Lady’s Guide to Comfort Food in London

Today I want to share my guide to the best comfort food in London with you. Whatever you’re in the mood to eat, the UK capital has lots of great restaurants, pubs, and cafes where you can find it.

Comfort Food in London

February is the hardest month of the year for me. Winter has dragged on for three months, it still gets dark at 5pm, and while the snowdrops are blooming, the threat of snowstorms is never far.

When I returned from Asia four weeks ago, I reverted back to my pre-winter holiday self. I redoubled my efforts to find London comfort food.

The highlight of this quest was my recent meal at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. But there’s been other great comfort food in London as well, even if it’s lacked the fanfare of that meal.

Last night, for example, I went to dinner at Polpo, one of the best places in Soho. The restaurant serves Venetian tapas in a small rustic dining room that reminds everyone who enters it of New York City.

Polpo doesn’t take reservations in the evening, but after a 40-minute wait, my group was seated at a round table and our Italian tapas extravaganza began.

Out from the kitchen paraded tiny arancini, spinach with garlic, large calamari rings, a fennel salad with walnuts, flank steak, and bruschetta with grapes and cheese.

I’d been to Polpo once before, and this visit confirmed my previous experience: hit-or-miss. The spinach was divine, as was the bruschetta. The hot chocolate dessert was amazing.

But I didn’t care for the too-crunchy arancini, and the other dishes were just okay.

The ambiance was great, though, which is presumably why people keep coming back. Either way, it was a good chance to enjoy some comfort food in London.

Speaking of a place to keep coming back to, a few weeks ago I was invited to have a complimentary dinner at the Fox & Anchor pub in London.

Tucked away on a tiny side street near Smithfield Market, it would be easy to miss it were it not for the year-round crowds buzzing outside the doors.

The interior—a long narrow room with traditional pub decor and a great classic bar—was equally crowded.

Thankfully a table had been reserved for me in the small dining room in the back. I couldn’t wait to have more comfort food in London.

Tucked into a perfect little wooden nook was a round table for two with a candle on top. I wasn’t there for a date, but the ambiance and seclusion would have been perfect for one.

The menu at the Fox & Anchor pub was all traditional British. Everything from fish and chips to oysters, roasted ox kidney, and Welsh rarebit was on the list.

I couldn’t help but go for the fish and chips, a dish I hadn’t had in a while, and one that definitely counted as comfort food in London.

The friend who joined me for dinner chose the same, and we spent the meal enjoying our delicious fresh fish and piping hot chips.

But dinner wasn’t the only meal for which I needed to seek comfort food in London. No, the gray skies during the day dictated I hole up somewhere and forget about the clouds for a while.

The lunch part of my quest took me to a hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant where I met some friends on a particularly gray and windy winter day.

Inside, the restaurant was full of people enjoying huge cooking pots of tofu, vegetables, and meat. Everything from kimchi to seafood pancakes was present, too.

We ordered all of those, and seconds of a few of them, and spent the afternoon comforting ourselves with the hot food as we escaped the cold outside.

And then there was brunch, my favorite meal for comfort food in London. The perfect place for this was Ottolenghi in Islington.

The window display, which is always full of amazing-looking pastries on one side and delicious salads on the other, is enough to stop passers-by in their tracks.

I went a few weeks ago with two friends, and we enjoyed a huge brunch of French toast, eggs with chorizo, and delicious bread.

It was so good I returned a couple weeks later to get four of their salads for a take-out lunch of comfort food in London. It confirmed my view that it’s one of the best restaurants in London.

As if Ottolenghi wasn’t good enough, I had brunch a couple weekends ago at a restaurant in Marylebone. There was a long line out the door at 10:45am.

Once the 15-minute wait was over, I sat with my friend at one of the high communal tables and enjoyed a thick Spanish-style tortilla made from sweet potato. It was so good I wished I could stay in the restaurant for the remainder of the winter.

Sadly that wasn’t an option, as there was an ever-growing line outside when we finished eating. But each day of February brings two more minutes of daylight, and this week has been slightly warmer than the last.

One of these days I’ll put my winter coat in the closet with the intention of leaving it there until November, and my quest to find comfort food in London will be on hiatus until winter returns.

Until then, I expect the late summer sunshine in Chile—where I’ll be traveling next week—will keep me nice and warm through the end of the month.

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