10 of London’s Essential Hot Puddings For Easing Into Winter

“Degenerate-sounding” as the Times’ outgoing restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin puts it. Yep, that sounds about right. How else to describe Café Cecilia’s deep-fried bread and butter pudding in its pool of cold custard? Max Rocha’s canalside restaurant, one year in, retains a reputation for cool, but note, it is named after the chef’s granny and is all heart. Other puds of note have included a banana and strawberry pudding with billowy meringue, and warm rice pudding with marmalade ice cream.

London’s undisputed king of puddings is Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis. Not for him a mimsy sliver of tart or thimble of cream; his puddings are voluptuous, dramatic, immoderate. Autumn into Winter is his time to shine as menus segue from walnut cake with caramelised pears and fig and almond tart to steamed ginger and marmalade pudding and hot lemon sponge. All come with what’s now known as the Jeremy Lee trinity: cream, ice cream, and custard. A snifter of Poire Williams aids digestion.

Alas, you won’t often see spotted dick in a London restaurant no matter what the American tourists may have read in their guidebooks. But leave it to beige food supremo Anna Tobias to list it on the menu at Café Deco in Bloomsbury when the weather turns. Tobias learned under Jeremy Lee (see above), and she too likes her carbs. Inspiration comes from all over: Serbia for her plum dumplings, Germany for the apple fritters and spiced ice cream; England for blackberry jam roly-poly and parkin with cream and butterscotch sauce. Her pies, sweet and savoury, are peerless.

Roaring fires and real ales warm the cockles at this treasured Fulham gastropub. The kitchen cooks its way through a cold snap with hearty dishes as roast chicken and January king cabbage, and Aynhoe Park venison with braised red cabbage. For afters, such is its commitment to the art of dessert, it even offers a dedicated “puddings and pairings” menu. Make it sticky stem ginger pudding with Sauternes; warm chocolate fondant with Café Patron; or pear tarte tatin for two with a glass of Monbazillac.

Doing winter right is the Anchor and Hope in Waterloo, where epic Sunday roasts, cask ales and full-bodied reds do the work of a hundred duvets. The desserts here are too good to miss. Think classic crumble layered with baked apple, toasted hazelnuts, demerara and then custards, or bread and butter pudding fancied up with buttery brioche and Seville marmalade. A drop of Banyuls or syrupy PX sherry is a nice little extra.

Maybe it’s the setting – a converted school playground – but is there anywhere that does old school puddings better than Rochelle Canteen in Shoreditch? Some we’ve loved: sticky ginger cake with a swirl of fresh cream marbled into butterscotch sauce; pillowy plum cobbler with custard; and a magnificent, steamed marmalade sponge. School dinners were never so good.

The Old Monk rum bread and butter pudding is a signature at all three Gunpowder restaurants (Soho, Spitalfields, Tower Bridge) and with good reason. It’s that heavenly combination of tender brioche, plump raisins, and real vanilla with a waft of cardamom chased by dark rum. There’s only one correct answer to the offer of an extra shot of rum and it is “yes please”.

When a pub is as well known for its Sunday roasts as the St John’s Tavern in Archway is, it’s a fair bet its puddings will be pretty spectacular too. Reaching ‘Delia’ levels of home comfort right now are, in no particular order: apple and pear crumble with custard, sticky date pudding with clotted cream ice cream and toffee sauce, and sugar-dusted churros with chocolate sauce and ice cream. That hot-cold thing really works, doesn’t it?

Chef patron Simon Bradley of Bradley’s in Swiss Cottage is classically French trained so he keeps le stodge in check. Apple and blackberry is a tried-and-true flavour pairing fit for the angels when aerated into soufflé form. Pear tarte tatin and brioche and raisin bread and butter pudding are gentle twists on classics.

Cosy up at the Canton Arms in Stockwell this winter, where the menus may change daily but comfort food is always on the menu. Irish stew, celeriac and mushroom lasagne, or the seven-hour braised lamb shoulder are among the new season’s rib-stickers, followed by steamed pineapple sponge, pear and maple syrup pudding, or quince and pear crumble on a heroic scale. Served with custard, always with custard.