Eat and Drink: the best of Marylebone, London
Londoner Sejal Sukhadwala has fallen head over heels for Marylebone and its food scene. Here are her top picks for eating and drinking there.
If someone asked me where I’d live if I won the lottery, Marylebone would be top of my list. Despite being surrounded by the touristy chaos that is Oxford Street, it’s an oasis of calm, elegance and beauty – with stunningly good food and cocktails.
Marylebone is roughly located between Marylebone Road to the north, Edgware Road to the west, Great Portland Street to the east, and Oxford Street to the south. It’s home to the beautiful Marylebone Village, filled with world-class shops and restaurants. Famous literary residents have included Charles Dickens, TS Eliot and HG Wells.
With so many top restaurants and food shops currently opening in the area, it’s touted as ‘the next Soho’. Well, I like to think I discovered it first.
Eclectic breakfasts
New Zealand chef Peter Gordon’s The Providores (pictured left) on Marylebone High Street is renowned for removing ‘confusion’ from ‘fusion’, by actually making several unusual global ingredients work together on the same plate.
However, it’s the more informal ground floor Tapa Room that serves one of London’s most talked-about brunch dishes. Turkish eggs – made from poached eggs, beaten yoghurt and hot chilli butter – may sound like an unusual concoction to western ears, but it’s a delicious traditional dish that’s not to be missed (pictured below, left).
I’m addicted to the Monocle Café’s Swedish cardamom buns (supplied by Fabrique bakery). This über-cool Chiltern Street café, owned by the magazine of the same name, also serves imaginative Japanese and German breakfasts. But if, like me, you can’t get enough of Scandinavian sweet treats, head to Nordic Bakery on nearby Dorset Street, or its larger branch on New Cavendish Street, for scrummy cinnamon buns and good coffee.
You can further sate your sweet tooth with mahlepi-flavoured brioche and sour cherry ‘spoon sweet’ (preserve) at the stylish new all-day Modern Greek diner, Opso, on Paddington Street.
If all this sounds too rich first thing in the morning, then just grab a healthy cold-pressed juice or breakfast smoothie based on fresh coconut water and own-made almond milk from Roots & Bulbs on Thayer Street. You’ll also find fresh juices, along with ethical and sustainable cheese, meat and egg dishes, at Natural Kitchen on Marylebone High Street.
Leisurely lunches
Stick to the area and visit the Wallace Collection, a fabulous museum in Manchester Square that boasts no less than 25 galleries displaying 18th century French fine arts. The Wallace Restaurant inside is a hidden gem (pictured left). In an indoor courtyard-like setting, it serves French classics such as poached hake with sautéed clams and wild garlic, and even has a little-known vegetarian menu.
Staying with the Continental theme – but moving to central Europe – is the newly opened Fischer’s on Marylebone High Street. Owned by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, who founded The Ivy and Le Caprice and later the Wolseley, this posh venue is based on the early 20th-century grand cafés and pâtisseries of Vienna. Linger over the retro Austrian and German flavours of cured fish, schnitzels, sausages, rye sourdough sandwiches, strudels, tortes and ice cream coupes in a swish setting.
If you’re eating with kids, you can’t beat the fresh, own-made Tuscan pastas at the lively Caffé Caldesi on Marylebone Lane – a great place to drop by for aperitivo, too, later in the day.
Don’t have time for a leisurely lunch? Then grab a freshly made sandwich, soup, salad or gluten-free cake at Souli on George Street. It’s another one of those cool, undiscovered spots, and it serves wood-roasted coffee from Rome’s legendary Sant’Eustachio II Caffè, plus rarely-seen-in-London Mariage Frères tea. In the opposite direction, Patricia Michelson’s iconic La Fromagerie (pictured left, and in main image above) serves an excellent ploughman’s lunch, as you’d expect from one of the UK’s best cheese shops. Not only is the shop famous for its walk-in cheese room (a dairy lover’s paradise for sure), but also rare ingredients like violet syrup and fennel pollen.
And if you fancy picnicking in one of the nearby parks instead, why not pick up hot roast meat sandwiches, sausage rolls, pies and scotch eggs from revered butcher The Ginger Pig?
Just up the road in the Aybrook Street car park (about the only unglamorous bit of Marylebone), a small farmers’ market takes place on Sundays from 10am-2pm. Around 30-40 stalls sell everything from The Culinary Herb Company’s fresh herbs to the highly popular goats cheese and cheesecake from Windrush Valley Goat Dairy. The market has a particularly good selection of fresh vegetables, and you’ll sometimes spot local food writers and TV chefs doing their weekly shopping.
Sweet treats
Walking back round the corner to Moxon Street, treat yourself to award-winning chocolates in distinctive blue and white packaging from Chantal Coady’s chocolate shop Rococo. The very moreish raspberry fizz white chocolate bar with raspberry pieces and popping candy is one of their latest creations.
More sweet treats can be bought further up the road from La Pâtisserie Des Rêves on Marylebone High Street (pictured left). It’s the first London branch of Philippe Conticini’s famous Parisian pâtisserie, and the striking candy-coloured shop sells sensational French classics like Paris-Brest and St Honore under glass domes. They’ve even introduced cake-flavoured ice creams that taste just like chilled cake!
Posh dinners
As Marylebone is such a smart area, dinner destinations are not cheap. But since these are some of the best restaurants in London, you won’t mind forking out. Currently hogging the headlines is the newly opened celeb hotspot Chiltern Firehouse in Chiltern Street (pictured left). You’ll have to dodge paparazzi just to admire the magnificent exterior of the former fire station – but if you’re lucky enough to get a table, don’t miss chef Nuno Mendes’ crab doughnuts that all the critics have been raving about. Across the road is Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop and Tasting Room, where you’ll be able to sample and buy rare scotch whiskies.
Nearby on the junction of Dorset Street and Baker Street is another acclaimed restaurant, but one that’s somewhat easier to get into. Brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin’s Galvin Bistrot de Luxe is a multi award-winning French bistro that serves classics such as steak tartare, escargots, seared scallops, calves liver and pigs trotter. More meaty delights such as braised pig’s head croquettes with quince jam can be found in Argentinian restaurant Zoilo in Duke’s Street, on the opposite end.
If you’re looking for something more veggie-friendly, go to the one Michelin-starred Texture on Portman Street. The smart Scandinavian-influenced Modern European restaurant offers a separate vegetarian menu, and specialises in fish dishes such as Norwegian king crab and lightly salted Icelandic cod. Another one Michelin star restaurant with a separate veggie menu is the Modern Indian Trishna (pictured left) on nearby Blandford Street. Don’t miss jackfruit biryani if available, or one of London’s best veggie dishes: a light, colourful stir-fry of heritage carrots, beetroot, broccoli, cashew nuts, curry leaves and crunchy lotus crisps that’s a taste and textural sensation.
Theatrical cocktails
Stay on Blandford Street, and round off your day with a stunning ‘foam’, ‘air’, ‘gel’ or ‘fog’ multi-sensory cocktail at Purl (pictured left). I’d love to tell you that this atmospheric subterranean bar feels like a little-known secret, but in fact it’s so highly acclaimed and popular that you’ll need to book in advance.
Over on the other side of Marylebone, another must-visit bar is located inside the five-star Langham Hotel in Portland Place. The Artesian Bar, voted ‘the world’s best bar’ for two years running, may have a more classic drinks list but the liquid creations are no less dramatic. Ask the friendly bar staff to make you the ‘blue blazer’ hot cocktail, then sit back and enjoy its theatricality.
Sweet dreams are made of this
So you’ve eaten and drunk your way around one of London’s best food and drink destinations, and now it’s time to hit the sack. Head to the Durrants Hotel, a 92-bed Georgian townhouse on George Street, or the quiet, comfortable Marylebone Hotel on Welbeck Street. Both are reasonably priced with free wi-fi. But if you’re still in the mood to party – and already thinking of weekend brunch – make your way to the luxurious five-star Landmark Hotel on Marylebone Road. Its legendary Sunday buffet brunch is something of a foodie rite of passage. Between 12.30 to 3pm, you can enjoy unlimited champagne, freshly baked pastries, continental charcuterie, smoked salmon, egg dishes, roast meats and a huge range of salads, while live entertainment jollies things along. It does cost £90 per person though, so perhaps you’ll need to win that lottery first.
You can view a larger, printable version of this map here
Chiltern Firehouse image attributed to Tim Clinch
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