It’s that time of year again. No gas heaters needed. No blanket draped over the knees like an elderly dowager. Embrace the tiny window we have to bask outside, eating beautiful food in balmy weather. Here’s a handful of our favourite London restaurants boasting terraces, gardens, courtyards and rooftops perfect for spring and summer.
NB: London has so many great beer gardens they deserved a list of their own — have a browse through our pub database.
Brat at Climpson’s Arch, Hackney
Kind of a terrace, kind of an open-fronted greenhouse-slash-marquee, the courtyard of Brat at Climpson’s Arch goes on the list despite its ambiguous al-fresconess because, tbh, it’s so excellent. Even in the depths of winter, dinner there still feels very summer-coded, with the woodfired ovens and grills flaring, seaweed-infused martinis, and turbot, brill and beef ribs being carted around by the multiple kilo.
Brat at Climpson’s Arch, Hackney
Passyunk Avenue, Fitzrovia
A little slice of Philadelphia dive bar, tucked down a Fitzrovia sidestreet, Passyunk Avenue’s sports-memorabilia-scattered basement is where all the action’s happening come game-time. But for your pre-game during summer you can’t beat the tables out front on the stoop — bask in the sunshine with a Philly cheesesteak and a picklejuice martini.
Passyunk Avenue, Fitzrovia
Campania, Shoreditch
The main reason to go to Campania is to sit at one of the tables spilling out onto the street — in a little, cobbled pocket off Columbia Road — eating lobster scialatielli and feeling extremely cute. There are other restaurants nearby where the pasta’s just as good, but none that are better for roleplaying being on holiday in a tiny village on the Amalfi coast.
Campania, Shoreditch
The Shed, Notting Hill
A post shared by eatwithjibbu (@eatwithjibbu) on Dec 26, 2017 at 3:32am PST
Secluded but buzzy, the leafy front terrace at this Notting Hill spot — covered and heated — offers the best seats in the house. A Gladwin Brothers restaurant, expect farm-fresh ingredients yoked together in spectacular, punchy seasonal menus. Smoking, curing and preserving feature largely. At the time of writing, look out for dishes like crab doughnuts with pickled walnut, coley crudo, and eclairs stuffed with mushroom Marmite and cornichons.
The Shed, Notting Hill
Pophams, Hackney
Tuesday to Saturday evenings, the London Fields outpost of bougie bakery Pophams turns into a pasta restaurant — an outstanding one, with a pretty big patio out front, perfect for everything from a sun-drenched aperitivo to demolishing your way through their short and all-star pasta menu.
Pophams, Hackney
Seabird, Southwark
This stretch of Southwark doesn’t boast a lot of towering buildings, which means the rooftop terrace at Seabird — the seafood restaurant and bar on floor 14 of The Hoxton Southwark — gives you a rare view down over south London, trains lacing in and out of Waterloo, skyscrapers on the horizon. The restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows mean you get a great view even from inside, but on a sunny afternoon the terrace itself is a beaut — lots of palm fronds and fairy lights to go with your dirty martini and skyline views.
Seabird, Southwark
Ombra, Bethnal Green
Ombra could get by on the allure of a tiramisù and a negroni on their main timber-framed terrace alone, but then they went and added a meta-terrace above it — a little mezzanine platform, standing on stilts on the floor-level terrace, with just room for a four-seater table that’ll make you feel like an emperor surveying his domain. We don’t have a photo of the terrace, so here — have one of the tiramisù instead.
Ombra, Bethnal Green
Forza Wine, Peckham and South Bank
Torn between which Forza terrace to choose, we realised: why choose. Peckham has a ‘snacks, drinks and views’ manifesto, with the views in question including sunset over the south-east of the city, if you time it right. Their newer site has a gorgeous brutalist terrace at the National Theatre and a river view. Both have a preoccupation with little fried bites and maverick reinventions of the soft serve — and both are great, so go to whichever’s nearer, and sink a frozen tequila and pear cocktail in the sunshine.
Forza Wine, Peckham and South Bank
The River Café, Hammersmith
Extremely pricey but very nice, it’s a classic among impress-the-parents venues for a reason. Great pasta. Sun-dappled pavement seating along the riverwalk. Bellissima. There’s now also the River Café Café — a cheaper and less formal offshoot next door — which we haven’t been to, but which comes with the same spot along the Thames, terrace seating and, judging from the menu, a slightly less credit-card-melting (though still pretty sizeable…) bill after.
River Café, Hammersmith
Jimmy’s BBQ Club, South Bank
Back from 24 April 2025 on South Bank, Jimmy’s BBQ Club’s actually a pop-up — but with more tenure (this’ll be its 8th year in situ) than many other restaurant terraces, plus with seats planted pushily right up to the riverside, when most other restaurants in the area are overlooking the Thames from a genteel distance. The six-course tasting menu tiptoes into teppanyaki territory, with a series of dishes finished in front of you by the team of chefs, on the Big Green Egg grill embedded into your table.
Jimmy’s BBQ Club, South Bank
Buster Mantis, Deptford
A railway arch bar-restaurant-nightspot and the perfect place to slide effortlessly from early drink to jerk dinner into late night music, Buster Mantis is extra good when it’s warm enough to also slide constantly between their fairy light-hung terrace and the DJs and rum punch inside. Sister restaurant The Watergate, just down the road, also has pavement tables.
Buster Mantis, Deptford
The Compton Arms, Highbury
A neighbourhoody mews pub with excellent craft beers and a consistently great food menu, via a succession of outstanding kitchen residencies (at time of writing, The Rake) — The Compton Arms has always been good at making the most of its pocket-sized and lovely courtyard space out back.
The Compton Arms, Highbury
Peckham Bazaar, Peckham
Smells good, looks beautiful, warm welcome, just as suited to a romantic one-on-one or an exuberant group dinner: Peckham Bazaar’s one of those restaurants you get a great feeling about the second you walk inside. Or outside, if you’re sticking to the terrace — secluded, pretty, and still in basking distance of the smells drifting out from the pan-Balkan dishes on the charcoal grill inside.
Peckham Bazaar, Peckham
The Culpeper, Spitalfields
The Culpeper rooftop’s a splash of city-centre greenery that also happens to serve up a solidly good menu — British-ish ingredients turned into modern European dishes, with bits and pieces of them grown on that roof. Kitchen garden feels, fringed by skyscrapers.
The Culpeper, Spitalfields
Kaosarn, Brixton
A spot on the edge of Brixton Market, straddling the covered arcade and the courtyard on Coldharbour Road, makes Kaosarn the stalwart choice for al fresco in the area — although it’s popular to the point of giant queues year-round thanks to its solid Thai menu and BYOB status. If the queue’s too big to face, Fish, Wings and Tings next door’s also great.
Kaosarn, Brixton
Kutir, Chelsea
Kutir — the Indian fine dining restaurant tucked into a Chelsea townhouse — now has its own sun-dappled little terrace. The restaurant itself, down a quiet sidestreet near Sloane Square, and with a bell to ring for entry, already feels peacefully sheltered from the outside world: the terrace is just an extra level of seclusion unlocked. Embed for the afternoon with soft-shell crab hoppers, spicy lobster brioches, and maybe a mango or ginger-laced cocktail or two.
Kutir, Chelsea
Dishoom, Shoreditch
The Dishoom Shoreditch verandah’s well-suited to the capriciousness of an English summer: retractable roof that they ply with the urgency of a Wimbledon match, spicy comfort food on the menu and a steady flow of chai. First flicker of a raindrop and you can be under shelter, cradling a hot drink, and warming yourself with gunpowder potatoes, whiskey cocktails and cheddar-stuffed naan.
Dishoom, Shoreditch
Acme Fire Cult, Dalston
Acme Fire Cult’s actually offering up a pretty good all-weather, year-round terrace, thanks to some muscular heaters and a Viking-level commitment to having sheepskins and blankets everywhere. Not to mention the heat pouring out of the kitchen — Acme Fire Cult comes with a lot of live-fire swagger. And being in a little enclave just off Kingsland Road lends itself to long summer evenings, bouncing between the 40ft Brewery taproom and the AFC terrace, and back again.
Acme Fire Cult, Dalston
