The first position on the list of the oldest restaurants in London is the Simpson's Tavern. It is affectionately referred to as one of the oldest restaurants in London. Its classic British cooking dates back to 1757. Simpson's Tavern is one of London's most lovely and historic eateries, located in a Dickensian courtyard and accessible via a narrow passageway. When Thomas Simpson's father donated him a property along a major London alley in 1757, he had been a restauranteur for 34 years. For nearly 260 years, Simpson's Tavern has proudly stood there.

Simpson's Tavern, which is now located in London's financial center, was once located in the heart of the capital's food trading hub at Cornhill, which was literally a hill where maize was sold. Bread Street, Poultry Lane, Honey Lane, and Milk Street, all close, illustrate facets of London's commercial history.

Simpson's Tavern and its adjacent courtyard have largely escaped the Victorian era's street-widening policies, at least architecturally. This is the place to go if you want to see Dickens' immortalized London with cobblestone streets and charming windowfronts. Dark oak panels cover the walls, House of Commons green chairs stretch from linked tables, beckoning conversation, and brass hat stand accent the booths where diners continue to enjoy their hearty, boozy reprieve from city life.

Location: 38 1/2 Cornhill, London EC3V 9DR, UK

Phone: 020 7626 9985

Website: simpsonstavern.co.uk

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Wiltons, London's oldest restaurant, has been serving seafood to the British public since 1742. Wiltons has developed from humble beginnings as a market booth selling oysters to tradespeople to a prestigious status as one of the capital's most elite places.

The 1940s were pivotal years in Wiltons' nearly three-century history. For the first time in 1742, George William Wilton packed his barrow with oysters at the Haymarket. A beer and wine license made it possible to open a full-fledged seafood restaurant in 1840. In 1942, it came dangerously near to being destroyed by a Luftwaffe bomb.

Wiltons moved to its current location on Jermyn Thoroughfare in 1984, a famed London street that has housed eminent historical individuals such as Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Scott, William Gladstone, and W.M Thackeray at various periods. Wiltons' clientele remained exclusive, and its menu was pricey, thanks to the transfer to Jermyn Street, which is now associated with high-end apparel, haberdasheries, and restaurants.

The inside has been kept mostly unaltered, with green velvet banquettes, pale yellow walls, and private booths evoking the feel of an exclusive gentlemen's club. The restaurant is now regarded as an appropriate venue for high-level business gatherings. After several days of discussions over courses at Wilton's, the £7 billion mergers between Boots and Alliance Unichem were announced.

Location: 55 Jermyn St, St. James'sLondon SW1Y 6LX, UK

Phone: 020 7629 9955

Website: wiltons.co.uk

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Rules which is one of the oldest restaurants in London, founded in 1798 by Thomas Rule, is located in Covent Garden. It started off as an oyster bar and quickly became a hit. It now serves traditional British cuisine, with a focus on the classic game. The restaurant has only had three proprietors in its 200-year history and has served some of the world's most famous writers, artists, politicians, film stars, and monarchs. It has been a popular lunch destination for literary giants like Charles Dickens, with the restaurant's private dining room bearing his name.

There is also a dining room named after Graham Greene, which was used by the novelist during his visit to London and featured in his work "The End of the Affair." Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, John Le Carré, Dick Francis, and Claire Rayner have all mentioned it in their writings.

The restaurant specializes in British cuisine, including pies and puddings, as well as traditional game cooking. Rules serve 18,000 game birds each year, more than any other restaurant in the United Kingdom. The restaurant's decor has retained much of its original aesthetic, with portraits, cartoons, and paintings from the British cultural and political past adorning the walls.

Location: 34-35 Maiden Ln, London WC2E 7LB, UK

Phone: 020 7836 5314

Website: rules.co.uk

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One of London's oldest traditional English restaurants is the Simpson's in the Strand. Simpson's gained a dual reputation from 1850 for its traditional English food, particularly roast meats, and as the most important location in Britain for chess in the nineteenth century, after a modest start as a smoking room and soon after as a coffee shop. After being purchased by the Savoy Hotel group of enterprises at the end of the century, chess was no longer a feature, but Simpson's has remained a celebrated dining location throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first as a supplier of classic English food. "A restful shrine of food," wrote P.G. Wodehouse.

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts has been in charge of Simpson's since 2005. The restaurant currently has extravagant glitz after another remodeling in 2020. High ceilings are complemented by leather banquettes and chandeliers, creating a decadent atmosphere. Although chess is no longer played in the halls, hints can be found in the décor and the renowned signage out front, and slicing meat at the table is still a tradition at London's most historic roast dinner.

Location: 100 StrandLondon WC2R 0EW, UK

Phone: 020 7420 2111

Website: simpsonsinthestrand.co.uk

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When it originally opened its doors in 1867, Kettner's was one of London's first French restaurants, and it has been a favorite hangout for writers, politicians, theatergoers, and even the Royal family for decades. Kettner's distinctive heritage has been recreated as a 33-room hotel with Grade II-listed bars.

August Kettner, a German chef rumored to have worked directly for Napoleon III, started Kettner's in 1867. The restaurant was supposed to have a brief life because it was located in a neighborhood of Soho with a bad reputation at the time, but an 1879 letter published in The Times commended the qualities of Kettner's cooking, turning the tide of popular support.

Between 1980 and 2008, Kettner's famously operated as a Pizza Express for 28 years. The renamed Kettner's Townhouse has been sensitively restored under the leadership of the Soho House organization, with the original French menu referenced and artwork inspired by lost murals discovered during the reconstruction.

The 33-room hotel currently contains Grade II-listed bars and a suite with a private entrance, in addition to the original four townhouses. While the Champagne Bar is currently the only area of the hotel open to the public, booking a stay at this historic London landmark and experiencing its charm is money well spent.

Location: 29 Romilly St, Soho, London W1D 5HP, UK

Phone: +44 20 7734 5650

Website: sohohouse.com

Sweetings is a historic British seafood restaurant located at 39 Queen Victoria Street in the City of London. Since 1889, it has been based in its current location. It is only available for lunch on weekdays and does not accept bookings.

To wit, one-time owner George Needham was allegedly promised £1,000,000 in cash by a south London criminal named George Francis. The exquisite shellfish (oysters, potted shrimps, for example) and quaintly British puddings are more notable for present purposes. A Sweetings Black Velvet (Guinness and champagne) is the signature drink, and it has many fans, including Fergus Henderson, who was inspired to propose to his wife after drinking one.

Sweetings takes pleasure in presenting a diverse selection of sustainable seafood, ranging from wild fresh Scottish Salmon, which is usually the first fish of the season, to native oysters from the Essex coast's West Mersea. Barfoot Ltd selects the daily fish with care. Monday through Friday, from 11.30 a.m. to 3 p.m., the store is open. There are no reservations available. In the evenings and on weekends, the facility is available to rent for private gatherings. It is also utilized as a film and television set.

Location: 39 Queen Victoria St, London EC4N 4SF, UK

Phone: 020 7248 3062

Website: sweetingsrestaurant.co.uk

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The Ivy is a well-known British restaurant that is frequented by celebrities. It is a popular restaurant for theatergoers because it is located on West Street, near Cambridge Circus in London, and across from the Ambassadors and St Martin's theaters. The Ivy has sites throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Ivy, which began as an unauthorized Italian café in 1917 and moved to its current location in 1923, quickly became a fixture for the highbrow theatre set, including regulars Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward. The Ivy fell out of favor after passing through several owners — Corbin and King owned it in the late 1980s, and Richard Caring has been the owner since 2005 before receiving a facelift in 2015. It not only got a new art deco bar but also a new menu, with Asian-inspired items coexisting with the classics (shepherd's pie, sausage, and mash) for which it is famous.

The company planned to build the first Ivy Café in London's Mayfair in 2011, but it never happened. Since 2014, the Ivy Collection, also known as Ivy Cafés and Ivy Brasseries, has developed over 30 spin-off restaurants.

Location: 1-5 West St, London WC2H 9NQ, UK
Phone: 020 7836 4751
Website: the-ivy.co.uk Call now

The next position on the list of the oldest restaurants in London is the Veeraswamy. It, located at 99-101 Regent Street in London, is an Indian restaurant. Edward Palmer was an Anglo-Indian retired British Indian Army soldier and grandson of an English general and an Indian princess. It is the United Kingdom's oldest surviving Indian restaurant. Veeraswamy provided Anglo-Indian cuisine in its early years, but in recent decades, due to the appeal of authentic Indian food in the UK, it has expanded its menu to include dishes from Punjab, Lucknow, Kashmir, and Goa. For his food business and book, Edward Palmer chose the name E. P. Veeraswamy, which was his grandmother's surname. It was originally spelled Veerasawmy, but due to a printing error, it became Veeraswamy.

Veerswarmy, currently London's oldest Indian restaurant, was founded in 1926 by the grandson of an English army general and an Indian princess. It was an instant hit with the upper crust. Much of the maharaja-inspired palatial splendor that first drew Winston Churchill to the restaurant was restored after it was sold in 1997 to Ranjit Mathrani and Namitha Panjabi (who also operate Masala Zone). Veeraswamy was awarded a Michelin star in 2016 for his traditional cuisine from Punjab, Goa, Lucknow, and Kashmir.

Location: Victory House, 99-101 Regent St, Mayfair, London W1B 4RS, UK

Phone: +44 20 7734 1401

Website: veeraswamy.com

The Restaurant Boulestin, dubbed London's most expensive, first opened its doors in 1927. Its fame, as well as Boulestin's vast list of publications and essays, made him a celebrity. His cuisine was diverse, including dishes familiar to British cooks as well as French classics. Elizabeth David, an English culinary writer who lauded Boulestin in her works and accepted many of his precepts, was one of many impacted by him.

Xavier Marcel Boulestin was a French chef, restaurateur, and author who popularized French cuisine in the English-speaking world through his cookery books.

Boulestin was born in Poitiers, France (Poitou area), and attempted a variety of jobs before settling down as a restaurateur. In Paris, he worked as a secretary and ghostwriter for author "Willy" (Henry Gauthier-Villars) and then traveled to London, where he lived and worked from 1906. He launched an interior design shop there, but it was a financial failure. He was commissioned to produce a basic French cuisine book for English readers, and he wrote a lot. It was a big success, and he went on to pursue a career in cookery.

Location: 5 St James's St, St. James's, London SW1A 1EF, UK

Phone: 020 7930 2030

Website: boulestin.com

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Quaglino's is a central London restaurant that opened in 1929, shuttered in 1977, and reopened in 1993. It was a favorite haunt of London's café society from the 1930s to the 1950s and was frequented by the British aristocracy, including the royal family, many of whom were regulars. Dinner, music, and dancing were all part of the package. It was sold to a series of hotel corporations in the 1960s, and its reputation waned; it closed in 1977.

In 1993, the name was resurrected for a new restaurant at the same site, with the goal of "reviving the spirit of the original". The food at Quaglino's was never as well-known as the perceived glitz and glam that came with being seen there, as well as the champagne. Quaglino's was updated to its current shape in 2014 as part of the D&D portfolio, which purchased the restaurant from Sir Conrad in 2007. Expect a little retro (say, a shellfish cocktail), a healthy focus on "British" staples, and the occasional push into something a little more daring when it comes to food. Nonetheless, like so many others on our list, it's about more than just the cuisine — the 80s decor and live music make for a truly immersive experience.

Location: 16 Bury St, St. James's, London SW1Y 6AJ, UK

Phone: 020 7930 6767

Website: quaglinos-restaurant.co.uk

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