ISLINGTON LOCAL GUIDE
The Best Restaurants in Clerkenwell
A local’s guide to where to eat in Clerkenwell, Farringdon and Exmouth Market, from the UK’s number one restaurant to the best cheap lunch on the street.
By the Islington Local Guide food desk
Last updated: June 2026
If you want to understand how London eats right now, you could do a lot worse than spend a weekend in Clerkenwell. This pocket of EC1, wedged between the old meat market at Smithfield and the pedestrian run of Exmouth Market, has quietly become one of the most serious food neighbourhoods in the city. Not the loudest, not the most photographed, but the one where chefs themselves tend to eat on their nights off.
There is a reason for that, and most of it comes down to history and proximity. Smithfield has been a working meat market for the best part of nine centuries, and that trade shaped the area’s appetite long before the rest of London caught on. The early-house pubs that once served porters at dawn set the tone, and the restaurants that followed inherited a respect for proper produce and unfussy cooking. When Fergus Henderson opened St John in a former smokehouse around the corner in 1994 and built a menu around nose-to-tail eating, he did not just launch a restaurant. He set the template for a generation of modern British cooking, and he did it here.
Layered on top of that is the design crowd. Clerkenwell is London’s design district, home to more architecture practices and studios per square mile than anywhere else in the country, and host every May to Clerkenwell Design Week. That creative population wants somewhere good to eat at lunch and somewhere better at dinner, and the area has answered. The result is a high concentration of independent restaurants, very few chains, and a standard of cooking that punches well above the postcode.
The Michelin recognition has followed. Luca and St John both hold a star, Morchella picked up a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide, and the Good Food Guide regulars run deep here. And in June 2026 the area landed the biggest prize of all: Bouchon Racine, the French bistro above a pub on Cowcross Street, was named the best restaurant in the entire United Kingdom. More on that below, because it is the single best reason to come.
What I love about eating in Clerkenwell is how short the walk is between extremes. You can have a two pound espresso and a pastry on Exmouth Market in the morning, a plate of confit potatoes that people travel across London for at lunch, a Lebanese mixed grill for under fifteen pounds in the afternoon, and a Michelin dinner by night, all within about ten minutes on foot. This guide walks you through the best of it: the headline restaurants, the fine dining, the Exmouth Market strip, the vegan and plant-based options, the genuine budget picks, and the romantic spots locals keep for themselves. Everything here is somewhere I would actually send a friend.
The Best Restaurants in Clerkenwell
Start here. These four are the reason Clerkenwell restaurants get talked about in the same breath as Soho and Shoreditch, and between them they cover most of what the area does best: French, British, Italian and the kind of cooking that defines a city.
Bouchon Racine
Upstairs, 66 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6BP | Nearest: Farringdon | +44 20 7253 3368
Let me get the news out of the way: in June 2026, Bouchon Racine was crowned the best restaurant in the UK at the National Restaurant Awards, and was also named National Restaurant of the Year. It had been climbing the list for a while, sitting at number five the year before, and this year it knocked The Ritz off the top spot. For a restaurant that lives above a pub, with no white tablecloths and no theatre, that is a remarkable thing, and it tells you something about where British taste has landed.
Bouchon Racine is the work of chef Henry Harris, who ran the much-missed Racine in Knightsbridge for years, and his business partner Dave Strauss. They took over the dining room above The Three Compasses on Cowcross Street, a two minute walk from Farringdon station, and started cooking the food of the Lyonnais bouchons and classic Paris bistros with absolute conviction. This is not reinvention. It is veal chop with Roquefort butter, andouillette, boudin blanc with wild mushrooms, snails, offal handled by someone who clearly loves it, and sauces that taste like a lifetime of practice.
The room is warm and a little old-fashioned in the best way, the service is generous and knows what it is doing, and the whole thing feels like the antidote to restaurants that try too hard. The catch, and it is a real one, is getting in. Bookings here are among the most sought-after in London and have only become harder since the award. Plan ahead, be flexible on timing, and do not turn up hoping for a walk-in on a Friday. If you eat at one place from this guide, make it this one.
St John
26 St John Street, EC1M 4AY | Nearest: Farringdon or Barbican | One Michelin star
If Bouchon Racine is the present, St John is the foundation everything else was built on. Fergus Henderson opened it in 1994 in a former smokehouse near Smithfield, put the phrase nose-to-tail eating into the language, and changed how this country thinks about British food. More than thirty years on it holds a Michelin star, it sits comfortably on the list of the world’s best restaurants, and it remains one of the most important addresses in London full stop.
The cooking is deceptively plain and quietly radical. Roast bone marrow with parsley salad is the dish everyone knows, and it deserves the reputation, but the point of St John is the whole philosophy: use the entire animal, waste nothing, let good ingredients speak, and do not gild them. Pig’s head, ox heart, devilled kidneys, then Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese or a warm madeleine to finish. The whitewashed dining room is stripped back to the point of austerity, which only makes the food feel more honest.
It is a restaurant that rewards trust. Order something you would normally avoid, drink the excellent house wine, and you will understand why chefs treat this place as a kind of church. The nearby St John Bread and Wine, a more casual offshoot, carries a Bib Gourmand and is a brilliant lower-commitment way in if the main room feels like a big night.
Luca
88 St John Street, EC1M 4EH | Nearest: Farringdon or Barbican | One Michelin star
Luca is the special-occasion restaurant of the neighbourhood, and one of the best Michelin restaurants in Clerkenwell for anyone who wants polish without stiffness. It comes from the team behind The Clove Club in Shoreditch, Daniel Willis, Johnny Smith and Isaac McHale, and the house style has its own nickname: Britalian. That means Italian technique and an Italian heart applied to the best British produce, so Orkney scallops, Hereford beef and Scottish seafood arrive through an Italian lens.
The room is genuinely lovely, a smart space with archways, soft light and a design language borrowed from mid-century Italian graphics, and there is a courtyard for warmer evenings. Pasta is made daily and is usually the highlight, the wine list is deep, and the kitchen treads the line between tradition and modernity with real control. Michelin lists it as a date-night restaurant, which is exactly right.
It is not cheap, and you should go in expecting to spend properly in the evening. The clever move, and the one locals use, is the Express Lunch served at the bar: the same kitchen, the same quality, at a fraction of the commitment. That makes Luca one of the best lunch options in Clerkenwell as well as one of the best dinners.
Quality Chop House
88-94 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3EA | Nearest: Farringdon | Michelin listed
Quality Chop House has been feeding this stretch of Farringdon Road since 1869, and it still trades under the wonderful old signage describing itself as a progressive working class caterer. Walk in and you are sitting in the original Grade II listed interior, all high-backed wooden booths that were apparently designed to be just uncomfortable enough to keep diners moving. They are part of the charm, and you will not want to move.
The cooking is modern British and changes daily, built around superb produce and a butchery operation that supplies the restaurant and the shop next door. The dish people make the pilgrimage for is the confit potatoes: thin layers of potato pressed, confited and crisped into something that should not be as good as it is. Order them. Then order whatever meat is chalked up that day, because they handle it better than almost anyone.
It is Michelin listed rather than starred, and that suits it. This is a restaurant with nothing to prove and no interest in fuss, which is precisely why locals love it. It is one of the best lunches in the area and an easy, unpretentious dinner, with a wine list that punches above its weight thanks to the shop next door.
The Best Fine Dining in Clerkenwell
When the occasion calls for something more, fine dining in Clerkenwell does not mean stuffy. The best rooms here pair serious cooking with atmosphere you actually want to sit in. Luca, covered above, belongs in this group too. Here are three more.
Morchella
Exmouth Market, EC1R | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | Michelin Bib Gourmand 2026 | +44 20 7916 0492
Morchella is the newest name on this list to win Michelin attention, picking up a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide for exactly the thing the Bib is meant to reward: serious cooking at a price that does not punish you. It sits in a converted former bank on Exmouth Market, with a small wine bar to one side pouring largely natural and biodynamic bottles the list cheerfully files under Classic, Coastal or Funky.
The food leans Mediterranean and is built for sharing. If the spaghetti alle vongole is on, order it and resist sharing it. Service is bright and unfussy, and the great-value lunch menu makes this one of the smartest ways to eat well in the area without a special occasion to justify it. For a relaxed dinner with good wine and no theatre, it is hard to beat right now.
Le Café du Marché
22 Charterhouse Square, Barbican, EC1M 6DX | Nearest: Barbican or Farringdon | +44 20 7608 1609
Tucked down a cobbled mews off Charterhouse Square, in a converted warehouse you could walk past for years without noticing, Le Café du Marché is the most romantic restaurant in Clerkenwell and one of the most reliably French restaurants in London. It has been doing the same thing for decades, and thank goodness, because nobody does it better: a set-price menu of classic French cooking, candlelight, bare brick, and on many evenings a piano or a little live jazz drifting across the room.
There is no music playing through speakers, no rush, and no concession to fashion, and that is the entire point. You come here to slow down. The food is exactly what you hope for, terrines and snails and steak and tarte, executed with confidence rather than cleverness. For an anniversary, a proposal or simply a long dinner that feels like it belongs to another era, this is the one.
Sessions Arts Club
Old Sessions House, 24 Clerkenwell Green, EC1R | Nearest: Farringdon | Over-18s only
Sessions Arts Club is the most beautiful dining room in the neighbourhood, and arguably one of the most beautiful in London. It occupies the old judges’ dining room on the fourth floor of Old Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green, a Grade II star listed eighteenth-century courthouse that even gets a mention in Dickens. Finding the door takes a moment, then a small lift delivers you into a soaring space of distressed plaster, enormous arched windows, salvaged furniture and candlelight. It looks like a faded palazzo and feels like a secret.
It opened in 2021 and quickly became one of those rooms people fall for on sight. The food is modern European, served as seasonal small plates designed to share, with a wine list to match and a kitchen that has evolved since launch, with cooking now led by Abigail Hill. It is recognised by the Good Food Guide and tends to draw a creative, design-world crowd, fitting for this corner of EC1.
A few things to know before you go. It is over-18s only because of the building’s listed status, the small plates really are small so order generously, and tables have become genuinely hard to land since the word got out. Go for the room as much as the food, and go in the early evening when the light through those windows is at its best.
The Best Restaurants on Exmouth Market
If Clerkenwell has a high street for eating, it is Exmouth Market: a short, part-pedestrian run of independents, a church, a street-food stretch at lunch and a row of restaurants that has been pulling Londoners east for nearly thirty years. These are the Exmouth Market restaurants worth crossing town for.
Moro
34-36 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | +44 20 7833 8336
Moro is the restaurant that made Exmouth Market a destination. Sam and Sam Clark opened it in 1997 after a long drive through Spain and North Africa, and the Moorish cooking they brought back, Spanish and Middle Eastern flavours met over wood fire and charcoal, has barely needed to change since. That consistency is the achievement. Few London restaurants this old still feel this alive.
Expect charcoal-grilled meat and fish, wood-roasted vegetables, sherry by the glass and a kitchen that has trained a generation of cooks. The cookbooks that followed turned the Clarks into household names, but the restaurant remains the real thing. Sit at the long bar if you are on your own, book a table if you are not, and if Moro itself is full, the sister tapas bar Morito right next door is one of the best casual meals on the street.
Ima
16 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | Predominantly vegan
Pronounced ee-ma, this is the most exciting plant-based cooking on the street and one of the best vegan-friendly restaurants in Clerkenwell. The menu is Japanese, predominantly vegan with a few vegetarian touches, and the headline act is the sushi: creative, properly made rolls built from butternut squash, aubergine, beetroot and mushroom rather than the usual cucumber-and-avocado compromise. The vegan salmon even earned a name-check in the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy.
Beyond the sushi, look for the sesame butternut squash on toast, which reads like a vegetarian take on prawn toast and converts sceptics on the spot, plus karaage, kimchi gyoza and a much-praised vegan cheesecake. Plating is genuinely lovely, there is a small outdoor stretch to watch the market go by, and the cocktail list has a playful streak. Seating is limited, so book ahead or message them, and it is an easy pre-theatre choice before Sadler’s Wells around the corner.
Mien Tay
6 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4PX | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | +44 20 3621 2882
Mien Tay is the kind of dependable, good-value Vietnamese restaurant every neighbourhood wishes it had, and a long-standing local favourite on Exmouth Market. The cooking comes from the Mekong Delta region, the menu is broad and generous, and the prices stay friendly even as the street around it has grown smarter. The chargrilled lemongrass dishes and the goat specialities are what regulars order, and the whole thing works just as well for a quick solo lunch as for a big table.
It is unflashy and consistent, which is exactly why it survives among glossier neighbours. If you want a satisfying, well-priced dinner with no fuss, this is one of the safest bets on the market.
51 Cave a Manger
51 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QL | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel
Part wine bar, part restaurant, 51 Cave a Manger is the neighbourhood spot for an evening that starts with one glass and quietly becomes three. The format is simple: an interesting, often low-intervention wine list and a short menu of small plates and French-leaning dishes built to go with it. It is intimate, candlelit and run with care, the sort of place where the staff actually want to talk you through a bottle.
It works beautifully as a date, as a low-key catch-up, or as the second stop on a night that began somewhere more substantial. For a relaxed glass and a plate of something good on Exmouth Market, it is one of the most charming rooms on the street.
Pizza Pilgrims, Exmouth Market
15 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QD | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | +44 20 8069 6969
Not every meal needs to be an event, and Pizza Pilgrims is the answer when it does not. The Neapolitan-style pizzas are properly made, the sourdough bases are good, and it lands among the best-value meals on the market without ever feeling like a compromise. It is reliable, quick, family-friendly and genuinely tasty, which is all you want from a casual dinner.
Bring kids, bring a crowd, or grab a quick lunch between meetings. As an easy, affordable option on a street full of grander names, it earns its place.
The Best Vegan Restaurants in Clerkenwell
Vegan restaurants in Clerkenwell have moved well past the worthy-and-beige era. The best plant-based cooking around here is creative enough that non-vegans choose it on its own merits, which is the real test.
Ima
16 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | Predominantly vegan
Covered in full in the Exmouth Market section above, but it belongs at the top of any vegan list too. Ima’s predominantly vegan Japanese menu, and that inventive sushi in particular, makes it the strongest plant-based destination in the immediate area. If you take one vegan or vegetarian friend out in Clerkenwell, take them here.
The Tempeh Man
Leather Lane, EC1N 7TR | Nearest: Chancery Lane or Farringdon | Weekday lunch
Leather Lane Market at lunchtime is one of the best cheap-eats runs in central London, and The Tempeh Man is one of its stars. As the name suggests, the focus is tempeh, the fermented soybean cake, turned into hearty, properly seasoned plant-based street food that has built a serious weekday following among the area’s office and studio workers.
It is fast, filling, affordable and entirely plant-based, the sort of lunch that converts people who thought vegan food meant going hungry. Go at lunch on a weekday, expect a queue at the peak, and treat it as proof that the best vegan food in Clerkenwell is not always sitting down.
Jam Delish
1 Tolpuddle Street, N1 0XT | Nearest: Angel | +44 7957 439777 | Caribbean, plant-based
Just over the Clerkenwell line towards Angel, Jam Delish is worth the short walk for plant-based Caribbean comfort food with real flavour. This is vegan cooking with a sense of joy: bold, spiced, satisfying dishes drawn from Ital and Caribbean traditions, the kind of food that happens to be vegan rather than food that announces it.
It is warm, friendly and a genuine alternative to the small-plates and sushi end of the plant-based scene. If you want vegan food that fills you up and makes you happy, this is the one to add to the list.
The Best Budget Restaurants in Clerkenwell
For all its Michelin stars, Clerkenwell is full of genuinely good cheap eats, especially around St John Street, Farringdon Road and Leather Lane. These are the budget restaurants in Clerkenwell I send people to when they want to eat well for not very much.
Lebanon Grill
120 St John Street, EC1V 4JS | Nearest: Farringdon | +44 20 3624 5805
Lebanon Grill does exactly what it says, and does it well: charcoal-grilled Lebanese food, generous mezze and warm flatbread at prices that feel almost out of step with the postcode. A mixed grill with hummus, salad and bread will fill you up for far less than dinner usually costs around here, and the quality is better than the price suggests.
It is a great lunch, a reliable casual dinner, and an easy choice if you are feeding a group on a budget. Friendly, fast and consistently good value.
Pizza Pilgrims, Exmouth Market
15 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QD | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | +44 20 8069 6969
Covered above in the Exmouth Market section, and a natural fit here too. Proper Neapolitan pizza at a fair price makes it one of the most dependable cheap dinners in the area, especially with kids or a crowd in tow.
GReat Greek Food, Grill House
167-169 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3AL | Nearest: Farringdon | +44 7402 656633
A no-nonsense Greek grill on Farringdon Road, this is souvlaki, gyros, grilled meats and big plates of well-priced comfort food. It is the kind of place you go when you want a proper feed rather than a performance, and it delivers reliably and cheaply.
Good for a quick lunch, a casual dinner or a takeaway on the way home, it rounds out the budget options on this side of Clerkenwell nicely.
The Rasoi
130 St John Street, EC1V 4JS | Nearest: Farringdon | +44 7407 387615
The Rasoi is the local Indian on St John Street, and a useful one to know: flavourful, generous and easy on the wallet, whether you are eating in or ordering to the desk. The curries are satisfying, the portions are fair, and the prices keep it firmly in budget territory.
For a comforting, affordable Indian meal in the heart of Clerkenwell, it does the job without fuss.
The Best Date Night and Romantic Restaurants in Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is quietly one of the most romantic restaurant neighbourhoods in London, full of low light, old buildings and rooms built for lingering. If you are planning a date, these are the romantic restaurants in Clerkenwell I would point you to first. Each is covered in more detail in its own section above.
Local Favourites Visitors Walk Straight Past
Every neighbourhood has the places that locals love and visitors miss. These are the Clerkenwell restaurants I would not necessarily have found from a guidebook, but would happily eat at any week of the year.
CERU Farringdon
9-13 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6DR | Nearest: Farringdon | +44 20 3195 3003
Sitting almost opposite the Farringdon station crowds, CERU brings Eastern Mediterranean and Levantine cooking, all sharing mezze, slow-cooked and spit-roasted meats and bright, herb-heavy plates, to a part of Cowcross Street most people hurry through. It is fresh, healthy-feeling, easy to share and very good value for the quality, which makes it a brilliant lunch or a relaxed dinner that somehow stays under the radar.
Mien Tay
6 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4PX | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel | +44 20 3621 2882
Covered above on Exmouth Market, but it earns a second mention because it is precisely the kind of honest, well-priced Vietnamese restaurant out-of-towners walk past on the way to flashier doors. Locals keep coming back, which tells you everything.
Le Cafe du Marche
22 Charterhouse Square, EC1M 6DX | Nearest: Barbican or Farringdon | +44 20 7608 1609
The hardest of these to stumble upon, hidden down a cobbled mews off Charterhouse Square, and all the better for it. If you have never been, this is the local secret worth knowing.
51 Cave a Manger
51 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QL | Nearest: Farringdon or Angel
A small wine bar and kitchen that rewards the people who already know it is there. Exactly the sort of spot you walk past until a local pulls you in, after which it becomes a regular.
One more for the locals, while we are here. Brutto, the Florentine trattoria from the late Russell Norman on Clerkenwell’s edge, has quietly become Bib Gourmand level good. Old-school Tuscan plates and cheap negronis make it a brilliant, low-fuss addition to any Clerkenwell crawl.
Quick Answers: Where to Eat in Clerkenwell
Short answers to the questions people ask most about Clerkenwell restaurants.
What is the best restaurant in Clerkenwell?
Bouchon Racine, the French bistro above The Three Compasses pub on Cowcross Street, was named the best restaurant in the entire UK at the 2026 National Restaurant Awards. For traditional French cooking and old-school hospitality it is the standout, if you can get a table. St John, Luca and Quality Chop House are the other essential names.
Where do locals eat in Clerkenwell?
Locals lean on Quality Chop House for lunch, Moro and Morchella on Exmouth Market for dinner, Mien Tay and Lebanon Grill for honest value, and 51 Cave a Manger or CERU for a low-key evening. The Michelin rooms are for occasions; these are the weekly regulars.
Which Clerkenwell restaurants have Michelin recognition?
Luca and St John both hold one Michelin star. Morchella holds a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide, as does St John Bread and Wine. Quality Chop House is listed in the Michelin guide without a star. Bouchon Racine, while not starred, was named the UK’s number one restaurant at the 2026 National Restaurant Awards.
What are the best restaurants near Farringdon station?
Almost everything in this guide is within a short walk of Farringdon. The closest standouts are Bouchon Racine and CERU on Cowcross Street, Sessions Arts Club on Clerkenwell Green, and Quality Chop House on Farringdon Road, with St John and Luca a few minutes further up St John Street.
Where should I eat on Exmouth Market?
Moro for Moorish cooking over fire, Morchella for Mediterranean sharing plates and natural wine, Ima for inventive plant-based Japanese, Mien Tay for value Vietnamese, 51 Cave a Manger for wine and small plates, and Pizza Pilgrims for an easy, affordable meal.
What are the best vegan restaurants in Clerkenwell?
Ima on Exmouth Market leads for predominantly vegan Japanese food and creative sushi. The Tempeh Man on Leather Lane is the best plant-based street lunch, and Jam Delish near Angel serves excellent Caribbean comfort food that happens to be fully plant-based.
What are the best budget restaurants in Clerkenwell?
Lebanon Grill on St John Street for charcoal-grilled mezze, Pizza Pilgrims on Exmouth Market for Neapolitan pizza, GReat Greek Food on Farringdon Road for grills, and The Rasoi on St John Street for affordable Indian. For a cheap weekday lunch, head to the Leather Lane market stalls.
The Last Word
What makes Clerkenwell special is not any single restaurant. It is the density. In the space of a few streets you have the best restaurant in the country, the birthplace of modern British cooking, two Michelin stars, a Bib Gourmand in an old bank, the most beautiful dining room in London, a thirty-year-old Moorish institution and some of the best cheap eats in EC1. Very few neighbourhoods anywhere offer that range within a ten minute walk.
If you only have one meal, make it Bouchon Racine and book it now. If you have a weekend, do it properly. Start with pastries and coffee on Exmouth Market, take in the design studios and the old courthouse on Clerkenwell Green, have confit potatoes at Quality Chop House for lunch, wander St John Street past St John and Luca, and finish with wine and small plates as the light fades. Walk it slowly. The best of Clerkenwell rewards the people who take their time, and there is no better way to get to know North London’s food scene than on foot, one plate at a time.
Found a new opening we have missed, or think we have ranked something wrong? Tell us. This guide is updated as the neighbourhood changes, and the locals always know first.
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