The best restaurants and bars in the City of London

Taking up almost all of one side of Spitalfields Market, this hybrid bar, restaurant and alfresco space manages to be all things without diluting its offering. There are small plates and wines on tap in the bar along with a more formal dining room to enjoy the Italian-led menu. The outdoor kitchen also allows them to do a lot of live-fire cooking.

This sees chef and restaurateur Guirong Wei (of Master Wei) taking her Shaanxi menu to the heart of the City. The Tower Hill restaurant has a strong focus on hand-pulled noodles with them making up many of the signature dishes.

The City branch of this Notting Hill fusion restaurant serves up a winning mix of Japanese dishes with Mexican influences. Its biggest selling point here at Liverpool Street is the late licence and capacious roof terrace with a great view of the City. There’s also a huge separate bar here as well.

Set in a historic part of the City, this neighbourhood-style restaurant was opened by a pair of wine importers so you can expect the wine offering to be on point. It’s split, loosely, into a wine bar for enjoying small plates, and a cosy dining room. The dishes are seasonal and the cooking is both inventive and great, with a big emphasis on seasonality.

One of London’s best steak restaurants, this City outlet of the Goodman restaurant group is popular with business diners. The meat is dry-aged on-site, and regular diners even have theirs cut to order. There’s a private dining room seating up to 10, for serious steak meetings.

The Wolseley City is a sibling restaurant to the classic Wolseley on Piccadilly, with a design that's very reminiscent of the original but on a larger scale. Like this original, it's styled after a European Grand Café offers with an all-day menu, that also resembles its predecessor while adding exclusive dishes to the City branch. There's also a large upstairs bar here and it's a popular spot for City power breakfasts.

With spectacular views from the 7th floor of the South Place Hotel, Angler presents Michelin-starred dining with a special focus on seafood. Enjoy a tasting menu, lunch or à la carte meals from the rooftop terrace, with the likes of sea bass tartare with oyster cream, green apple and shiso on offer.

If you have a penchant for freshly made udon noodles, this is the place: a larger version of the much-loved Koya in Soho, where you can sit at wooden tables and enjoy izakaya small plates with sake and beer.

One of London’s best – and oldest – seafood restaurants, Sweetings has been going strong for over a century. All the fish and seafood served here is from sustainable sources, and while it’s only open for lunch, it’s the place to step back in time while also savouring such classics as prawn cocktail, fried whitebait, Lobster Thermidor and cod’s roe on toast.

Infamous for its ‘press for Champagne’ button at every table, this London institution is great for groups (the largest booth size seats eight but up to 18 can dine comfortably in their private dining rooms). Menu-wise, expect reinventions of classic European dishes.

Set within the astoundingly opulent Grade-II-listed St Botolph’s Hall, with its high stone ceilings and large arched windows, Galvin La Chapelle is fine French dining indeed. Holding a Michelin star since 2011, this 110-seater restaurant is the place for dishes such as barbecued Bresse pigeon, celeriac, Yorkshire rhubarb and dark chocolate. There are vegetarian and vegan menus too.

The self-proclaimed ‘highest 24-hour restaurant in London’, Duck & Waffle has views of the city’s landmarks from its floor-to-ceiling windows on the 40th floor of Heron Tower. The curved banquettes are both cosy and retro, and the menu is imaginative, including the signature Duck & Waffle dish.

One of the best Indian restaurants in The City, Brigadiers is from the same people behind Trishna, Hoppers and Gymkhana. It has a maze of rooms in the largest space in the Bloomberg Arcade, with a sizeable outdoor terrace too. Fans of smoky Indian barbecue will be particularly impressed.

The Ned is both an impressive City hotel as well as a collection of restaurants. Soho House took over an impressive (and huge) old banking site and stuffed it with places to eat. There are ten restaurants to choose from and while some City restaurants get quiet at the weekends - this is buzzy at all times.

Origin City comes from the team behind 56 West Smithfield wine bar, and is a restaurant that emphasizes provenance with meat sourced from the family's organic farm in Scotland and seafood from Loch Fyne Oyster. Here, the menu showcases British classics including dishes like Tamworth pork tonnato and dry-aged Black Angus sirloin. The restaurant promotes a 'no waste, great taste' philosophy.

Fazenda is a rodizio grill restaurant group originating from cities like Leeds and Liverpool, and this is their first London location. While emphasizing the traditional rodizio experience, the London location introduces a broader menu plus there's a pretty huge buffet on offer. Alongside all that meat is a wine list primarily features South American options.

Travel to Portugal without leaving the City of London by perching at the counter by the open kitchen of the City outlet of Bar Douro. Here you can enjoy petiscos, such as salt-cod fritters and smoked sausage croquetas, while admiring the azulejos that adorn the walls.

Renowned for their steaks, excellent wine list and service, Hawksmoor is a reassuring choice, and their Guildhall branch is particularly suited to the business crowd, with breakfast meetings well-catered for. There’s a 22-person private dining room, complete with audio-visual equipment, for presentations with exceptional catering.

Opened in 2015 and since expanded to restaurants in Soho and Tower Bridge, this original Gunpowder serves Indian small plates with an inventive twist. The dishes are inspired by those that the team grew up with and the Kashmiri lamb chops are a must.

Cabotte is a restaurant founded by two Master Sommeliers. So while the menu is classic French, really the key thing here is the wine list that accompanies it. A good place for bringing any really keen wine drinkers you want to impress.

Set in an atmospheric basement of a Grade-II-listed building, the City outlet of Blacklock, a chophouse renowned for the quality of its grass-fed meat, is where carnivores can indulge in the likes of smoked maple-glazed bacon chops or even pig’s head on toast.

Spanish chef José Pizarro expanded beyond Bermondsey Street for the first time to this City outpost (his third restaurant in what is now a burgeoning empire). There’s a big focus on grilled meats, such as the famed Presa Ibérico, as well as all things tapas.

Fresh from success in Hong Kong comes the Aqua Restaurant Group’s latest opening. This time they’re hitting up the City, with this sushi restaurant in the heart of Broadgate. The dish you’ll definitely want to try is the crystal sushi the made a name for themselves with - which sees nigiri draped with intensely flavoured jelly.

Think of this Spitalfields spot as an elevated wine bar, serving not only a cracking list of Italian wines, but a range of traditional Tuscan dishes using top-notch produce. Their slow cooked regional stews are particularly worth seeking out.

Part of the Angel Court development, COYA's City branch features a Latin American bar and a restaurant serving contemporary Peruvian dishes. Head to the Pisco Bar for their own bespoke Pisco cocktails and look out for their popular weekend brunch.

Whether you're looking for Peking Duck or sushi, this restaurant (one of two at the Four Seasons Trinity Square) has what you're after - covering traditional Japanese and Chinese dishes with what they say is a 'modern approach'. Tables are well spaced too making it good for confidential convos.

1 Lombard Street is something of a City institution, in what used to be a former banking hall. Known for its highly impressive glass cupola skylight, its a modern European brasserie that’s been serving breakfast, lunch and dinner since 1998.

Famed for its dim sum menu and Cantonese cuisine, this is the second London outlet of Yauatcha, an upmarket Chinese restaurant that began life in Soho in 2004 but now has global homes in Saudi Arabia and India. Expect a high-class dining experience.

The main restaurant at the Four Seasons has French chef Anne-Sophie Pic in charge, and she's won two Michelin stars for this restaurant too. It's very much a modern French fine dining affair set in very luxe surroundings.

Canto Corvino comes from people behind the popular Manicomio restaurants. This modern Italian restaurant boasts an extensive Italian wine list, weekend brunches and more.

This Michelin-starred restaurant from chef-about-town Jason Atherton offers stylish art deco surroundings with extraordinary views from the 24th floor of skyscraper Tower 42. As is the case with most of the Atherton empire, the cocktails are exceptional (the bar is a destination in itself) and his modern British fare is always on point.

Run by chef Pascal Aussignac, this Michelin-starred French restaurant (it's now held a star for over 20 years) focuses on the cuisine of the southwest of France, with opulent tasting menus available. Despite the focus on meat, there's real attention too given to their vegetarian and vegan offering.