Today I'm sharing the most delicious and caffeinated of my end-of-year recaps, where I pick my favourite specialty coffee shops, eateries and bars from among those I visited for the first time in 2024 — in London and on my travels around the world. 

Bermondsey is, without doubt, one of London's best neighbourhoods for foodies. Yes, I'm biased: I've lived in the area since 2012 (it was one of the reasons I moved here). It's home to Maltby Street Market, which draws huge crowds every weekend, and Spa Terminus, where you can hop between the railway arches, tasting and shopping for everything from kimchi to comté. There's a reason why it earned the nickname 'London's larder'. But if you're looking for a restaurant, bar or coffee shop, look no further than Bermondsey Street. And if you're looking for a guide to the best places to eat on Bermondsey Street, read on! (Scroll to the end for a handy map.) 

As the end of 2023 hurtles towards me, I am frantically typing up the 13th edition of my annual specialty coffee and food awards, in which I share my favourite coffee shops, eateries, bars and individual dishes from among those I visited for the first time in 2023 — in London and on my travels around the world.

Since I moved back to London 15 years ago, I have spent a lot of time eating my way around the city's increasingly diverse and impressive restaurant scene. To help me keep track — and for when friends and family asked for recommendations — I started jotting down my favourites in a Moleskine City notebook, which eventually evolved into a Google Sheet and then a blog post in 2016. An update was long overdue and here it is: my 50 favourite restaurants in London. 

Sometimes a new specialty coffee shop opens that just has it all: warm hospitality, beautiful design, a relaxed atmosphere and, of course, excellent coffee. Nagare Coffee, which opened in Spitalfields at the end of January, lives up to all of these, and both of my visits so far have been a pleasure.

As 2022 draws to a close, it's time for the 12th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards, where I share my favourite coffee shops and eateries from among all of those that I visited for the first time this year. Over the past few years, I've tweaked the geographical boundaries of some awards to reflect my travel schedule, which has changed somewhat as a result of COVID.

There are a whole host of excellent speciality coffee shops in the City of London these days but somehow it's taken me a decade to visit Host Cafe, which opened up inside the Church of St Mary Aldermary in 2012. In my defence, it's closed at weekends and I'm blessed with very few free weekdays in London. And when there's been a church on the site for over 900 years, what's another few months?

I never could get the hang of Wandsworth. Like Southwark, it's a London borough and a district, which confused me. And in any case, that part of south-west London is poorly connected to my part of south-east London. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that it's taken me much longer than it should have to visit Story Coffee's Wandsworth location. But I'm very glad I did!

Since I put together my London brunch guide a few months ago, I've been drawn more than ever to speciality coffee spots that do a mean brunch. The perfect example of this is Brunswick East in Dalston, which serves creative, Australian-inspired brunch dishes alongside its coffee offering. I enjoyed my first visit, a few weeks ago, so much that I went back for more last weekend!

If you've been following me on Instagram, you may have seen that I've recently moved house — this is also why I've been posting less frequently over the past few months. My new home is pretty close to where I used to live, but during the search, I also ventured out into the SW postcodes more often than usual. Of course, house-hunting is much better when caffeinated and luckily, there were plenty of great speciality coffee shops to visit, including the following three, listed from north to south.

I've been living in London for 14 years and I've had a lot of brunches during that time. A guide to my favourite places to enjoy my favourite meal is, therefore, long overdue. I've been brunching at some of the venues on the list for more than a decade, while others are more recent discoveries. You'll probably notice that savoury dishes feature prominently in the photos below because it's fairly rare for me to order something sweet for brunch unless a) it sounds unmissably great or b) I am able to order a savoury main course followed by a smaller dessert. And if you're also into speciality coffee, fear not; most of these places will have you covered.

The original Gentlemen Baristas has been one of my favourite coffee shops in my neighbourhood — Bermondsey and Borough — for over seven years. While spending a lot more time closer to home over the past few years, I've been stopping by more often, usually to get a piccolo to go. If you like your coffee shops to combine cosiness with dapperness, this is the place to go.

Welcome to the 11th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards, where I am highlighting some of my favourites from the coffee shops and eateries that I visited for the first time this year. 

On my way back from the Borealis light installation at Guildhall Yard on Thursday evening, I happened upon an A-board for a speciality coffee shop and wine bar tucked away off Old Jewry, just around the corner from Bank Station. Intrigued by the name, Where's Fred's, I stopped by the following day. I didn't find Fred but I did find some very fine coffee and brunch in the handsome, townhouse setting on a certain Frederick's Place.

Of all the countries I've visited, Mexico is the one that tops my list of places I'd love to return to. When I spent two weeks there in 2015, the food was one of the highlights of the trip, from the street food in Mexico City (and elsewhere) to tasting menus and cooking classes in Oaxaca. It's no surprise, then, that I was muy emocionada to hear about the opening of Santiago Lastra's KOL restaurant in Marylebone almost a year ago. Lockdown and not managing to book far enough in advance meant that I was only able to visit with my parents a couple of weeks ago, but it was well worth the wait.

UPDATE (April 2022). Unfortunately, this location of Kapihan has now closed permanently. But they are planning to reopen soon in Vauxhall.

Two of the recurring themes in my London coffee shop write-ups during this year-and-a-half of COVID have been: the power of coffee shops to connect people amid the loneliness of lockdown, and the ability of coffee shops to transport you and allow you to experience a taste of other places and cultures even when travelling is impossible or, at least, much harder than it once was. Both of these rang true at Kapihan, a Filipino coffee shop and bakery close to Battersea Park, which I visited again at the weekend.

The past two years have been among the most challenging for hospitality businesses, including specialty coffee shops, in London, and around the world. Keeping a specialty coffee shop in business in London is difficult even in normal times, let alone during a global pandemic, which has felt like a game of snakes and ladders with constant changes of rules, snap lockdowns and general uncertainty. Unfortunately, some coffee shops have had to close permanently (please come back, Black Swan Yard!), but it's been encouraging to see how many new — and often exciting — cafes have opened in London in the past couple of years.