The best restaurants near the London Eye, from Kerridge’s Bar and Grill to Okan

Local treasure: Okan

(Picture: Press handout)

The stretch of river that is home to the London Eye has a venerable history as a playground for Londoners. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was notorious for licentiousness in the early 19th century while, rather more wholesomely, the Festival of Britain was held on the South Bank in 1951 to usher in the brave new world of a post-war, post-imperial future for the UK.

This is not, however, one of London’s gourmet centres, though lovers of chains are in luck: there are branches of Wagamama, Giraffe, Strada and Côte in the undercroft of the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre arts complex.