:: Favorite London Bars + Restaurants ::

Did any of you catch the past two weeks of Real Housewives of Dallas?
They were in Copenhagen and several of the ladies expressed their inability to be able to order anything due to their….. how shall I say….. NORMAL palate?! The food served at uber fancy restaurants, especially uber fancy restaurants that are not in America, is not my cup of tea. Our hotel had a Michelin starred restaurant and I could not pick a single thing off that menu that I wanted (luckily, room service one night I was able to get soup + salad with yummy warm crusty bread and a pound of butter, but that was my ONLY option.)

So basically – I am barely recommending any restaurants since so many are not suited for my french fry loving no seafood ever self.
I am really only recommending two “we loved it you must’s!” which are The Wolseley and The Ivy Chelsea Garden, the others we enjoyed but base it on where you are staying or what you happen to be near at the time!

editors note: you can see everything we did all week in the Travel Highlights on my instagram, which I’ll share in a final London Recap!

The Wolseley
This came recommended by so many people, and I LOVED it. They are known for their brunch but are open for all 3 meals. It was right around the corner from our hotel and it is GORGEOUS on the inside.

We did brunch and it was truly so delicious. I have never had a grapefruit that tasted as heavenly as it did here, served in a chilled silver bowl no less. I would have loved to come back for dinner, too, but again….. the breakfast and brunch menu spoke to me more!

The Ivy Chelsea Garden
There are several Ivy restaurants throughout London, but this one is perfectly situated on King’s Street in Chelsea for a shopping day lunch or dinner. The outside alone will make you want to go, and the interior is just as gorgeous. It keeps going and going and going – all the way back to agorgeous garden and even in a little glassed in room if it’s too cold to eat on the actual patio. We both got the White Onion Soup to start which was AMAZING and I loved this truffle chicken sandwich (with fries :D) both times we ate here.

* We also went to The Ivy Tower Bridge for a nice lunch with a pretty view of Tower Bridge the day we went to Tower of London! Then you can walk right over the bridge to Tower of London. Can you tell I don’t mind being a repeat offender when it’s somewhere that has food I can munch on and a pretty room to stare at?!
BUT the Chelsea Garden one is really where you need to go.

PUBS.

Just sayin. Gaurenteed to have SOMETHING your appetite can handle.
I will say this…… the burgers are not the same. It’s edible…. but it’s not the same meat situation as we have going on here in the States. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was (and didn’t want to try) so after the first day I couldn’t really do any more burgers……
Italian
And two Italian places near our hotel in St. James that we enjoyed, but that I don’t know if they are a “destination” like The Wolseley or Ivy Chelsea Garden, but we liked!
Cafe Murano and San Carlo Regent Street.

San Carlo is the same owners as Cicchetti and was right up the street from The Sofitel, which also has a beautiful restaurant called The Balcon. I had a delicious Cacio e Pepe!
We also ate our fair share of asian food while we there.
Wagamama is a casual bustling huge menu place if you want to pop in somewhere for lunch – they have several locations. I ate lunch here solo on one of my shopping days (they even have fresh pressed juice so I was able to get my celery juice there, too!)

High Tea.
The Savoy

I did a more traditional afternoon tea at The Savoy, but there are a zillion places you could go! This website rates their favorite teas in all of London. Sketch is the pretty pink place with the crazy bathrooms, I just felt like since I was going solo (Kip was working) I might as well go to an old London Hotel and blow it out 🙂 shhhh don’t tell him that it ends up being about $95 before you even have a glass of champagne……
but ya know….
** edit: and oh, incase you weren’t aware, everything is expensive as hell in London, just FYI……

The American Bar

This is the bar at The Sofitel and it is so cute and the perfect spot for cocktails. They have heaters outside, too, (as tons of places did) so you are able to enjoy drinks outside even if it’s cold out.

Kerridge’s at The Corinthia Hotel

We loved this bar. It is just beautiful and the hotel is gorgeous too. They have a Cigar Patio with huge fireplaces if the men in your life are into that as well. Another place that makes really nice cocktails and a pretty room to sit and stare in.
*We went for Mexican before this at Lupita’s – it’s a quick walk to the bar and an easy, tasty Mexican meal!