London’s after-hours map has quietly redrawn itself. Several of the names still recommended everywhere now shut at eleven, the 3am Brick Lane curry is a myth, and the best late meals in the city are currently being served in a casino basement, a Peckham bagel shop and a Walthamstow charcoal grill. Here is where the kitchens are genuinely still going, sorted by how late they run.
The trouble with most late-night lists is that they were written at some point and never checked again. Restaurants cut their hours quietly, and a place that ran to 3am in 2019 will happily keep the reputation while locking up at half ten.
So this is sorted by the only thing that matters at 1am, which is how late the door is actually open, starting with the handful of places that never close at all. Where the bar runs later than the kitchen, we have said so, because there is nothing worse than hunger striking once the good places have shut, leaving you with a cheap sandwich from an off-licence that tastes of disappointment and regret.
At the other end of the clock, Duck & Waffle appears in our guide to the best breakfasts in London, where the kitchen never actually stops.
Quick answers
- What is open 24 hours in London? Duck and Waffle, both Brick Lane bagel shops, Polo Bar by Liverpool Street and VQ in Chelsea
- Latest proper kitchen: Chop Chop at the Hippodrome and 7th Cat at the Empire, both serving Cantonese until 4am
- Cheapest late feed: a salt beef beigel on Brick Lane, any hour of any day
- Latest outside zone 1: Yasar’s Kitchen in Walthamstow and Jihwaja in Kennington, both to 3am at weekends
- Watch out for: bar hours dressed up as kitchen hours. Several places below take last food orders long before they close
Open around the clock
Four places in London genuinely never shut, and one of them will sell you a salt beef beigel for less than a tube fare.
Duck and Waffle
Bishopsgate
No guide to eating late in London is complete without it, and unlike most of the places that claim it, Duck and Waffle really is open every hour of every day. It sits on the 40th floor of Heron Tower with the whole city laid out underneath, which is worth more at 4am than it is at lunchtime.
There is a dedicated late-night menu between midnight and 5.30am, and the eponymous duck leg with a waffle, fried egg and mustard maple syrup is exactly as good as it needs to be. The duck sliders and the full fry-up are the two things worth knowing exist at four in the morning. The BBQ-spiced crispy pig ears are the order nobody expects to enjoy and everybody does. Book, even at 2am, because the view fills the room.
Where: 110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY. Open until: never, 24 hours a day. Price: ££. More rooms with a view in our guide to the best views in London.
The Brick Lane beigel shops
Brick Lane
Two shops, four doors apart, both open 24 hours, both selling salt beef beigels for a few quid, and every Londoner is contractually obliged to have an opinion about which is better. Beigel Bake at 159 is the white one and the busier of the two, and turned 50 in November 2024.
The Beigel Shop at 155 is the yellow one and has the better story: it shut abruptly in February 2024 during a family dispute over the building, and reopened that June under the next generation, with the rent doubled and the machinery overhauled. If you had written it off, it is back.
Order the salt beef with mustard and pickle and ask for it hot. There is no seating in either, so you will be posting up kerbside with a beigel and a coffee, which is fine in June and worth knowing about in February. The queue at 3am moves faster than the queue at 3pm.
Where: 155 and 159 Brick Lane, E1 6SB. Open until: never, both 24 hours. Price: £. It also makes our list of the best sandwiches in London.
Polo Bar
Bishopsgate
Around the corner from Liverpool Street and holding a 24-hour licence, Polo Bar is the unglamorous one on this list and all the better for it. Metal tiles, a counter, and full British comfort food at any hour you like.
Fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, a proper fry-up and a wall of burgers, served to night-shift workers, stranded commuters and people who have made a series of decisions. It has been doing this for decades without ever becoming a destination, which is the point.
Get the all-day breakfast rather than the burgers. It is what the kitchen has been doing longest and it is what the regulars on the counter are eating at four in the morning.
Where: 176 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4NQ. Open until: never, 24 hours a day. Price: £.
VQ
Chelsea and Bloomsbury
The Fulham Road original has been feeding London through the night since 1995 and is still the most reliable 24-hour diner in west London. Steak and eggs, all-day breakfast, milkshakes and sundaes, and a room that gets considerably more interesting after 2am.
VQ is down from four branches to two, and Chelsea’s overnight service is now takeaway and delivery only between 1am and 7am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with a £2.50 cover charge on Friday and Saturday nights. There is an ID scanner on the door after 11pm. Bloomsbury is no longer 24 hours at the start of the week, though it does run continuously from Wednesday morning to Monday at 5am.
Go to Fulham Road rather than Bloomsbury, and order the steak and eggs. Chelsea is the original, the room after 2am is the whole point, and Bloomsbury’s hours have got complicated.
Where: 325 Fulham Road, SW10 9QL, and 111A Great Russell Street, WC1B 3NQ. Open until: never at Chelsea, with the caveats above. Price: £.
Still serving at 3am
The genuinely late tier. Everything here takes food orders at or after 3am, which in London is a much shorter list than it used to be.
Chop Chop
Leicester Square
The best late meal in central London is in a casino basement, which takes some getting used to. Chop Chop is run by the Four Seasons team, whose Chinatown roast duck has a following bordering on religious, and it serves that duck until half three in the morning.
Get the roast duck on rice and a plate of dim sum, and do not be put off by the setting. You need photo ID to get in because it is inside the Hippodrome and strictly over-18s, which is the one thing that catches people out at 2am.
Where: Hippodrome Casino, Cranbourn Street, WC2H 7JH. Open until: 4am, last orders 3.30am, every day. Price: ££. There is plenty more around the square in our Leicester Square eating guide.
7th Cat
Leicester Square
The other casino Cantonese, and a serious one. Chef Ellen Chew runs the kitchen at 7th Cat inside the Empire, doing dim sum, char siu, Silver Hill roast duck and wonton noodle soup from noon until 4am.
Sixteen hours a day of a named chef’s Cantonese cooking, and almost nobody outside the industry knows it is there. The wonton noodle soup at 3am is the correct order.
Where: Empire Casino, Leicester Square, WC2H 7NA. Open until: 4am, every day. Price: ££.
Old Town 97
Chinatown
Chinatown has a reputation for staying up that its restaurants no longer entirely deserve, but Old Town 97 is the real thing: Hong Kong-style Cantonese, clay pots and roast meats, running to half three every single night.
It is where hospitality staff eat after their own shifts, which is always the sign worth following. Order a clay pot and something off the roast meat counter.
Where: 19 Wardour Street, W1D 6PL. Open until: 3.30am, every day. Price: £. The rest of the area is in our Chinatown guide.
Noodle and Beer
Chinatown
Chongqing and Sichuan noodles over two floors and 42 covers, halal, and open until 4am from Thursday to Saturday. Noodle and Beer is the only place in Chinatown doing serious Sichuan noodles past three.
Sunday to Wednesday it is a normal 11pm operation, so this is strictly a weekend recommendation. Numbing, oily, restorative, exactly right at that hour.
Where: 27 Wardour Street, W1D 6PR. Open until: 4am Thursday to Saturday, 11pm the rest of the week. Price: £.
Bar Italia
Soho
Open since 1949, still run by the Polledri family, and still going until 4am every day of the week. Bar Italia is a Soho institution in the proper sense: the coffee is good, the pasta and pizza are fine, the cannoli behind the counter are the actual reason to be there.
Worth knowing that it is not 24 hours, whatever you have read. It shuts at 4am and opens again at 7, so there is a three-hour window when Frith Street has nothing. It is also serious about Italian football, and a big match night is a completely different experience.
Where: 22 Frith Street, W1D 4RF. Open until: 4am, every day, reopening at 7am. Price: £. Everything else on the doorstep is in our Soho guide.
Rye Lane Bagels
Peckham
South London’s answer to Brick Lane, and long overdue. Rye Lane Bagels runs until 4am on Friday and Saturday, or as they put it, until everything is sold out, which is not the same thing and is worth planning around.
The fillings are a step up from the classic salt beef formula without being precious about it. The rest of the week it is a daytime operation closing at five, so the late nights are the weekend only.
Get there before 2am rather than after. Sold out means sold out, and the fillings worth queueing for are the first to go.
Where: 100 Rye Lane, SE15 4RZ. Open until: 4am Friday and Saturday, 5pm the rest of the week. Price: £. The rest of Rye Lane is in our Peckham guide.
Opium
Chinatown
Behind an unmarked jade door on Gerrard Street, Opium is three floors of dim sum and cocktails running to 3am on Friday and Saturday. It has quietly rebranded away from the Dim Sum Parlour name and now trades as much on the bar as the food.
Which is the catch: the kitchen closes well before the bar does, around 10pm on weekdays and stretching to 1am or 2am on Thursday to Saturday. The char siu bao are some of the best we have eaten in London, and the move is to order the complete platter, which brings prawn and pork dumplings and a couple of soup parcels with them. Come for a late cocktail and dim sum rather than a 3am dinner. Over-18s only, and online booking closes at 5pm each day.
Where: 15-16 Gerrard Street, W1D 6JE. Open until: 3am Friday and Saturday, 2am Wednesday and Thursday, 1am Monday and Tuesday. Price: ££.
MEATliquor
Oxford Circus
Sometimes the need for a filthy burger strikes at 3am, and MEATliquor remains the answer. Dark room, loud music, meat that is all halal, and the Clustercluck, a fried chicken burger with cheese and chilli butter that has outlasted most of the group that made it.
The vegan menu is every bit as good, and the Burgaloo 2 will not send you home disappointed, which matters at three in the morning when the options thin out. MEATliquor collapsed in March 2026 and the remaining sites were bought out of administration that April; the W1 branch survived and trades on Margaret Street by Oxford Circus. The kitchen stops at 2.30am and the bar runs to 3.
Where: 37-38 Margaret Street, W1G 0JF. Open until: 3am at the bar, 2.30am for food, every day. Price: £.
El Camion
Soho
The reliable Soho post-drink stop, done as a proper sit-down room rather than a hatch. El Camion does tacos and burritos until 3am Monday to Saturday, and the jackfruit tinga burrito is good enough to tempt people who would not otherwise go near a meat-free option.
The Pink Chihuahua in the basement is one of our favourite secret bars in London, runs equally late and is the better room after midnight. There is more of the city’s Mexican cooking in our Mexican restaurants guide and more of the neighbourhood in our Soho guide. Sunday it shuts at 11, so the 3am reputation does not hold all week.
Where: 25-27 Brewer Street, W1F 0RR. Open until: 3am Monday to Saturday, 11pm Sunday. Price: £.
Ranoush Juice
Edgware Road
The Edgware Road standard, open until 3am every night and completely unbothered about it. Ranoush does shawarma with proper Lebanese flatbread, an aubergine and tahini plate worth ordering in its own right, and the fresh juices the name promises.
There is seating for about twenty and no reservations, so it is a stand-and-wait situation at peak. Cash-quick, unfussy, and consistently better than the hour deserves.
Where: 43 Edgware Road, W2 2JE. Open until: 3am, every day. Price: £. We have the rest in our Lebanese restaurant guide.
Café Bohème
Soho
A French brasserie on Old Compton Street with a dedicated late menu and live jazz every night, Café Bohème runs to 3am on Friday and Saturday and 2am on Thursday.
It is over-18s only after 9.30pm on licence grounds, which turns it into a genuinely adult room rather than an overspill from the street outside. Steak frites at 2am with a jazz trio going is one of the more civilised things you can do in Soho at that hour.
Where: 13 Old Compton Street, W1D 5JQ. Open until: 3am Friday and Saturday, 2am Thursday, 1am Monday to Wednesday. Price: ££.
Yasar’s Kitchen
Walthamstow
Everyone sends you to Green Lanes for a late Turkish grill, and Green Lanes is excellent, but Yasar’s has been running a charcoal ocaḵbaşı in Walthamstow since 1976 and stays open until 3am on Friday and Saturday.
It predates almost every name on the Harringay strip and does not get written about a fraction as much. Order the mixed grill, expect too much bread, and go on a weekend because the rest of the week it closes at 1am. It is a short hop from Hackney if that is where the night started.
Where: 8 Blackhorse Lane, E17 6HJ. Open until: 3am Friday and Saturday, 1am the rest of the week. Price: £. We have more of E17 in our Walthamstow restaurant guide.
Jihwaja
Kennington
Korean barbecue with noraebang rooms attached, running to 3am on Friday and Saturday on the Vauxhall side of Kennington Lane. Jihwaja absorbs the crowd leaving the clubs and does proper Korean cooking rather than a late-night approximation of it.
Book a karaoke room if there are more than four of you, because the tables turn and the rooms do not.
Where: 353A Kennington Lane, SE11 5QY. Open until: 3am Friday and Saturday, 1am Thursday. Price: ££.
Kitchens running past midnight
Not all-nighters, but reliably open when most of London has stopped. These are the ones to book when dinner starts late rather than when the night has got away from you.
Sushisamba
Bishopsgate
Thirty-eight floors up in Heron Tower, Sushisamba serves its Brazilian-Peruvian-Japanese hybrid until 1.30am every night, which is remarkable for a restaurant with this view and these prices.
Crispy taquitos, Peruvian skewers off the robata and the samba rolls are where to start. Our picks are the T-bone with burnt hispi, chimichurri and yuca fries, which is deliciously indulgent, and the yellowtail sashimi, which is as fresh as anything you will get at that hour. The SAMBA Room bar upstairs goes to 3am Thursday to Saturday if the kitchen has shut and you are not ready to leave. It is one of the best London restaurants with a view at any hour, let alone this one.
Where: 110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY. Open until: 1.30am, every day, with the bar to 3am Thursday to Saturday. Price: £££.
Decimo
King’s Cross
On the tenth floor of The Standard, Decimo runs to 2am on Friday and Saturday and 1am on Thursday, and it is the most glamorous late room on this list by a distance.
It comes at a price, but if you have the dough it is one worth paying. Peter Sanchez-Iglesias has left for Wales and Paola Arenas took over the kitchen in 2026, shifting the cooking from Spanish-Mexican towards a Mexican menu rooted in her Milpa Alta background: halibut with corn husk and pumpkin seed, wild bream with pistachio mole. Book the dining room early, because the last dinner slot is 10.30pm even though the room runs to two.
Where: The Standard, 10 Argyle Street, WC1H 8EG. Open until: 2am Friday and Saturday, 1am Thursday, midnight Tuesday and Wednesday, closed Sunday and Monday. Price: £££. There is more within walking distance in our King’s Cross restaurant guide.
Gökyüzü
Harringay
Green Lanes after midnight is one of London’s great eating experiences and Gökyüzü is the pick of the strip, open until 2am every night with the dining room still full at one.
It takes reservations long after midnight, which almost nothing else does, so it works for a proper late dinner rather than a scramble. Get the mixed grill for the table and the lahmacun to start.
Where: 26-28 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, N4 1LG. Open until: 2am, every day. Price: ££. The full picture is in our guide to Turkish restaurants in London.
Meeting Noodles
Holborn
A 2am kitchen seven nights a week, Sundays and Mondays included, in a stretch of Grays Inn Road where nothing else is open. Meeting Noodles does Chinese noodles and home-style dishes and never appears on a single list, which is exactly why it is on this one.
This is the Sunday-night answer, when Soho has closed and Chinatown has stopped taking orders. Noodle soup and one home-style dish between two, and do not expect anyone to make a fuss of you.
Where: 35 Grays Inn Road, WC1X 8PG. Open until: 2am, every day. Price: £.
Voodoo Ray’s
Dalston
Pizza by the slice, by the 12-inch, or by the 22-inch pie, under neon, until 2am on Friday and Saturday. Voodoo Ray’s has contracted hard since its peak and Dalston is the only site left.
Midweek it closes at 10pm, so this is a weekend proposition only these days.
Buy it by the slice, not by the pie. At 1am the 22-inch always seems like a sensible idea and it never is.
Where: 95 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB. Open until: 2am Friday and Saturday, 10pm Monday to Wednesday. Price: ££. Plenty more of the neighbourhood in our east London restaurant guide.
The Aubrey
Knightsbridge
The hotel-restaurant slot done properly. Inside the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, The Aubrey is a maximalist Japanese izakaya running to 2am on Friday and Saturday, with a sando bar and an omakase counter, rather than a lobby bar with a bowl of olives.
If you are arriving after midnight, head for the sando bar rather than the omakase counter. It is the half of the room that suits the hour, and it is a great deal less money.
Where: 66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA. Open until: 2am Friday and Saturday, 1am the rest of the week. Price: £££. The rest of SW1 is in our Knightsbridge restaurant guide.
Old Compton Brasserie
Soho
Endlessly versatile and open until half twelve on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Old Compton Brasserie will do you oysters at midnight or a burger at midnight with equal enthusiasm, and the roasted pork belly with roast cauliflower is the one we keep coming back for. Whatever you order, get the truffle mac and cheese on the side. You can thank us later.
The room runs to 12.30am but the last booking slots are around ten, so walk in late rather than trying to reserve it.
Where: 36-38 Old Compton Street, W1D 4TT. Open until: 12.30am Thursday to Saturday, 11.30pm Monday to Wednesday, 11pm Sunday. Price: ££.
Bob Bob Ricard
Soho
Not the latest on this list, but comfortably the most fun way to spend a midnight in Soho. Bob Bob Ricard has the Press for Champagne button, the Orient Express booths and a kitchen running to midnight every night.
We have eaten our way round the menu more times than is sensible. The chicken kiev and the beef Wellington are the safe bets, the caviar is there if the evening has taken that turn, and pressing the button at half eleven is precisely the point of the place. It comes at a price, and we mean that literally: the steak is £43, so ours is measured praise. The full verdict is in our Bob Bob Ricard review. Note it no longer does lunch on Mondays or Tuesdays.
Where: 1 Upper James Street, W1F 9DF. Open until: midnight, every day. Price: £££. For dinner at a more reasonable hour, try our Soho restaurant guide.
Sager and Wilde
Hackney Road
The wine bar that solved the late-night snack problem by refusing to over-engineer it. Sager and Wilde does a cheese toastie that has developed a genuine reputation, and a wine list with real range, until 1am on Friday and Saturday.
Order the toastie and ask them to pour you a glass you would not have picked yourself — that is what a list like this is for. Sunday to Wednesday it shuts at 11pm and only Thursday reaches midnight, so Friday and Saturday are the nights that count. The group’s separate restaurant on Paradise Row closed for good in August 2024, so Hackney Road is the one to head for.
Where: 193 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. Open until: 1am Friday and Saturday, midnight Thursday, 11pm the rest of the week. Price: £. There is more to do around it in our Shoreditch guide.
Names to cross off
Some of the most-recommended late-night addresses in London are no longer late, or no longer there.
- Three Eight Four in Brixton closed in 2025 and the unit is still empty
- Tinseltown in Farringdon still calls itself a 24-hour diner and now shuts at 3am
- The 3am Brick Lane curry is a myth. City Spice, the best known of them, closes at 11.30pm
- Brasserie Zédel is a wonderful room, and one of the best French restaurants in London, but it takes last orders at 10.30pm midweek so it does not belong on a late-night list
- Smoking Goat closes at 11pm, and 10pm on Sundays
- Speedboat Bar gets recommended constantly for late food and stops serving at 00:15, though the bar runs on. We have a full Speedboat Bar review if you want the daytime verdict
The London x London Take: the single most useful thing to understand about eating late in London is the gap between the bar closing and the kitchen closing, because it is where almost every wasted journey happens. Opium, Old Compton Brasserie and Decimo all keep the lights on hours after the last plate goes out, and Sushisamba’s bar outlasts its dining room by ninety minutes. If you want food rather than atmosphere after 2am, the reliable list is genuinely short: the two casino Cantonese kitchens, Old Town 97, Bar Italia, the Brick Lane beigel shops and Duck and Waffle. Our order, if you are only doing one, is the roast duck at Chop Chop at three in the morning, because it is properly good food at an hour when London has taught everyone to expect very little.
Before you go
- Check the kitchen, not the door. A 3am closing time often means a midnight last order. Where the two differ we have said so above
- Bring ID. Chop Chop and 7th Cat are inside casinos and need photo identification, Opium and Café Bohème are over-18s after a certain hour, and VQ Chelsea scans IDs after 11pm
- Weekends are a different city. Noodle and Beer, Rye Lane Bagels, Voodoo Ray’s, Yasar’s and Jihwaja all keep their headline hours on Friday and Saturday only
- Book the tall ones. Duck and Waffle, Sushisamba and Decimo take reservations well after midnight and fill up
- Night tube runs Friday and Saturday on the Victoria, Central, Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, which covers most of this list. Everything else is a night bus
Still hungry? Our guide to the best restaurants in London covers the rest of the day.
