Queensway Market feels like it shouldn’t exist so central, an anachronism of a Zone 4 shopping centre pre-massive gentrification and the arrival of places recommending 5-6 small plates per person. But between the phone shops, an Uzbek restaurant and a sign saying ‘Russian Films’ is Normah’s, a cafe owned by Normah Abd Hamid that rivals Roti King as London’s best Malaysian caff. The roti canai here is arguably better, with the fluffy interior not compromised by the caramelisation she achieves on the crust, but people are mainly here for the assam pedas, a scarlet bloodbath of whole fish, as sour as tangy wine gums with tamarind, and lifted by a prickling chilli heat. All of Normah’s dishes work better if able to convince her or her nephew to cook them ‘pedas’ — spicy — but if she doesn’t, service is so charming that it won’t matter.

Bugis Street Brasserie may be the furthest lengths someone has gone to get a decent bowl of chicken rice outside Singapore. Although well reviewed by Jay Rayner, he did miss a trick that Bugis Street specialises in the most austere of all deeply pleasurable foods: Hainanese chicken rice. Here, all is correct, a comfortingly salty bowl of broth; rice glistening with lip-smacking fat; and a well poached chicken, cream on cream, with colour only interrupting in the form of ginger, chilli and soy condiments. From the rest of the menu the laksa, Nyonya style, is also a winner; a balanced broth that never becomes too intense, with bouncy fishcakes and prawns heated in the broth just to the point of cooked.

There is old school and then there is Paul Rothe. This sandwich shop-cum-deli on a Marylebone side street has been preserved in amber, run by Paul — named for his grandfather who founded it —  and his son Stephen. Do not expect unusual ingredients or gigantic portions, but do expect quick, fresh to order and endlessly customised sandwiches, with hot soups and spreads produced daily on site, all set to the rhythm of greetings, small talk and ‘white, brown or granary?’. Fillings like liptauer and liver sausage nod to the Rothes German heritage, but it’s still one of the few places that manages to nail the much maligned colonial hangover that is Coronation Chicken. In a city of infinite Prets, there is something comforting and honest about Paul Rothe.

This family-run Japanese restaurant specialising in chuka moved from Kingly Street to Camden’s Plender St years ago, way before ramen was even a thing in London, and has still been quietly making one of London’s best soup noodles for under £8. Although it recently bowed to peer pressure and added a fatty tonkotsu to the litany of ramen soups, it’s their simple, crystal clear shoyu or miso stocks that shine. The negi ramen with a lightly oiled bushel of spring onion on top is particularly excellent, reminding Japanese customers of broths back home before ramen obsession spread wide and fell prey to otaku nerdery. Stick to ramen for the mains, but it’s hard to miss the plump gyoza crisped to a char on one side and dipped in homemade chilli oil, which possibly overshadow the noodles.

The first Murger Han up in Euston predates the introduction of Xi’an Impression into London’s regional Chinese pantheon, but didn’t make much of an impact at the time in a city only just adjusting to the idea of Sichuanese cuisine. The second, incongruously in Mayfair, has noticeably upped its game in wake of the new restaurant landscape and now goes toe to toe on Shaanxi classics. Ignore the “murgers” — overly dry rou jia mo — here it’s all about the noodles. Parchments of biang biang and tensile hand-pulled la tiao zi come with toppings of tomato, egg sauce and various meats and chilli oils that add compelling textures and flavours in each pull. The rice noodles are also not to be missed, cold and elastic, steamed and served with vegetables and the balm of sesame sauce.

Kalpana Sugendran Sugendran’s Roti King is both one of London’s indisputable food success stories and a cautionary tale of how property has affected small food businesses  — from a small stall at Colindale’s ill-fated Oriental City, through short lived stints at East Ham’s market and Charing Cross Road’s now completely redeveloped Malaysia Kopitiam, to two successful restaurants: one in a Euston basement and the other at Victoria’s Market Halls. The roti canai, oily, flaky breads, charred and hilly, that soak in luxurious dal, meat, or fish curries is still the dish to order. The other Malaysian dishes have massively improved from opening, primarily due to one of the wok masters who splits his time between Roti King and Gopal’s Corner nailing the smokiness on the mee goreng. Order it, and add some of the kangkung belacan for health.

That the caff, the most British institution there is, has been sustained in London by Italians is not news: Regency and Pellici are the two most famous examples. What has gone relatively unheralded is the type of British-Italian cooking that sits alongside the fry-ups. British Italian cooking culture is taking a mound of perfectly cooked, saucy spaghetti puttanesca that any Italian would be happy with and then adding three liberal dustings of parmesan, a whole chicken escalope and a cup of tea into the mix, a blissful lunch that can be experienced at Dorino Tabrizi’s Alpino’s in Chapel Market, which has been doing the same thing for 80 years without fanfare. The escalope crops up again in bountiful baps and club sandwiches but don’t miss the austere option: grilled kippers, butterflied with dollops of butter, toast, and two poached eggs.

Friday is a blessed day in Elephant and Castle shopping centre because it’s the day Faye Gomes— the Guyanese aunty everyone wishes they could have — usually releases her pepper pot, a two day cooked stew of unbelievable bittersweet complexity, vinyl black with caramelised beef, oxtail, tripe and lamb and flavoured with orange rind and cassareep. But if it’s not Friday, or if she runs out, there are always great stews: oxtail or meatballs, as well as vegetable dishes of pumpkin and okra that are natural bedfellows to rice, noodles and roti. Another Friday special — the Portuguese-influenced garlic pork pickled in vinegar for a week then fried up — requires a week’s notice and Faye’s number, but it’s worth the wait. Keep an eye out for this stall once the centre is demolished later this year: with a bigger space Gomes is only going to get better.

Hoa Phuong on the upper end of Walworth Road is one that adheres to all the cliches about mythic diaspora restaurants. Unassuming exterior? Check. One old aunty cooking? Check. Small blackboard menu and odd opening hours? Double check. But owner Phuong’s bun bo hue here puts almost everyone else’s to shame, a deep fiery broth with a marine funk from fermented shrimp paste, herbal, citrus, spicy, umami all in harmony, with well cooked beef meat and Hue sausage. The pork on rice or in summer rolls is done well here, with aggressive caramelisation and crusted with thinly chopped lemongrass, and the beef with pickled vegetable is an exceptional stir fry, but after one bowl of bun bo hue, the only temptation is to order another.

Somehow central, yet in the middle of nowhere, Fish Central is one of a select few London chippies in a tier just below actually going to the coast or moving North. Located on an estate just off Central St, like most of the best fish and chip shops in the city — Toff’s in Muswell Hill or the Golden Hind in Marylebone for instance — it is run by Greek-Cypriots preserving British traditions. In Fish Central’s case it’s owned by George Digby, who can still be found frying the fish or expertly tossing the chips in salt. Cod and haddock are usually fried fresh to order and steam gently inside their exoskeleton of batter, meaning they actually taste like fish. A restaurant is attached but best go for the takeaway option, and greedily eat the steaming chips out on the Barbican concrete;

Where is London’s best pho? Not in Hoxton where many of the restaurants have been living off their reputation for years; not in Deptford where the most exciting concentrated Vietnamese food scene in the city was razed by gentrification and immigration raids. No, the best pho in London may actually be on a street between Elephant and Castle and Borough that contains little else of note, at Rao Deli run by Trang Nguyen and Nhan Van Mac. There are pho that emphasise clarity and herbal aromatics: not this. This is a big beefy brute of a pho, simmered for 20 hours, full of liquid marrow with a slightly charred note that tastes like licking a cow in the best possible way. It is served without herbs, which may annoy purists, but actually it doesn’t need them. From the rice bowls, the pork belly is thick cut and generous, finished under the grill to order for about fifteen minutes to puff up the crackling — it beats most of the Cantonese siu yuk joints in Chinatown and Queensway.