Restaurants unfortunately come and go, management changes hands, and that restaurant recommendation could be a win or miss depending on the night you happen to visit. Eating becomes a sort of scavenger hunt and you’ll know all the best things to choose from any given menu no matter where you end up sitting down. During our 6 days in London, these are the top items my family enjoyed eating at classic British pubs and local cafes. Everything you see here can be easily found on menus throughout the city and are budget-friendly options for regular family travelers. This means you’re going to work up a hearty appetite! Be sure to plan plenty of time to stop for food, there is no shortage of options in and around London. We often started our day with a light pastry and coffee or hot chocolate for the kids, stopped for lunch between 11 – 12pm, and ended the day with a heartier dinner. If you plan to work in a traditional afternoon tea, be prepared for the amount of food that will be prepared. This could easily work as a hearty lunch or a light dinner so you will likely be able to skip one of those meals. Just know that food can be very expensive, you’ll want to check out my tips for how to save money on food in London before you go. The menus change from spot to spot, but you’ll find lots of traditional pub food items on the menu including; As well as several of the items you’ll find later on the list below. We tried out The Mayfair Chippy and it was fantastic. You’ll likely have your choice between beer-battered cod or haddock. I got the haddock but if I had it to do over, I think I’d pick the slightly firmer cod. Traditional accompaniments include: It was the first proper meal we had when we arrived in London and after the chaos at the airport, comfort food at its finest was just what we needed. Yes, that is actually a bone sticking out of the top of the pie. It was so delicious, my husband ordered it a second time on our last evening. A Sunday roast will offer your choice of roasted chicken or beef, roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes, and comes with a fluffy popover, otherwise known as a Yorkshire pudding. A Sunday roast is offered at restaurants all over London, you should have no troubles finding a good one nearby. On our last evening, I enjoyed a chicken schnitzel at St. George’s Tavern that had a garlic lemon butter sauce instead of traditional gravy. London definitely knows how to cook up breaded chicken cutlets in delicious ways. She’s a huge shellfish lover and insisted these were absolutely amazing. We stopped in for a quick bite at the Danish bakery called Ole & Steen and spotted a ham and cheese toastie on the menu. I know a “toastie” is a popular food in England so I was curious to see how it differed from our grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. The bread was absolutely fresh and delicious and just as the name suggests it is simply toasted warm. Not grilled in butter like in the US. Totally satisfying, light, and flaky. Highly recommend! I’ve made sausage rolls at home before, but the ones in London are sooooo very tender and this was wrapped in the flakiest, butteriest pastry ever. This was such a special part of our vacation, I wrote an entire article about it so you know exactly what to expect. You can read about our afternoon tea in London here. Be sure to schedule one afternoon for tea during your trip for sure. This savory chicken salad is made with hints of curry, golden raisins for sweetness, and almonds for crunch. Delicate chicken is folded in and then tea sandwiches are made on fluffy bread. The name comes from the fact that the recipe was developed by Le Cordon Bleu London in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. The English fruited scones with sweet dried currants mixed inside were my very favorite. I enjoyed mine for breakfast with a cappuccino at the Tower of London cafe one morning. I learned about clotted cream when we dined in Ireland last year and I was so excited to be back where it is a common partner for scones. Clotted cream tastes like a cross between butter and whipped cream and is the perfect first spread with a dollop of jam on top. Croissants, pain au chocolat, fresh Danish style pastries, classic scones, and more will be around every turn. If you want to eat it, London probably has it. We had some delicious pastas with authentic Italian sauces and fresh pizzas made in brick ovens during the trip. When you’ve walked 20,000+ steps and more in a day, a steaming bowl of spaghetti certainly hits the spot. If we had more time during our trip, we would have scheduled in a visit to Chinatown or stopped in for a curry at a Thai restaurant. My friend Maggy strongly suggested Rosa’s Thai but we simply ran out of mealtime opportunities! This would have been an excellent choice for takeaway if we were too tired to sit at a restaurant and just wanted some quiet time in the AirBNB. Cadbury chocolate offers so many different kinds of candy than is available in the US. This can be such a fun gift from London to bring home for your children’s friends. This sponge cake has a tart orange filling and then is covered in a blanket of chocolate. She bought a box as an Easter treat and it was gone within days. You can see the box in the candy photo above. These were some of the biggest strawberries I’ve ever seen. They prep them in seas of cups and then pour the warm melted chocolate over it just before handing it to you. That was our entire lunch one day! I spotted this delicious looking Victoria sponge cake at a bakery one morning, but had already selected my scone with clotted cream. The classic Victoria sponge cake is named after Queen Victoria and is often served at Buckingham Palace. You may get lucky and be served a tea cake during afternoon tea, but if you spot a beauty like that cake above be sure to try a slice! I made a list of every single restaurant we dined at during our trip. You can read all about it in my post where to eat in London on a family budget.
