Last updated February 2026
‘Goodge Street’. There’s something faintly obscene-sounding about the word that we can’t quite put our finger on – not that we’d want to put our finger on it – but what’s even more obscene here, on this strip connecting Fitzrovia and Marylebone, are the options for a damn fine feed.
From Portuguese comfort food given the fine dining treatment to Peruvian plates full of verve and vitality, there’s something to satisfy just about `anyone in this part of town. If your pockets are sufficiently bulging, that is; this part of town gets pretty pricey. With that in mind, here’s where to eat near Goodge Street.
The Ninth, Charlotte Street
Ideal for laid-back, Michelin-starred, Mediterranean-inspired plates of breezy perfection…
There can’t be many more likeable London restaurants than The Ninth, whose Michelin star doesn’t get in the way of a laid back, generous dining experience that leaves you satisfied, satiated and not too skint, either.
Here, chef Jun Tanaka’s Mediterranean-inspired cooking is pleasingly unfussy, with dishes designed for sharing built around one or two expertly-sourced central characters. Don’t miss the crisp artichoke, its leaves all splayed out and pickable, and served with a verdant, pungent three-cornered leek aioli for dipping. Better still is the striking, oddly-photogenic turbot head, which arrives sitting on a rusty langoustine bisque that’s got proper, briny depth from a long roasting of the shells and heads. Roll up your sleeves, turn your spoon on its head, and burrow and furrow with the handle at all the delicious, gelatinous best bits of the fish. Gorgeous.
End, as just about everyone does here, with Tanaka’s signature pain perdu with tonka bean ice cream. A hefty block of custard-soaked brioche is fried in foaming butter until almost over-caramelised, its middle gooey and its edges crisp. It’s served with an ice cream so smooth it’s clearly had several rounds in the pacojet, the two plate-fellows both rich and indulgent but somehow light enough that the massive portion is gone in seconds. It’s got to be one of London’s most iconic sweet treats, and one we’ve wolfed down more times than we’re happy admitting (seven, if you’re asking).
This one needn’t be too damaging to your bank balance, either. The set lunch menu at the Ninth, running from Monday to Saturday and costing just £43 for three courses, is one of the best priced Michelin-starred meals in the capital. With several wines available by the glass for under a tenner (the Alvarinho, at £10 a glass, pairs beautifully with the turbot head from two paragraphs previous), you really can’t go wrong.
Website: theninthlondon.com
Address: 22 Charlotte St., London W1T 2NB
64 Goodge Street, Goodge Street
Ideal for sophisticated French bistro classics in a refined, intimate setting…
This small bistro deluxe in the heart of Fitzrovia delivers what every food-obsessed Londoner these days openly craves: unapologetic French cuisine with all the trimmings, minus the stuffiness. Since opening in August 2023, 64 Goodge Street has been knocking the fluff off berets across town, culminating in a well-deserved Michelin star in February last year.
In a dining room that feels like it’s been here forever (though it was once a humble travel agents), the Woodhead Restaurant Group (Portland, Quality Chop…) has created yet another hit. There’s no bar or waiting area – just a gloriously quiet, music-free space where British Racing Green walls and polished wood set the scene for refined, sometimes rarefied indulgence.
Head chef Stuart Andrew, who’s been with the group since Portland’s launch, executes “French cooking from an outsider’s perspective” with aplomb. The kitchen sends out sauces with that kind of reduced, lip-smacking quality that they do so well across the pond. There are also snail, bacon and garlic ‘bon bons’ that reimagine escargot as aristocratic Scotch eggs; Kintyre smoked salmon with housemade blinis (something seen all too rarely these days); and a lobster vol-au-vent with sauce américaine that’s more generous with the crustacean than the pastry or price (at lunch, three courses are £59) deserves.
For dessert, the Crêpes Suzette with brandy and vanilla ice cream is positively hedonistic in its booze content, and just glorious. The Paris-Brest, meanwhile, is more textbook perfection.
Wine lovers will feel right at home with a thoughtfully curated list that begins with a handy explainer of their approach. From assiduously sourced house pours (starting at a palatable £8 a glass) to special bottles from the world’s best winemakers, there’s something for every budget. Burgundy, naturally, gets star billing, with entire pages devoted to the region’s beguiling bottles.
Yet another confirmation that French fine dining is back, baby. Just, in this case, the chefs are British.
Website: 64goodgestreet.co.uk
Address: 64 Goodge St, London W1T 4NF
Pahli Hill, Mortimer Street
Ideal for some of the finest regional Indian plates in London…
When you step into Pahli Hill’s warm wood, leather clad space just a moment from the throngs of Oxford Street, it’s only natural to breathe a sigh of relief. There’s a transportative quality to proceedings at this modern Indian restaurant, whether it’s in the tastefully done colourscape or the aroma of dried spices toasting in the kitchen that have wafted invitingly into the dining room.
Based around Bombay’s sociable ‘building societies’, there’s certainly a conviviality in the air, and on the plate there’s much to lift your mood further. We’re big fans of the set lunch menu, served from midday until 2:45pm, Tuesdays to Fridays, and seemingly designed to give weary shoppers a much needed blast of respite and rejuvenation. For just £32, you get yourself a three courses which is, really, so much more than that; each ‘course’ is a spread of complementary bites and bigger dishes.
The papadi chaat to start feels like a meal in itself, a riot of spicy, sweet and sour notes, and contrasting textures and temperatures. Each bite offers something different, from pomegranate seed pops of sharpness to herbal piquancy brought by coriander chutney, all anchored by soothing chickpeas and the papdi (crisp shards of wafer) itself. No wonder this dish earned head chef and owner Avinash Shashidhara a place at the 2023 Great British Menu banquet.
Follow this with a canteen-style thali of chicken, fish or vegetables with all the trimmings, and a spiced vanilla rice pudding, and sit and contemplate for a while if you do truly want to return to another Uniqlo this afternoon.
Website: pahlihillbandrabhai.com
Address: 79-81 Mortimer St, London W1W 7SJ
Salt Yard, Goodge Street
Ideal for Spanish-Italian hybrid tapas in a smartly informal setting with a great sherry list…
The forefather of a pioneering group famous for its hybrid Spanish and Italian tapas, this smartly informal Fitzrovia favourite seamlessly combines two culinary cultures under one roof. The buzziest vibe is undoubtedly in the bustling low-lit bar rather than the basement dining room, where the atmosphere can swing from void-like when empty to merely noisy when full.
Food-wise, there’s plenty to enjoy, especially if you stick to the classics. The blistered padrón peppers deliver that sunny booze food that works all year round, while the cylindrical croquetas of jamón, leek and manchego (£9) is the Iberian peninsula’s food in microcosm. At £8.50 each, the Salt Yard signature of goats cheese stuffed tempura battered courgette flowers deliver exquisite mouthfeel, with a pleasing, lingering base note of florality from a drizzle of blossom honey. This one’s a classic for a reason.
Under Head Chef Panajot Prifti, the dishes range from the intricate to the beautifully simple, constantly evolving whilst staying close to their roots. The charcuterie is impressively curated, the pistachio salami a winner, the San Daniele prosciutto lifted higher when drizzled with walnut oil – an inspired touch.
Open daily from noon until 11pm and a short walk from both Goodge Street and Oxford Circus, Salt Yard has weathered two decades in the capital’s brutal restaurant scene. While newer Iberian behemoths like Barrafina, Sabor and José may have raised the tapas bar, this Fitzrovia stalwart still offers a reliable slice of Spanish-Italian sunshine, especially when you’re armed with a glass of cold sherry.
Website: saltyardgroup.co.uk
Address: 54 Goodge St, London W1T 4NA
ROKA, Charlotte Street
Ideal for sushi, sashimi and robatayaki, served in a high-end setting…
For contemporary Japanese cuisine that sits somewhere between the bling of Dubai’s sushi restaurants and the raucousness of Tokyo’s backstreet izakayas joints, ROKA is the place to head if hunger strikes when you’re on Oxford Street and you’re willing to part with a pretty penny.
Specialising in robatayaki (charcoal-grilled) dishes and featuring a central robata grill, ROKA Charlotte Street has been open since 2004, with three subsequent branches following in the two decades since.
Still, it’s to the mothership (incidentally the closest to Oxford Circus of the four outposts) that we head for premium Japanese and British ingredients grilled with precision, so the smoke and char complements rather than overpowers.
You wouldn’t, after all, want to fork out £100 on a portion of tokujou wagyu only for it to arrive decimated by the flame. Fear not; this one hits the table barked but blushing, glazed with a piquant wasabi ponzu and finished with whispers of finely sliced spring onion. The black cod, marinated in yuzu before getting kissed by the coals, is even better, with a properly caramelised crust given way to flakes of pearlescent flesh.
The chefs here don’t spend all their time wrestling with errant bricks of bincho-tan, however. There’s also an extensive menu of sushi and sashimi, and a tasting menu that combines the raw menu with the grilled. Yours for £105 per person.
Though ROKA doesn’t feature in London’s Michelin Guide, it does boast 3 AA Rosettes, considered to be roughly equivalent to a star.
Address: 37 Charlotte St., London W1T 1RR, United Kingdom
Website: rokarestaurant.com
Lima, Rathbone Place
Ideal for colourful, contemporary Peruvian plates…
After a major refurb, Lima Fitzrovia has returned as a refreshed and revitalised version of its former Michelin-starred self. In celebration of its 10th birthday in 2022, the pioneering Peruvian restaurant recently welcomed its second decade with a new menu of bold, contemporary takes on Peru’s culinary culture and Lima’s modern influences.
Now led by newly-appointed head chef Diego Recarte, the menu masterfully blends Peruvian ingredients and cooking traditions with elements of Japanese (Nikkei) and Chinese (Chifa) cuisine.
The results are truly delightful, exemplified in dishes like the tuna Nikkei tartare whose shisho tempura brings added texture, and the grilled secreto Iberico resting atop purple potatoes, its run-off of juices softening those sometimes stubborn tubers into something rich and giving.
There’s also a vibrancy to the main room that was perhaps lacking in Lima’s previous incarnation, with an uncluttered sense of space and harmony now defining the dining here. The multicoloured woven lampshades flown in from Lima (the city) and the expansive skylight just add to that sense of air and elevation. For a country so famed for its altitudes, this feels an apt touch.
Read: The best Peruvian restaurants in London
Address: 31 Rathbone Pl, London W1T 1JH, United Kingdom
Website: limalondon.com
Luso, Charlotte Street
Ideal for contemporary Portuguese cooking with a focus on the Iberian Atlantic coast…
The site at 30 Charlotte Street has been Portuguese for a while now. Previously Lisboeta, Nuno Mendes’s much-loved homage to Lisbon, it reopened in September 2025 as Luso under the same ownership (MJMK, who also have Kol, Casa do Frango and AngloThai) but with a different chef and a noticeably different mood.
Where Lisboeta could feel like a special occasion, Luso pitches itself somewhere more relaxed. The ground floor bar has gone, replaced by extra tables on a new limestone floor, and the cooking leans less on one chef’s personal vision and more on a broader sweep of Portuguese regional food. The name itself, from Lusitania, the Roman word for what became Portugal, signals that wider scope.
In the kitchen, head chef Kimberly Hernandez (ex-Luca, ex-Dosa) works with consultant Leo Carreira, whose CV takes in the Basque Country’s Mugaritz and London’s The Sea, The Sea. Between them, the menu covers a lot of coastline. Clams à Bulhão Pato, steamed with garlic, coriander and lemon, are a fixture. Salt-baked wild sea bass, brought to the table whole and cracked open in front of you, is the kind of dish that makes neighbouring tables pay attention, not only because of the theatre of the sound of that cracking, but because of the enveloping aroma of the steam that billows out.
There’s oven-roasted suckling pig with that vaunted Bairrada-style crackling, and at lunch, pregos (steak sliders with brown butter, Savora mustard and garlic) are available until they sell out.
The wine list is almost entirely Portuguese and goes deep on lesser-known regions. The oddest and most talked-about bottles come from Herdade do Cebolal in the Alentejo, where the wine is aged in lobster cages on the seabed. It sounds like a gimmick; by all accounts, the salinity comes through in the glass.
Upstairs, the first-floor dining room in its Georgian townhouse setting is the prettier of the two spaces, its walls hung with black-and-white ethnographic photographs of the Portuguese coast by Artur Pastor. Downstairs is busier, noisier, and arguably more fun.
Luso is closed on Sundays. Monday is dinner only, from 5:30pm. Tuesday to Saturday, they serve lunch from noon and dinner from 5:30pm.
Website: luso.restaurant
Address: 30 Charlotte St., London W1T 2NG
Read: Where to eat the best seafood in Lisbon
Berners Tavern, Berners Street
Ideal for upmarket Modern British fare, served in sophisticated surrounds…
Housed within the London EDITION Hotel, Berners Tavern isn’t – as the name suggests – really a pub at all, but rather, an opulent dining room that’s all high ceilings, twinkling chandeliers and booths designed for striking deals in.
Another Central London spot that falls under the watchful eye of restaurateur Jason Atherton and headed up by experienced chef Andrei Poptelecan, the all-day a la carte menu at Berners Tavern showcases contemporary British cuisine via some of the best ingredients you’ll find in Albion.
So, that’s Orkney scallop, served raw in crudo form and allowed to do all the talking, Cumbrian Herdwick lamb that’s braised for 8 hours until it collapses under a mere click of the fingers, and the restaurant’s pride and joy, its selection of steaks sourced from Scotland’s revered Buccleuch Estate and char-grilled in a specialist Mibrasa oven and served with skin-on fries.
The winelist at Berners is a hefty, 40-odd page tome or largely Italian and French wines, though you’ll find some intrigue in the lower reaches; the Macedonian 2018 Ktima Ligas is particularly special, and at £95 a bottle (as opposed to its bottle shop price of around £45), it’s also an eminently reasonable mark-up – 100% is relatively unheard of in Central London.
Read: Where to find the best steak in London
Address: 10 Berners St, London W1T 3NP, United Kingdom
Website: bernerstavern.com
And with that, we’re stuffed.
