Low-key spots for outdoor dining in London

I’ve heard it all before, London doesn’t have summers (except for the freak summer of 2022); it’s so hard to dress for this weather, and I can’t wait to bake in the sun in Rhodes. So it’s not a steady 30 degrees in London, it’s also not a constant 3 degrees and I’ll take any amount of sunlight as an excuse to sit outside.

Whilst London can’t compete in temperature with the likes of Barca or Lisbon, I’d also argue that negativity bias plays a huge part in your remembering every rainfall and forgetting every golden evening in a beer garden and bright morning brunching on a terrace.

Londoners follow the sun across the city like a napping cat moving across the length of a windowsill to follow a patch of sunlight. Just give us a drink and al fresco dining on a sunny day and we're grateful it’s only 22 degrees and not 2. Having said all that, here’s a look at some low-key spots for outdoor dining, some lesser known, some much beloved, but all are perfect for a sunny day.

Outdoor dining in a garden

Rochelle Canteen

An indisputable and much-loved classic for outdoor dining in London. Tucked away in a walled garden next to the old bike sheds of an even older school, Rochelle Canteen is the kind of place that doesn’t feel like London. It feels more like a farm-to-table restaurant somewhere in Sussex or Kent.

Relaxed, with a rustic presentation from the decor to the plates of food, the menu of seasonal British classics made extremely well with the best ingredients is as lovely as the garden. Be sure to make a reservation and remember, if you can’t find the entrance it wasn’t meant to be. I'm joking. Kind of.

Go for: The garden setting and the daily changing menu.

Shoreditch

Tiella at The Compton Arms

There are a few choice ingredients that go into creating the spell that is Tiella. First, the quiet, leafy green Canonbury backstreet, then the equally leafy green garden at The Compton Arms, undoubtedly one of my favourite North London boozers. Next comes Chef Dara Klein’s small but mighty menu of Pugliese dishes – a love letter to the rustic Italian traditions of her childhood.

Klein’s Tiella residency is only the latest success at The Compton Arms which previously housed Four Legs & Belly, and Klein’s success at the picturesque pub and garden comes after notable gigs at Rubedo, Brawn, Trullo, and Sager + Wilde. The final ingredient in the spell is – undoubtedly – dining on hand-rolled pasta in the pub’s garden on a sunny day and washing it down with a glass of wine.

Go for: Tagliatelle & Sunday sugo, the prettiest and brightest Panzanella and the most relaxing Sunday afternoon session.

Canonbury

Brunswick House

Brunswick House is like an island unto itself in the London outdoor dining scene, it occupies a Grade II listed Georgian mansion on a roundabout in Vauxhall. Gushing over the 300-year-old architecture and antiques by LASSCO is for another day, let’s get to the garden.

Operated by Jackson Boxer of Orasay and Frank Boxer of Frank’s Café, you can bet Brunswick House understands the finer art of outdoor dining in London. The aptly named Wisteria Terrace is open (book ahead!) for lunch Wednesday through Sunday and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. There are enough potted plants, statues and wildflowers in vases to make you forget you’re in Vauxhall.

Go for: The regularly changing seasonal menu, spectacular private dining experience, and gorgeous house and garden.

Vauxhall

Stanley’s Chelsea

Stanley’s is exactly what you would expect from a Chelsea establishment. It’s refined yet relaxed and centred entirely around the English garden. This is elevated outdoor dining – covered but with enough sunlight, a stylish throw for your lap if you’re cold, and probably more than one influencer snapping a photo in the garden – it can't be avoided, they're everywhere.

Enjoy contemporary British dishes with ingredients sourced from the finest suppliers, a carefully curated wine list and classic cocktails, all beautifully presented for a Chelsea experience through and through.

Go for: The English country garden inspiration and private dining experience.

Chelsea

Like this? Discover our favourite private dining rooms with a view in London and our top private dining rooms.

Outdoor dining for people-watching

Campania & Jones

Another tucked-away eatery, this time on a little street near Columbia Road, Campania & Jones dishes up fresh, hand-made pasta and Southern Italian comfort food of the Campania region.

Book a table outside on the street but the indoor seats have a way of making you feel outside with broad windows on barn doors that open onto the street or a table under a skylight. No matter where you sit in Campania, it feels like a beautiful rustic farm somewhere in Avellino.

Go for: Genuinely feeling like you’re somewhere in Southern Italy, the pasta made by hand daily, and lamb ragu (when on the menu).

Shoreditch

Llewelyn’s

Situated on the small brick and stone square outside Herne Hill Station, Llewelyn’s could be aptly described as a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. There are a few covered outdoor tables and a few uncovered. Seated outside you will be in the good company of a couple of trees and many a potted plant and flower.

Outstanding seasonal ingredients are brought together to create regularly changing contemporary British and European menus, presented with perfect minimalism. Expect the likes of sea bass with pickled kohlrabi and gazpacho, and turbot with charred spring onion, mojo verde and friggitelli peppers.

Go for: People-watching around Herne Hill Station and the house oxymel & tonic.

Herne Hill

Orasay

Sat out front of Orasay with scallops or Cooley oysters makes you feel like you’re somewhere near the ocean rather than in West London. The outdoor dining at Orasay may not be a picturesque garden but still offers views of quaint Kensington Park Road and people-watching, and more importantly, Orasay’s seafood menu is superb.

There’s a je ne sais quoi to al fresco dining but there’s something about fresh seafood that demands to be eaten en plein air and – apparently – drives me to wax lyrical in terribly misused half-French.

Go for: Cooley oysters, wood-grilled fish and elderflower Champagne.

Notting Hill

Italo

Picture an old time-y Italian corner coffee shop and delicatessen on a quiet tree-lined street in Vauxhall – that’s Italo, right down to its bright blue paint, red and white vinyl-covered chairs and massive lamp hanging above the door.

Open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays), I love this place for meeting a mate for coffee, a pastry and any one of the items on Italo’s daily changing lunch menus.

The outdoor tables are surrounded by climbing plants, trees, pretty yellow brick Edwardian flats, directly across from the gorgeously green Bonnington Square. I'd like to say this is one of Vauxhall’s best-kept secrets for outdoor dining but if it’s on the Internet the cat is sadly out of the bag.

Go for: Fresh bread, stock up on Italian goods and talk to strangers sitting outside next to you.

Vauxhall

Café Cecilia

There are only a few coveted canalside tables outside Café Cecilia, but if you can book one do it. I enjoy the people-watching of the walkers and joggers along Regent’s Canal and the way the café gets all the afternoon and evening sun.

Minimal and stylish, there are quite a few standouts on the Café Cecilia menu that have rightfully made it popular beyond just its cool aesthetic – for me, it's the deep-fried bread & butter pudding, and I've not had a bad thing at Café Cecilia yet.

Go for: People-watching, deep-fried bread & butter pudding and Guinness bread.

London Fields

Outdoor dining on terraces & in courtyards

The Laundry

Right next to Brixton Village, there's a former Edwardian laundry reborn as an all-day bistro and neighbourhood café and wine shop, The Laundry is the place in the South West for Saturday brunch and a Sunday Roast out on the sun-drenched terrace.

The outdoor terrace in the front of the building, surrounded by little planter boxes of plants, was destined to be a brunch spot and woo al fresco diners long after the brunch hours passed. I’ve come across a few “neighbourhood spots” in London with prices to make your eyes pop, I like The Laundry because it successfully does what it set out to do – feel like a neighbourhood spot without breaking the bank.

Go for: A Breakfast Cocktail, a neighbourhood spot kinda feeling and people-watching. There's also a darn good pork schnitzel with fennel & apple slaw.

Brixton

Tsiakkos & Charcoal

A reason worth visiting West London if you don’t already reside there, Tsiakkos & Charcoal is a modest little sky-blue painted Greek restaurant and café with an open kitchen. As the name would imply, the neighbourhood spot is well-known and well-loved for its chargrilled dishes cooked over live charcoals.

The terrace in the back is a square space surrounded by yellow brick walls, some whitewashed, with a tarpaulin ceiling. I like Tsiakkos & Charcoal the most in the evenings, the inside is charming and the back area under the tarpaulin is lit with festoon lights.

Go for: The slow-cooked lamb on the bone that has a secret marinade and the slow-roasted burnt pork shoulder.

Maida Hill

Dusty Knuckle

Around the corner from Dalston Junction, the Dusty Knuckle defies the quaint, hole-in-the-wall bakeries offering ample outdoor seating. Calling all carb-lovers; the bakery, café and baking school is well-loved for its fresh bread but it also offers top-notch sandwiches, breakfast sarnies and a Dalston pizza night. When I say well-loved I mean it, they even have a cookbook.

It’s casual, and spacious and does what it does perfectly. I can’t imagine a morning or afternoon trip to Dalston without stopping by what I think of as the Dusty Knuckle courtyard with its plethora of tables and benches, potted plants and festoon lighting.

Go for: The Coronation Chicken sarnie and the pancetta & provolone pizza.

Dalston

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