The Long Lunch Guide

Once known as Le Caprice, this St James’s restaurant has been resurrected—fittings, pianist, clientele, and all—to its former swinging glory. The European-ish food is something of a sideshow to the memories. A piquant beef tartare pleasantly surprises and bone-in chicken milanese is enjoyable, if a little lacking in crisp. That said, you won't come to Arlington for a gastronomic look into the future, you’ll come for an old-school, take-your-time lunch that’ll charm your boss into thinking it’s Friday.

No area in London is more long lunch-ready than Soho, and in The Devonshire there’s another restaurant where two or three courses can take as long as you want them to. The upstairs dining room at this excellent pub was born with old-school charm and a set menu with British dishes like prawn and langoustine cocktail, steak and chips, and sticky toffee pudding, only ladles on that classic long lunch feeling. Before you know it you’ll be multiple bottles of wine deep.

French in style but more British in flavour, this tight-knit dinner party space in Shoreditch mixes melting candles with hearty pies and a wine list that its Francophile crowd happily glug from lunch until dinner. The handwritten menu has a whiff of Paris about it, and the buttery snail and chicken skin flatbread certainly helps, but this is an undeniably London restaurant. A dinky half Guinness and the house-made sausage will get any occasion off to an excellent start. Get involved with the drinks menu, don’t look at the clock, and if anyone suggests splitting a beef cheek pie for mains, the day is officially over.

You know what would get your manager to cancel that 4pm meeting that you’re absolutely not prepared for? Good times and big-plate pasta. And this Soho restaurant delivers on both fronts. The music is loud, the disco-themed toilets demand an impromptu karaoke session, and smiley servers deliver safety-warning-orange bowls of penne alla vodka. The New York-Italian food isn’t perfect but order the chicken parm and that vodka pasta, and you'll leave happy and full, with a doggy bag and zero plans of returning to the office. 

There are few better ways to spend an afternoon in south London than… pretending you’re not in south London. Italo, a coffee shop and deli on the corner of Bonnington Square, has the kind of outdoor patio that makes you forget that you’re a 10-minute walk away from one of London’s busiest underground stations. An alfresco lunch here consists of things like ciabattas filled with goats’ curd and braised leeks, and fresh pasta. Don’t skip dessert and end the afternoon by browsing the deli filled with Italian produce.

The move with Crisp Pizza W6 is to over-order. The popular pizza pop-up inside Hammersmith pub, The Chancellors, serves some of the best pizzas in London. A Friday lunch requires organisation (pre-ordering via their Instagram), agility (jumping on the big bench outside whenever it frees up), and a reason to stay even longer (Nutella calzone). On a sunny afternoon, you could easily spend three hours picking at pizzas and sipping on freshly poured pints. Just don’t forget to pre-order if possible.  

It’s impossible for a lunch at Ikoyi to last less than two hours. Which is what makes it perfect for the kind of table-to-sofa meal you’re after. A 2.5-hour, fine dining tasting menu at this West African-inspired spot on the Strand ages like the fine wines on their list. Expect things like the chicken and mushroom broth with a brilliant, intensely floral squeeze of peppercorn oil, and the signature smoked jollof rice covered in a luscious umami blanket of lobster custard.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, says ‘we’ll be having an afternoon nap’ like a pre-planned, week in advance, whole suckling pig from British restaurant St. John, does it? Trust us, we’re speaking from experience. This is not a meal that fuels an afternoon of productivity. If you’re not up for a whole pig though, there are still plenty of other options at this Clerkenwell spot that will guarantee a very long and very lazy lunch.

Soho is London’s undisputed, heavyweight champion of the knockout lunch. L’Escargot—its oldest French restaurant—is one of the best places to do it. While dinner feels formal, it makes for a classy but still casual lunch that encourages you to get comfortable. If your idea of casual is ordering 12 snails alongside a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. And following that with some chateaubriand or confit duck should finish the job.

Brigadiers, an Indian BBQ playhouse in the City, pretty much guarantees that the majority of the team will be merry from the cocktails on tap and a four-pint growler of beer before the bone marrow biriyani (a must-order) even turns up. A lot of the food—that trough of rice included—is very hard to say no to. And that’s exactly how you’ll feel when someone suggests ‘one more drink’.

This wine bar and modern European restaurant in Bloomsbury has the power to ensnare anyone. Noble Rot’s wine bar up front is perfect for both pre and post-meal drinks, and the dining room itself is like a public members’ club that serves the best bread in London (alongside other excellent plates). Yes, if you come here you’ll feel like the Lord of the Lunches.

Nothing compels a human being like that little three letter word, posed as a question. You know the one we’re talking about. The one that gets your heart racing. The one that can make you feel a bit funny. The one that anyone will cancel and rearrange a day around. So next time someone asks that simple one word question, “Pub?”—go to The Drapers Arms in Islington. It’s one of London’s finest locations for whiling away an afternoon. The food is hearty, the drinks menu extensive, and there's even a sofa.

A lunch-only restaurant in the City that serves booze out of pewter tankards says two things to us: signet rings and naptime. Sweetings has been doing this for over a century. It’s a seafood restaurant from a different era. When prawn cocktails were a delicacy, when a pint of Guinness and champagne got the juices flowing, and when lunches were long, drawn-out precursors to dinner.

We’re generally fans of natural light. But in this extremely tactical situation, natural light is not your friend. Natural light is a tell. Natural light could lead to the realisation it’s Tuesday, not Saturday, and there are things to do and people to see. So that’s why you go to Bocca Di Lupo. It’s one of London’s stalwart Italian restaurants, and, importantly, it’s not a big fan of natural light. It’s one of the many non-pasta-related reasons why this place became a Soho classic in no time.