London's Choice Tables

[世岩 최삼송]

 

Tom Pemberton, the busy chef and owner of Hereford Road, offers simple, good English food out of his diminutive public kitchen.
Photo: Jonathan Player for The New York Times





With its rain and coastline, Britain has some of the best meat and seafood. Here, Hereford Road"s Devon cockles and mussels steamed in cider.
Photo: Jonathan




Fresh produce and baked bread at Hereford Road.



The rotisserie at Le Caf?Anglais. Roast chicken with thyme and garlic in four sizes (whole, half, breast or leg) are offered as a main course.
Photo: Jonathan Player




The oeuf en gel? from Le Caf?Anglais"s seasonal menu.



The dining room at Le Caf?Anglais has a lofty, long dining room with an Art Deco feel.



The chef Tom Norrington-Davies, at right, goes over Great Queen Street"s menu with his staff. The restaurant has made a virtue, or perhaps a statement, out of simplicity.




The Hereford beef burger and parsley salad at Great Queen Street.




Elegant dark-red walls and a long wooden bar make Great Queen Street a vision of a 1920s English pub.
Photo: Jonathan Player for The





Jonathan Player for The New York Times
At Tendido Cero, rollitos crujientes de sobrasada, crisp rolls filled with sobrasada (a kind of chorizo from Mallorca) and soft cheese, drizzled with honey.




At Tendido Cero, pinchos moruno, lamb skewers with barbecue sauce and honey.




Pan tumaca - toasted bread with fresh tomato, garlic and olive oil and Iberian ham at Tendido Cero.





E & O is a Notting Hill outpost of some fame based on consistently delicious food. The restaurant name is an abbreviation for Eastern and Oriental, reflecting the Thai-, Chinese- and Japanese-style food served in small dishes.



E & O is a Notting Hill outpost of some fame based on consistently delicious food. The restaurant name is an abbreviation for Eastern and Oriental, reflecting the Thai-, Chinese- and Japanese-style food served in small dishes.



The soul of old London and staid British food are the hallmarks of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a warren of dark wood paneled bars and dining areas on Fleet Street.





A friendly neighborhood restaurant in Notting Hill, Alounak offers hearty Iranian fare and ?by London standards ?reasonable prices.





Spinach and cheese burek at the Popina stall, sold only on Saturdays at the Portobello Road Market




Popina tarts sold at farmers" markets can sustain frugal travelers.



Walk off those Cumberland sausages (or that beer) with a stroll along the Thames Path on the South Bank, where you뭠l pass Shakespeare뭩 Globe Theater and the National Theater complex, plus a series of inviting restaurants and pubs.



The Millennium Bridge joins the Thames Path, also known as the Queen"s Walk, with St. Paul"s Cathedral and the City of London in the background.




At Portraits, the top-floor restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery, enjoy the stunning chimney-sweep views of the London skyline.




Enjoy a quiet moment at the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square




The newly refurbished bar at the Dorchester on Park Lane. The martinis (including the house specialty, the Martinez, made with Old Tom gin, recreated from an early 18th-century recipe) are indeed excellent at this elegantly furnished watering hole, with its lacquered mahogany walls and Dale Chihuly-like glass installations.



Check in to the Cadogan Hotel, elegant, quiet and also a favorite spot of the actress Lillie Langtry. The hotel is in the heart of Knightsbridge, where there is plenty of shopping to leaven even the most serious intellectual pursuit.




The room at the Cadogan Hotel in which Oscar Wilde was arrested and charged with "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" in 1895 over his liaison with young Lord Alfred Douglas.



The interior of the Sherlock Holmes pub, where one can enjoy enthusiastic service and generous portions of traditional food.




The Sherlock Holmes pub may be slightly kitschy, but it has an authentically musty-without-being-dingy ambience.



For a peek inside a British writer"s home in London, go to the house of Samuel Johnson ?critic, essayist and aphorist ?a little gem of a place tucked in a quiet spot close to, but worlds away from, the bustle of Fleet Street.