at nose-to-tail nucleus St John, and it shows. If you heard that he bathed in butter every night after service, you wouldn’t be surprised.
The Smithfield branch of St John, naturally, remains a permanent presence in our list. Having just celebrated 30 years in the game, at this bastion of good taste, one can indulge in pickled tripe, braised beef with dumplings and chunky, cheesy rarebit, followed by London’s greatest off-menu cocktail, the enlivening yet ever-arcane Dr Henderson.
I was served a pig’s snout resting on a bed of creamy cassoulet
But why all the flamboyant eating, and why now? More than ever, eating out is about indulgence. As restaurants become increasingly expensive due to surging rent, bills and business rates, there’s the need to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, or at the very least, experiencing something you wouldn’t be able to bash out at home.
You can also find such fulsome flavour and a devil-may-care-attitude to artery-clogging at the controversial Yellow Bittern. The restaurant has divided opinion thanks to its contrary nature (it only accepts bookings over the phone, is only open for weekday lunch and the occasional Friday evening, and has a communist bookshop in the basement). However, we were thoroughly charmed by the place, tucking into hearty braised rabbit in mustard sauce alongside a large dollop of buttery mash and drinking more wine than is probably wise at 1pm on a Tuesday.
A touch of glamour doesn’t go amiss either, and you can find it in droves at the intoxicating Osteria Vibrato. A sleek Italian restaurant, it comes with buckets of pre-Lizzy Line Soho energy thanks to a piano-playing waiter and a hidden martini bar. Also impossibly glam: Martino’s (order the fluffy Shakerato gin and orange cocktail), Sessions Arts Club (visit for a languid Sunday lunch, and sit on the rooftop terrace if it’s sunny), The Lavery (a solo set menu after a potter about the V&A is the very pinnacle of chic) and Levan (go during its French Connection series, when the best restaurants in Paris swoop in for monthly kitchen takeovers).
Eating out in London should be an event. Here’s how to do it with flair.
