Sure London is already on the map with its swag of top-shelf eateries – more than 53 have at least a Michelin star – but it's a new wave of mid-range restaurants that's creating the buzz around the city of nine million with an unwavering appetite for good food.
Smokestak (35 Sclater Street, E1 6LB) is low and slow cooking at its best. Originally part of street food market Dinerama in Shoreditch, the Texas barbecue cart turned bricks and mortar shop in London's East combine's grown-up dude food with excellent cocktails and finessed meat, all served in a sleek industrial space. Top orders include crisp ox cheek with anchovy mayo, buttery brioche rolls filled with Smokestak's signature brisket and pickled chillies, and the dish fast gaining cult status, the tender and sticky thick-cut pork ribs with pickled cucumbers. Owner Dave Carter wields smoke with a deft touch. Even the drinks dance with fire; the burnt peach old-fashioned is so good it's hard to stop at one.
Forget the West End, a front-row counter seat at the huge open kitchen in basement restaurant Temper (25 Broadwick Street, W1F 0DF) is the best ticket in town. Chef Neil Rankin is renowned as the city's meat master, so it's pure primal magic to watch as he works over the open flames. The menu combines the best of South America with barbecued meats, mescal and tacos – think eggplant and chipotle miso, a ridiculously moreish aged cheeseburger and a beef fat taco, which rewards with soft, unctuous fat, cut with chilli, onion and fresh lime. Meats are served by weight – don't miss the tender eight-hour smoked goat – then sliced and stacked, dripping and hot over charred flatbread. Top it with grilled gem lettuce and a Sage Advice cocktail (pisco, mescal, pineapple and sage) and you'll be giving it a standing ovation.
Self-taught chef Ben Chapman of Covent Garden's Smoking Goat has brought a slice of Northern Thailand to Soho with Kiln (58 Brewer Street, W1F 9TL). True to its name, claypots nestle among flaming coals and wood in the open kitchen as they cook dishes such as the crowd favourite glass noodles in 30-year-old Shaoxing wine with Tamworth pork belly and brown crab meat. Fatty skewers of cumin-rubbed dry-aged Cornish hogget are rich, juicy and delicious washed down with a low-intervention or skin-contact white from Australia. Dishes pack authentic Thai heat (you can ask them to tone it down), but the beauty lies in the freshness of the ingredients: Chapman works directly with Cornish farmers to grow Thai herbs and veg, and fish is delivered fresh from the coast each day.
If we're talking hot, The Barbary (16 Neal's Yard, WC2H 9DP), in Covent Garden's Seven Dials, is top of the list. Sister restaurant to 2014's modern-Israeli favourite The Palomar, The Barbary's clever menu dances effortlessly through the cuisines of the former Barbary Coast (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt) with hints of the Mediterranean, Lebanon and Israel thrown in. A chewy, sesame-crusted Jerusalem bagel with smoky baba ghanoush is the ideal starter, followed by fried cauliflower with lashings of lemon and herbs, tender charred octopus mashawsha and the beautifully pink chargrilled pata negra pork with sweet confit garlic and date syrup. For dessert, the deliciously sweet flourless pistachio tart, hashcake, is ideal to share. If you can.
Don't be deterred by the no-bookings policy, at Hoppers (49 Frith Street, W1D 4SG) in Soho. It's worth the wait. Inspired by the bold flavours of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, India's southernmost state, the fragrant menu highlights the best of the subcontinent. Hits on the short order menu include hot butter devilled shrimps tossed in a tomato, banana chilli and garlic sauce and, what could be London's most Instagrammed dish, slow-roasted bone marrow varuval in a coconut and tomato sauce served with flaky roti. It's lick-the-bowl good, so make sure to order extra roti to mop up. Hoppers, plain or with egg, arrive with fresh coriander chutney, seeni sambol, a caramelised onion relish, and crumbly pol sambol. Round it out with the vibrant black pork Kari (curry in Tamil) and the pain of queuing will soon be forgotten.
Another of the London set to make a permanent move from street stall to shopfront is Breddos (82 Goswell Road, EC1V 7DB), who can now be found pumping out tacos from their new Clerkenwell digs. The food is loud, flavour-packed and served with fresh house-made tortillas. Top of the tacos are the pig's head cochinita pibil with pickled onion and mole, Baja fish with lime mayo and pico de gallo and heat-smacking kung pao pork belly; tostadas made with fresh Cornwall clams and sea urchin; tlayudas, a Mexican style pizza, and, at night, a wood grill sending out short ribs and pork. And there's tequila, mescal and a good selection of beers
The lines at the newest Bao (31 Windmill Street, W1T 2JN) in Fitzrovia (there's one in Soho and the original Neil's Markets) prove again why this Taiwanese restaurant is one of the city's hottest. Yes, you'll probably have to wait for one of the 45 seats on offer, but the turn over here is fast. Menus differ at each joint, so jump straight into the Xiao Chi (small eats) of crispy prawn heads and duck hearts with onion and chilli garlic sauce. Pillowy steamed bao include Soho favourite braised pork with a fine dusting of peanuts, and panko-crusted daikon with hot sauce. The cod black made with squid ink and beer-fried cod topped of with hot sauce is a Fitzrovia first and a flavour-bomb. Still peckish? A rice bowl of eggplant mapo satiates with a warming Sichuan finish.