Fiona MacLeod on avoiding the overpriced trap restaurants clustered around every major landmark
The restaurants directly beside major tourist attractions are, with very few exceptions, not where you want to eat. They know you’re tired, hungry, and unfamiliar with the area, and price accordingly. Here’s how to actually find something decent without walking miles out of your way.
The General Rule Of Thumb
Walk two or three streets back from whatever landmark you’ve just visited before deciding where to eat. That short distance alone tends to drop prices noticeably while improving quality, since those slightly less visible spots depend on repeat local custom rather than one-off tourist footfall, which genuinely changes what they’re incentivised to prioritise. Look for places with menus in English that also clearly have regulars, workers on lunch breaks, people who look like they know the staff, that’s usually a reliable positive sign regardless of cuisine.
Market halls have become genuinely excellent options near several major sites, offering a range of stalls at more reasonable prices than sit-down restaurants immediately surrounding the same landmarks, with the added benefit of letting different members of your group choose completely different cuisines without anyone having to compromise.
Specific Areas Worth Knowing
Near most central London attractions, side streets running perpendicular to the main tourist routes tend to hide the better, more reasonably priced options. It’s a pattern that holds up remarkably consistently across most of the city’s major tourist clusters, worth remembering wherever you happen to be visiting.
Coverage from Time Out London maintains regularly updated guides to good value eating across different neighbourhoods, a genuinely useful supplement to simply wandering and hoping for the best.
A Final Honest Note
It’s fine to occasionally eat at the convenient, slightly overpriced spot right by the landmark, sometimes you’re simply too tired to walk further, and that’s a completely reasonable choice too. Just know it’s a choice, made consciously, rather than the only option available, which is the bit visitors most often don’t realise until after they’ve already paid the bill.
More from Fiona MacLeod at her author page on The London Prat.
Related coverage can be found at Time Out London.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
