Once upon a time, Ealing Broadway was where you went to catch the Central line into town, perhaps grabbing a jamon beurre from Pret on your way through. How times have changed.
The opening of Crossrail has transformed this corner of West London into an actual, bonafide dining destination, with the gleaming, somewhat soulless Dickens Yard development acting as a magnet for ambitious restaurateurs who’ve spotted an opportunity to bring Central London sensibilities to Zone 3 prices.
The area’s culinary revolution has been swift and decisive. Here, you’ll discover Spanish fine dining that had Giles Coren purring (ewww), Japanese izakayas run by sake dynasties, and family-run Vietnamese joints that put Shoreditch in its place. Even better, you can actually book a table without planning three months ahead. Sometimes…
The local demographic helps too. Ealing’s mix of media types who’ve decamped from Notting Hill, young professionals priced out of Clapham, and long-established international communities creates the perfect conditions for culinary diversity.
Transport links remain excellent – the Elizabeth line whisks you to Bond Street in 11 minutes, while the District and Central lines provide backup options. But increasingly, Londoners are making the reverse journey, heading west for dinner. Join us as we do just that; here are the best restaurants in Ealing Broadway.
Rayuela, Dickens Yard
Ideal for superb Ibero-American cuisine at Zone 3 prices…
In January 2024, The Times restaurant critic Giles Coren ventured to Ealing Broadway (basically like flying halfway around the world, for him) and found something rather special; Ealing Broadway’s restaurant scene is alive and kicking. His review of Rayuela had him reaching for superlatives rarely deployed in the suburbs, and for good reason.
This Ibero-American restaurant occupies prime real estate in Dickens Yard, bringing serious Iberian and South American credentials to W5. The kitchen understands the crucial difference between jamón serrano and jamón ibérico de bellota, and isn’t afraid to charge accordingly for the latter.
Start with their selection of ceviches – the mackerel version with cucumber tiger’s milk and corn could easily hold its own against London’s best Peruvian restaurants. The Iberian pork presa arrives grilled to the kind of blushing perfection that might have some sending it back to the kitchen, served with chimichurri that packs genuine punch rather than the bruised green sauce often passed off under that name.
Their lunch set menu offers excellent value at £30 for six courses. The wine list leans heavily Spanish, with some exceptional finds from lesser-known regions. The real draw is their partnership with Lustau for sherries – the only winery producing across all three cities in the sherry triangle. Six different sherries are available by the glass, served chilled in correct copitas rather than tiny thimbles.
The dining room itself avoids the tired exposed brick and Edison bulb clichés, instead striking an appealing balance with its warm terracotta banquettes, contemporary artwork, and clean lines. It’s sophisticated enough for special occasions yet relaxed enough for a random Wednesday 4pm booze up. What’s not to love?
Website: rayuela.co.uk
Address: Unit 9C Dickens Yard, London W5 2TD
HAKU Cafe & Izakaya, Edward House
Ideal for izakaya dining with prestigious sake credentials…
Hidden in a shopping centre basement, HAKU has connections to one of Japan’s most prestigious sake breweries, which explains their exceptional drinks list. By day it’s a straightforward café serving competent bento boxes, chicken teriyaki paninis and our favourite; pork katsu sandos. Come evening, the lights dim and you’re suddenly in a convincing take on an izakaya.
The transformation shows most clearly in the food. That daytime chicken karaage becomes something special when ordered as an evening small plate, the coating crunchier, the meat more yielding. Perhaps it’s just the dimmed lights deceiving us, but the nasu dengaku (miso-glazed aubergine) arrives even more glossy and lacquered, while the agedashi dofu manages to be both comforting and sophisticated without veering into contradiction.
Details matter here. The yakitori, grilled over actual binchotan charcoal, arrives with just the right amount of char. The sashimi glistens under low lighting, sliced with precision that speaks of real training. Even their grilled corn, dressed with nothing more than good salt, becomes memorable.
The sake selection, curated by Hakutsuru brewery, ranges from crisp, light junmai to rich, warming junmai daiginjo. Staff will guide you through it without condescension, though their house recommendation flight is a safe bet for newcomers, in terms of both taste and price.
The cafe is open for lunch Tuesday through Sunday, the izakaya lighting up at 6pm each evening except Monday. Book ahead – word has spread.
Website: hakucafeizakaya.com
Address: 44 The Mall, London W5 3TJ
Abu Zaad, Broadway
Ideal for generous Syrian family feasts and warm hospitality…
Squeezed between a dry cleaner and a mobile phone shop on Uxbridge Road, Abu Zaad is the kind of place you’d walk past without noticing, were it not for the smell of freshly baking saj wafting out every time the door opens. Step inside and you’re in a Damascus family home, complete with traditional artwork and, unexpectedly, a dedicated children’s play area with its own projector.
This represents wonderful Syrian hospitality in full effect – three-year-olds are as welcome as their grandparents, and nobody minds when your toddler reorganises the cushions. Or, indeed, gets on first-name terms with those same cushions…
The mixed grill is the move here, available for two (£32.50) or four people (£62.50). The generous spread includes lamb fillet, lamb kofta, shish taouk, jawaneh (chicken wings), and shawarma, all charred just so and served with chips and rice – it’s a carnivore’s fantasy that easily defeats most appetites.
The kibbeh shamieh, those football-shaped bulgur parcels stuffed with spiced meat and pine nuts, reveal filling so perfectly seasoned you begin to understand why the correct way to salt and spice these guys is being debated on several tables around you.
Their set meals offer excellent value for groups. The set for two (£43.99) includes houmous, fattoush, a Damascene hot appetizer, and the mixed grill for two. Scale up to the family set for four (£84.99) and you add moutabal, an extra hot appetizer, and the family mixed grill – it’s a feast that draws families from across West London. Arrive hungry and pace yourself – this is marathon eating.
The Syrian tea, served in istikan glasses, as it should be, and sweetened to dental-threatening levels, again as it should be, costs less than a Costa coffee and provides infinitely more comfort.
Website: abuzaad.co.uk
Address: 20-22 Broadway, Ealing, W13 0SU
Park’s Kitchen, The Green
Ideal for Korean comfort food and plenty of soju…
Overlooking The Green with Walpole Park beyond, Park’s Kitchen somehow remains under the radar, known mainly to homesick Korean students and those lucky enough to stumble upon it. Park’s Kitchen occupies a bright, jolly space with exposed brick walls and pendant lighting. It might sound uncharitable to deem it ‘functional’, but it kinda is. Not to worry; when your bibimbap arrives in a heated stone bowl, still sizzling and popping, your eyes aren’t on the interiors.
The kitchen excels at fermentation, of course, the cornerstone of Korean cuisine. The house kimchi has a lovely fizz and funk, the kind that makes you wrinkle your nose before complete addiction sets in. You can curate your own selection of banchan – those small dishes that appear at every meal’s start, orbiting a bowl of freshly steamed rice. The seasoned spinach, sweet-salty dried fish, and bean sprouts with enough chilli to wake the dead should all be on your table.
Order the kanpoongi for a different angle on the now ubiquitous Korean fried chicken. This isn’t the gloopy, over-sauced stuff from American chains taking a stab at diversifying their demographic. Park’s version arrives crisp as autumn leaves, the coating so shattering you can hear it across the room, the meat beneath still juicy. The sweet chilli and garlic sauce is applied with restraint – enough to flavour, not enough to compromise that crunch.
Vegetarians will feel well catered for here. The kimchi pancake, crisp outside and molten within, studded with fermented cabbage and spring onions, is a spicy savoury treat. The soft tofu stew (sundubu-jjigae) arrives bubbling like a small volcano.
There is Korean lager, soju and plum wine, as well as a few bottles of wine hovering around the £30 mark. You can feast here quite happily, and totter out tipsy, for around £75 for two people.
Website: parks-kitchen.com
Address: 24 The Green, Ealing, W5 5DA
Santa Maria, Bond Street
Ideal for pizza that takes its DOC status seriously…
Santa Maria doesn’t mess about. This is Neapolitan pizza as the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana intended: 48-hour fermented dough, San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte mozzarella, and a wood-fired oven hot enough to reduce most things to ash in seconds.
Pizzas emerge in 90 seconds flat, the crust puffed and charred in all the right places (those leopard spots pizza obsessives love), the centre just yielding enough to require the traditional fold-and-dangle technique.
The margherita serves as any serious pizzeria’s litmus test, and Santa Maria’s passes easily. The tomato sauce tastes like concentrated sunshine. The mozzarella, shipped twice weekly from Campania, melts just a little into creamy pools. The basil, added post-cook, wilts just enough to release its oils. This is pure poetry on the plate, and we want a pizza now.
The nduja pizza brings Calabrian heat, the spicy spreadable sausage melting into cheese to create addictive orange oil you’ll mop up with any leftover crust. The white pizzas showcase cheese quality, particularly the quattro formaggi which deploys gorgonzola with admirable restraint.
The room buzzes with genuine excitement about food. Families with bambini, couples on dates, solo diners at the bar – everyone united in appreciation of real pizza. Italian staff help, their animated, infatuated discussions about Scott McTominay adding the requisite authenticity to Ealing’s answer to Naples.
The wine list sensibly sticks to crowd-pleasing southern Italian table wines that won’t break the bank, though honestly, nothing beats a cold Peroni with a sloppy pizza.
Website: santamariapizzeria.co.uk
Address: 11 Bond St, London W5 5AP
Read: The best pizzas in London for 2025
Patri Northfields, Northfield Avenue
Ideal for railway-themed Indian dining and spectacular sharing platters…
The name means ‘track’ in Hindi, and Patri runs with railway themes through bench seating, beaten metal and enough industrial chic to satisfy Londoners with a very myopic vision of cool. But this isn’t style over substance – the cooking here would impress regardless of how made up the room is.
Puneet Wadhwani spent his childhood at New Delhi railway station where his family ran a business. Those memories – vendors shouting wares, meals grabbed between platforms, the organised chaos of Indian rail travel – inform every aspect of this restaurant.
The Railway Mix Grill (for two, it’s £24.95, for three, £34.95) arrives on cast iron platters still sizzling from the kitchen. The lamb seekh kebabs have perfect char-to-juice ratios, the malai tikka (chicken marinated in cream and cheese) is indecently rich, the tandoori prawns sweet and smoky. It’s the kind of sharing plate that tests friendships – you’ll eye that last lamb piece like a circling vulture.
Their butter chicken receives the respect this much-maligned curry house staple deserves. The chicken, marinated three times before meeting the tandoor, arrives tender enough to cut with spoons. The sauce, rich with butter and cream but balanced with complex spicing, keeps you interested bite after bite. Mop it up with exemplary naan, charred and bubbled from the tandoor.
The street food section best captures Patri’s spirit. Old Delhi Pani Puri arrives as DIY projects – crispy wheat balls filled with spiced chickpeas and potatoes, waiting for tangy mint water, chutneys and mango. First-timer faces when that sweet-sour-spicy-cold explosion hits? Priceless.
The Grand Thali represents the full Patri experience – described as “The UK’s Largest, Never Seen Never Done Selection” it serves up to five people. At £128 for vegetarian or £138-148 for mixed versions, it’s a satiate-until-surrender affair, with new dishes appearing just as you think you’re done. Book it for special occasions and arrive really hungry.
Daily 5-7pm cocktail happy hour with 2-for-1 deals makes it dangerously easy to extend dinner into an increasingly louche evening. The craft gin selection reads like a connoisseur’s wishlist – Monkey 47, Gin Mare, Silent Pool – while traditional touches like proper masala chai and mango lassi keep things grounded. Cheers to that.
Website: patri.co.uk
Address: 139 Northfield Avenue, Ealing, W13 9QT
TânVân, The Green
Ideal for Vietnamese family recipes and 24-hour pho…
Named after their late grandfather, TânVân channels the cooking of sisters Erika, Elysia and Eva’s mother, who ran her own Vietnamese restaurant for 24 years before passing the torch. The pho alone – 24 hours in the making, the broth a masterclass in clarity and depth – would justify the W5 journey. But stopping there misses so much.
Summer rolls arrive tight and architecturally perfect, ingredients visible through translucent rice paper wrappers like flowers in ice. The accompanying peanut hoisin sauce has real depth, sweet and savoury with enough chilli heat to maintain interest.
The bánh xèo – a turmeric-tinted crepe stuffed with prawns, pork and bean sprouts – arrives crisp as old banknotes, ready to be torn into pieces, wrapped in lettuce with herbs, and dipped. It’s interactive eating at its best, tables comparing wrapping techniques and arguing over optimal herb ratios. Dipping sauce runs down forearms and into T-shirt sleeves.
The room is gorgeous, too. Heritage murals nod to Vietnamese culture without flirting with theme restaurant territory, while the soundtrack – Vietnamese soul and jazz during lunch, something housier come evening – is transportive, sure, to Hanoi in the daytime and the wild streets of Saigon at night.
There’s a Vietnamese coffee ‘Cà Phê Martini’ that is so good we won’t even bother mentioning the other drinks here. We will mention that happy hour runs from 4pm to 6pm daily, and offers two-for-one.
Website: tanvan1951.com
Address: 17 The Green, Ealing, W5 5DA
