13 Excellent London Restaurants for Dining Solo

There are few things able to bring more pleasure than comfort fare enjoyed in a kind of peaceful solitude, and a perfectly crisped rotisserie chicken with frites is synonymous with said comfort. At Tom Sellers’ Covent Garden outpost, casual fare cooked to high standards rules the day, and there’s a glamorous counter overlooking an open kitchen that’s perfect for those dining alone (there’s also a lovely counter overlooking the Seven Dials street that’s wonderful for people watching). Start with snails bolognese on toast (trust us) and amp up the treat factor by diving into an excellent by-the-glass list of wines.

Anna Tobias’s Bloomsbury café takes its cues from the bars and bistros of continental Europe, where sipping wine and reading Sartre by candlelight is still the norm (no judgement if you’d rather stare listlessly at your phone). Unobtrusive spots for solo diners are at high stools by the bar or at the handful of small tables that hug the walls. Tobias’s menu suits appetites small or large. A bowl of leek and potato soup would make a fine lunch; but for something more substantial, make it wild mushroom tagliatelle or roast pigeon with pumpkin and bitter leaf salad. A scoop of plum ice cream is just right for pudding.

You’re never alone long at Sambal Shiok on Holloway Road, where the constant stream of like-minded laksa-lovers throughout the day keeps the place at a permanent level of pleasantly buzzy. Most come for Mandy Yin’s signature curry laksa with rice noodles to which you can add all the extras you like, whether tofu puffs, an egg, double the sambal. Choose traditional shrimp-based broth, or the lip-smacking umami juice that is the vegan version.

The cooking at this Sri Lankan gem in Borough Market is a joy to experience, made even better by sidling up to the bar for a solo lunch or dinner. Order a cocktail and watch the drama of chefs cooking over open fire directly in front of you; sharing plates are petite and all the better for not having to be shared. Don’t miss the black pork curry or northern prawn curry, as well as the playful gundu dosas and a bowl of saffron chicken pongal rice, gladly savoured alone.

What makes Silo in Hackney Wick so good for the solo diner? First off, the service: natural, confident, well informed (you’ll be on first name terms by the end); the music is just the right level of interesting; and you could argue that the seats at the counter that wraps around the open kitchen are the best in the house. The menu, projected on the wall – Silo is strictly zero waste – offers a £59 tasting menu or a choose-your-own-adventure of small plates such as ‘quavers’ with vegetable treacle and goats’ cheese, and chicken with buttermilk and wild garlic. There are some superb wines by the glass, should you not wish to uncork a bottle just for yourself.

The French have perfected the art of dîner à deux – and à un. Robin and Sarah Gill’s new, Gallic-accented Brixton wine bar invites us all to find our inner Parisian, and make every meal, even a solo meal, a splendid one. A thick slice of the rabbit and Agen prune terrine with crusty sourdough does very nicely with a glass of the excellent house red, as of course would a flat iron steak, comme il faut, with frites, peppercorn sauce and a salad for health. Opening hours are long, so you can always find a quieter time if that’s your preference.

Slurp your noodles like nobody’s listening at Koya City, the Bloomberg Arcade upcropping of London’s homegrown udon specialists. A solo meal here is habit-forming; you’ll want to make a weekly thing of it as you work your way through the menu in its entirety, from springy udon in hot dashi to such sensational specials (courtesy of Portuguese chef Gustavo Tavares) such as French oysters with preserved lemon and kumquat and sweetcorn kakiage tempura with bonito salt. The best seats are at the bar, head down over a steaming bowl of soup.

Me-time comes with a Michelin star at Leroy, the vinyl-soundtracked wine bar and restaurant in Shoreditch. Sit up at the counter where the records, cookbooks and cool staff hang out, for gently innovative modern European plates such as monkfish with sweetcorn and chicken wings or trout with crispy oysters and warm tartare sauce. The lunchtime prix fixe is pretty great, from £32, for the likes of grilled ox heart, borlotti beans and red pepper or the signature steak tartare with a tangle of shoestring fries, all crisp and golden.

This peaceful restaurant’s lush setting has few equals, and a quiet solo lunch at this leafy enclave with a book is peak solitude. Whether you choose to sit indoors or in the garden itself, floor-to-ceiling glass panes, minimal decor and plenty of greenery eliminate the din of modern London life. It helps, too, that the food is superb — chef Myles Donaldson (Noble Rot, St. John Bread and Wine) sends out immaculate seasonal plates like roast Swaledale hogget with anchoiade, textbook salade nicoise or skate wing with sauce Vierge.

If dinner alone in Soho feels daunting, Duck Soup is your friend. This small-scale natural wine bar (one of the area’s first, back in the day) seats singletons at the long wooden counter that runs the length of the room. The weekly changing menu, scrawled on the blackboard, majors in simple cooking and true, clear flavours. Such as, recently, white crab with bobby beans, mayonnaise and tarragon and rare lamb with radish, mint, and salted anchovy. You’ll be wanting a glass of wine with that. Pleasingly, that list also changes weekly.

There’s no better place to decompress post-Borough Market than at the counter at Elliot’s, glass of natural wine in hand. Brett Redman’s flavourful food is as good for hogging as it is for sharing. The signature sourdough pizzas are insane, bubbly of crust and laden with toppings like crab with preserved lemon and pickled chillies or red kuri squash, ricotta, confit garlic and walnut. Seasonal small plates include girolles and oyster mushrooms with egg yolk and ex-dairy sirloin carpaccio and tonnato dressing. The zinc-topped bar at a sister restaurant in Hackney also fits the solo dining bill perfectly.

The best seats at this acclaimed St James restaurant happen to be at the counter, and happen to be perfect for solo diners — whether you’re after lunch or dinner. Watch an impeccably drilled kitchen team turn out creative dishes like crispy corn ‘ribs’ or mushroom parfait (using the restaurants homegrown lion’s mane and shiitake) that arrive in perfect portions for one. Whether you choose to tackle the famed cod’s head in sriracha by yourself is another matter.

The window seats at Rita’s in Soho are the perfect perches from which to look out at the goings-on on Lexington Street. Chef Gabriel Pryce keeps lunch casual, perhaps a fried chicken roll, Caesar salad or sausages and peppers with beans and mustard. Things are a bit more amped up in the evening, when the palomas flow, and the steaks hit the grill, but it’s fun to be part of it, even when you’re there solo. Signatures such as the mini margarita, hot bean devilled eggs, and jalapeño popper gildas conveniently come in single serves.