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The Best Hidden Restaurants In London

Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. – Buddha

What can stay hidden, however – which Buddha clearly knew all too well – are these secret restaurants in London, which you really have to be looking for to find…

Kebab Queen | Covent Garden

Creating the ultimate diversion by using a critically acclaimed restaurant as its front, Kebab Queen is an intimate chef’s table hidden as a separate restaurant inside Maison Bab. Set behind what looks like an old kebab store front, you’ll need to push back the curtain to discover the kitchen and wraparound dining counter.

While the restaurant itself may not be much of a secret, the food itself is – because once you’ve been greeted at the door, you’ll be ushered into an entirely pitch black room and served a mystery menu in the dark.

La Bodega Negra | Soho

An illicit, tequila-infused, incense-smoking subterranean Mexican restaurant. Which, naturally, can be accessed through an unforgivingly authentic-looking Soho sex shop

Opium Cocktail and Dim Sum Parlour | Chinatown

Enter through an unassuming, numberless jade door hidden in the bustle of Chinatown to find a maze of different, stunningly decorated rooms spread out over three surreptitious floors of cocktails, dim sums and opium. Minus the opium.

Brat | Shoreditch

Despite best efforts to remain low-key, being, as it is, discreetly tucked away on the first floor of a relatively non-descript warehouse, Brat managed to win head chef Tomos Parry a Michelin star within six months of opening.

Kitchen Table | Fitzrovia

An intimate, completely secret chef’s table seating only 20, where chefs prepare a daily-changing, double Michelin-starred menu before your eyes… and hidden from everyone else’s, behind a curtain in a hot dog restaurant

Garden Room | Leicester Square

Slip into this faceless building opposite Leicester Square tube, and you’ll find yourself… what bears an uncanny resemblance to a backpacker’s hostel. But head into the tiny lifts on the far side, head up to the top floor, and you’ll discover this cosy, candlelit spot with killer views, delicious Modern European dishes, and Bourne & Hollingsworth cocktails.

Rochelle Canteen | Shoreditch

Rochelle Canteen requires you first to locate a plain-looking door in a garden wall, secondly to ring the buzzer for entry, and finally to locate what bears the most resemblance to a critically acclaimed restaurant operating out of a former school bike shed on the other side.

Little Blue Door | Fulham

Hidden behind an entirely nondescript door on the Fulham Road – we’ll leave you to sleuth out which one – is the ultimate house party, with delicious food, drinks for a fiver, and Sunday roasts accompanied by the papers, snacks and board games.

Hill & Szrok | Bethnal Green

A mysterious dining spot that looks almost exactly like a butcher’s… because it is one. Only in the evenings, the large marble table at its centre gets wiped down, dolled up, and the place becomes a secret restaurant serving excellent seasonal grub.

Mãos | Shoreditch

Essentially a private dinner party, where you can pick your own wine from the cellar, flit between the kitchen and dining room, and leave without asking for a bill. Except here, the food is all prepared by critically acclaimed chef, Nuno Mendes.