The Most Fun Dinner Spots In London

Ambassadors Clubhouse in Mayfair is the life of any party it’s invited to. Everything from the excellent Indian sharing dishes to the shiny mirrored room downstairs that plays desi banger after banger makes this a fun restaurant. It’s over-stimulating, and full of tiger print and reflective surfaces, in the best way possible. The ground floor is more tame, so we’d choose the basement every time—if you don’t mind speaking up over the music.

7pm at Shankeys, an Indian-Irish restaurant in an old bookies in Hackney, is like being at a wedding reception when the free bar has been in play for a couple of hours. Groups throw back Carlingford oysters by candlelight, laughter drowns out the music, and somebody’s started making cocktails with a bottle of home-brewed poitín. The mood is set to revelry. And after a few Barry’s Tea-gronis, the Hackney local sitting across from you with an Irish coffee in hand and a twinkle in their eye very much starts to look like your type.

Namak Mandi is a riot any day of the week, but no meal is quite as fun, or as gluttonous, as a lamb feast in this Tooting restaurant’s private upstairs rooms. With some careful planning, you and a group of up to 20 friends can find yourselves sitting cross-legged eating a sumptuous, slow-cooked whole lamb with an extremely necessary fan going full pelt overhead. Just know that without a reservation, you’re not getting a table at this Pashtun restaurant.

Black Axe Mangal (or the restaurant Formerly Known As) is a place that pushes all your senses—from Metallica blaring, to the fat and smoky scents coming from the tiny kitchen, to the wallop of the foie gras and prune doughnut. You alternate between shouting your conversation across the table and stuffing your mouth with lamb offal flatbread. These days the Highbury and Islington spot offers a changing a la carte menu and, if you fancy, a ‘borscht back’. That’s a vodka shot, a borscht shot, and a bit of frankfurter on a stick.

If you’re down with lederhosen, you’re about to have a very good time. Albert’s Schloss is a Bavarian-style beer hall near Leicester Square that’s a portal to disco toilets, crispy schnitzel, and ski gondola photo booth silliness. Should you take any of it seriously? Absolutely not. But the spätzle is tasty, the salted caramel schnapps start flowing when everyone’s dancing on the tables, and if you’re not in need of a Konterbier (that’s hair of the dog, of course) come morning, you’re doing it wrong.

A restaurant that crumbles spicy crisps onto their hummus knows how to have a good time. Agora has cracked the fun formula by providing lots of great wines and incredible breads and spreads. The Borough Market souvla bar—and sibling spot to Oma, upstairs—is primarily walk-in-only, and upon entering you’re met with a wall of sound. Mostly from roars of laughter from groups who’ve nabbed a counter seat and are now watching pork slowly spin on a rotisserie, and couples leaning in, shouting in each others’ ears to be heard. It feels like the place to be, and the Greek-inspired food is delicious, too.

Lots of Londoners like to spend their time on the pavement, gripping glasses of amber and black nectar while swapping stories—and The Hero is the most glamorous place in W9 to do that. The Maida Vale pub is buzzing with beautiful sorts come the weekend who are planning their next Tuscan jaunt to get over the stress of the country staycation before it. You can just pitch up outside for a pint here, but booking a little chesterfield banquette or the dining room upstairs for a zhuzhed-up pub lunch or dinner feels like the move.

Bronek’s Fish Restaurant looks like a Trawlermen-obsessive’s house, in a great way. A blowfish twirls from the ceiling like a spiky piñata and the walls are covered in nets and plastic lobsters. At the helm of this ship is Bronek himself, the affable captain of this seafood spot, who shuffles between the kitchen and the dining room, taking off-menu orders and photographs with diners like the Ealing celebrity he is. There is a menu, but it’s more of a formality and your best bet is to let Bronek do you a platter with a variety of fish. It’s also BYOB, which adds to the whole ‘rowdy crewmates on a ship’s mess deck’ feel.

If done correctly, Jihwaja can be dinner, a show, and an evening not to tell your grandkids about all at once. The late-night Korean canteen in Vauxhall is a non-descript, satisfying restaurant, but really it’s all about karaoke here. You’ll be led down glowing pink corridors, soundtracked by people murdering Springsteen, Eminem, and BTS from multiple directions. Once your food is cleared—get the kimchi jeon and yangneom chicken—the lights are dimmed, the disco lights swirl, and Jihwaja's extensive (but highly baffling) music library is your oyster. Let the soju flow and try not to worry about the phone camera your friend is pointing in your face.

Open since 1967 and responsible for thousands, if not millions, of paracetamol the following day, this yodelling, beer boot-pouring, bratwurst-grilling Austrian cavern in Notting Hill knows how to have a good time. Sure, the goulash is mediocre, but who cares when Josef, the elderly owner in lederhosen, is playing the cowbells like he’s on the Pyramid Stage. In fact, don’t be surprised if someone is crowd-surfing by the time the karaoke mic comes out. Come with friends, make more, and pray those sausages line your stomach by the time tomorrow comes.

If you’re looking for a champagne and martini-fuelled time machine that gives you a taste of the ’80s heyday, then nowhere is doing it quite like Arlington. The European St. James’s restaurant has the feel of somewhere Mick Jagger would fall out of after a few bottles of bubbly and a cursory fish cake. Probably because Mick Jagger has fallen out of here several times when it was still Le Caprice. The monochrome dining room, lined with David Bailey portraits of famous faces, is relaxing, piano-filled, and potentially debauch all at once.

Ciao Bella’s legendary pavement terrace is where you go to slurp Vongole and smoke Vogues. This raucous old-school Italian spot on Lamb’s Conduit Street is a much-celebrated part of London restaurant lore that’s been responsible for innumerable bleary eyes the next day. Everyone has a soft spot for Ciao Bella. Not because the food is mind-blowing—even if troughs of spaghetti and slabs of tiramisu rarely do us wrong—but because the sing-a-long and wine-swigging vibe of this restaurant is completely infectious.

Mangal 1’s main dining room is perma-heaving, often with birthday groups and life-long friends cracking open big bottles of Tyskie, ripping into warm flatbread, and devouring wonderful grilled meats. This is Dalston’s OG ocakbaşı—it opened in the ’90s and feels like it’s been this way since day one. A meal in this legendary BYOB Turkish institution is a guarantee of a high-octane atmosphere and juicy kofte. One bottle of off licence plonk can so easily turn into three, and whether you’re coming en masse or for a quick catch-up, Mangal 1 never fails to deliver.

After 9pm, this romantic Palestinian spot in Notting Hill has a complete personality transplant. Forget the melted wax candles and barely-there backing track. No, please move the candles off the table because it’s very likely that half the room will be up on their chairs, dancing and singing along to ‘I Will Survive’ like they’re auditioning for The X Factor. Confetti is blasted in the air, glasses of Palestinian wine are passed around, and sumac-heavy mousakhan wraps are wolfed down.

This Pakistani restaurant in Tooting is a non-stop party in a fake palace. Yes, you could question the taste level—there are chandeliers and a neon-lit rock display in the bathroom. Or you could embrace the velvet throne-chairs and the silver goblet your dynamite chicken comes served in. This isn’t where you come for a life-changing lamb biryani. This is where you come for unabashed good-times mania, conga lines of sparklers, and to re-watch videos of dry ice billowing out of the dynamite chicken and wonder incredulously, “did that really happen?”.

Every person and their TikTok has an opinion on whether the Big Mamma restaurants are worth it. And, the fact is, they aren’t when it comes to the food. But in Carlotta—their Marylebone-meets-Goodfellas fever dream—you’ve got somewhere that transcends a perfect bowl of pasta. Or, for that matter, taste. Pink silk drapes line the room and photos of leathery-looking wise guys hang from the wall. Slide into a red leather booth, order a Negroni, and play with your truffle tagliolini as iPhone flashes dance from table to table. It’s not perfect, but boy is it pretty.

Sporting Clube De Londres feels like a holiday restaurant that’s fallen off the Westway and decided to plug in its disco lights, fire up the grill for piri-piri chicken, and get going anyway. It’s simply impossible not to love this Portuguese party in Notting Hill. Families, friends, and fearless solo fellas after a cheap pint fill this social club on weekends to spectacular aplomb, while middle-aged crooners on stage maintain the sing-a-long atmosphere. A plate of chargrilled sardines and hand-cut chips is, it turns out, the perfect fuel for dancing after dinner.

Head to any of Enish's spacious locations across London, from Brixton to Finchley, if you've got a birthday party on the cards, for any age. A dressed-up gathering never feels out of place next to a couple on a casual midweek date. In the evenings, loud afrobeats play over the airwaves while plates of Nigerian staples fill tables. Regardless of which branch you’re in and what side of London you’re on, Enish serves good versions of dishes like jollof rice, suya, and grilled goat and chicken. Ask the staff for their best swallow pairing—be it pounded yam, eba, amala, or a mix.