Eating & Drinking

The best restaurants in Borough

These are the best places to eat in and around Borough Market
The best restaurants in Borough
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London's oldest market is a warren of smoking street food, old-school fruit-and-veg shops, charming pubs and a rising number of excellent restaurants. Whether you want fluffy bao buns or plates of glistening homemade pasta, fresh sourdough pizza or moreish tapas, you will not go hungry around here. But with only so many meals in a day, here are our favourite restaurants and food joints in and around Borough Market, the foodie hub of south London. For more options, see our guide to the best restaurants in London Bridge.

How we choose the best restaurants in Borough

Every restaurant on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has eaten at that restaurant. When choosing restaurants, our editors consider both high end and affordable eateries that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We're always looking for stand-out dishes, a great location and warm service – as well as serious sustainability credentials. We update this list regularly as new restaurants open and existing ones evolve.

  • Image may contain Food Food Presentation Plate Animal Fish Herring Sea Life and Seafood
    Gilles Draps

    Oma

    If anyone knows a thing or two about how to cause a buzz in the London food scene, it's David Carter (Smokestak founder and co-founder of Manteca, two of the capital’s best-loved restaurants). Along with a team of chefs from the likes of Sabor, Kiln and E5 Bakehouse, Carter has created a menu of Greek-inspired dishes that bring the flavour of summer and the sea to central London. Inside, tables are arranged around an open kitchen, with flickering candles casting a romantic glow over the pared-back dining room. Dishes are split into sections: spreads for dipping fluffy hunks of bread into, crudo for zingy bowls of fresh fish, small plates and skewers for those who like to share and larger plates for those who’d rather not. The chalkstream trout tartare was a highlight, with sweet datterini tomatoes and pink fish offset with peppery red onions and a zesty, cheek-pinching dressing (I could drink bowls of the stuff); as was the spring asparagus skewer, with a wild garlic pesto and heaped shavings of Greek graviera cheese. Wine is also a focal point here – the restaurant has close to 500 bottles on offer, each fizzing with coastal minerals from Greek shorelines, and plenty of fresh, skin-contact and pink options to boot. For a reliable date night spot with delicious sharing plates (though you may fight over the last bite), Oma is the place to book. Olivia Morelli

    Address: 2-4 Bedale St, London SE1 9AL
    Book now

  • Charlie McKay

    Akara

    Aji Akokomi certainly knows how to celebrate West African flavours. Now, the team behind the much-loved Akoko have brought the multi-dimensional flavours of West Africa to a vanilla-toned and spacious industrial-chic setting, in the Victorian railway viaduct of Borough Yards. A signature dish is of course the akara, a soft and spongy crispy-jacketed fritter made from black-eyed beans, which the restaurant is named after. One variety is filled with an umami bomb of silky mixed mushrooms, tossed in a peppery sosu kaani (Senegalese mild chilli sauce). Another option is filled with meaty, slightly sweet and creamy barbecue tiger prawn. Finish with a glossed dense cube of tamarind and date cake. Presented on a beautiful, freckled, sandy-brown ceramic plate, it tastes like sticky toffee pudding’s mature, older cousin. Toyo Odetunde

    Address:
    Book online

  • Carol Sachs 

    Rambutan

    Cynthia Shanmugalingam, author of popular Sri Lankan cookbook Rambutan, has just opened her debut restaurant – and couldn't have secured a buzzier location. Slap bang in the middle of Borough Market, Rambutan is the perfect spot for a spicy Sri Lankan love affair. The menu is short and sweet, and plates are made to be shared (we recommend six dishes between two people). Start with the highly recommended gundu dosas. These spongy, plump dumplings are filled with mustard seeds and served with a fragrant dip, and they’re just as delicious as they sound. We also loved the juicy beef and bone marrow rolls, coated in a crispy batter (warning: the spice levels aren’t for the faint-hearted). Sophie Knight

    Address: 10 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AD
    Website: rambutanlondon.com

  • Camille

    An understatedly classy and candle-lit bolthole, Camille offers a welcome respite from the humdrum streets outside. Step through the doors and you feel as though you could have stepped through a portal to a ’50s family-run French bistro. Lots of wood, linen half-drapes and Art Deco-style lighting all add to the effect. The menu, too, is unapologetically French, and mostly classic in its sensibilities – think garlic, pig’s head and cream aplenty. The tiny space hums with conspiratorial conversation, as though everyone here is in on the new dining secret. We start our meal with a bright and bubbly Crémant before diving into the food menu, which changes with the seasons. To start, the most succulent quail that leaves us picking apart the carcass for any remaining scraps. This is followed by the highly recommended crab toast served with a fragrant and salty bisque. Over the much-needed interlude between courses, we wash down the flavours with a lively Beaujolais, before the Hereford Onglet is served. Steeped in the most sumptuous Café de Paris butter, the perfectly pink and plump slithers of meat are simple French indulgence at its finest. For lovers of maximalist flavours and minimalist aesthetics, I’d strongly advise you to book now before it becomes one of those spots where you’ll be waiting months just to get your feet under the table. Lucy Bruton

    Address: Camille, 2-3 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AA
    Price: ££
    Book now

  • Marcus Cobden

    Berenjak

    This charismatic sliver of Borough Market is a second outpost for chef Kian Samyani, formerly of Gymkhana. Berenjak Borough recalls the sharing plates of elbow-to-elbow family gatherings in the Alborz Mountains, and their spices, dips, pickles and herbs. It achieves a cosy intimacy, with most diners seated at a counter overlooking the kitchen. It was hard not to overdo it on oven-baked sangak bread, rich, salty, feta-like white Liqvan from Iran’s Azerbaijani region, and fresh herbs. Then came the charred smoky aubergineness of Mirza Ghassemi, and supremely good Kashk e Bademjoon – tomatoey aubergine topped with creamy whey and caramelised onion, which set the scene for warm conversation. Lydia Bell

    Address: Berenjak Borough, 1 Bedale St, London SE1 9AL
    Website: berenjaklondon.com

  • Barrafina

    Parrillan’s older sister Barrafina is known for its exemplary tapas and this latest outpost offers an impressively reliable selection of superior bites. Take a seat at the marble bar and order a classic oozy tortilla, bright garlicky gambas rojas, ham croquetas and crisp fried baby squid for round one, and then just keep going. There’s also a lengthy sherry selection to wash it all down.

    Address: Barrafina, 2 Dirty Lane, London SE1 9PA
    Website: barrafina.co.uk

  • Brother Marcus

    Picky bits are the order of the day in this casual eastern Mediterranean independent mini-chain. Go for a selection from the rips and dips – black garlic and lemon hummus, fennel tzatziki and smoky baba ganoush with fluffy pitta – and plenty of mezze dishes including the kefir fried chicken, grilled sardines with whipped feta and a pomegranate spritz or two.

    Address: Brother Marcus, 1 Dirty Lane, London SE1 9PA
    Website: brothermarcus.co.uk

  • Toby Keane

    Wright Brothers

    This renowned seafood restaurant is just as good for a quick couple of fat oysters during £1 happy hour (Monday to Thursday 3-6pm) as it is for an extravagant sit-down seafood platter. Nab one of the outdoor seats with a giant barrel for a table and watch the comings and goings of market life.

    Address: Wright Brothers, Borough Market, Stoney Street, London SE1 9AD
    Website: thewrightbrothers.co.uk

  • Greg Funnell

    Bar Daskal

    This small Spanish wine and sherry bar in Borough Yards is a perfect companion to neighbouring Parrillan and Barrafina (also run by the Harts group), but they also do a great selection of cold classic tapas if you fancy more of a snack to accompany the refreshing cocktails: spicy pickled gildas, salt-cured tuna with hazelnuts, goats cheese with quince, anchovies and tender Iberico ham. Pull up a bar stool and settle in. Walk-ins only.

    Address: Bar Daskal, 10 Park Street, London SE1 9AB
    Website: bardaskal.co.uk

  • Greg Funnell

    Parrillan

    Part of the new Borough Yards complex, grab a table on Parrillan’s outdoor terrace under the atmospheric Victorian brick railway arches and get ready to sizzle. Each table has a mini ‘parrillan’ grill in the centre where you can cook your own Iberico pork just how you like it. Go with a group to make the most of the impressive sharing plates: Spanish baked rice arroz al horno, whole john dory, wood-roasted shank of veal with olive oil mash and a piña Catalana for pudding.

    Address: Parrillan, 4 Dirty Lane, London SE1 9PA
    Website: parrillan.co.uk

  • Fish

    Steamed, grilled, fried, and served plain or slathered in garlic butter, since 1999 this restaurant has been specialising in all things fishy. With produce sourced directly from the market outside, their passion is poisson – whether you want a decadent lobster, a classic fish pie or wild halibut fish and chips, it’s all impressively fresh and respectfully cooked.

    Address: Fish, Borough Market, Cathedral Street, London SE1 9AL
    Website: fishboroughmarket.com

  • Bao

    The latest addition to Borough Market’s Stoney Street front row (El Pastor, Elliot’s, Wright Brothers) is London’s favourite Taiwanese bun shop. There's a Suntory whisky and soda machine (only the second in the UK), which is used for the fruity Bao Hi cocktails. Strawberries and blood oranges – sourced from the market, of course – go particularly well with sake and Fallen Pony in the Wow-hi. There’s also a chicken-nugget bao served with spicy sriracha mayo and a deep-fried, lobster-roll-like version with prawns – both winning additions to the Borough-only menu. We also loved the cold-smoked aubergine, which comes with a panko-crusted bao for scooping. Downstairs, find Bao KTV, the brand’s first karaoke room – a great spot to host the next party.

    Address: Bao Borough, 13 Stoney Street, Borough Market, London SE1 9AD
    Website: baolondon.com

TopicsRestaurantsEating & DrinkingLondon