The 24 Best Restaurants In Covent Garden

This Vietnamese restaurant is the equivalent of Gilmore Girls: comforting, consistently good, and as enjoyable alone as it is with your family. There are all the classics—phở, magnificent summer rolls, tenderly grilled quail—and plenty of room for groups big and small. The bulky menu will have something for everyone, but make sure the slippery bánh cuốn are on your table.

The Barbary, from the same people behind The Palomar, will make you fall in love with eating at the bar. All of the restaurant’s seats are at a counter surrounding an open kitchen and bar, the atmosphere is upbeat and everything, from the incredible Middle Eastern-meets-North African food to the service and shiny countertops, feels pretty special. Get there close to opening if you haven’t booked and want to avoid a wait, and don’t bring more than a couple of friends—it gets loud.

If you’ve been to the original Blacklock in Soho, you already know that it’s somewhere you can rely on for crowd-pleasing steaks. The Covent Garden location is like Blacklock grew up, got really into tan leather, and started confidently toying around with Whole Foods ingredients. The delightfully charred steak sandwich and all-in meat fest, with beef, pork, and lamb chops, remains. You’ll also want the burger and the classic beef dripping chips on your table. Go for a meat-filled date night, or for a fillet steak and Old Fashioned before a show.

Lahpet is a buzzing Burmese restaurant serving enough coconut and ginger to shock you out of your urban blues. The vegan yellow pea paratha is a zesty little flatbread number, and you’ll be tempted to ask the massive king prawns about their workout regime. The highlight, though, is the coconut noodles. Rich, creamy, with an essential crispy wonton that serves as the ultimate spoon.

If you’re into huge, meaty lamb chops, bhaji onion rings, and butter chicken-filled naan, then this Indian spot near Charing Cross is for you. Easy to miss on Adelaide Street, this restaurant has booths, group tables, and bar stools facing the busy scene around Trafalgar Square. The menu is filled with North Indian-style tandoori meat and breads, with delicious starters and juicy lamb chops that’ll satisfy any grilled meat lover. Book ahead to avoid disappointment.

Bancone is all about really good pasta in a really great setting. And for somewhere with this much marble, and this much saffron butter on the menu, it’s pretty affordable too. Go for the silk handkerchiefs (sheets of velvety pasta covered in walnut butter and confit egg yolk), or the hogget pappardelle with Thai basil. Even if you come for a quick lunch, a couple of Negronis probably won’t hurt either.

Hawksmoor has long had a reputation as being one of the best places to get a steak in London, and we agree. All the meat is sourced from the UK, and each steak is cooked to perfection. The Seven Dials location has a huge basement room filled with the sounds of people eating red meat and having a good time. Besides beef, Hawksmoor does very good seafood (get the scallops), and the bar at this outpost is excellent and reason enough to visit on its own, especially if you just want a sandwich and a cocktail.

The glass walls at this temaki bar mean that nothing is hidden at Ukiyo’s bright wrap-around counter. That includes the chef cracking giant king crab claws for the California hand roll, blowtorching meaty salmon, and squeezing perfect little blobs of spicy mayo onto smooth, glistening hotate. The more bustling Ukiyo is, the more fun a meal is, so book a weekend date night if you’re after a buzzy dinner in central. But when you just want a speedy solo meal, weekday evenings are your best bet for a set menu of six hand rolls for £45.

For a sophisticated pre or post-theatre meal, Story Cellar is an excellent option. Whether you’re seated upstairs or down, you’ll be well looked after at the sleek brasserie. Water glasses are refreshed whenever they’re half-empty, chic table lamps give everyone a healthy glow even after sitting through Les Mis, and French food hits the mark even if prices stack up quickly. You could come for a good-value rotisserie chicken, chips, and salad, but you’d be missing out on brilliant starters like umami-rich snail “bolognaise” on toast.

All adults need a place like Cora Pearl in their lives. This restaurant on Henrietta Street serves rich British food that’s refined without being fussy, in a space that’s grown-up without even a hint of ‘do you think a count once died in here?’. Come with your parents or someone you want to low-key impress, or, even better, when someone else is paying.

You bring someone to Barrafina when you want to pretend that you’re more successful than you actually are, and to experience some of the best tapas outside of Spain. This particular Barrafina is our favorite outpost of the mini-chain, in no small part due to the lovely pavement terrace that's one of London's top-tier spots when it isn’t raining. The food’s on the pricey side and there’s always a wait, but there are definitely worse things in life than hanging out with a glass of cava and a plate of ham.

This two-floor American restaurant opposite the Lyceum is for two very different moods. The upstairs restaurant is all white tablecloths and high ceilings, while the downstairs martini bar is all velvet sofa chairs and very strong third date energy. If you’re headed here with a group of friends and are after some of the best french toast in London, sit in the dining room and make a meal of it. But if you’re in the mood for a drink and a bite to eat with someone you fancy, know you can order the whole menu in the bar.

On a corner of Burleigh Street that feels removed from the tourist-filled, cobblestoned streets of Covent Garden, Italian restaurant Vasiniko makes some of London’s best pizzas. They’re Neapolitan-style, with doughy, charred crusts that could convert even a no-crusts kind of person. Don’t get distracted by specials like the creamy truffle-based tartufina, because you cannot leave without trying the straightforward margherita with its rich, basil-infused tomato sauce. Enjoy it in Vasiniko’s bright and airy, holiday-feel dining room with booths for groups.

Din Tai Fung is a casual Taiwanese restaurant on Henrietta Street that specialises in dumplings. Yes, there are soup and rice dishes on the menu, but if you don’t get the chilli crab xiao long bao and pork wontons in black chilli, then you’re doing it wrong. Despite being a pretty huge restaurant, this place fills up quickly, so book ahead or get there early. Or bring some of your favourite people so they can entertain you in the queue.

In the morning, this weekday-only cafe is a quiet, cupboard-sized spot to sit with a flat white. But forget about that come 12pm. Anyone and everyone who works around Covent Garden heads here, ready to queue for a box that could double as a dumbbell, filled with excellent salads. The line moves fast as boxes are generously filled with roasted carrot and chickpeas, bulgur wheat with vegetables, and homemade hummus. There are a couple of seats, but good luck getting a look in at lunchtime.

J Sheekey is known for being a late-night hangout for movie and theatre types, which makes sense since it’s in the middle of the West End. It’s also known for being one of the classiest places to get a seafood dinner. We like to come to sip champagne and eat oysters, while pretending that we’ve just sold a script to a big film studio (the 20th Fast & Furious film, but still). Prices for things like lobster are predictably high, and their legendary fish pie will cost you just over 20 quid. But it’s perfect for impressing out-of-towners or for a special meal.

The fact that this Peruvian spot off Garrick Street looks like a quaint little restaurant from the outside is pretty deceptive. It’s actually giant, with a rustic private dining room and a bar in the basement. Whether you go for a couple of pisco cocktails and some yuca fries, or a full-blown feast of salmon ceviche, roasted lamb rump, and beef empanadas, you’re pretty much guaranteed a great time.

If you want to settle down in a pretty dining room with people you like, and eat steak frites with a bottle of good wine, there are few places better to do this in London than The Delaunay. It’s where we come when we want to pretend we’re more fancy than we are—the decor and service are classy, and the upscale grand cafe serves European food that’ll remind you of a weekend in Vienna. If you’re feeling really minted, it’s also great for drop-ins, a drink, or even breakfast, and it has a take-out counter for coffee and very good pastries.

Compared to some other ramen restaurants, Ippudo has the advantage of a very cool-looking dining room, a much larger menu, and the ability to seat reasonably large groups of people. In other words, it’s perfect for when there are a few of you that have a hankering after some noodles, and you want to make an evening of it without being shoehorned around a tiny table. The noodles are great and there are good options for vegetarians. It’s no-bookings, but the queue usually moves pretty fast.

The soothing sound of biang biang noodles being methodically slapped on a counter in the kitchen is just one of the reasons why we like Xi’an Biang Biang Noodles. That noise is the first indicator you should be ordering these. Although some of the other Xi’anese dishes at this casual spot can miss the mark (cc: the dry pork burger), overall this spot delivers on its promise to feed you quickly and that you can leave satisfied for £20.

Sometimes you need somewhere small and straightforward to escape to, which is where Parsons comes in. The seafood restaurant on Endell Street can be easily missed. Once you do find it, you’ll discover a corridor of a restaurant where the menu is written up on the walls, and people are happily tucking into oysters, chips, and other nice things. It’s a restaurant that really suits two people but can stretch to four—book ahead if going for the latter. The seafood is lovely and simple, and if it’s on, the lobster mash in particular is something you’ll regret agreeing to share.

This little wine bar on Maiden Lane is exactly the kind of place you want to stumble upon after discovering a hole in your shoe on ‘the wettest Wednesday since 1983’. Between the baked camembert, the candlelight, and all of that organic wine, there isn’t much that a visit to Lady Of The Grapes can’t fix. Grab a bottle with a group of friends, dive into the charcuterie selection, and split the tarte au citron. Need somewhere charming to pop the question (the question being “do you want to share some brie”)? Go for a bottle of champagne and let the candlelight do the rest.

Fresko Yogurt Bar is all about thick, creamy yoghurt (chilled, not frozen) topped with anything from granola to melted chocolate. And it’s a great spot for something sweet in the area. Our go-to is the ‘rich & creamy’ yoghurt base topped with strawberries, melted chocolate, and chopped hazelnut. They’ve got a couple of tables inside, but when it’s not biblical rain, we much prefer walking to Covent Garden’s piazza and perching somewhere there.

Aguamiel is a Mexican churrería, but we keep coming back for their speciality cold drinks and cheery little counter. A short walk from the station, this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot is ideal for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Churros are fried to order, dusted in cinnamon, and dunked into sauce—the dulce de leche and condensed milk are our favourites. But it’s the horchata cold brew that put this spot firmly into our coffee break rotation. It’s sweet, but not enough to make it sickly, and there’s a creamy, nutty flavour from the milk, with a sprinkling of cinnamon for some warm, welcome spice.