6 London Food and Drink Trends Set To Define London In 2025
Every year the hospitality scene in London is marked by a series of trends that seem to wash over the city with unstoppable momentum. 2024 was the year of the smashburger, French bistro revival and artisanal pizza in the pub. For 2025, we’ve had a look at what we think will be the talk of the town, from Filipino cuisine to Guinness alternatives.
Mini cocktails
The idea of ‘small plates’ – restaurants that invite guests to share a variety of dishes rather than one main each – has taken London by storm in the past five years, so it only makes sense that cocktails would follow the same path. Small or ‘mini’ cocktails are becoming more and more popular, and the upside is obvious.
Sam Bovey from Fitzrovia bar, Royal Cocktail Exchange says “People want to experience a fantastic martini without the full extent of consequences – they really are damn strong. Plus, their best sip is usually the first or second, as they’re the coldest, so having that be a larger proportion of the drink for a reduced cost just makes sense”, while Anna Sebastian, bar consultant for The Savoy, and Raffles, says that “Bars have started introducing tasting menus, where guests can try a few smaller versions of cocktails instead having to commit to full drinks”.
Filipino as the next hit cuisine
Donia was one of the most celebrated openings of recent years and is part of a new wave of exciting Filipino restaurants taking London by storm through traditional dishes like chicken Inasal, perfectly chargrilled corn-fed chicken, marinated for 48 hours in lemongrass, coconut vinegar, calamansi, garlic and annatto oil, to grilled black tiger prawns and fermented plum broth.
Turo Turo from Chef Rex de Guzman opened last November, focusing on Filipino street food, joining established favourites Lutong Pinoy and Mamasons. Expect to hear more and more about this, so far, an underappreciated gem of a cuisine.
Elevated toasties
2024 was the year of the sandwich in London, with Sandwich Sandwich opening stores selling their massive Instagrammable cross-sections and queues out the door at bakeries. In 2025, we’re predicting the toastie will get taken to new levels by the culinary talent in London, which basically means they’ll be about as far away from the hungover cheese toastie we know and love. Instead, think more Michelin-star quality ingredients between toasted slices of the most delicious bread you could imagine.
Sesta’s beef ragu toastie comes with prune ketchup and pickled shallot, while fellow newcomer Marceline serves an elevated Croque Monsieur with Parisian ham. Spice fiends should try Kolamba’s chicken curry and pol sambol toastie, and Mountain, of course, pairs nutty walnut bread with peach and bottarga.
We’re predicting the toastie to get taken to new levels by the culinary talent in London, which basically means they’ll be about as far away from the hungover cheese toastie we know and love
Seaweed goes mainstream
The health benefits of seaweed have been long discussed, but getting the masses to buy into actually eating it has been a longer time coming. 2025 might just be the year, however, if the menus of some of London’s coolest restaurants are anything to go by. The team behind Fallow and Roe use Scottish mara seaweed in dishes like their corn ribs, Richard Corrigan incorporates it into his butter at Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill, and at Tomos Parry’s Mountain, the famous Spider crab omelette is made with Câr-Y-Môr sea kelp, Wales’ first regenerative seaweed and shellfish farm.
The health benefits of seaweed have been long discussed, but getting the masses to buy into actually eating it has been a longer time coming
London dives deeper into Ireland’s stouts
Guinness is set to hit saturation point when its Covent Garden brewery and culture hub lands in 2025, and we predict London’s edgiest will pivot to Ireland’s other two most famous stouts. The change has already started – Nancy Spains opened last year and has Murphy’s on tap, and while we are yet to find Beamish anywhere just yet, expect them to pop up around town. As a bonus, Spice Bag – the late-night Irish takeaway favourite – is also popping up more frequently, and is a great midnight post-pub alternative to a kebab.
Thai food gets award recognition
There are so many of them now that it’s hard to choose the best Thai restaurants in London. Restaurants from Kiln and Singburi to Plaza Khao Gaeng and Kolae are not only pushing the cuisine forward in the city but also becoming its best restaurant’s full stop – just try getting a booking at Singburi before 2026. While Michelin usually doesn’t tend to step its neck out and give awards to new upstarts, it does recognise irreversible restaurant trends, and it’s hard to ignore the Thai craze right now. We expect at least one to show up in the next wave of star-bestowing.
