The BYOB Leytonstone spot is undoubtedly London’s finest Thai restaurant. Full of energy and flavour and often a complete faff to get a booking (call, call, and call again), there are few restaurants in London as reliably vibrant as Singburi. At the end of your meal at Singburi, you will finally take a breath. It’s at this point you’ll realise that this meal—this brilliant, frenetic, sour, spicy, sweet, and superb blitz of a Thai extravaganza—will soon be over.

London’s most famous British restaurant and the place in which we have most actively fantasised about holding both our wedding and wake, St. John is a white-walled haven in Clerkenwell that’s been proudly serving up roasted bone marrow, gargantuan pies, and homemade doughnuts since the mid 90s. Use this institution as a daytime escape or a nighttime knees-up.

Spending £250 on a meal is not normal behaviour, but Endo at the Rotunda is not a normal restaurant. It all starts exactly where you never want to end up: Westfield White City. From there, things can only go up. From the futuristic room looking over London to the exquisite pieces of sushi handed to you by Endo—the owner, head chef, and headliner—as he performs behind his 10 or so-seater counter-cum-stage, this entire meal is unforgettably excellent.

One restaurant, one chef, one roti beef rendang that will inevitably become two when you just need to double check that a roti can be this gloriously soft and flaky. Yes, this low-key Malaysian spot inside Queensway Market is the kind of place where sharing seems like a good idea—the fried chicken, laksa with king prawns, assam pedas seabass, and that roti beef rendang are all essential orders—but you’ll quickly become as protective over the food in front of you as a poodle with a chicken bone.

London isn’t lacking in French restaurants but we’re extremely confident in saying that Bouchon Racine is the absolute crème de la crème. Everything at this seductive bistro in Farringdon feels like it’s made to be dunked or glugged. A chip into your bavette’s sauce Saint-Marcellin, a tear of baguette into celeriac remoulade, a glass of cognac after the final spoon of sumptuous crème caramel. Like all the true greats, it feels like you could stay in this lived-in room above a pub forever.

Ikoyi is one of those restaurants, complete with a £150+ tasting menu, that will make you wonder whether a higher power has been resurrected in the form of a bowl of crab custard. The St. James’s restaurant is West African in influence and haute in style. The combination of these things—in the form of dishes like ginger and kombu caramelised plantain and irresistible smoked jollof rice—makes Ikoyi a truly unique eating and drinking experience. Which isn’t something you can say often in London.

London has an excellent Indian restaurant scene. When you think you can’t possibly top that with anything different or special, Bibi enters. Every dish at this Mayfair spot is exciting and innovative. With things like a grilled lahori chicken in a cashew and yoghurt whey sauce that is so tender and creamy, you’d think it was the star of the show, only to have the raw orkney scallop in a lemonade dressing arrive at your table and make you feel things you didn’t think you could feel for a mollusk.

Tasty Jerk is the most elite Caribbean spot in London. The takeaway-only joint opposite Selhurst Park is a must. Its pork belly marries a ludicrously charred and crunching exterior with melt-in-your-mouth fat, while the chicken surrenders from the bone almost immediately. Hunch over the counter if you like or find your own space in the big Sainsbury’s behind. Either way, get extra homemade jerk sauce. It’s better than water.

There has never been any point beating around the bush with Dimsum and Duck: it’s the best all-round Cantonese we’ve eaten in London. The dumplings, from xiaolongbao to cheung fun, are superb. The ho fun is slippery and full of the aroma of wok hei. Yes, the walk-in only queues are consistent. And no, it isn’t fine dining service. But whether you squeeze into its box-sized dining room or get a spot under the canopy out front, the food very quickly takes permanent residence in your brain.

There’s no food in London that you should be more thrilled to eat on the pavement, at a bus stop, or leaning against the counter than Alhaji Suya. The West African takeaway spot in Peckham is run by masters of grilled meat, making delicious and fiercely addictive portions of lamb, chicken and beef suya. The tozo—a fattier cut of beef— is our favourite. Once you eat this suya, you’ll realise that some of the best restaurants around don’t need waiters, table service, or anything extra at all.