To get the measure of Taste of Pakistan, check out the owner’s response to negative Google Reviews and find the confidence of an uncle who knows just how good he is. Unlike most Pakistani grills in London, which are Lahori, Taste of Pakistan’s owner hails from north west Pakistan, where the burlier Pashtun cuisine overlaps with Afghanistan rather than India. Chapli kebabs come pockmarked with coriander seeds, stacked like pancakes with naans as big as torsos to wipe them up, while charsi karahi has an acidic, pickled tang. The place is rightfully rammed every night, so for anyone who doesn’t live in Hounslow, booking is an absolute must.

One of the most tempting single pages of a London menu is at this Sri Lankan institution in Rayners Lane. The regular menu reels through the island’s greatest hits, and then when it feels like a decision is finally made: A page of specials, tucked at the back like a stolen afterthought. Fried nethali, plump anchovies popped and crunched whole; garlic fry worth shunning people for a week; chicken liver curry; squid stuffed with egg; muyal (rabbit); kudal (lamb intestines); and marai (venison) — all fried or curried. The venison fry comes dense and sticky, almost the texture of jerky and dark as molasses, riddled with crispy onions just before the point of burning. Some of the best subcontinental game cooking in London, at a third of Gymkhana’s prices.

The best of the Dishoom menu, as everyone knows, is contained in the small plates section where paus, bhels, fries and cheese toasts abound. Shree Krishna Vada Pav is what happens when the menu is only this and where zero concession is made to Western tastes — 70+ Maharastrian snacks inspired by Bombay and its Chowpatty Beach, made for the Gujarati communities of Harrow and Hounslow. The food here shares much affinity with the working class food of the north of England — any fried carbs available are stuffed in between soft barms; think samosas, vadas, bhajis, along with various puris and wraps sprinkled with sev and Desi-Chinese curries. Don’t miss the paneer bomb, a light tomato curry of paneer, stuffed into bread and then deep fried.

It’s possible to play dosa bingo at this self-service cafe located in the back of a Wembley mini mall, where the menu is arrayed on the wall in 100 sheets of A4 paper, each option a variant of dosa. Take a number and settle into the chaos. Try the traditional — Mysore masala, onion or chutney — the frugal — butter or ghee — the desi-Chinese — stuffed with chilli paneer, Schezwan masala — or the bizarre — chocolate, banana and ice cream. More importantly, make sure to chase it all with rich almond cashew milk, which is golden yellow and sweet as burfi.

On the outskirts of the Park Royal industrial estate at Acton Business Centre, a remarkable flowering of Iraqi and Lebanese restaurants has developed around what would now be called “dark kitchens,” giving a public interface to traditional catering businesses. Al Enam is the largest and most impressive of these restaurants. Lamb shawarma is exceptional here, chopped fine and stuffed in sub rolls with chips, it has the pleasing soft, yielding texture of a good Philly Cheesesteak. Fish cooking is beyond the capability of most grill houses, with butterflied seabass cooked over flames hotter than hell, turning the skin into a burnt shell to scoop perfectly cooked flesh from. Still, the best thing may just be the lentil soup, given gratis to every table, served with bread, lemon and pickles.  

Tucked around the corner from East Acton station on an anonymous stretch of the Westway is Yasmina, home to London’s best man’oushe. Upon tasting his breads it’s not a surprise to hear that chef Ramadan used to be known as Ramadan al Khabbaz, or Ramadan the baker. Crisp, aerated and so light that they’re in danger of floating away, the man’oushe are best topped with minced lamb (lahm bi ajeen); or simply za’atar and cheese drenched in olive oil, preferably dipped into real garlic sauce and wrapped around pickles. The rest of the menu is equally outstanding, from the fattoush to the kibbeh, which cracks satisfyingly to reveal sticky and sweet minced meat.

Aladin’s Kebabish in West Hendon is being slept on by everyone outside of about one thousand Pakistani families who know that it is one of the essential places in London to explore the “holy trinity” of Karachi cooking: haleem, nihaari, and Karachi qorma. The haleem contains the ghost of the strands and fibres it once was, rich and glutinous, while the nihaari is among the city’s best, the fat forming little islets bobbing in an ocean of red oil, above a shank that can be dismantled completely with the back of a spoon. The qorma is unlike any korma Londoners know, inspired by the Mughals but rich without being creamy, with heavy black pepper spicing, all cut through with subtle acidity.

At Sam’s Sandwich, the titular Sam, Samir Ladoul works wonders in the medium of Algerian sandwiches, as good as any NY deli or LA torta. Meat comes in the form of marinated chicken, lamb’s liver, kofte patties or merguez sausage, made fresh every lunchtime by a neighbouring butcher in Shepherds Bush Market. Choose two of these and they will be fried with egg and chips into one scoopable mass, with the prudent additions of olives, harissa, and mayonnaise. The result is generous and hefty, meaty and rich, but leavened by the bitterness of olives, the tang of harissa, and the lightness of the bread itself. An exceptional London sandwich.

If Yottam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi had used all their powers to hone a sandwich, it would look like the cannonball of a sabich at Balady, the vegetarian, Israeli Temple Fortune cafe where the Sabbo brothers force feed diners falafels that shine like emeralds. Just before lockdown the brothers opened a sister cafe two doors down called Alaesh, where jus-soaked arayes rival any London burger, and a portion of Moroccan fish stew comes with all the sticky burnt vegetables from the bottom of the pan. But the best thing is still the hand-cut chips, capable of sparking homesickness for anyone born between Greece and Syria.

Normah Abd Hamid’s tiny Queensway Market unit — tucked in an unlikely location between a sign advertising Russian films and an Uzbeki cafe — now rivals Roti King for the title of “London’s best Malaysian caff.” The roti canai here is on a par with Roti King’s, with the fluffy interior not compromised by the caramelisation she achieves on the crust, but diners come mainly for the assam pedas, a scarlet bloodbath of whole fish, tangy with tamarind as sour as wine gums, and lifted by a prickling chilli heat. All of Normah’s dishes work better when she or her nephew are convinced to cook them “pedas” — spicy — but if she doesn’t, service is so charming that it won’t matter.

Ask locals about Chu Chin Chow and they might tell you it’s an excellent buffet restaurant, a place to come on Saturday and load up on chow mein. Another type of local might say that actually, get the Malaysian chicken with caramelised wands of lemongrass, or the fruity capital ribs or the duck with an exoskeleton of crispy yam, or gigantic butter prawns with sugar spun floss, or salted yolk squid, or chilli crab with roe sweeter than treasure, from what is London’s best Canto-Malay restaurant hidden in Zone 5 Barnet. Others say there is a further secret menu containing poon choi, gigantic buns filled with curry and exemplary chicken rice with the pink flesh and yellow skin of a Battenberg. Huge, if true.

A standout among all the Hong Kong-inspired dai pai dongs that line the west side of Wardour St, Cafe TPT is a template for how all Cantonese restaurants of this type in London can and should be — competent at almost everything and exceptional at some. Creamy and rich beef brisket curry on rice and Singapore noodles, elastic and smoky from the wok, are great options, but it’s the pork chop Macau-style with onions, cheesy bechamel and spoonfuls of chilli oil that is unmissable — a chaise longue of a comfort dish that is best eaten in the early hours of the morning to soak up a Soho night.

From the outside Paneri seems to be a simple kebab shop, but step past the counter and it could be mistaken for a homely taverna somewhere on the Cypriot coast. Grilled meat and fish are revered here, with excellent taut sheftalia — pork and offal sausages wrapped in caul fat — being the highlight from the skewers, their skins blistering on the grill. Two spits rotate by the window, one of lamb souvla and one of chicken, so often the cheaper, less appealing option, but here they’re juicy and plump with lacquered skin and meat which falls off the bone.

This tiny Turnpike Lane cafe covers Mauritius’s diverse culinary ground, which is predominantly Indian but influenced heavily by French colonialism and Chinese indentured workers. Fried snacks such as meat samossas, gateau piment, and gateau arouille, that’s fragrant and sweet with taro root, are ideal for takeaway or as starters. Rice as riz frit (a fried Chinese preparation) or biriyani can be paired with prawn rougaille, with its Provençal origins, or the spicier octopus vindaille, a cousin of vindaloo derived from the Portuguese-Goan dish of vinha d’alho.

There are so few chefs in London who oversee every plate of food in their kitchen, but Faye Gomes is one of them; every dish, no matter how simple, is blessed by little touches of care which signal that she, and only she, has made it. Previously in the ill-fated Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre’s moat, she is now in the temporary Castle Square development where she serves Guyanese stews, exceptional vegetable rices, noodles and roti, and fried fish. Her most exceptional dish is her weekend pepper pot, vinyl black with two day cooked beef, oxtail, tripe and lamb, and the bittersweetness of cassareep.

Arguably the most accomplished all-round restaurant on Green Lanes. Hala means ‘aunt’ in Turkish — a name that used to be reflected in the homeliness of the decor, although the Green Lanes arms race has meant a shiny refurbishment. It’s still reflected in generosity of the food served, and by the sight of aunties making gözleme in the window every morning. Solo diners should try the paça çorbası, a platonic meat broth taken to its rich, buttery extreme, only achievable by careful stewing of gelatinous sheep’s foot, served with pickles to cut through. The best of the grills are adana, kaburga or ribs and pirzola or chops, mopped up with bread, but groups should make room for excellent versions of içli köfte and manti.

On the surface, it looks like another Colombian cafe, one of many in Elephant and Castle, but to those in the know, it’s one of London’s best fried chicken joints. Colombian and Venezuelan dishes disguise the real speciality of Maria-Luisa Riascos Solis, which is pica pollo — a Dominican obsession, KFC amped-up and given the full Latin American treatment. For £15, get five big shallow fried pieces of heavily spiced thigh, drumstick and wing, along with pork belly and lung jerky. Make sure to wait until these cool down, or be prepared to nurse a burnt upper mouth for a week. Get here early, it often closes around 8 p.m., and make sure to save room for at least one empanada.

To track down the best jerk in London, follow the smoke: in peak hours the inside of this Thornton Heath legend is blackened with the soot and char of barbecued meat as huge drums are open and shut in a rhythm that merely suggests the amount of technique that goes into making truly great jerk. It’s the belly pork that’s the revelation — crisp and soft with fat like chicharron and the sweetness of char siu, seasoned by those three blackened drums, with notes of char; of soot; of black oil and petroleum; of that smoke, which penetrates every strand of meat and rushes into the nose and throat at first bite. A jerk meal will contain vital extras: stodgy rice and peas with meat gravy on top to give respite, coleslaw to cool down, and sweet, searing hot sauce that showcases the fruit and tear-inducing power of the scotch bonnet.

The year can normally be divided into native oyster season and Towpath season, but last year put a bit of a spanner in the works. Opening up in the dying embers of lockdown summer gave Towpath Cafe a new remit, with dishes intended to provide shelter against the London autumn and the guts to put brisket and tzimmes on the menu: A stew tasting of nothing but meat, root vegetables and time, deep chocolate brown and pectin sweet; a London mole. It’s since returned to its more regular diet, but look out for the autumn specials as September approaches.

West Green Road’s The Bash may be the best Congolese restaurant in London by virtue of being the only one, but it’s still right up there with London’s essential West and East African joints. Most of the dishes that make it worth travelling to Tottenham are off menu and have to be requested, so just ask. Pondu, for example — cassava leaf, stewed greens chock full of chlorophyll and lifted by pieces of smoked fish. Ntaba/taba is Congolese barbecue, infused with smoke and paired with a scalp-sweating hot sauce. But it’s the fish here that shines the most: a whole malangwa (pangasius) full of meaty flesh without any dryness, with aromatic ginger enlivening an onion and tomato sauce.

On a stretch of Whitechapel Road that is no stranger to rice, Al Kahf outdoes even the Dhaka and Sylheti-style biryanis with its bariis iskukaris, served with Flintstone-sized portions of lamb shoulder. Located underground off an unpromising alley, Al Kahf follows the familiar Somali template of part canteen/part social club, but it does everything just that little bit better. The cooking of the shoulder only looks simple because so few places actually take care to do it well; here it falls off the bone in layers of sweet fat and crispy skin, served alongside spiced rice, sweetened with currants and enriched with the lamb’s own broth. It’s food so good it needs no accompaniment, except basbaas to cut through it all.

Perhaps it was inevitable that in a city which has traditionally disrespected corn, the breakthrough tortilla is made of wheat. When Pollo Feliz entered the London taco scene it seemed to come from nowhere, offering a style of taco that was marginal outside of north Mexico and across the border in Arizona. Still, these are exemplary tortillas without having to make allowances for it being London; soft, pliant, and crisp, with a layer of melted cheese that adds decadence to short rib barbacoa. Long rebranded as Sonora, it’s only gotten better.

In a city where the regionality of Vietnamese cuisine is usually flattened into a bland litany of pho and bun, Thuy Nguyen’s cafe on Old Kent Road is completely sui generis ─ a proudly Hanoi restaurant where the pho is limpid and crystalline and the broth so life-affirming anyone could drink it everyday. But it’s the Thursday and Friday specials that launch it into another league: crispy salt and pepper duck tongues, herbal, rare beef salads; or blood sausage, boiled or fried and formed from pale-marble boudins, dipped in the corrupt flavour of mam tom ─ a bureaucratic grey shrimp paste with the funk of a thousand prawn heads reduced to the density of a neutron star.

Even if Smokey Jerkey’s pale blue signage has faded over the years, the flavours of its jerk have not. Owner Louie MacPherson has been at this New Cross institution for 15 years, and the care that goes into every aspect of the meal is seen from the custom-made furnace that thrives on hickory wood smoke and the long marinade in cayenne chillis, to the house-made Bajan pepper and Trinidadian scorpion sauces, with the former burning slow and long on the tongue and the latter piercing right through it. Jerk here is restricted to chicken, pork and lamb: the first two are as good as any other version in London bar Tasty Jerk, but the lamb is untouchable.

For so many, hands down the best Thai restaurant in London, and for others one of the most outstanding restaurants in London full stop. Sirichai Kularbwong’s blackboard of joy is updated daily, spanning the rich diversity of southern Thai food, although lockdown has allowed Kularbwong to access new sourcing channels. His moo krob, sticky with chillis and caramelised chunks of pork fat, now sits alongside a jungle curry of Matt Chatfield’s cull yaw, as well as the usual array of mind-bendingly complex salads, sour curries and stir-fries displaying elite wok technique. Still, the soul of Singburi lies not the virtuosic, but in the humble soups Kularbwong puts on, which achieve a masterly control of balance and depth. He’s sticking with takeaway for the forseeable future.

The first stop for any West African musician playing down the road at Barking, or at least it would be if anyone was playing Barking right now. Kate Armah’s Plaistow restaurant is still iconic among the Ghanaian and wider African community — see its Instagram feed to find out if it’s John Boyega or Zendaya who has been enjoying the red red recently. Kate’s can be found by following sound — just listen for basslines and Sarkodie rapping quickly in Twi — or smell. Roasted akonfem — guinea fowls — or deep-fried tsofi, fatty turkey tails, are worthy companions for jollof rice. Those more at home with textural pleasure should go for the fried gizzards or the hausa koko, a sour, spicy millet porridge that is truly the breakfast of champions.

Kerala drunk food comes in three categories: stir-fried, deep-fried, and battered to an absolute crisp. Now that Preeti, the wife of the duo who owns Thattukada, is back in the kitchen, the restaurant can reclaim its crown as the queen of all three. Curries and roasts have a depth of flavour and spicing that belie their simple descriptions, and should be mopped up with crisp parottas or snow white appams. But it’s the legendary fries that are unmissable — half a chicken cut into segments then aggressively and skilfully fried with chilli and crispy onions, little netholi (anchovy) cooked and eaten whole, or battered mussels that pop thrillingly in the mouth.

As Smithfield and Billingsgate make the journey east, it’s worth noting that Barking already has a thriving market, mainly of West African, Romanian and Caribbean stalls. It’s also home to the only Zanzibari barbecue in the city, although it has two of them: Waka Waka and Zanzibar Hot Style, both of which have the same offering but do different things well. Go to Waka Waka for barbecued chicken singing with smoke and anointed with tamarind and hot sauce, with mandazi — a triangular pin cushion of fried, sweet dough ─ to soak up the juices. Then go on to Zanzibar Hot Style for East African style biryani, sticky with caramelised onions and beef mishkaki. Finish with halwa and a cup of ubuyu, candied baobab, from either.

One of the few Trini places in London that has permeated the general food-interested consciousness, Roti Joupa specialises in the Indian-influenced cuisine of Trinidad and Tobago. Pliant rotis are folded over each other as vehicles for curried meats and vegetables, but the ideal way to experience Roti Joupa is through an Avengers assemblage of snacks: hot doubles with chickpeas and hot sauce — ask for it — fluffy pholourie; buss-up pieces of roti, scragged edged and perfect for dunking in a curry; and, best of all, London’s best mac n cheese, tray bake style and floating in a paddling pool of tamarind.