Where to go in Kensington and Chelsea

51 places in Kensington and Chelsea, each one on the Guide on merit.

Chelsea

• Birley Chocolate

  Chocolatier

  A Japonisme jewel box pairing single fruits and nuts to thin chocolate: matcha-lemon, toasted sesame, Maldon salt.

• Chelsea Physic Garden

  Botanic garden

  London's oldest botanic garden, four walled acres behind an unmarked door by the river, founded 1673. A café among the herb beds. Closed Saturdays.

• Ice Cream Union

  Ice cream parlour

  Lab-quality artisan ice cream: in-house nut pastes and caramelised everything, on Pavilion Road.

• Makers

  Middle Eastern

  Guilt-free chocolate that does not taste like a compromise, in a room built to be photographed.

• Medlar

  European

  A Chelsea neighbourhood institution: classic, ingredient-led cooking with not a performative trend in sight. The room is calm and professional.

• New Forms

  Listening bar

  A vinyl-led listening bar, coffee and co-working by day, cocktails and good sound by night.

• The Sea, The Sea

  European

  A fishmonger with a raw bar attached, on Pavilion Road. Oysters, caviar-leaning small plates, and real chef credibility behind it.

• The Trafalgar

  Pub

  The first new pub on the King's Road in a century, set in a former NatWest banking hall under a five-metre coffered ceiling. Harvey's on cask upstairs, comedy in the basement on Thursdays.

• Willett's

  European

  A British bistro inside The Cadogan championing seasonal produce, from an ex-Ramsay kitchen. A convivial room that feels like an English garden.

Chelsea Green

• Birley Bakery

  European

  Vincent Zanardi (ex-Robuchon) lamination: honeycomb croissants and heritage pastries from an open kitchen.

Earl's Court

• Med Salleh Viet

  Asian

  A tucked-away basement Vietnamese with an 18-hour broth and the warmth of someone's front room. Linda and Carmen run the place like hosts, not staff.

Hillgate

• Kuro Bagels

  Bakery

  Charcoal-black bagels and matcha from a tiny Notting Hill counter worth the weekend queue.

Holland Park

• Leighton House and Sambourne House

  Museum

  A Victorian artist's gilded fantasy home with a tiled Arab Hall most Londoners have never set foot in.

• The Cosmic House

  Historical Landmark

  A Grade I listed postmodernist townhouse in Holland Park, built between 1978 and 1983 by Charles Jencks, Maggie Keswick and Terry Farrell. From the street it looks like any Victorian terrace, but inside is a built manifesto for postmodernism with house-shaped bookcases, a 52-step spiral staircase and a garden jacuzzi with an inverted dome floor. Tickets are released at 12pm on the third Friday of each month for visits the following month, April to December.

Kensington

• Amaro Bar

  Cocktail bar

  Seventh in the operator-voted UK Top 50 and still nobody photographs it. A quiet West London room where the bartenders are the reason to sit at the bar.

• Japan House London

  Museum & gallery

  Free Japanese design exhibitions on Kensington High Street, a tea-and-confectionery counter on the ground floor and a robatayaki above. Quiet, and more rewarding the more Japan already interests you.

• Kitchen W8

  European

  A Michelin-starred Kensington neighbourhood room that wears the star lightly. Calm and unstuffy, the kind of place you can hear each other across the table.

• Kyoto Garden

  Garden

  A koi pond, a waterfall and Japanese maples folded into a corner of Holland Park. Lovely, though it's firmly on the tourist and content-creator trail now, so by mid-afternoon it's a scrum. Get there early and it's a different place.

• Maggie Jones's

  European

  A candlelit Kensington time capsule: pine tables, dried flowers, farmhouse clutter to the rafters. Reopened late 2025 with the romance fully intact.

Ladbroke Grove

• Frankie's W10

  Wine bar

  A tiny Portobello living room that happens to pour very good wine. Curation over volume, conversation over crowds.

• Pollini at Ladbroke Hall

  European

  An Edwardian car showroom turned grand Italian, where the room and the pasta share top billing. Go for the setting, stay for the tortellini.

Notting Hill

• Akub

  Middle Eastern

  Fadi Kattan's elegant Palestinian cooking in Notting Hill, grown-up rather than glossy. London has very little Palestinian fine dining.

• Books for Cooks

  Bookshop café

  A tiny Notting Hill cookbook shop that cooks lunch from its own shelves each day. A few seats, one sitting, recipes tested in the back.

• Caia

  Wine bar / records

  Food, wine and vinyl from Notting Hill locals, open till 1am at weekends.

• Caractère

  European

  Emily Roux and Diego Ferrari's stylish room in a former Notting Hill pub: a menu graded subtle-to-robust, sophisticated cooking, no scene-y noise.

• Dove

  European

  Jackson Boxer's successor to Orasay, opened January 2025. Comfort food done with real precision, on seasonal British produce. The dry-aged beef burger, ten a night, has become its own small obsession.

• Electric Cinema

  Cinema

  Leather armchairs, two-seater sofas and front-row beds with cashmere blankets, on Portobello Road. A film the way you'd want it. Book the sofas ahead; they go.

• Empire Empire

  Asian

  Punjabi food, art and music under one disco-lit Notting Hill roof, from the Gunpowder team.

• Fan

  Asian

  Neo-Nikkei from three friends, Japanese technique meeting Peruvian soul in Notting Hill.

• Juno Omakase

  Asian

  Six seats behind a curtain inside a Mexican restaurant, which is exactly the kind of hidden thing worth the pre-pay.

• Kinz

  Middle Eastern

  A fresh take on Lebanese cooking in a triple-height former bank on the edge of Notting Hill.

• Kuro Bakery

  Bakery

  Sleek, Japanese-leaning bakery: immaculate sourdough and precise viennoiserie.

• Lisboa Patisserie

  European

  The Golborne Road institution for a pastel de nata, crisp and warm from the oven, with a strong bica at the counter. Little Portugal in one shopfront, unchanged for decades.

• Mazi

  European

  The restaurant that rewrote what Greek food in London could be, still doing it on a Notting Hill side street.

• Melt

  Chocolate shop

  A jewel-box Notting Hill chocolatier making everything in-house daily, with a proper hot-chocolate bar and hands-on masterclasses in the open kitchen if you want to make your own.

• Naked & Famous

  Agave cocktail bar

  A small agave bar under Zēphyr on Portobello Road, open late.

• Ria's

  European

  Detroit-style pizza and natural wine, low-key and built for sharing, also in Soho.

• Sino

  European

  Modern Ukrainian, precise and full of heart, in a serene little room.

• Sinuhe

  Middle Eastern

  Small, warm and properly Persian. Grilled meats and dips done with care, not flash.

• Sova

  Vinyl wine bar

  A wine and vinyl bar off Portobello: low-intervention bottles from Eastern Europe, Rough Trade records and clay-toned calm. Sit at the counter.

• Suzi Tros

  European

  Northern Greek cooking with a basement cocktail bar, run by the Mazi team. Warmer and looser than its big sister.

• The Fat Badger

  European

  The Pelican team's clubby Notting Hill pub, above Canteen. The kitchen is no afterthought.

• The Ginstitute at The Distillery

  Gin-making studio

  Distil and blend your own bottle of gin on a copper pot still in an intimate room above a Portobello pub, cocktails throughout. Three hours, and you leave with a full 70cl bottle of your own.

• The Latimer

  Gastropub

  A gastropub from the Spiteri family, with Jon Spiteri (St John, Sessions Arts Club) and Melanie Arnold (Rochelle Canteen) joining forces with their children Fin, Lorcan and Molly. The pub-first space has stools and steel-topped tables up front, white tablecloths further back, and big windows that flood the high-ceilinged room with light. Masala monkfish with tartare sauce features on the bar menu.

• The Pelican

  European

  The corner pub that reset the template for the London gastropub, and now the flagship of the fast-growing Public House Group. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, packed to the rafters, and a door policy some find brisk. Still very good, just no longer a quiet local secret.

• Trogolo

  European

  Serious Tuscan wine pedigree and a courtyard, even if early reviews were split.

• Viajante87

  Subterranean agave bar

  A love letter to agave hidden under a cinema, serious about the bottle and ambitious with the glass.

South Kensington

• Ciné Lumière

  Cinema

  The cinema inside the Institut Français in South Kensington, grand and tasteful, screening French and world cinema you will not catch elsewhere. There is a smart brasserie in the building too. A properly cultured night out.

• Daquise

  European

  London's oldest Polish dining room, opened 1947 and unbothered since. Borscht poured at the table, dumplings that pre-date the neighbourhood's reinvention.

• Myrtos

  European

  Modern Greek from an ex-Pied a Terre chef who can really cook.

• Petrossian

  European

  A 16-seat caviar café opposite the Michelin building: tasting flights on mother-of-pearl, and a jacket potato under a slick of Oscietra.