A London riverside dining guide worth its salt covers more than the obvious South Bank terraces. From the Regent’s Canal at Haggerston to the tidal stretch at Barnes, the capital’s waterways thread through neighbourhoods that could not be more different from one another, yet each one rewards the diner who seeks out a table close enough to the water to hear the occasional ripple.
The South Bank and Tower Bridge: Grand Views, Serious Food
Few dining rooms in London carry the same weight of occasion as River Café in Hammersmith. Set back from the Thames Path, it has long been considered an icon of the capital’s dining scene, warm and buzzy, devoted to unfussy Italian food built around artisan seasonal ingredients. The prices are, admittedly, excruciating, but the portions are generous, and a summer lunch on the terrace with a plate of pasta remains one of the city’s more reliable pleasures.
Across town on the South Bank, Skylon occupies the first floor of the Royal Festival Hall, its floor-to-ceiling windows framing a sweep of river that looks spectacular whether the light is grey or golden. The menu runs to trout in champagne sauce, crab and prawn linguine, and a spring set menu. Le Pont de la Tour, near Tower Bridge, delivers a similar grandeur from the other bank: sweeping views of the bridge itself, a sought-after terrace, and a brasserie-style Bar and Grill alongside a more formal restaurant majoring in modern dishes with a French flavour.
The Swan at Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside takes a different kind of drama. Bag a window seat on a clear evening and the illuminated face of St Paul’s across the water does much of the work for the kitchen. At Emilia’s Crafted Pasta, overlooking St Katharine Docks near Tower Bridge, handcrafted pasta is taken very seriously indeed, the menu short and unpretentiously good, prices reasonable enough to make it an easy return visit.
The Oxo Tower Acquisition: What the Fallow Team’s Takeover Means for an Iconic Venue
The most talked-about development along the river right now is happening at the OXO Tower on the South Bank. The Staff Canteen reports that the team behind Fallow and Roe have acquired Oxo Tower Restaurant from Harvey Nichols. According to Restaurant Online, the owners behind the acquisition are James Robson, Jack Croft and Will Murray. The restaurant itself first opened in 1996, and its eighth-floor position remains one of the most dramatic vantage points in London, day or night.
The background to the deal has its own complexity. Restaurant Online reports that Frasers Group bought Harvey Nichols through a pre-pack administration for a reported £40m, and it is from that chain of events that Oxo Tower Restaurant has now passed to the Fallow team. The restaurant will stay open and running as normal in the meantime, with Fallow planning to empower the current team rather than sweep in with an immediate overhaul. An official handover is expected in 2027. The eighth-floor views of the Thames are not going anywhere.
The East End Waterways: Hackney Wick and Beyond
Follow the water east and the mood shifts entirely. On the banks of the River Lee at Hackney Wick, Hon’s BBQ occupies a spacious white building (formerly home to Silo) that is chicly industrial in the way only Hackney Wick manages without apparent effort. The cooking fuses Texan low-and-slow barbecue technique with Chinese-inspired flavours: Taiwanese pork belly, buttery beef ribs buried under crispy golden garlic and Szechuan peppercorn sauce, ox cheek cooked for eight hours and finished with five spice and pickled onions.
A few minutes’ walk along the towpath, Number 90 pitches itself as a bar and kitchen but functions more like an outdoor living room, rough-cut communal tables and deckchairs arranged within a toe’s dip of the Lee. Craft beers, cocktail coolers and a programme of leftfield cultural events fill the afternoon, with chef in residence James Cochran currently serving his celebrated fried chicken. Crate Brewery, also on the Lea, keeps things even simpler: reclaimed riverside benches, the brewery’s own craft beer, lager or cider, and wood-fired pizza, the formula requiring no further elaboration when the sun is shining.
Canal-Side and Beyond: From Regent’s Canal to the Grand Union
Towpath, on the Regent’s Canal near Whitmore Bridge in Haggerston, operates at the unhurried end of the spectrum. This low-key café draws dog-walkers, cyclists and runners in equal measure, all pausing for coffee, rustic hot lunches and light-as-air cakes with a view of the slow-moving water. Breakfast here on a clear morning is one of those London pleasures that asks very little of your budget and rewards rather generously in return.
Out west at Paddington, Darcie Green and May Green are moored on the Grand Union Canal and were designed by Sir Peter Blake. The owners bring an Australian sensibility: flat whites and banana bread for breakfast, bottomless Aussie brunch, a menu of Antipodean-inspired dishes, and a combined 50-metre upper deck that earns its reputation as a summer destination. Further still at Barnes, the London outpost of Rick Stein’s operation sits right by the Thames, window tables looking out over the river while the menu roams to Cornish lobster, Indonesian seafood curry and other dishes drawn from the TV chef’s travels.
With the Fallow team’s 2027 takeover of Oxo Tower now confirmed, that South Bank landmark is the one riverside address worth watching most closely over the coming months.