The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Notting Hill & around

Clare Smyth was the first British woman to hold three Michelin stars, and Core, her own Notting Hill fine dining room, holds three of its own. The tasting menus split neatly between seasonal new work and signatures like a potato dish finished with herring and trout roe instead of the expected caviar. Hogget, mutton, and vegetables carry the same weight here as truffle does elsewhere, which is either refreshing or quietly confrontational, depending on your table.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #87 · The National Restaurant Awards
3. The Infatuation #16 · The 25 Best Restaurants In London

Brett Graham raises pigs on his own farm, grows mushrooms in a cabinet downstairs, and then turns up for service at one of London's most serious fine dining rooms. The Ledbury holds three Michelin stars and sits fourth on the National Restaurant Awards list, but the room's warmth keeps it from feeling like a pilgrimage. Graham is famously media-shy, which mostly just means the cooking has to do the talking.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #4 · The National Restaurant Awards
3. Eater The 38 Best London Restaurants

The counter seats facing the wood-fired grill are the ones to ask for at this Notting Hill brasserie, which holds a Michelin star and landed third on the 2026 National Restaurant Awards list. The room has banquettes, marble tables, and smoked mirrors, and it manages to feel like it's been there forever despite being relatively new. Modern British cooking, terse menu descriptions, and a wine list that runs deep into Burgundy.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #3 · The National Restaurant Awards
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A black granite bar seating ten anchors this intimate cocktail bar on Kensington High Street, where the team has roots in the Savoy's Beaufort Bar. Vintage cocktails dating back to the 1960s sit alongside a tight menu of originals at around £15 a pour. Dogs are welcome; football shirts are not. Ranked seventh on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list, it accepts reservations but keeps room for walk-ins.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #7 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A former Notting Hill pub with no signage worth squinting at, now holding a Michelin star for contemporary European cooking that takes its classical technique seriously without taking itself too seriously. The move here is to build your own five-course menu by picking from personality profiles, running from "Subtle" through to "Greedy" for dessert, which sounds gimmicky until you're actually doing it and having a very good time.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A Michelin-starred neighborhood restaurant in Kensington that somehow avoids feeling like either a special-occasion ordeal or a place that takes itself too seriously. The cooking leans Mediterranean, classical in its bones, and the room shifts comfortably from a solo lunch to a full celebratory dinner without missing a beat. Locals who've been coming for years sit next to people who just wandered in off Abingdon Road, and both seem equally at ease.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The signature martini is served at -20°, which is either an engineering feat or a dare, and the answer matters less than the fact that it arrives. This intimate cocktail bar on Notting Hill Gate builds its rotating menu around the team's travels through Latin America, so the spirits and syrups shift with the season and the itinerary. Ranked 33rd on Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026, it draws a dressed-up crowd who came prepared to be transported somewhere specific.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #33 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars

A Victorian pub on All Saints Road that spent most of its life as an ordinary boozer before a refit made it one of Notting Hill's harder tables to land. The kitchen leans into British ingredients from regenerative farms, cooking them with enough confidence to let a turbot or a tomahawk do its own persuading. Bar snacks, proper ales, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand keep expectations well-calibrated. Book ahead; the locals have already figured this one out.

1. Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #65 · Top 50 Gastropubs
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The gastropub that makes you work for your dinner: find the side door on Portobello Road, squeeze past the washing-up kitchen, climb two flights of stairs, and emerge into a small, buzzy room with an open kitchen and no menu. The chef decides, guided by the seasons and a market garden in the Cotswolds. Dishes arrive from the kitchen by hand, the room feels like a Friday regardless of the day, and live music is waiting downstairs when you're done.

1. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #88 · The National Restaurant Awards
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #75 · Top 50 Gastropubs

Cork tiles, shag pile, and Zombies served in tiki mugs: Trailer Happiness is a basement cocktail bar in Notting Hill that leans hard into mid-century Californian trailer-park kitsch and never apologizes for it. The room feels like a bachelor pad that got stuck in 1966 and decided to stay, which is more or less the point. Rum drinks and tiki culture are the whole religion down here, and the vol-au-vent energy is entirely real.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The Infatuation #5 · The 25 Best Restaurants In London
2. Eater The 38 Best London Restaurants

The name comes from a long-lost family house in Burton on Trent, and the brewing heritage goes back centuries, which is a lot of backstory for a gastropub on Kensington Church Street. Cask ales anchor the offer, and the kitchen builds a daily-changing menu around simple, seasonal British cooking with classical European touches. The food is there to keep company with the beer, not to upstage it, and mostly it holds to that bargain.

1. Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #88 · Top 50 Gastropubs

The menu has no sections, just prices that loosely signal how much food is heading your way, which is a more honest system than most. This casual Italian on Portobello Road comes from the team behind The Pelican and The Hero, both River Café alumni, and the cooking shows it: straightforward, flavour-first, no flourishes. The Michelin Guide picked it up with a Bib Gourmand. No bookings, so expect a queue, but the staff handle the wait gracefully.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A jukebox and a photo booth set the mood at this Notting Hill neighbourhood Indian, which leans into a loose disco theme without making you feel like you've wandered into a theme park. The team behind Gunpowder focuses here on Punjab and Northwest India, running through biryanis, kebabs, and a butter chicken that regulars treat as non-negotiable. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The robata charcoal grill is the anchor of this Japanese restaurant sitting above the Japan House cultural centre on Kensington High Street. Counter seats face an open kitchen where skewers of chicken thigh and miso pork belly take their turn over the coals alongside an extensive sushi selection. At lunch, the hakozen box covers most bases neatly. The room is stylish and reliably buzzing, which for Kensington is saying something.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Named after the Arabic word for wild cardoon, this Notting Hill restaurant pulls Palestinian cooking into a bright, modern room on one of the neighborhood's more cheerful streets. The menu leans into sharing plates, with dishes that keep the deep flavors of traditional recipes while quietly updating the form. The wine list pairs French standards with bottles from Palestine and Jordan, which feels less like a gimmick and more like the point.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The sign outside reads "fire, wine, vinyl," which turns out to be a complete sentence. This Golborne Road restaurant runs on sharing plates kissed by open flame, cocktails worth a second look, and a basement DJ spinning from an actual album library most nights. The food leans classically European with enough confidence to feel effortless. Come with people you like; the room is intimate enough that solo dining would feel like a conversation you forgot to have.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Jackson Boxer's Notting Hill neighbourhood restaurant fits the postcode without trying too hard: bright room, relaxed pace, simple decoration. The menu is built for sharing and shifts with the seasons, running from snacks up to whole grilled fish and half a roasted chicken. Nearly everything on the wine list is available by the glass, which makes the room easier to linger in than it probably should be.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The Swiss pine paneling makes this compact Notting Hill sushi bar feel uncannily like a ski chalet, which is either disorienting or charming depending on your mood. Two six-person counters run the room, one facing the kitchen, one facing the street. Order nigiri by the piece or let the chef decide. The seafood is the point, including tuna brought in from Spain, and the wine list skews toward bottles priced for people who don't ask about bottles.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Nikkei cuisine, the happy accident of Japanese immigration into Peru, is the whole point at this Bayswater restaurant. The omakase menu is the move, running ceviche and tiradito alongside a creative nigiri selection, with a spicy kick threading through dishes that pull in influences from across Asia. Skip the wine list and lean into the sake or the South American cocktails instead, which is not advice you get every day in W2.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Polished concrete walls and Mediterranean pastels set the scene at this plant-based restaurant on Portobello Road, where the menu runs from barbecued carrot to coal-roasted leeks and basically dares you to miss meat. It started as a pop-up and supper club before going permanent, which explains the ambition on the plate. Share across the small and large plates to cover the most ground, and bring the skeptic in your life.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The cocktail trolley alone tells you this is the kind of neighbourhood bistro that takes itself seriously without being stiff about it. Deep booths, warm colours, and a menu that runs from a chopped salad to lobster soufflé make it equally good for a low-key Tuesday or a proper date night. Holland Park regulars fill the room like they own it, which more or less they do.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Wooden shelves stacked with Greek wines line the walls of this large, rustic-leaning Greek restaurant in Kensington, with a fireplace that makes the whole room feel less like a Tuesday night out than a visit to someone's house on a hillside. The team will happily talk you through the provenance of each dish, which is a good sign. The taramasalata alone makes a case for itself, and the chocolate walnut cake with kaimaki ice cream is how you should end.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Deer antlers hang from the ceiling and framed lithographs of wild birds line the walls, which tells you most of what you need to know about the menu at this Kensington bistro. The cooking is classical French, the kind that takes confit duck leg seriously and still does a proper Paris-Brest. Seasonal game features heavily, and the pastel room is warmer than the hunting-lodge décor might suggest.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Greek sharing-plates restaurant tucked into a quiet Kensington street, Mazi runs on the kind of warmth where the team will happily take the wheel on wine and food if you let them. The menu is built for the table to raid together, and the loukoumades have a way of ending debates about dessert before they start. On a good day, the terrace out back makes a convincing case for a different city entirely.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Rye and sourdough arrive in a basket before anything else, which tells you something about the priorities here. This cosy Notting Hill restaurant channels Ukraine through its menu, from black pudding croquettes to beef dumplings bobbing in spicy broth. The chef's story is extraordinary, but the food doesn't lean on it, it just quietly makes the case. Warm, personal, and a little unexpected for All Saints Road.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The tacos here do the talking, which is good because the décor has very little to add. TAQ is a casual Notting Hill cantina where the menu is short and focused: fish tacos, carnitas, tostadas, quesadillas, and churros to close. The cooking is more careful than the stripped-back room lets on, which is either a pleasant surprise or the whole point, depending on how cynical you arrived.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The Park Monkey Bread, a tear-and-share loaf that arrives before you've decided anything else, tells you what kind of place this is: the big, buzzy, Italian-American restaurant that Jeremy King does better than almost anyone. The room is plush without being fussy, the menu swings from lobster rolls to chicken Milanese, and the bar is worth lingering in before you sit down.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The room was a banking hall once, and it still has the bones to prove it: high ceilings, wood panelling, and neo-Gothic stonework that makes ordering a curry feel pleasantly theatrical. This is a proper sit-down Indian restaurant with a broad regional menu that leans north, where the spicing works to pull out flavour rather than announce itself. Cocktails at the central bar, and the window seats look out over Hyde Park.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Infatuation The 23 Best Bakeries In London

1. The Infatuation The 23 Best Bakeries In London

A zinc bar, wrought-iron stools, and neon signs make the American Deco pitch boldly, but an open fireplace and vintage glassware keep it from feeling like a theme park. This Notting Hill cocktail bar leans into the Manhattan fantasy with enough warmth and genuine antique paraphernalia to make you forget it's a bit of a concept. The cocktail list is long and inventive, which is ultimately the whole point.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Trailing ivy, hanging baskets, and window boxes facing the gardens of Edwardes Square give this Kensington pub a village-green quality that feels almost aggressively picturesque. Inside, etched windows, an open fire, bare wooden tables, and a Tudor-style moulded ceiling keep the mood warm and slightly grand at once. Locals lean in over pints and plates without any tourist-pub self-consciousness, which is the harder trick to pull off than the ivy.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The wooden panels dividing the bar were supposedly salvaged from a ship and once kept different classes of drinker from seeing each other, which tells you something about both the pub's age and its Campden Hill postcode. A proper old-school London pub, all low ceilings and snug corners, in one of the city's more conspicuously wealthy neighborhoods. It draws the kind of locals who've stopped noticing how nice everything is.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A fire door at the top of a forlorn back staircase opens into a candlelit gin bar so small that twelve people is a squeeze. Hidden above the Portobello Star, the Ginstitute is part specialist bar, part gin museum, with a three-stool mahogany counter and a still room where you can blend your own bottle. No natural light, no fuss, no room for anyone to pretend they're just passing through.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A mahogany central bar anchors this corner pub tucked into a quiet residential street just off Notting Hill Gate, where Georgian windows and high ceilings keep everything feeling light even on a grey day. The walls are gunmetal grey and hung with eclectic art, including a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth alongside nudes with Pink Floyd album covers painted on their backs. Gastro pub food is on offer, but the room itself does the heavy lifting.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Oysters at the bar keep this Notting Hill pub from feeling like anything it isn't. The room is genuinely small, with mustard walls, red lino underfoot, and rippled glass that softens the light just enough. The food is better than it has any right to be for a place this unpretentious, and the crowd tends to dress up slightly without meaning to. An old-school neighbourhood pub that never needed to announce itself as one.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Tucked between the Electric Cinema and Brasserie on Portobello Road, this members' bar is the Notting Hill outpost of the Soho House group. A staircase coiled around a lift shaft delivers you into a long, loft-style room with pitched ceiling and roof lights, the look landing firmly in the seventies: whitewashed walls, chunky pale teak, industrial pendant lights. The kind of bar where everyone seems to know someone across the room.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Hanging baskets and a plant-lined terrace make this Notting Hill pub look like it was lifted from a country village and dropped, somewhat incongruously, opposite a police station. Inside, cream panelling and dark green carpet keep the cottage illusion going. Tables fill every corner, shared willingly among regulars who clearly consider the place their living room. A proper neighbourhood pub tucked down a quiet back street away from Portobello's weekend chaos.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A rum bar on All Saints Road with over a hundred bottles of the stuff downstairs, which is either a paradise or a problem depending on your Thursday. The beach-shack aesthetic runs to unpolished wood, mismatched colourful chairs, and walls clad in painted planks, so nobody's pretending this is a cocktail lounge in a suit. Caribbean food is upstairs if hunger strikes, but the basement is the reason to come.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Byzantine tilework, Baroque flourishes, and what appears to be a Gaudí fever dream somehow cohabiting in a Georgian townhouse on Ledbury Road. BBB, as the Notting Hill regulars call it, is a bar and restaurant with one of the more committed interiors in the neighborhood, where the back rooms veer into something almost monastic. The cocktail program has had its critics, so the Mediterranean food may be the safer bet.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

The top two floors of this sprawling Notting Hill townhouse are given over to a pair of whiskey rooms, each fitted with poker tables, a sound system, and seating for around fifteen. It's the kind of setup that makes you feel like you've stumbled into someone's very well-stocked country house, which is more or less the point. The floors below do all-day British dining; up here, it's about the pour.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Lipstick-red banquettes and bar stools pack the tiny ground floor so tightly it feels like the inside of a sweet jar, and the basement bar, with its low ceiling, is the better room by most measures. This is a Mexican bar in Notting Hill with a history that includes Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair, which is quite a footnote. Tacos and tostadas arrive on plastic trays, the way they should.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A velvet-rope cocktail den in Kensington built around Russian vodka and caviar, where the golden rope at the door stays clipped unless your name is on the list. Arrive before eleven and it behaves more like a serious cocktail bar with canapés than a bottle-service showcase. The drinks are the point here, carefully made and worth the effort of booking, which you will need to do.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The south-facing terrace is the whole game here, filling up even when the temperature argues otherwise with the kind of Notting Hill crowd that treats being seen as a leisure activity. Inside, this corner pub leans into shabby-cool: green leather banquettes, mismatched old wooden furniture, fairy lights overhead, and walls thick with artwork. It has the bones of an ordinary local and the atmosphere of somewhere that knows it no longer is.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide