When a city has a food scene as exciting as London does, the choice is so huge that it can be hard to know where to start. And that's never more obvious than during London Restaurant Festival, happening for the month of October, when the city devotes itself to celebrating its dining offering.
There are one-off tasting menus, restaurant-hopping trails that help you discover everything from cicchetti to Japanese cuisine, and limited-edition new menus items at hundreds of establishments.
Luckily for you, we've curated our top picks of where to eat this month. It's time to say goodbye to the beach bod and embrace a little bit of extra winter padding...
Japan's love of the very finest produce and the very highest standards of cooking is a well-known fact, so you know a meal at acclaimed chef Yoshihiro Murata's Mayfair restaurant Tokimeite is going to be a very special experience indeed. But now it's going one step further with a one-off kaiseki menu for this year's London Restaurant Festival that'll showcase the best of Japanese food – and drink, as it's in partnership with Japanese whisky brand Suntory. The seven Michelin-starred chef will be serving dishes including slow-cooked wagyu beef served with mustard, grilled cured mackerel with saffron sushi rice, pink pepper and pickled turnip, and chargrilled Japanese aubergine with ginger and dried bonito flakes, along with sashimi, nigiri sushi and grilled Scottish lobster with a truffle meringue. We're drooling already, but if you needed any extra persuasion, the paired whiskies from Suntory's stable should seal the deal. This is just one of the special tasting menus available, too – check out the full list at londonrestaurantfestival.com/tasting-menus.
The Cicchetti Trail
Pizza Pilgrims, Vico, Fumo, Mele e Pere, Polpo; 26 and 29 October. Tickets cost £49.
If you don't know what cicchetti are, you're for a treat: they're Venetian-style savoury snacks or small dishes that aren't dissimilar to tapas. Which means, accordingly, that they're pretty damn delicious. And what better way to discover them on a tour of London's Italian restaurants that specialise in informal, sharing-style eating. There's Pizza Pilgrims, which, despite the name, also offers an authentic array of cicchetti; there's Vico on Cambridge Circus; vermouth and aperitivi specialists Mele e Pere; and Russell Normon's Polpo, amongst others. Make sure you wear stretchy trousers for this one.
It seems there's a bit of a dearth of good films about food. That doesn't mean, though, that there aren't a few gems out there, which is what this series of events taking place at Liverpool Street's Andaz Hotel aims to celebrate. The hotel's cinema will be showing Babette's Feast, Big, Sideways and Eat Drink Man Woman at an exclusive screening for 35 guests, and the ticket price includes a two-course meal at Easyway at The Andaz either before or after the film. AND you'll get gourmet popcorn and drinks during the movie. Winning.
Don't fancy a full-on tasting menu? Check out LRF's Side Orders instead, which are essentially a shedload of special menu items created especially for the month-long festival. Here's just a small selection of what to look out for: Koya Bar's special dessert and cocktail pairing; a 'demi dog' at Bubbledogs; a raft of unique cocktails at Sardine on Old Street; and a dinner inspired by the Eastern Bloc at the vaunted L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon.
Food at Sardine. Photograph by Joe Woodhouse
