Are London's hype restaurants actually any good? (2024)

Josh Barrie @joshbythesea|David Ellis @dvh_ellis7 March 2024

The queue for Supernova bends out the door and weaves along Soho’s Peter Street. This is hype manifest, scores of eager diners waiting patiently for a smash burger, some already lining up their Stories while being sure not to scuff their box-fresh Air Max on the greasy curb outside.

Supernova is a proud flag in a wider trend: hype restaurants, in part propelled by a new-age of food promoters who boast hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok. The famous Clerkenwell Boy (304k followers and counting) was once a novelty; today online affirmation is necessary. Who would open a restaurant without inviting Henry Southan in, food enjoyer and 2023 Big Brother star (381k across Instagram and Tiktok)? Diners are just as likely to scroll through pages like @truffleandtoast, @londonhotspots and @ks_ate_here as they are a restaurant guide. A reel from @eatingwithtod, a self-described “diary of a fat man”, will reliably pull in hundreds of thousands of views, sometimes millions. One post and a queue can appear.

What makes it all work? “My audience are young and are after accessible, fun restaurants presented in an easy way. They probably don’t read Jay Rayner,” says Southan. “It’s about buzz and excitement. People also want extremes: the best cheap eats, or the most expensive croissant, or what everyone else is having. There's not really an appetite for the middle ground.”

Jesse Burgess, who fronts TopJaw, the account most famous for its pithy interviews with chefs, says online hype is beginning to change the landscape of what’s being offered, and not always for the better. “Now there are places designed to hit the Instagram generation, that open with a line of merch ready. These people do what they think will make money, and the owners are never there,” he says. “We steer well clear of all of that sh*te. There are a lot of influencers who take money from these places, but we turn it down every day.

“I find it crazy that anyone would follow these food bloggers where one in three posts, they’re paid to say something’s brilliant. It’s just so disingenuous. I don’t know that it’s actually creating restaurants that will last. It might give them a queue for six months, but after that…?”

As Burgess says, these restaurants arrive suddenly — or so it might seem — with a strong identity and a desirous online strategy, and they may or may not deliver the goods having lured so many through their doors. Others are famous not through 30-second reviews but the old way, by word of mouth (or, heaven forbid, newspapers). But London is a city that waits for no one — and are any of these freshly-hyped places, whether that’s done online or offline, any good?

There are two options at Supernova, a takeaway burger joint leaning unsubtly into the films of Wes Anderson, which has had such online hype that the wait can stretch to an hour (but not always; we walked straight in). You are presented with two options: one, the “classic”, where mustard and ketchup are added to the patty and American cheese; two, “house”, which comes with a sauce of the brand’s own making. Eating the latter, the sauce is too much — in flavour and in volume. Otherwise, it is a joyful experience: patties boast crisp, charred rims, while their centres are soft, playing purposeful hopscotch with gooey cheese. Is this why TikTok reels of it are watched by tens of thousands? Perhaps, or perhaps the Internet is just odd. But is it worth queuing for? Entirely depends. Maybe 15 minutes, but no more. “It’s just McDonald’s for wankers,” is the less generous take from Ellis.

Late last year, three Irish expats identified a chicken fillet roll-shaped gap in the UK market. London has plenty of Irish pubs but where were the spice bags? You know the dish: salt and pepper chicken and chips shaken up in a bag with red peppers and onions. A moreish essential in Ireland post-pub. And so it comes as no surprise that queues have formed at Emerald Eats on Broadway Market, a stall founded late last year by Henry Spellman, once of the Auld Shillelagh, musician Niall Morrissey, and Emma Moran from Treasury Wines. Given there are well over 300,000 Irish-born people in the UK, most of whom are in London, it is proving to be one of the capital’s most talked about takeaways.

With its gingham tablecloths and two-tiered steel pizza stands, Alley Cats is designed to appear like a New York pizzeria. It is owned by the company behind Angus Steakhouse, but don’t let that put you off. In charge is a half Sicilian, half Colombian chef called Francesco Macri, who has developed his own dough recipe, a sort of Italian-American blend inspired by Manhattan but less rigid in form. Call this London pizza, with a chewy but crispy crust, a lightly floppy centre, and generous toppings that defy tradition. One is the “vodka”, a homage to the famous pasta sauce, and it quickly became apparent this place is no fad. Shared with a side of Macri’s meatballs, bulbous and coarsely ground and smothered in his “homemade tomato sauce”, and this restaurant would satisfy anyone (well, maybe). Reruns of The Sopranos are projected on the wall.

As befits 2024, It’s Bagels is another New York-style import, the work of Manhattan-born baker Dan Martensen. When the queues are short, celebrities turn up (James Corden is a fan, but you can’t win ‘em all). Unfortunately, they’re usually long, as it would appear everybody is searching for that telltale chewy bagel, the hole small and the salmon plentiful. It’s Bagels is all about authenticity, really: Martensen ensures the style is true to New York rather than being a pastiche, and all manner of schmears are available, from jalapeño to horseradish to sun-dried tomato. They are worth a short wait, perhaps 20 minutes. The additional five over Supernova is because decent burgers are all over London, but bagels are not.

Chatsworth Bakehouse “drops” its sandwiches much as a Milanese fashion house drops a new pair of trainers. Each Monday, the Crystal Palace bakery releases circa 300 sarnies to be ordered online, sparking a flurry of interest. Customers are mostly local but have been known to drive for miles. Why? Owners Tom Mathews and Sian Evans have cultivated a cult-like admiration thanks to a rotating menu and possibly the best focaccia in town. The most popular sandwich is the Anerley Hill Hot, which bulges with fennel salami, Napoli salami, prosciutto, chilli pepper spread, roasted garlic aioli, provolone, pickled fennel, bitter leaves and hot honey dressing. It makes for a quite extraordinary lunch.

Last year, Gen Z went mad for the humble chip. Not just any chips, but those at a stall in Camden Market. Reels from the likes of @shekhitout and @melineko1315 have both scored more than a million views. What are you getting? A great big pile of freshly fried chips covered in sauce, spice and cheese. It seems pricey at about £10 for a small portion, and the claim of the “best chips in England” is a little steep, but a second site is opening in Wembley soon.

Arlington’s undoubtable hype is not built on social media fetishism but the fact it is the work of Jeremy King, arguably London’s best-known restaurateur. It also happens to be an echo of Le Caprice, in the same building and in the same style, with dishes from the Eighties. One is the crispy duck salad, another an enormous salmon fishcake that arrives draped in parsley sauce. Arlington is the restaurant of the moment, and what is perhaps more comforting than ever is that it binds one generation with another: here, we have those from the old days reliving their misspent youth and millennials stargazing, stepping back in time to eat bang bang chicken next to David Bailey portraits.

A place blustered about by the food crowd, and as such this dining room seems to have been the one posted about most on Instagram this past week: a sumptuous spot for spanakopita prepared as one-bite, tightly wrapped rolls and salt cod churros lazing elegantly on a romesco-like sauce. It is food from the Mediterranean, fiercely east London by design and original, but respectful of the ingredients.

The Dover is fully booked, has had rave write-ups, and achieved it all without the usual influencer-driven marketing (in fact, the restaurant doesn’t do any social media). There was no launch party, and there are no novelty dishes — it’s just straightforward American-Italian stuff, meatballs and ravioli (though the dish everyone’s going for? The beef arosto, pictured). But taking “Sophia Loren in the Seventies” as his starting point, owner Martin Kuczmarski has built a beautiful wood-panelled room where romance is suggested in almost every corner.

We arrive at The Devonshire. But you probably won’t, because getting a table isn’t easy. Bookings open every Thursday at 10.30am, but thanks to exceptional food, a lively locale, and a clientele that moves from Nigella Lawson to Ed Sheeran, they are often sold out within five minutes. To attempt to quantify the rise of The Devonshire would be futile. But here it is: it is a worthy beast, one whose value is determined not by hype, but by the fact people want to be in it. When work’s a slog, that slog’s okay so long as there’s a Guinness come 5pm. Better yet, the best damn Guinness outside Dublin.

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