The 8 best late-night eats in London after midnight

Right, late-night food in London has properly thinned out since 2019. Half the spots that used to run til 4am gave it up during covid and never came back. The current map is concentrated in three corridors — Soho, Brick Lane, and the Vauxhall arches — plus a couple of outliers if you know where to look.

Eight that genuinly stay open. Ranked by what you actually want at 2am.

Beigel Bake, the white-fronted one, Brick Lane

The institution. 159 Brick Lane, the white-fronted shop, 24 hours, every day. Salt beef beigel with mustard is the order. Two quid something. Queue moves fast, the staff don't hand-hold, the beigels are warm. The yellow shop next door is also good but it shuts earlier and the salt beef there is a different recipe.

Don't order coffee. The tea is fine.

Bar Italia, Soho

Frith Street. The Italian espresso bar that's been the late-Soho default since the 80s. Open til 4am most weeks (4.30am Friday/Saturday in summer). Toasties, cake slices, espresso. The crowd at 2am is a properly mixed Soho crowd — comedy spillover, theatre crew, club people. The TV plays football.

Duck & Rice, Soho

Berwick Street. Alan Yau's late-kitchen Chinese. Last orders 1am most nights. The crispy duck and the crab dim sum are the orders. Cocktail bar runs in parallel, which means you can sit at the upstairs counter, eat properly, drink properly, and walk out at 1.45 not feeling like you've been at a kebab van.

This is the high end of the late-night list. Genuinely good food, after midnight.

Hi Sushi, Vauxhall

Vauxhall arches. Open til 5am Friday and Saturday, slightly less the rest of the week. It exists explicitly for the post-club crowd from fabric and the South London after-parties. The sushi is fine, not Michelin, but exactly what you want at 4am. Tempura is more reliable than the rolls.

The Brick Lane curry houses (the late ones)

A handful still run til 2am. Aladin is the most reliable. The thing nobody tells you: the prices on the menu are the negotiating opening, not the price. The "free bottle of wine" deal is real. The mango lassi from the guy outside Aladin is genuinly the best thing on the entire street.

Kowloon, Chinatown

Gerrard Street, the bakery-restaurant on the corner. Late kitchen til 3am Friday and Saturday. The roast pork over rice is £8 and the right thing. The bakery counter sells the egg tarts late too, which is mental and useful.

Polo Bar, Liverpool Street

Bishopsgate. 24 hours, every day. It's a diner. Full English at 2am, club sandwiches, milkshakes, the breakfast window opens midnight. You're not going for the food, you're going because it's the only thing in the City that's open and it's reliably exactly what it says it is.

Mangal 2, Dalston

Stoke Newington Road. Proper Turkish ocakbasi, kitchen til 1am most weeks (later on weekends in summer). The lahmacun, the lamb beyti, the bread. It's the move if you're leaving a Dalston night and want food that isn't a kebab van. Mangal 1 is also good but Mangal 2 has the late hours.

What I'd skip

The 24-hour McDonald's on Tottenham Court Road — there's a reason the queue is full of people who've made bad choices. Most "24-hour" pizza spots in zone 2 close at 2am anyway, the website lies. Anything labelled "diner" in the Westfield extension that claims a late kitchen — they always shut at 11.30 in practice.

For finding a late-eat near a specific gig or club, the London this-week page maps the venue against late-eat options nearby. Saves the 3am Google Maps roulette where everything claims to be open and isn't.

That's the eight. The map shrinks every year, so use them while they're here.