London Paddington Restaurant Guide

There’s an intriguing background to this quite smart venue near Paddington station, founded as a meeting place for international journos and snappers, and whose walls display iconic news photographs from around the world. Feedback has shrunk over the pandemic period, with the odd unsettled report, but it has in the past offered a useful dining option in this thin area, so we’ve included it but without a current rating.

This “ever-popular warhorse” has served “classic Indian food” in traditional curry house style to an appreciative audience on the Earl’s Court-South Ken border for 60 years now. The “staff have been there forever and we love this happy and delicious place”, say fans – it’s “old-fashioned, but that’s part of the appeal”.

With its “superior dim sum”, this unusually spacious modern basement venue in Paddington Basin is often tipped as “better than the Chinatown options”. From the main menu, the “great Cantonese cooking” comes in “generous portions”, with pretty much “everything of an exemplary standard” – while service is “particularly accommodating and cheerful”.

“The name is very apt” for this “superb” and rather old-fashioned operation, “quietly tucked away behind Edgware Road”. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, it serves “consistently brilliant” and “authentic food, using traditional recipes”, including an “imaginative selection of Indian street-food dishes”. “It’s not pretentious, and the service is good – never rushed. The makeover a couple of years back still looks attractive and helped modernise the venue”.

“Bonkers idea”, but “great fun” – Matthew Carver’s custom-designed, double-decker barge moored in Paddington Basin serves a “good cheese-based menu” that celebrates cheeses made in Britain and Ireland. “It makes for a jolly experience on a sunny day, but” – although true turophiles might disagree – can seem something of “a one trick pony”. Stablemates include the world’s first cheese conveyor belt, in Seven Dials.

The first European venture from one of Malaysia's leading restaurant groups is a steakhouse in Craven Road, Paddington, that takes its name from the meeting of Eastern and Western food cultures. No alcohol is served and the meat is fully halal, with cuts flavoured by infusion in Asian marinades.