London's Best Diners

By Lydia Manch Last edited 65 months ago
London's Best Diners

Every now and then, you need to swap the salad for malted chocolate shakes and burgers dripping with cheese. Make like Elvis in these awesome Americana-style London diners.

Hoxton Grill - one of London's best American diners
The interior at Hoxton Grill.

Hoxton Grill, Hoxton

Just about a diner, this one, but so sleek and styled that it's borderline brasserie or high-end steakhouse. The people at Soho House have kitted out their Great Eastern Street restaurant with plenty of diner design nods — jugs of filter coffee and red leather booths. The food's just as on-theme, with bottles of French's mustard on the tables and mountains of steak on the brunch menu.

Hoxton Grill, 81 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3HU

Electric Diner, Portobello

Electric Diner, Portobello. One of London's best American diners
Glistening booths at Electric Diner.

Another offering from the Soho House group, this one with more of a trad-diner feel than the Hoxton Grill. It's got a long bar with counter seating, and red leather booths for when you take your best guy or gal out for a sundae.

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The breakfasts are excellent but in the standard W11 brunch style of avocado-on-toast, granola and yoghurt or scrambled eggs. For a more American experience visit in the evening and try the Philly chilli cheese dog or the cheeseburger. Follow with the NY cheesecake, or if you’re just getting started, an apple old fashioned.

Electric Diner, 191 Portobello Road, W11 2ED

Bad Egg, Moorgate

Sandwiches at Bad Egg Old Street, one of London's best American diners
Sandwiches go large at Bad Egg.

The food at this Ropemaker Street diner is more American-influenced than American classic — pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, chicken wings and peanut butter sundaes all feature, but so do kimchi hash, sriracha-spiced burgers and 'nduja fries.

Bad Egg, Moorgate. One of London's best American diners

A mash-up, basically — one that's so popular with local workers it can be hard to get a table on no-bookings weekday lunchtimes. You can book for a weekend brunch, though, when £23.50 will get you bottomless orange juice, tea or coffee, and three dishes from the brunch menu — try the pulled pork, beans and kimchi on toast, the breakfast tacos and the cheeseburger hash for a full tour of their take on the US diner.

Bad Egg, City Point, 1 Ropemaker Street, EC2Y 9AW

The Diner, various London locations

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There are branches of this American diner chain across north and central London, and probably more on the way as they're usually packed with punters after this cheese-covered, chilli-topped brand of Americana. The menu's enormous, spanning sweet and savoury, breakfast to dinner and Deep South ribs to Philadelphia hot dogs. How many types of fries can you reel off? The Dalston diner's got eight on the menu — plus five variations on pancakes and more burgers than we can be bothered to count.

A terrible place to be on a diet, or in any way concerned about the amount of grease in your food, although they do offer a vegan and vegetarian menu at their Dalston, Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Strand branches. Prepare to be awestruck by how many things they can deep-fry, and your own capacity to eat them all.

The Diner, various locations.

Big Moe's Diner, Aldgate

Big Moe's Diner Aldgate, London's best American diner
Big Moe's Diner.

A diner experience that leaves you in no doubt you’ve been in A Diner. You can take over a booth, play 50s rock and roll on the jukebox and order your burger to come with the meat triple-stacked: peak USA... in Aldgate.

Big Moe’s Diner, 96 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7PH (other branches in Newham and Wembley).

Fatboy's Diner and Fatboyz Diner

Fatboyz Diner - London's best American diners
Finger lickin' good at Fatboyz Diner

Confusingly, there is not one but two Fatboy-named diners in east London. The first, Fatboy's Diner, calls a souped up diner-trailer in Trinity Buoy Wharf home. It's a cosy affair, limited on the seating but big on the flavours, including very decent chilli cheeseburgers.

The second is Fatboyz Diner near East Ham, started by three friends following their waistline-straining travels around America. Londonist's Ruth Hargreaves recommends the loaded burgers, dogs and fries — in as enormous a quantity as you can handle and still have room for a Reese's peanut butter milkshake afterwards.

Fatboy's Diner, Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place, E14 0JY and Fatboyz Diner, 3 Barking Road, E6 1PW.

Backstreet Diner food trucks - one of London's best diners
Backstreet Diner (technically not a diner, but still delicious).

Honourable mention: Ok, Backstreet Diner is actually a street food truck, so no red leather booths and formica tables here. But Londonist's Ruth Hargreaves recommends it nonetheless, for this roaming truck serves up fast, high-quality, diner-style burgers from chef Benjamin Lindsey. He swapped the professional restaurant kitchen to his own corner of London and has never looked back since. You can usually find them trading near Old Street, but as street food trucks are notoriously hard to pin down, it's worth giving them a stalk on Twitter first.

Last Updated 27 October 2018