It was strongly felt that the best fish and chips in London needed a dedicated round up of their own. But for our favourite places to demolish an oyster platter; order plate after plate of tiny, oily boquerones; share an old-school fish pie in obscenely luxurious surroundings, or go all-out and all-in on candlelit, banqueting-hall surf 'n' turf: we've got you.
Maresco, Soho
From the same people as Escocesa, further on in this list, and with the same kind of ethos — the best Scottish seafood, given the tapas treatment — this Soho spot is cosy, candlelit, and deservedly busy. Best seats in the house have to be at the kitchen counter, where you can watch a parade of small, perfectly-formed plates of boquerones pooled in golden, peppery oil; fideua studded with huge langoustines; and razor clams scattered with chilli — be prepped and shipped out to you. And an improbably good pan con tomate and almond torta, because man cannot live by seafood alone.
Hat-tip to the drinks list, with most of the wine available by the glass and carafe, a few carefully-chosen bottles of sherry for that true Galician-summer-evening feel, and the welcome comeback of frosty, deep green appletinis. Muy bien, pal.
Maresco, Soho
Brat, Shoreditch and Hackney
Maybe Brat's not technically, technically a seafood restaurant, with a good half of the menu usually dedicated to tartares and mutton chops and assorted offal. Impressive, though, to be able to make all of that meat — with its offal-laced, wood-fire-grilled swagger — feel like a sidebar, and that's what Brat's seafood does.
With their Climpson's Arch location now permanent, along with the OG Shoreditch site, there's now double the chance of getting a table and access to their spider crab toast, their slow-grilled [insert whatever fish their careful selection of British suppliers have caught that day], or their signature move, the turbot: cooked entire, and slowly, and enough for three-four of you.
Brat, Shoreditch and Hackney
Behind, Hackney
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Chef and owner Andy Beynon helms this 18-seat, tasting menu only restaurant in Hackney, the stuff of London legend for having scooped up a Michelin star within a month of opening. Seats are around a big crescent counter with a front row view of the chefs at work, so this is very much food-as-theatre, but the vibe's relaxed reverence, not hyperformal ceremony. Expect a 10-course (plus extra flourishes) hymn of praise to seafood from around the British Isles, with some big artistry being delivered with a light touch — think fish pie croquetas, little bitesize balls dusted with crunchy, silk-thin fishscales, scallops peppered with tiny flecks of wild strawberry, fish cured in seawater, delicate-looking shots of consommé that punch with so much intensity and depth they feel like a meal in their own right. Unsurprisingly that doesn't come cheap — six-course lunch menus are £64 a head, the dinner menu is £118. But Behind's packing a whole lot of effort, passion and intricacy into that price.
Behind, Hackney
Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill, Piccadilly
Upstairs Bentley's is a classic, old-school effort, with a members'-club-from-the-early-1900s vibe; downstairs it's a busy oyster bar with a (heated and sheltered) terrace. Both are as expensive as you'd expect from the marble-scattered grandeur, but if you stick to a counter seat at the bar you'll get the best of Bentley's — the people-watching, the live piano, the ye-olde-fanciness — for the price of a (still quite pricey) cold beer and a half-dozen Carlingford rocks.
Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill, Piccadilly
Hawksmoor Air Street, Piccadilly
It's the same Hawksmoor burnish and richness as usual at their Air Street branch, but with a seafood-slanted menu. Carefully-sourced shellfish are given the trad steakhouse treatment: lobster in garlic butter, scallops roasted with port, smoked salmon and soda bread. Like basically everything Hawksmoor does, it's all classic, reliable, and nonchalantly decadent.
Hawksmoor Air Street, Piccadilly
J Sheekey, Covent Garden
Built along similar, old-school-lavish lines to Bentley's (earlier in this list) J Sheekey manages to pull off the stateliness without being stuffy. It's loud, bustling, somehow manages to make sharing a fish pie perched at the counter feel like a very romantic act. If you drop by after theatres close, there's a hint of... incipient rowdiness? One that's never truly bloomed into a full-blown knees-up when we've been there, but just the vague sense that it could add a little frisson of pleasure.
J Sheekey, Covent Garden
Etta's Seafood Kitchen, Brixton
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One of the original Brixton Village veterans, Etta's set up shop in the covered arcade in 2009, when the council offered three months free rent to businesses with a plan to bring more people into the market. The menu: huge seafood platters, saltfish fritters, jerk prawns, grilled red snapper — a love letter to Caribbean cooking and very hot hot sauces. It's all, still, headed up by Etta Burrell: in the kitchen; on the restaurant floor, and ferrying rum punch and Red Stripe to people who've overestimated their hot sauce capacity (based on a true story).
If you're in Brixton Market craving seafood and can't get a table at Etta's, a shout-out to the Creole fish stews, prawn roti and saltfish fritters with ginger aioli at Fish, Wings & Tings, at the edge of the market building.
Etta's Seafood Kitchen, Brixton
London Shell Co. Swain's Lane, Hampstead Heath
We'd had some excellent evenings on the boat-restaurants from London Shell Co. over the years — floating in Paddington and cruising up and down the Regent's Canal till they announced their closure in 2024 — and we're sorry to wave them goodbye, but glad that London Shell Co. are still very much on the map, albeit in a more northwesterly section of it. Their Hampstead Heath fishmonger and wine shop also doubles as a restaurant — we've yet to visit, but the menu suggests it'll feel familiar if you ever floated your way through a dinner on the Prince Regent or the Grand Duchess, with seasonal British and modern European dishes like crab tartlets, clam risotto, and the occasional briny little martini. Plus a £2 oyster happy hour, Wednesday to Saturday.
London Shell Co. Swain's Lane, Hampstead Heath
Beast, Bond Street
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The ridiculously OTT — and extremely pricey — restaurant of choice for when you're craving surf 'n' turf in a Game of Thrones feast-style set-up. Beast is candlelit, looks like a medieval banquet, has a website with sections called things like 'You Are The Beast'. Cannot emphasise this enough: Beast is not for every day, or for everybody. But if you're looking for king crab by candlelight, there's nowhere in London committing as hard or flamboyantly to bringing you that.
Beast, Bond Street
Seabird, Southwark
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One of my favourite settings for an oyster happy hour in London: this stretch of Southwark doesn't boast a lot of towering buildings, which means the rooftop terrace at Seabird — on floor 14 of The Hoxton Southwark — gives you a rare view down over south London, trains lacing in and out of Waterloo, skyscrapers on the horizon.
The restaurant's floor to ceiling windows mean you get a great view even from inside, but on a sunny afternoon the terrace itself is a beaut — lot of palm fronds, fairy lights and rattan chairs to go with your £3 Carlingfords and £7 dirty martinis (Thursday-Friday, 3-6pm), their Lobster Sundays menu (five course lobster menu with an optional but obviously inevitable lobster bisque Caesar) or to do some more intensive splashing around their a la carte: smoked sardines, crab on toast, scallops in XO butter and lime, and a massive pan of lobster rice.
Seabird, Southwark
The Seafood Bar, Soho
'Seafood bar' is an accurate, yet also quite humble name for the sprawling Dean Street site, the first London opening for the Amsterdam-based restaurant group. The long, lavish menu reads like a collection of the greatest seafood hits from every European nation, from moules frites and Pernod-stewed shellfish to linguine vongole and fish and chips — though if you're there as a pre-theatre pitstop then it's the equally lavish raw bar offering we'd steer for, stacked with (excellent) oyster flights and intimidatingly massive seafood platters.
The Seafood Bar, Soho
Wright Bros., Battersea, Borough, and South Kensington
Their branches come and go — RIP Carnaby afterwork oyster pitstops — but Wright Bros. are still going strong in Battersea, Borough, and South Ken. Borough Market's the OG, opened in 2005 and, imo, still delivering the best busy, semi-industrial Victorian chophouse feel of the group.
Wright Bros., Battersea, Borough, and South Kensington
Escocesa, Stoke Newington
Different menu to its younger sibling Maresco in Soho, but otherwise a very similar feel and ethos from Stephen Lironi's second location (after Crouch End's Bar Esteban) — a small, buzzy spot inspired by a mash-up of Lironi's love of Scottish seafood, road trips to Catalunya, and (his words), a "high level dependency on sherry". Spanish and Basque takes on Scottish produce are dished up as tapas-esque small plates, plus a bonus trio of paellas and a fluffy, springy Basque cheesecake that's less of a supporting act, and more of a reason to visit in its own right.
Escocesa, Stoke Newington
Honourable mentions
Little Ochi, Herne Hill: Heard great things about this unassuming south London Caribbean restaurant, with fresh fish, lobster and prawns sided with bammy (cassava flatbread), plantain and hot sauce.
Sweetings, City: Everyone from Toulouse Lautrec to Anthony Bourdain have eaten oysters at Sweetings, a family-run fish bar that only opens weekday lunchtimes, and has hardly changed since opening in 1889. You'll find fancier fish dishes elsewhere, but for fried whitebait, cod steaks doused in parsley sauce, and sliced brown bread perched on the side, lunch at Sweetings is a time capsule of an experience to treasure. We wrote about it here.
