The best cheap eats in London

Bancone is right off of Trafalgar Square. It’s home to a whole lot of marble. And it has things like rabbit pappardelle and saffron butter on the menu. We know what you’re thinking, ‘yeah, cool, I’ll visit as soon as that aunt with shares in Topshop kicks it’. But luckily, this handmade pasta spot is actually very affordable. You can go for any of their pasta mains (shoutout to the silk handkerchiefs with egg confit and hazelnut butter), split a bottle of wine, and leave only twenty quid lighter.

No doubt inspired by some of SW3’s wealthier inhabitants, Phat Phuc Noodles is the most reasonable (and one of the most tasty) places to eat in Chelsea. This little courtyard stall serves up noodle dishes from across Asia – laksa, bun, and pho – all for under a tenner. It’s unlikely to be the best version of each you’ll ever try, but it’s the best in the area if you’re looking for a low price. There’s covered seating, or, if the sun’s out, uncovered seating, and it makes for very pleasant bite to eat.

London is an expensive city. A pint and a soda water cost us eight quid recently. £8. We would’ve rather just drank our own tears. What a lot of people forget though, is that some of London’s best food (and we really do mean best) is a bargain. Mr. Bao is just that – an absolute bargain. This Peckham spot is a place worth travelling to, not least for their shiitake mushroom bao. On top of that the fried chicken is excellent, the atmosphere lovely, and you’ll be back at the end of the month to splurge.

Pizza really is the ultimate cheap eat. It always does the job. Yard Sale’s pizza more than do the job though. We think they’re one of the best in London. Split one of their huge 18-inch margheritas between three and you’re paying under a fiver each. That’s three whopper slices. Alternatively put a couple more quid in each and go for their TSB (tenderstem broccoli, manchego, pine nuts). It’s our go-to.

With spots in both Soho and Spitalfields Market, Pleasant Lady Jian Bing is an excellent back pocket cheap eat. These Chinese crepes are packed with vegetables as standard (as well as a fried egg, spicy sauce, and a tip-top crispy wonton thing) and at just £6, they’re a steal. Or, you can add some chicken or lamb for a quid extra and still have enough change for a Ribena from the shop.

Kerbisher And Malt in Shepherd’s Bush is sort of like Netflix compared with the BBC of a traditional fish and chip restaurant. It’s modern, it’s cool, and your grandparents might not completely understand it. But there’s still enough classics on the menu to make you feel at home. Either go all in on the haddock, chips, and tartare for around a tenner, or a lowkey coley with chips for just £6.60. Of course, if you’re after a really cheap lunch in west London then their three quid chip butty should be on your radar too.

For the most part, sandwiches in London don’t really feel like proper meals. A couple of triangles, a packet of crisps, and a drink that comes to anything between three and seven quid. Max’s is different though, this is a real meal between two slices. The sandwiches here come in at just under a tenner, but you won’t feel shortchanged. The ham, egg ‘n’ chips is just that: ham hock, fried egg, homemade piccalilli, and shoestring fries between two slabs of focaccia. It’s something to sit down and savour.

The idea of keeping a restaurant to yourself is a weird one, isn’t it? One of our greatest concerns – one that really keeps us up at night – is the thought that somewhere we love might vanish because not enough people know about it. This is how we feel about Souvlakiland. This tiny spot down the end of Homerton High Street is serving some of the best gyros in the city. And they’re about a fiver each, meaning you can eat like a god or goddess here for a tenner. Get some halloumi with your pork yeeros, or – and this is our move – some extra pitta with their homemade tzatziki. Most importantly, spread the word.

In a game of word association, piri-piri will generally bring one thing to mind. However that may change with Casa Do Frango. This slightly more upmarket piri-piri restaurant offers extremely tasty and juicy chicken for extremely familiar prices. Head to London Bridge with a friend, get yourself half a chicken each (piri-piri marinade, obviously), share a couple of sides, and you’ll be paying under £15 for the pleasure. There may not be as big a range of sauces, but the quality of cooking (and value) is excellent.

Probably London’s best-known non-booking restaurant, Padella has big queues because it’s very good, and very good value. At around £6.50 a plate, you can have a great meal on the cheap. Nowadays they’ve got a mobile queuing system which means you can put your name down and wait around somewhere else before getting your hands on their famous cacio e pepe. Don’t miss out on the beef shin pappardelle though.

Xi’an Impression is one of our favourite restaurants at any price, and it just happens to be a bonus that it’s inexpensive. Go there with a few friends and share several dishes if you can. You should have the hand-pulled noodles and chicken in ginger sauce in your order, along with at least one of their beef buns. Xi’an is absolutely worth the trip to Highbury.

Dotori is an excellent neighbourhood restaurant bang outside Finsbury Park station that’s well worth travelling to. The Korean set menu for two is one of the best value in London, where for £16.50 each you can get banchan, a seafood pancake, crispy chicken, and beef bulgogi. Alternatively, if things are looking particularly bleak, we recommend one of their stew pots with rice. They’re £9.50 each, hugely tasty, and easily enough for two.

There are many reasons Song Que is one of our favourite restaurants in London, and its place on this list is one of the big ones. This is everything a restaurant in London should be: good value, busy, and consistent. Their pho is our order of choice and the fact that it comes in under a tenner for the most part is, well, excellent. The perfect spot to go to with mates when money’s tight.

Burro e Salvia is a little pasta shop in Shoreditch that does superb handmade pasta that’s around the £10 mark, and it’s great when you want a low-cost, low-key dinner. The filled pastas are ridiculously good, and you can also get them to take away.

If you’re the perpetually broke one in your friend group, you’ll be glad to know that bringing your friends to Roti King won’t feel like a cheap move. By that, we mean it IS cheap, but the quality of the Malaysian food here is so high that your mates won’t care. Their best dish is, not surprisingly, the flaky roti canai that comes with a bowl of rich curry sauce (get the meat version), and they also do all the Malaysian staples like char kway teow, nasi goreng, and a proper laksa for £7. A plate of sambal fried rice costs the same as a large latte.

Finding a cheap lunch in Chinatown might sound easier than thrashing your nephew at Mario Kart, but with so much choice, it’s pretty easy to wind up having a mediocre meal. One of the best cheap lunches is the king prawn won ton soup at Hung’s. It’s a lot of bang for your buck, but be aware that you have to ask for it since it isn’t on the main menu. You can also confidently order any of their stir-fried noodle or rice dishes and expect good things, as the quality of food is very reliable. Hit it for a solo feed, or a casual meal with friends.

The fruits of your biannual flat tidy have turned up a few pounds in coppers, lint, and funfair tokens – get in. Take your haul to Mr Falafel for one of the best cheap eats in the city, where a standard falafel loaded with crispy chickpeas and hummus is less than a fiver. For seven pounds, you can get a deluxe falafel wrap with crispy potatoes and cauliflower – the Kahuna burger of the falafel world. If you managed to scrounge that much money from just cleaning your flat, you might also want to think about adjusting your frequency to something other than just whenever mushrooms start growing in the shower.

The good thing about restaurants in shipping containers is that sometimes people walk past them thinking ‘I do not want to eat in a bloody shipping container’. That suits us when there are places like Franzina Trattoria hiding inside Pop Brixton. This tiny Sicilian restaurant does some extremely delicious, and well priced handmade tagliatelle. It’s around seven quid a go and comes with a changing sauces. Come with friends so you can have a bit of everything.

Moving from a shipping container to railway arches is the natural progression for a lot of businesses in east London. Luckily for London Fields, CookDaily has done the same. Wherever this vegan spot goes, it’s always going to be busy. The reason: this is some of the best vegan food in London. It’s mainly Thai dishes, but there are a few British ones as well, and everything is around £8-£12 mark. Get the jungle curry or pad thai and wonder how you can make a few ingredients taste so good.

Imagine if you could go to one of the best restaurants in London, eat a lot of very delicious things, slightly ‘out there’ things, and not spend more than a tenner. Oh wait, you can. You just need a few friends. BAM is another of our favourite restaurants in London, and if you do it tactically, you can eat very well for not very much. Go with three friends, say, and order the lamb offal flatbread at £8.50, the fried chicken wings and hispi cabbage at £7 each, and a few giant hashbrowns for £4, and you’ll be spending less than £10 each. Less than a tenner for some of London’s best food. No need to thank us.

You’ve promised to meet your poshest friend for dinner, but there’s a nagging voice at the back of your mind that tells you Nando’s just isn’t going to cut it. Take them to Brasserie Zedel, where they’ll get all the old-school French brasserie food they can eat, while you can stick to the prix-fixe steak hache and gateau, all for £10.50. The service is excellent, they’ll bring you all the bread you can eat, and the fancy room makes it feel like you should be paying far more than that ten pound note you’ve just handed over. If you walk away calmly, they won’t suspect anything.

There are lots of decent Korean restaurants in central London, but there’s only one Seoul Bakery. They do a few inexpensive Korean dishes here, like bibimbap or kimchi fried rice (with authentic plastic cheese) that are good, but you want to come here primarily for the atmosphere. It feels like a cross between a student cafe, and a K-Pop memorabilia store. It’s cash only, communal seating, and 100% awesome.

Your east London lifestyle has been a right hoot, but after months of negronis, avocado toast, and raves in converted brothels, your bank account’s looking a bit worse for wear. You can’t quite bring yourself to give it up though, which is why trendy wine bar Sager & Wilde’s pasta is an excellent choice. You can get a bowl of their hand-made pasta with a glass of wine for a tenner between 5-7pm every night. Also maybe drink some water. You probably need it.

Machiya in Piccadilly does homestyle Japanese food, which means comforting plates of pork tonkatsu, beef curry, and a matcha cake that’ll take the edge off when you’re in a need of a big hug of a meal. It’s all casual without feeling divey, and while there’s the odd pricey item on the menu, the best dishes are easily the tonkatsu and curry, which are both £7.

There’s a £7.50 lunch menu at Soho Indian restaurant Dum Biryani that’ll get you an enormous plate of veg or meat biryani, as well as mini poppadoms, pickles, and dips. The food’s very good, and the laid-back atmosphere matches the fun decor. Hit it for a casual weekend lunch.

The easiest dumpling fix in Chinatown is at Jen Cafe, where a plate of seven Beijing-style dumplings with minced pork is only £5 a pop. The restaurant’s very basic but the dumplings are nicely made and filled generously – hit it when you need a quick snack. Just don’t forget the chilli oil.