The best outdoor restaurants in London for eating al fresco

The sun is shining (maybe), you’ve got a chilled glass of wine, there’s a striped umbrella over your head, and you’re sitting on a flower-festooned outdoor restaurant terrace. Eating lovely food at a lovely outdoor restaurant has a magical way of making you feel like you’re on holiday, even when you haven’t left London for several weeks. But not all restaurant terraces are created equal, and a wonky table on a dismal side street just won’t cut it, so here is our guide to the greatest outdoor restaurants for dining al fresco in London, which combine a serene, open-air setting with excellent food, drink, and laidback vibes.

South London

JOIA at art’hotel, Battersea

Best for: Rooftop Iberian tapas and cocktails on the 16th floor
Address: 1 Electric Boulevard, Nine Elms, London SW11 8BJ

JOIA is the new Iberian restaurant and bar on the 15th and 16th floors of the Jaime Hayon-designed art’hotel tucked behind Battersea Power Station. The menu is inspired by chef Henrique Sá Pessoa’s Portuguese heritage (the name means ‘jewel’ in Portuguese), and blends Iberian and Mediterranean flavours with British produce.Designed by Russell Sage studio, restaurant interiors nod to the history of the power station with art deco elements and a retro colour palette. For something more casual, head upstairs to the rooftop terrace for al fresco small plates and cocktails. Grab a seat in one of the comfy sofas by the bar and order an aperitif and a few sharing dishes (particularly the pan con tomate and iberico ham on sourdough) and enjoy some evening sun with views of the grade-II listed power station below. Guests at the hotel can also take advantage of the infinity swimming pool at the back of the terrace.
artotellondonbattersea.com

The Garden Museum Café, Lambeth

Best for: Seasonal cooking in verdant surrounds 
Address: Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7LB

Not only is London’s Garden Museum one of the city’s best kept secrets, but the museum‘s cafe is one of London’s real hidden gems.  Open for lunch daily and dinner on Tuesdays and Fridays, this award-winning restaurant has interiors inspired by its leafy surrounds – but summer is when it comes into its own, because you can sit in the beautiful verdant courtyard while you eat your equally beautiful meal. Chef George Ryle cut his teeth at Primeur and Padella, influences which are seen in the cafe’s seasonal menu. A summer’s evening might find you eating a delicate salad of raw artichoke, hard ricotta and courgettes, followed by mushrooms with polenta, or a rabbit leg with beans, pancetta and a golden mustard sauce, all wrapped up to delicious effect with house-made raspberry ripple ice cream.
gardenmuseum.org.uk/cafe

Forza Wine, Peckham

Best for: Small plates and killer cocktails – and a whole new perspective
Address: The Rooftop, 133A Rye Lane, London SE15 4BQ

Sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees, and the same applies to London: you can’t see the city’s beauty when you’re right up in the middle of it all. Take a break from the concrete jungle and perch on a Peckham rooftop instead, which provides just enough distance to appreciate a completely different view of the skyline – one that’s somehow made all the more beautiful by the red lights winking at you from the top of the city’s many construction cranes. Forza Wine not only offers gorgeous aperitivo-style cocktails, but it’s got a menu designed to graze your way through slowly for maximum viewing time. You can get the whole menu for four people (including dessert) for £115, too. You know what to do. As of September 2023, you can also enjoy all Forza Wine has to offer from the brutalist balcony of the National Theatre, with views of the Thames waterfront. On a sunny evening in the city, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better spot.
forzawine.com

Discover more of the best restaurants in Peckham with ROADBOOK’s insider guide

East London

Ombra, Hackney

Best for: The silkiest pasta and cured meats, taking inspiration from all around Italy
Address: 1 Vyner Street, Bethnal Green, Hackney, London, E2 9DG

Anywhere that throws a mortadella party is alright in our books and Ombra, down near the canal in Bethnal Green, is well known for its seasonal take on the cured meat. Here it’s served draped over gnocchi fritto – those gorgeous pillows of fried dough. But there’s plenty of other things to love here too, like roasted monkfish served with black trompette de la mort mushrooms and sea urchin, or tonnarelli pasta with Sicilian red prawns. As for the outdoor dining, it has a terrace overlooking the canal, and also boasts the Ombra Altana, a mezzanine with plenty of outdoor seating that was built for the London Festival of Architecture, which takes place in June.
ombrabar.restaurant

Rochelle Canteen, Shoreditch

Best for: Iconic cooking in a former bike shed
Address: 16 Playground Gardens, London, E2 7FA

Rochelle Canteen’s outdoor dining space is one of London’s worst-kept secrets. Occupying a former bike shed and hidden by the old red-brick walls of Rochelle School in Shoreditch, the courtyard here is a grassy, sun-drenched oasis that feels a world apart from London’s grit and grime – and the food only lives up to the promise. The kitchen is helmed by Margot Henderson, wife of Fergus (chef-proprietor of another of our favourite London restaurants, St John Bread & Wine), and there are shared influences when it comes to whole-animal eating and a focus on beautiful seasonal produce.
arnoldandhenderson.com

Acme Fire Cult, Dalston

Best for: Cult cooking over fire
Address: 40FT Brewery, Abbot Street, London E8 3DP

Outdoor dining and barbecues go hand in hand, naturally, and Acme Fire Cult’s restaurant at 40FT Brewery is a temple to fire cooking (not to mention a repository of great craft beers). Food is served on biodegradable bamboo plates, and the line-up is delicious: cold roast lamb from ethically minded Swaledale Butchers, served with trombetta courgettes, fennel, buttermilk and a pop of fresh seasonal herbs, or coal-roasted celeriac with mushroom kelp XO sauce, coco bean miso, and salsa verde. Tucked down an alley off Dalston Junction, this restaurant – and its capacious outdoor seating area – may be hidden from view, but with food this good, it will remain firmly on your radar. And with a new izakaya menu introduced on Friday and Saturday evenings, there’s now more reason than ever to visit.
acmefirecult.com

Sessions Arts Club, Clerkenwell

Best for: One of the most beautiful meals you’ll have, ever
Address: Old Sessions House, 24 Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0NA

Just when you thought Sessions Arts Club – the restaurant housed in England’s oldest courthouse that’s gone practically viral – couldn’t get any more gorgeous, it opens a rooftop with views over Clerkenwell and beyond. An evening here is likely to be lovely: olive trees, rosemary and a miniature vineyard provide proper Italian vibes, while the Georgian brick chimneys, newly converted into fires for cooler nights, are all London. The Venetian-inspired food already makes Sessions Arts Club one of the best restaurants in London right now, but what you’re really coming for is the one-of-a-kind setting that’ll make you think, ‘my life should always be like this; I deserve it.’
sessionsartsclub.com

Marksman Public House, Hackney

Best for: British fare on a rooftop
Address: 254 Hackney Road, London E2 7SB

Marksman Public House is in fact a much-lauded restaurant on London’s Hackney Road, co-created by Tom Harris (ex-St John) and Jon Rotheram. It has long been a favourite for piled-high Sunday roasts and upmarket pub grub. What is lesser-known is that it has a rooftop terrace, perfectly positioned for enjoying British fare in the sunshine, while the hubbub of Hackney Road thrums below. Begin with a rhubarb margarita, followed by chicken and wild garlic pie, mussels and chips, or a signature beef and barley bun. On Fridays, enjoy a lunchtime meal and a glass of wine for 15 GBP.
marksmanpublichouse.com

The Culpeper, Aldgate East

Best for: A verdant rooftop oasis with city views
Address: 40 Commercial Street, London E1 6LP

From the outside, The Culpeper looks like a classic City of London boozer. But walk past the ground floor bar and up the stairs until you pop out on the rooftop, and you’ll realise it’s anything but. Not only will you have a lovely spot to admire Spitalfields, but you’ll be sat right beside the greenhouse that grows much of the pub’s salads and fresh herbs – which should give you an inkling of how seriously The Culpeper takes its food. The restaurant seating is inside on the first floor, but you can enjoy a short set menu on the roof, with ash-roasted new potatoes, lardons and chive, lamb shoulder with broccoli and romesco sauce, and beef kofta with mint yoghurt and pickled chilli. Simply gorgeous.
theculpeper.com

Royale, Bow Wharf

Best for: Provençal-style rotisserie chicken on a wisteria-covered terrace
Address: East London Liquor Co, 221 Grove Road, Old Ford, London, E3 5SN

For even more south of France energy, Royale is the place to go thanks to a menu that revolves around Provençal-style rotisserie chicken. Except you’re not in the south of France, you’re sat on a terrace under clouds of fragrant wisteria outside the East London Liquor Company in Bow, sipping regional French wine and delicately grazing your way through mouthfuls of baguette slathered in aioli or dipped in braised chickpeas with artichokes and olives, marinated courgettes with pine nuts and ricotta, and of course, Anjou-style chicken. You know what? It’s a trade we’ll take.
royalelondon.com

Central London

Toklas, Strand

Best for: spritzes and small plates
Address: 1 Surrey Street, Temple, London WC2R 2ND

Tucked down a side street next to 180 Strand is one of central London’s largest and most peaceful dining terraces. Pot plants border the tables at Toklas, and the elevated position makes the bustle of The Strand seem miles away. A dedicated al fresco food menu and a collection of spritzes are served here by an attentive team. The white spagliatto is particularly refreshing, and make sure to order some sourdough from Toklas’s own bakery downstairs, alongside other small plates like courgette fritti, artichoke alla guidia and tomato and mozzarella arancini. The main restaurant is on the same level, and in the summer the doors are folded back entirely, so you can seamlessly order from the full menu. For drinks and food on a calm terrace in central London, you’ll be hard pushed to find better.
toklaslondon.com

The Rooftop at The Standard, King’s Cross

Best for: A central location and terrific tacos
Address: The Standard, 10 Argyle Street, London, WC1H 8EG

Atop The Standard’s iconic Brutalist structure lies a hidden gem: the London hotel‘s casual outdoor restaurant on the roof, with iconic views over the London skyline, and the gothic revival facade of St Pancras Station practically within touching distance. Of course, this makes for an excellent place for sundowners – but this summer it’s a great location for a low-fuss dinner too, thanks to its crowning restaurant Decimiño – a pint-sized truck version of the hotel’s frankly brilliant Mexican-Spanish restaurant Decimo. Think nachos but better, epic tacos, spicy tommy’s margaritas, and glorious sunsets. Explore nearby Coal Drops Yard for further excellent outdoor drinking and dining spots.
standardhotels.com

Seabird, Southwark

Best for: The best sunsets in London
Address: The Hoxton, South Bank, 40 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NY

There are sunset views, and then there are Seabird’s sunset views at The Hoxton, which drench the surrounding buildings, the river, you, your mates, and your cocktails in jaw-droppingly beautiful honey-gold light. Throw in London’s largest oyster bar and a menu that looks to Spain and Portugal for its flavours, and you’ve got one hell of a party, or one hell of a romantic date spot, should you be so inclined. Bookings for summer evenings are tough though, so get ready to sharpen those elbows.
seabirdlondon.com

London Bridge

Tavolino, London Bridge

Best for: An unbeatable spot looking up at Tower Bridge
Address: 2 More London Riverside, London, SE1 2DB

Tower Bridge never makes for a shabby backdrop, and aperitivo hour at Tavolino makes it especially good, particularly when accompanied by plates of honeyed garlic focaccia and fennel salami. But then eating outdoors on Tavolino’s riverside terrace is great at any time, thanks to brown shrimp and seaweed butter tagliolini pasta, shaved fennel salad with blood orange and black olives, and basil panna cotta with rhubarb and custard. Despite the prime central location, Tavolino’s menu and attention to detail make it feel like a neighbourhood favourite, and an all-round winner in our books.
tavolino.co.uk

West London

Mazi, Notting Hill

Best for: A modern take on Greek food, in the pastel-hued streets of Notting Hill
Address: 12-14 Hillgate Street, London, W8 7SR

Small in size but large in ambition – not to mention flavour-packed cooking – Mazi in Notting Hill has long turned heads for the way its modernised the food of traditional Greek tavernas. House-baked breads, grilled aubergines and lobster orzo have been on the menu here for way longer than you’ve had your bucket hat. To sit on the back patio in the sunshine is a taste of pure escapism, one that will have your mind on a beach on a Greek island, even as you gaze at a pigeon flying overhead. Chuck in an expertly research wine list packed with Grecian gems, and you’ve got sheer, unadulterated bliss.
mazi.co.uk

The Princess Royal, Notting Hill

Best for: Pub gone posh with Moorish-influenced cooking from Ben Tish
Address: 47 Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, London, W2 5AH

Ben Tish’s Moorish-influenced cooking is what made Salt Yard Group’s name in London, and it was his creativity that was also behind hit restaurant Sicilian-inspired Norma in Fitzrovia. Tish launched The Princess Royal in Westbourne Grove in 2022, owned by the lauded Cubitt House Group. It goes without saying anything Tish cooks up gets our seal of approval (Cornish crab served in the shell with lemon and chilli and Old Spot pork chop are particular highlights), but it’s the posh pub’s extensive garden that seals the deal with plenty of potted plants and bare brick walls.
cubitthouse.co.uk

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