Generally speaking, most restaurants that boast astonishing views put less effort into the food. Why bother with impeccable bread, usually the first point of reference when sitting down to dine, when diners are greeted with a panoramic scene of the London skyline. This is a folly: a good restaurant should and must do both. But then countless British diners care more about the ‘gram; their appetite for likes outweighs their appetite for flavour.
Still, this arduous rule is broken some of the time. The restaurants here manage the tricky balancing act of blending fine eating with fine views. In Endo at the Rotunda, we find arguably London’s best sushi “in the clouds” of White City; at Hutong at the Shard, solid northern Chinese classics near the summit of one of Europe’s tallest buildings; at Rick Stein’s place in Barnes, riverside views, where you might share fish with a heron.
