healthy eating at London restaurants

The best healthy restaurants in London

Just because you’re eating lean doesn’t mean you have to miss out on fine cuisine from London’s best healthy restaurants

By Time Out London Food & Drink|Posted: Thursday December 13 2018

December 2018: We’ve added a couple of killer new restaurants: High Mood Food, a super buzzy spot in Marylebone for vegans, flexitarians and everyone in between, and CookDaily, which has moved its colourful vegan food from Boxpark in Shoreditch to a brand new location in Hackney.

Searching for healthy food in London? You’re in luck. There are loads of protein-packed restaurants across the city catering for those on a calorie-conscious health kick, diet, or detox (as well as those in need of something coeliac-friendly, dairy-free or paleo-style).

We’ve rounded up the best healthy restaurants in London, including spots for vegetarian and vegan eats, raw food specialists and sushi spots. Plus, we’ve also chucked in ‘regular’ spots that offer healthier dishes, so you don’t have to say goodbye to your gluttonous dining pals altogether. Clean eating can still be little bit dirty.

Healthy restaurants in London

Restaurants, Hawaiian

Ahi Poké

Fitzrovia

Poké – the Hawaiian health bowl involving sashimi fish, veg and grains – goes some way to explaining how the bare-all hula skirt ever became part of the island’s national dress. After a stint enjoying this breezy Fitzrovia café’s rice, quinoa and kale bases topped with sustainably sourced raw seafood, vibrant vegetables, nuts and seeds, we imagine you’ll feel similarly body-confident. Veggies can bypass fish (and chicken) for tofu and fungi.

 

Restaurants, Peruvian

Andina

Shoreditch

Martin Morales’s Shoreditch follow-up to Ceviche gives free rein to calories but makes up for it in the healthy-eating stakes with more than its fair share of ‘superfoods’ – many native to Peru – plus mountains of gluten-free options. Fill up on quinoa and chia croquetas, zingy ceviches and out-there salads (anyone for fresh seaweed, purple Peruvian potatoes, fermented heritage carrots, pickled red onions and avocado?).

 

Restaurants, Cafés

Aprés Food Co

Farringdon

The owners of this gorgeous-looking Clerkenwell joint want us all to ‘make friends with food’ – and we’re certainly sold on the place, its low-key backstreet vibe, pretty plants in pots and cleverly contrived gluten-free cooking. Everything is nutritionally balanced, from the frittata muffins and sweet potato hash to the luscious cakes made with coconut sugar. Drinks are on-message too. Now open in the evenings.

 

Beany Green

Moorgate

Those outdoorsy Aussies have taught us a thing or two about healthy living over the years, and the bright and breezy Beany Green café sells Londoners the whole package in a colourful modern setting compete with a hip hop soundtrack and a funky heated balcony. Expect to find vegetables loaded into almost everything, from hearty salads and pulse-packed, high-energy ‘power balls’ to broccoli and corn fritters. Go nuts.

Eating good pasta at London restaurants

The best places to eat pasta in London

Ogling agnolotti? Panting for pappardelle? Join the club. Here are 11 London restaurants, cooking classes and delis that are perfect for pasta-lovers

By Emma Hughes|Posted: Monday April 1 2019

In 2016 London reached a spaghetti junction in its relationship with pasta. Restaurant Padella opened in Borough Market and queues started to snake outside for its simple, affordable pasta small plates. Since then London’s become a city of pasta-fiends, lusting after linguine and Instagramming anelli. More and more hip Italian restaurants have opened across the capital serving up stylish, saucy, cheesy and downright-delicious strands of dough. Meanwhile Londoners have started wising up on the more unusual pasta shapes. We’re stocking up on perfect fresh pasta from delis like Lina Stores and are racing to pasta-making classes across the city. It was when Gloria – the most made-for-Instagram trattoria you’ll ever see – opened in Shoreditch just a few weeks ago that we knew we’d reached peak pasta. The spot serves up double-portion carbonara from a giant cheese wheel as well as oozing slabs of ten-layer lasagne. And that’s just the start: here are 11 London experiences that pasta-obsessives shouldn’t miss. Pasta la vista baby!

Places to eat pasta in London

Restaurants, Italian

Hack the queue at Padella

South Bank

This legend’s note-perfect, well-priced pastas are as raved-about now as they were the week it opened. Like tripping over massive suitcases on the tube at rush hour, standing in the ever-present queue is an irritating fact of London life. But there are things you can do to make it less of a drag. Get there very early (11am on a Sunday), very late (9pm on a Monday) or – like one hero Time Out spotted – bring a folding chair. Once you’re inside go classic with pappardelle and beef shin ragù.

Restaurants, Italian

Tackle ‘The 10 Level Lasagna’ at Gloria

Shoreditch

There’s nothing subtle about east London’s most hyped new trattoria. The ceiling’s mirrored, the piña coladas get set alight and there’s a sausage pizza on the menu called the Youporn. For a gravity-defying dinner, order the high-rise lasagne: ten layers of toothsome fresh pasta, meaty ragù, aubergine and melting mozzarella. Fill what remains of your boots with a slice of the towering lemon pie, with a six-inch (stop it) meringue topping.

Shopping, Bakeries

Get fresh at Lina Stores

Soho

Its atmospheric new restaurant might be getting all the attention these days, but the original Lina Stores’ deli is still hard to beat. Opened in 1944, the pastel-painted Brewer Street shop is stuffed to the rafters with the best pasta this side of the Dolomites. Browse the whole wall of superior dried stuff (Lina stocks the cheffy Rummo brand) or park up next to the homemade fresh-pasta counter and feast on ravioli with a choice of lip‑smacking fillings.

 

Andy Parsons

Have a wheely big lunch at The Cheese Wheel

Imagine forking into ribbons of perfectly tender fettuccine that have been swirled inside a huge, hollowed-out grana padano cheese wheel before being served to you with a flourish (and bacon bits). Well, as luck would have it, you don’t need to imagine – you can get your mitts on a bowl of the stuff this very weekend, thanks to the Cheese Wheel. The stall douses fresh pasta in a creamy alfredo sauce before taking it for a trip around the inside of the 40kg beast it takes its name from. What’s not to love? 

Restaurants, Italian

Roll your own at Burro e Salvia

Shoreditch

Fancy becoming a pasta maestro, but not sure where to start? Roll up your sleeves and head to this tiny Italian-owned café-deli in Shoreditch. Burro e Salvia (it means ‘butter and sage’ – yum) runs classes, during which its team of sfogline (‘sheet-makers’) share their know-how. You can learn how to make your own fresh egg-and-flour pasta from scratch, before turning it into everything from lasagne to farfalle (bows) and mezzelune (filled half-moons). At the end you get to take your creation home, or the chefs will cook it up in the kitchen for you.

Restaurants, Italian

Double up your dishes at Artusi

Peckham Rye

Pasta for your starter and your main? Peckham’s premier purveyor actively encourages it. There’s always a choice of two different ones, and they’re always available in little and large sizes, so you could start with mushroom tortellini in a deeply savoury porcini broth then move on to a jumbo portion of perfectly chewy bucatini with confit cherry tomatoes and wild garlic. Heads up: the Italian Sunday lunch deal (three substantial courses for just £20) is a proper steal.

Restaurants, Italian

Go gluten-free at Flour & Grape

The Borough

Forget cardboardy lasagne sheets and gritty fusilli – the future of gluten-free pasta is here, and it’s every bit as delicious as the wheaty OG. The vast majority of this bustling Bermondsey joint’s dishes can be made with gluten-free penne on request; and sauce-wise, the sky’s the limit. Whether you’re in the mood for slow-cooked beef-shin ragù or a fancy preserved truffle and butter emulsion, it’s got you covered. Don’t forget to check out F&G’s wine-pairing videos before you order.

Restaurants, Italian

Match shapes and sauces Emilia’s Crafted Pasta

Tower Hill

Dinner at this waterside Italian isn’t just a chance to scoff some of the city’s most skilfully made pasta, it’s a (delicious) science lesson. The clever bods behind Emilia’s Crafted Pasta have spent years working out exactly which pasta goes best with which sauce. So their bolognese is paired with wide silky ribbons of fresh egg pappardelle, while their carbonara (made in the northern Italian style, using the whole egg) is complemented by the rougher texture of dried semolina pasta. Sit back and let the staff guide you – they seriously know their stuff.