Cafés  and Snacks

This section covers cafés , coffee bars , ice-cream parlours and tearooms , all of which you'll find open during the day for light snacks or just a drink. Some of them also provide full evening meals, and, as they make no pretence to being full-on restaurants, you can use them for an inexpensive or quick bite before going out to a theatre, cinema or club. 

Restaurants
 
London is a great place in which to eat out . You can sample more or less any kind of cuisine here, and, wherever you come from, you should find something new and quite possibly unique. Home to some of the best Cantonese restaurants in the whole of Europe, London is also a noted centre for Indian and Bangladeshi food, and has numerous French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Thai restaurants; and within all these cuisines, you can choose anything from simple meals to gourmet spreads. Traditional and modern British food is available all over town, and we've reviewed some of the best venues.

Another bonus is that there are plenty of places to eat around the main tourist drags of the West End: Soho has long been renowned for its eclectic and fashionable restaurants - and new eateries appear here every month - while Chinatown , on the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue, offers value-for-money eating right in the centre of town.

Many of the restaurants we've listed will be busy on most nights of the week, particularly on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and you're best advised to reserve a table wherever you're headed. The majority of places take major credit cards, such as Visa, MasterCard and Amex; in the listings, we've simply noted those that don't.

As for prices , you can pay an awful lot for a meal in London, and if you're used to North American portions, you're not going to be particularly impressed by the volume in most places. In the listings, we've quoted the minimum you can get away with spending (assuming you don't tip and don't drink) and the amount you can expect to pay for a full blowout.

Service is discretionary at most restaurants, but many tend to take no chances, emblazoning their bills with reminders that "Service is NOT included", or even including a ten to fifteen percent service charge on the bill (which they have to announce on the menu, by law). Normally you should, of course, pay service - it's how most of the staff make up their wages - but make sure you check you're not paying twice.