Food businesses across London are slowly re-opening, changing their focus from dining in service to takeaway and delivery menus. The hospitality industry desperately needs your support to recover from the current crisis. Anyone can help by ordering food and drinks online or collecting products in store. Here’s a list of 20 of my favourite restaurants, cafés and bakeries for takeaway and home delivery.
Indian food delivered to your home by Motu Indian Kitchen
Several countries in Europe are slowly and cautiously exiting the lockdown and returning to normal life. In Italy, for example, cafés and restaurants re-opened last Monday. I watch photos of my friends and family who are finally out again, eating pizza, drinking espresso at the local bar or meeting friends for aperitivo. In Poland, where I live, restaurants and cafés are open (both indoor and outdoor), but with a limit of one person per 4 sqm of space and at least 2 metres between tables. Unfortunately, not every country is ready to return to dining in service just yet.
In the UK, restaurants and coffee shops might have to remain closed for eating in until July. Some of them are opening again to sell deli items, DIY food kits and takeaway dishes. As the news of London’s best restaurants starting home delivery are filling my inbox, I decided to put together a list of the best London ones to order food from.
Sadly, I won’t be able to travel to London for the foreseeable future, so I can only dream about all this delicious food for now. If you live in London, you should definitely take advantage of all the food options you have available.
Top 20 takeaway and delivery food spots in London
1. Gymkhana
Mayfair’s Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Gymkhana has just re-opened its kitchen and is offering home delivery to central London locations through the app Supper. You can order some of their top dishes like tandoori masala lamb chops, butter chicken masala, and wild muntjac biriyani. A “Feast Menu for Two” 4-course menu is also on offer.
PS: Motu Indian Kitchen (pictured above in the top image) is a food delivery service created by JKS restaurant group, of which Gymkhana is part of.
2. Bao
The popular Taiwanese street food joint with three restaurants BAO London doesn’t need any introduction. Their steamed buns are the best ones in London! BAO has launched a new home delivery service called Rice Error, operating out of their Borough Market and Fitzrovia sites. As the name suggests, the menu focuses on rice boxes using award-
3. Murano
Angela Hartnett is one of the top chefs in Britain. Her Michelin starred modern Italian restaurant Murano in Mayfair is closed, but the Bermondsey brand of Cafe Murano is open from Thursdays to Sundays. The restaurant is operating a delivery and pickup service of ready-made meals: fresh pastas (such as lasagna, spinach and ricotta tortelli, tagliatelle with sausage ragù), sauces and sides to enjoy at home. They also launched an online Italian deli shop selling vegetables, flour, wine and cheese. Order here.
4. Cinnamon Club
You can now experience the award-winning modern Indian cuisine of Chef Vivek Singh at home. His London restaurants are open again for delivery on the app Supper. If you live near one of the them, like Cinnamon Club in Westminster or Cinnamon Kitchen in Battersea Power Station, then you are in luck! Some of the best dishes to try are Pao Bhaji, Papdi Chaat, Rajasthani Style Fiery Lamb Curry and Lucknow Style Chicken Biryani.
King Prawns in Bengali Turmeric Curry at Cinnamon Kitchen
5. Gunpowder
I’ve got more Indian food options for you, after all it is one of my favourite cuisines and in London you can really find some of the best dishes outside of India. Gunpowder in Spitalfields offers delivery (via Deliveroo) of their signature dishes as well as a few new specials, prepared by the chefs every Thursday to Sunday. The sample menu features dishes like Malabar chicken wings with mustard yogurt dip, Chickpea potato and onion chaat, Punjabi saag and aloo curry, and Gunpowder’s Kashmiri lamb curry.
6. Yard Sale Pizza
Satisfy those pizza cravings with Yard Sale‘s 19-inch stone-baked pizzas. The award-winning pizzeria from Clapton (now with 5 branches) uses the freshest local ingredients. Their pizzas are now available to order online for home delivery (to postcodes in North and East London) and for collection. Check on their shop locator to see if they deliver to you.
7. Bread Ahead Bakery
Bread Ahead Bakery is just one of the many fabulous traders and artisan producers of Borough Market. You can get your hands on their freshest produce and quality ingredients – either by collecting in person from the market or online at Good Sixty. If I lived in London, I would immediately place an order from Bread Ahead Bakery: home to the best doughnuts I’ve ever tasted, sourdough bread, cinnamon buns, brownies and much more. The bakery has also out together handy bread-making kits complete with everything you need to make your own bread at home.
8. White Mulberries
One of the things I miss the most during lockdown is weekend brunch! White Mulberries is a speciality coffee shop located in St. Katharine docks and known all across the city for their scrumptious brunch menu. You can visit the café and order coffee and food to takeaway or you can order home delivery with Deliveroo. Some of the dishes you can choose from are: toasted banana bread with pistachio, agave, mascarpone and berries; smoothie bowls; yoghurt and granola bowls; sunny side eggs; bread with smoked salmon and soft cheese; avocado on sourdough toast.
9. Bone Daddies
Popular Japanese ramen bar Bone Daddies has launched its “Bone Daddies at Home” menu earlier this month. The dishes are available for collection from their Bermondsey and Old Street restaurants and also for delivery via Deliveroo (within a mile of both sites). On the menu you will find – among other things – Bone Daddies signature ramens like the tonkotsu, T22, and my personal favourite: vegetarian mushroom ramen. More info here.
10. Orasay
If what you’re after is a fine dining experience at home, perhaps to celebrate a special occasion, then look no further than Orasay in Notting Hill. Chef Jackson Boxer is offering a weekly changing menu on Tuesday to Sunday (12pm to 9pm). Some of the dishes offered so far have beenGlazed Duck Leg, Star Anise & Citrus, Roast Springfield Farm Chicken, Madeira Sauce, and Cornish Hake, Brown Shrimp Butter. Customers can order the food, wine or cocktails through Slerp for pick-up or home delivery. Jackson Boxer’s Brunswick House restaurant in Vauxhall is also offering a similar service.
11. Theo’s Pizzeria
If you love Neapolitan style pizza, then you are going to love Theo’s Pizzeria in south London. Their dough is chewy on the inside with a nice thick cornicione all around. Theo’s is offering local delivery around their restaurant in Camberwell (call 0203 026 4224 to place your order). There are other London pizzerias that accept takeaway and delivery. Check your map to find them all!
12. Panzer’s Deli
My friends in North London rave about Panzer’s, a popular deli and grocer located in St John’s Wood. The shop is open (with a strict limit of 5 customers in the store at any time), but if you cannot leave your home, then you can order online and ask for home delivery. There are over 1000 of their most popular products on sale, things like freshly baked bagels and market-fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses and deli favourites, luxury hampers and sushi platters.
13. Dominique Ansel
Home to the world-famous cronut, Dominique Ansel Bakery in Belgravia have introduced a new “at home” range of sweet and savoury treats, seasonal specials, a fresh bread service, handmade pasta and sauces to cook at home. Also on offer, a breakfast service (from 8am Mon-Sat, 9am Sun), Afternoon Tea and larger size hampers. You can arrange a collection from the shop or get your order delivered at home via Deliveroo.
14. Riding House Café
The team behind Riding House Fitzrovia, Loyal Tavern in Bermondsey, and Rail House Cafe in Victoria have launched Riding House at Home. The pop-up store in Fitzrovia sells ready-to-eat dishes, speciality groceries, liquor and DYI kits such as: chicken, morel & truffle pie, Cornish lamb with spinach, minted mushy peas, Stinking Bishop gratin and bake-at-home cookie dough. Both collection and home delivery service are available (within an 8-mile radius).
Fried chicken burger from the Rail House Café
15. Beigel Bake
London’s most famous beigel shop have launched their own Beigel Bake delivery app (on Apple store) and deliver all over the city. Isn’t fantastic? Prices are great too: just 30p for the plain beigels, £2 for smoked salmon & cream cheese, and £4.50 for the best-selling salt beef beigels with gherkins and English mustard.
16. Burger and Beyond
Burgers are best eaten immediately after the meat has been cooked, so to give you the tastiest experience at home Burger and Beyond have created DIY kits. Each kit contains everything you need to prepare four Bacon Butter Burgers: brioche buns, their signature 35 day aged minced beef blend, pancetta bacon, American cheese, burnt butter mayo and pickled onions (£25). Can’t be bothered to cook? Burger and Beyond also deliver burgers via Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
17. Bar Douro
Portuguese restaurant Bar Douro has just launched a new food and wine delivery service to homes across London. The menu features Bar Douro’s classics and is divided in Petiscos (snacks), Horta (garden), Mar (sea) and Terra (land). You can also choose from a selection of Portuguese wines and Musa craft beers from Lisbon. Available to order via Deliveroo.
18. Pophams Bakery
Opened in 2017 in Islington, Pophams Bakery quickly gained the fame of one of the best bakeries in London. They now have a second, bigger, site in Hackney. I love going there whenever I’m in London to meet friends over coffee (from Ozone Coffee Roasters) and delicious pastries like the bacon maple bacon pastry wheel. Coffee, pastries and fresh pasta boxes are available for takeaway (in Islington) and pre-ordered deliveries and click & collect (in Hackney).
19. Chick ‘n’ Sours
The best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted in my life was by chef Carl Clarke at his east London joint Chick ‘n’ Sours. If you’ve never tried it, now you have the chance to order it! Chick ‘n’ Sours have re-opened their original site in Haggerston. Their next level, free range fried chicken, wings and burgers are available for takeaway and home delivery (via Deliveroo).
20. Kiss The Hippo
Kiss the hippo is a speciality coffee roaster with two shops in London (Richmond and Fitzrovia). Both cafés are closed to the public, but the roastery hasn’t stopped working to fulfil online orders from customers all across London and worldwide. If you brew coffee at home regularly and get through a bag quickly, you may want to sign up to their monthly subscription service (available for 3 or 6 months). If you’re new to Kiss the hippo and don’t want to commit, go for the Stay at Home Pack of 3 coffee bags; with every pack purchased, they will donate a meal to Meals for the NHS, a not for profit initiative which partners with local restaurants to provide delicious food that helps to sustain and nourish our frontline heroes.
