In December, we said it: the customer isn’t always right. A surge in chargeback fraud, unnecessary one-star reviews and straight-up no shows are leaving an industry already facing tough times even further out of pocket. Bad form, all of it. Did nobody’s mum teach them manners?

Now, it looks like people are taking this sense of entitlement into their professional lives too, approaching their work with the mindset that they don’t owe anyone anything and treating people’s time as an afterthought.

In a city like London, where the cost of running a business is more expensive than ever, time is one of the most valuable commodities. Yet, so many brands, businesses and agencies seem to have forgotten the basics, wasting it like Premier League footballers running down the clock.

Life’s a Pitch

Pitching is where we’re feeling it the most – and we’re not alone. Here’s how it usually goes: a brand sends over a brief with a tight deadline attached. We drop everything, jump on a call and work our arses off to deliver a proposal and then… tumbleweed. No decision or feedback, just that feeling that you’ve been stood up. Turns out ghosting isn’t reserved for the dating world.

Alia Jamal, founder of food and drink PR agency, doubleshot, has been working in the industry for over 20 years, and says she’s never seen it this bad. “We’ve had at least five pitches this year worth over £100k in revenue where we’ve thrown everything and the kitchen sink at it. After the pitch, which seemingly went well, we haven’t even had a mere ‘thank you’ email, nevermind an actual decision on which agency they’ve gone with or feedback on our proposal.”

It’s not just egos which can take a bruising. Alia says: “Pitches take significant time, resource and budget, and for smaller agencies, this is not in abundance. Not receiving feedback on a pitch is rude and leaves the team feeling deflated.”

For Alia, the solution is simple: “Be a good business person and treat the agency how you would want to be treated. Maybe we should also start charging brands for the pitch.”

She’s not the only one who’s thought that. In 2024, NYC-based design agency Porto Rocha got so fed up with prospective clients dressing up unpaid work as a “pitch” that founder Felipe Rocha launched No Free Pitches, a campaign against speculative creative work. The page has over 7200 signatures from creatives worldwide. However, two years on, not much has changed.

Freelance PR consultant, Joel Porter of Peanuts PR, has taken it one step further and now refuses to pitch all together. “It just takes far too much time, and that time can only come away from paying clients. I’ve been around long enough for most people to work with me on reputation or recommendation so I just don’t have the business need. Agencies have the resource for the founder to take two days off to do a big pitch but as I’m doing everything with no support they just don’t work for me. I’ve pulled out of new business discussions before when they’ve asked me to be part of a pitch process, which some people totally understand and others just don’t get.”

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Farringdon and Clerkenwell have long been among our favourite corners of London. It’s a history-soaked area – technically two – of Dickensian alleyways, vibey restaurants, beautiful boozers and dance-’til-dawn clubs where modern-day storytellers can be found on the mic (or in the smoking area). Once known as Little Italy, it’s a home from home for people from around the world who have built better lives for their families and enriched the city.

Today, it’s pumped up on commuters and visitors using the Elizabeth Line station. More than 50 million passengers passed through Farringdon station in 2025, making it the UK’s 8^th busiest station, while global companies like TikTok and Live Nation have moved their headquarters to the area. Despite being an area in constant flux, it maintains a village-y vibe in some of its leafier spots around Clerkenwell Green and St Bartholomew’s Church, and come weekends it’s super quiet.

But there’s a new influx of hubbub moving in alongside the area’s OGs. Moro/Morito, Sushi Tetsu, Quality Chop House, St. John, Luca and, more recently, Cloth, Bouchon Racine and Space Talk have all helped put it on the map. Now, there’s a big new announcement every week. LOTI fave Camille will be making the journey from Borough in autumn 2026. Ex-Kiln head chef Karla Knowles is set to bring fire-led, Thai-inspired flavour bombs to a new address at 61 Charterhouse Street. Chef Jackson Boxer recently added to the hype with his new joint Vesper on Exmouth Market, offering inventive sharing plates and off-menu burgers. Japanese sommelier Raku Oda has just opened Ebi Wines, a bar and shop in one. We’ve also got word that there’s a very Public House coming, an East London wine bar moving in soon and a certain Island taking a spot there.

That’s not all: cultural venues are joining the party too. The London Museum will finally reopen its doors at its new Smithfield site in November, where the story of grime will sit alongside an exhibition exploring the city’s Roman roots. Plus, you won’t be short of options for a post-exhibition snack, as caterer Green & Fortune has teamed up with chef Robin Gill and Mr Lyan Studio on four fresh venues opening alongside the museum on 28 November, including all-day dining room Clerks House, and Bartholomew’s, a street-facing bar on Farringdon Road. There’s also a return for the historic Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms, reborn as a booze-free café running round-the-clock from Thursday to Sunday, plus The Roost, a rotating residency space for up-and-coming street food talent. We’re excited to see how they document the next chapter at this landmark new address.

Read Full Articel Here

Influencers have been the talk of the town recently. And not in a good way. Only Scrans has been taking swipes at clickbait merchants, while stores in Nantucket have been banning them altogether. The discourse, as ever, is not kind.

But the backlash only tells half the story. Because for all the eye-rolling, these are people with a platform, and a platform can have a genuinely positive influence.

TikTok especially has been helping struggling businesses find a new lease of life. Take The Rich Collection Bella Italia, a Shoreditch shoe and handbag shop which was on the brink of closure after over thirty years of trade, until the owner’s daughter launched a TikTok campaign to save it. The videos took off, and the shop now has queues stretching down the street.

It was a similar story for Salpiké, a Latin American and Caribbean restaurant in Brixton Market. After a missed payment, the landlord locked owner William Mejia out of his own store. However an online campaign, backed by influencers – and Stormzy – helped change its fate.

Then there’s Eating With Tod. Say what you want about him, and his messy eating, but he also uses his platform for good, drawing crowds to spots like Umana Yana, a roti restaurant in Herne Hill, where daily takings had dwindled to as little as £20 after council telephone boxes were installed blocking the storefront.

What links these places is that they’re longstanding, often immigrant-owned spots in neighbourhoods under increasing pressure from gentrification. They made their success by serving their communities and building relationships with local people. Without a PR team lining up coverage, it’s difficult for a place like that to cut through the noise.

Read The Full Article Here

At the end of May, the Soho Society, a community group established in 1972 to represent Soho residents and their interests, voted to oppose all new restaurant and bar licensing applications, including renewals of existing ones, in the area with opening hours beyond 11pm. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who’s long been vocal about improving the city’s nighttime economy, called the move “bad for London”, and has said he wants to use the powers granted to him by the government that will allow him to overturn blocked applications to “protect venues, extend London’s late-night offer and allow the capital’s nightlife to flourish.”

Westminster Council, which ultimately makes the decisions on awarding or denying licensing applications says that each one is judged on its own merits. The Soho Society, which has a formal consultative role to the council, states that its objections are based around the fact that infrastructure has not increased in line with the new growth in nightlife, citing concerns around crime, litter, and noise. There are real issues around safety; G-A-Y Late Jeremy Joseph said that customers and staff being attacked attending and leaving the bar, along with police understaffing, contributed to his decision to close the venue in 2023.

However, the close links between Westminster Council and the Soho Society (and reports as per the Guardian of some members feeling intimidated to voting in favour of this new mandate) reflects a pattern of a minority group having undue influence over decisions. Famously the Compton Arms had a review of its licence after four neighbours complained about noise in 2022, and Manchester’s Night & Day was caught up in a dispute for years after a couple who moved into a neighbouring flat made a noise complaint. These are just two examples of many.

As Sadiq Khan recently tweeted: “Complaining about nightlife when you *checks notes* choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums. Or moving to Hackney and grumbling about creatives. Living in Richmond and hating green space. It’s all getting a bit silly, isn’t it?” Sacha Lord, Chair of the Nighttime Industries Association, has similar feelings: “If you move next to a bar, expect noise. If you move next to a live music venue, expect noise. If you move next to a nightclub, expect noise. If you move next to a restaurant, expect noise. Don’t move into a busy, thriving area…then complain about noise. You’re the issue, not the businesses or customers.”

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Much is always made of the cost of dishes, especially when they seem high, but these clickbaity headlines used by critics and influencers massively flatten the issue of restaurant economics – something that’s hugely counterproductive when the hospitality industry is in crisis.

Running a restaurant is harder than ever. Operators are contending with rising energy costs, rising food costs, expensive rents, increased labour costs exacerbated by the rise in NICs, an increase in business rates as of this April, and a VAT rate of 20% – double what it is across most of Europe. New research has also revealed that the hospitality industry has been the sector hit hardest by inflation over the last decade. As margins shrink, prices have to grow to ensure survival. A UK Hospitality report last year found that a third of hospitality businesses were operating at a loss. Another predicted that there could be almost 1000 restaurant closures in 2026.

Revealing the reality of the restaurant biz is something we’ve been trying to do since last year. As part of our #TaxedOut campaign lobbying the Government for additional support for the sector, we broke down the cost and profit of dishes from some of London’s best independent restaurants.

In a cost-of-living crisis, price comparisons are inevitable but they’re not always helpful and, to be honest, it’s been this way for a long time. In his review of Tandoor Chop House in 2017, Jay Rayner contrasts the prices of two dishes to their equivalents at Tayyabs, with just a passing reference to the fact that Whitechapel is cheaper than Covent Garden. This is just one offending article, and we admit we know it because we worked on the restaurant at the time, but sadly the media is always complaining about prices and it doesn’t do anything to help the industry. The prices in a Dubai import located in Mayfair are always going to be high, certainly higher than the ingredients cost at retail, where, of course, no VAT is charged and you have to cook the produce yourself. Whether the difference in price represents good value is a personal opinion but it’s hardly a like-for-like comparison.

Comparing prices like this in isolation doesn’t paint the full picture of what’s involved in creating a dish. The cost of rent, and how this differs across the city, the cost of paying staff fair wages, and the cost of using quality ingredients over cheaper ones, are not flagged enough. Without this, it becomes harder to have balanced conversations about the economics of a restaurant and what value actually means.

Location, category and audience have to be considered too, and Chris Pople tackles this well in his Dip In Brilliant review. You know top-end restaurants like Jamavar in Mayfair are going to be expensive; and you know somewhere more budget-friendly, like Lahore Kebab House, in a different area, using different ingredients, is going to cost less…

Read The FULL Article Here

We live in an attention economy where information overload, trend hypercycles and ever-evolving algorithms have reshaped how we create and consume content. Maximum engagement is the goal, so content needs to feel original and fresh, have a juicy enough hook to stop the scroll, and land fast enough to catch the zeitgeist before the next viral moment takes over.

Keeping the content machine going is relentless, fuelling a rise in AI slop and brain rot nonsense. Running out of ideas may be a common phenomenon, but copying content isn’t the fix. Over the past few months we’ve watched our own work pop up elsewhere online, from trend-led features lifted almost beat for beat to identikit Instagram captions and reposted exclusives stripped of attribution. Everyone draws from the same cultural conversation, sure, but there’s still a line between inspiration and imitation – just ask Aldi and M&S.

Intellectual Property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, including things like artistic works, inventions, designs, and brands. There are a number of protections available for people and businesses to protect their IP, ensure they benefit from it, and prevent unauthorised use by others; patents cover inventions, trademarks protect brand logos and names, and copyrights cover creative works, including digital content like website text and social media posts. But when it comes to sharing and reposting, the lines can often get blurred. Most platforms encourage native sharing but a crackdown on reuploading and copying content is coming.

Last week, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced the platform will begin penalising accounts that simply copy content in an effort to better support and reward original creators. “Over the next month, we’re expanding a policy we already have for Reels to cover photos and carousels too: if you mostly share content from others that you didn’t make or meaningfully edit, your account won’t be recommended to people who don’t follow you,” he said.

Read The Full Article
HERE

We live in an attention economy where information overload, trend hypercycles and ever-evolving algorithms have reshaped how we create and consume content. Maximum engagement is the goal, so content needs to feel original and fresh, have a juicy enough hook to stop the scroll, and land fast enough to catch the zeitgeist before the next viral moment takes over.

Keeping the content machine going is relentless, fuelling a rise in AI slop and brain rot nonsense. Running out of ideas may be a common phenomenon, but copying content isn’t the fix. Over the past few months we’ve watched our own work pop up elsewhere online, from trend-led features lifted almost beat for beat to identikit Instagram captions and reposted exclusives stripped of attribution. Everyone draws from the same cultural conversation, sure, but there’s still a line between inspiration and imitation – just ask Aldi and M&S.

Intellectual Property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, including things like artistic works, inventions, designs, and brands. There are a number of protections available for people and businesses to protect their IP, ensure they benefit from it, and prevent unauthorised use by others; patents cover inventions, trademarks protect brand logos and names, and copyrights cover creative works, including digital content like website text and social media posts. But when it comes to sharing and reposting, the lines can often get blurred. Most platforms encourage native sharing but a crackdown on reuploading and copying content is coming.

Last week, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced the platform will begin penalising accounts that simply copy content in an effort to better support and reward original creators. “Over the next month, we’re expanding a policy we already have for Reels to cover photos and carousels too: if you mostly share content from others that you didn’t make or meaningfully edit, your account won’t be recommended to people who don’t follow you,” he said.

Read The Full Article
HERE

Egg freezing is no longer a niche move. It’s one of the fastest-growing fertility treatments in the UK, and the numbers back it up. According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HEFA), cycles have jumped from 2,567 in 2019 to 6,932 in 2023. That’s not a blip, that’s a shift. So what’s driving it?

At its core, egg freezing is about buying time. The process itself is fairly full-on: around two weeks of hormone injections to stimulate egg production, followed by retrieval under sedation. The eggs are then frozen and can be stored for up to 55 years, ready to be used whenever the timing feels right. But it’s not a silver bullet. Success isn’t guaranteed, and outcomes depend on factors like age, with the best results seen in women who freeze their eggs before 35 (according to London Women’s Clinic).

It’s also not cheap. A single cycle can cost anywhere from £3,200 to £6,500, rising to £7,000 once medication and storage are factored in. Thawing and transferring? That’s another £2,500. So why are more women investing in it?

The pandemic has definitely played its part. The restrictions on socialising made it harder for people to meet, prompting some women to turn to egg freezing as a way to alleviate the time pressures that can come with wanting to start a family. But Covid lockdowns aren’t the only reasons why the dating landscape has become so hellish. The apps have left many singles feeling burned out by dating, with the struggle to find a partner being a key driver behind more women freezing their eggs. There are thousands going a step further and taking the leap into parenthood alone, with the number of single women undergoing fertility treatment more than trebling in a decade.

Careers also remain an important factor for women looking to preserve their fertility, both in terms of reaching personal goals and covering the increased costs of having a baby. Getting promoted at work was one of Libby Andrews’ main priorities (along with travelling and doing “whatever the hell I wanted”) in her early thirties, so she froze her eggs at age 33 for when those priorities would change. That time came when she approached 40, and now being in a financially stable position to start a family alone – “I don’t believe that life just automatically hands you a loving, respectful partner exactly within the window of your biological clock. Sometimes it will happen later in life, or earlier, sometimes it doesn’t work out at all” – she’s now pregnant after completing a frozen embryo transfer.

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HERE

Back in October, the government announced it was renewing its Women’s Health Strategy, with measures including a cervical cancer elimination plan, the introduction of Jess’s Rule for repeated unresolved symptoms, and menopause advice being added to free health checks.

Speaking about the strategy renewal, Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “We inherited a broken NHS, and as a result too many women are still subject to a system that doesn’t listen to their experiences or understand their needs. Whether it’s being passed from one specialist to another for conditions like endometriosis or PCOS, the lack of proper pain relief during procedures, or unacceptable gynaecology waiting lists – it’s clear the system is failing women, and it shouldn’t be happening.”

Medical misogyny has deep roots, with women’s health long treated as less important. As Caroline Criado Perez points out in Invisible Women, that bias stretches from Ancient Greek ideas about “hysteria” to modern healthcare systems that still treat men and women differently for the same symptoms. With less than 2.5% of medical research funding going to women’s reproductive health, and women still underrepresented in clinical trials, it’s no surprise the problem persists.

Recent Mumsnet research found that 58% of users surveyed agree that the NHS is institutionally misogynistic; 68% believe that the NHS doesn’t take women’s health concerns seriously; 50% say they have been dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS professional because they are a woman; and 64% say they have been explicitly told their pain or symptoms were “normal” or “in their head”. As Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told the Guardian, “Few examples capture medical misogyny more clearly than the expectation that women should tolerate severe pain during gynaecological procedures. No woman should be expected to endure avoidable pain as the price of care.”

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Here

Earlier this year we wrote about the emergence of Celtic food in London, with the opening of Welsh cafe Bara and the rising popularity of spice bags and Irish deli food. In that piece, we mentioned that it’s not difficult to find traditional British food, like Sunday roasts, fish & chips, pie & mash, fry ups and curry, in London. The city is home to old-school institutions like Rules, Wiltons and Sweetings and contemporary icons like Quality Chop House, St. JOHN and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, doing their take on long-established dishes (like steak & kidney pudding and treacle tart) and even adding new ones (roast bone marrow and parsley salad and meat fruit) to the city’s culinary pantheon.

Heston may be closing his two star restaurant, which is famously influenced by historical British recipes, next year but we’ve got a new crop of openings taking inspo from these isles. And we’re talking about more than simply using local and seasonal British produce, something that a swathe of London restaurants do irrespective of cuisine. These restaurants are offering their interpretation of British dining traditions.

Sally Abé, who’s had plenty of experience with British food having led kitchens at The Harwood Arms, The Pem and The Bull in Charlbury, is taking a leaf out of Heston’s book for the menu at her new British bistro Teal. She’s rolling back the years with her version of a Victorian classic, the penny lick ice cream, with dishes like lockets savoury (watercress, stilton and pear on toast), angels and devils on horseback (oysters and prunes wrapped in bacon), brawn Scotch egg, onion & seaweed broth with barley brioche and Marmite butter, and rhubarb jubilee also on offer.

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Here

Technology has completely reshaped how people meet, date and find love. No more trying to catch someone’s eye in a bar, attempting a cringe chat up line to get a laugh, or risk going on a blind date, as you can filter your preferences in an ideal partner and swipe through hundreds of singles wherever you are in the world.

However it looks like we’ve fallen out of love with the apps. A 2024 Ofcom Online Nation report indicated that there had been a decline in users of the UK’s top three highest-reaching dating services, with Tinder dropping by 594k, Hinge by 131k and Bumble by 368k compared to the previous year. A 2025 Forbes Health Report found that 78% of surveyed users felt burned out by dating apps.

And it’s not hard to see why. The set-up for many of the apps is inherently superficial, asking you to make judgements based on a few photos and generic prompts. With a seemingly endless bank of options available at your fingertips, it’s too easy to be non-committal and even messaging someone back can become a real effort. It’s way too easy to behave badly from behind a screen, with catfishing, ghosting and breadcrumbing becoming all too common occurrences.

We asked our readers what it was really like dating in London right now and the responses are pretty revealing. They include “people asking for your number and then literally ghosting you immediately, asking if I’ll have sex on the first date, them forcing you to pick the first date location so they can justify not paying, married men in my DMs constantly, guys showing up to fourth date covered in hickeys” and “sex video propositions (within week one), being dry humped from behind whilst casually looking over the canal in King’s Cross in broad daylight (he was in his 50s), finding out on X he was married after me asking him outright if he was and him promising me he wasn’t”.

Read The Rest
Here

We firmly believe that, particularly in the current climate, a level playing field will only be achieved if these issues continue to be highlighted and challenged.

Deep dives into women’s role in the workplace, women’s safety in London, and maternity care and parental leave in the UK are just some of the female-focused features we’ve published already this year, and we’ve got a list of women’s resources that’s continually being updated. And there’s plenty more to come, so stay updated with all of our Year of the Woman content here. If you are a woman who wants to get involved in our campaign drop us an email jules@londontheinside.com.

WHO RUN THIS MOTHER F**KING WORLD?

As of the start of 2026, London’s murder rate had dropped to the lowest it’s been in more than a decade, making the capital one of the safest Western cities in the world according to the Mayor. The statistics certainly paint a different picture to the viral videos suggesting London is lawless peddled by the far right on social media. 2026 is our Year of the Woman and as we’re focusing on female-led stories and highlighting gender inequality, we’re asking how safe is the city for women?

Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is an issue across the UK. According to the Cross-Government Strategy to Build a Safer Society for Women and Girls, more than 150 women in England and Wales are killed every year, and one in eight women in England and Wales experienced domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking in the year ending March 2025. Refuge reports that one in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and that VAWG accounted for 20% of all police-reported crime between 2022 and 2023.

In London, VAWG is “endemic”, having increased across 2024 – 2025, with figures from the Metropolitan Police showing that in the 12 months up to the end of January, reported sexual offences rose by 7.4% compared to the previous 12 months. A Survation survey published in July last year found that 57% of women feel unsafe on the streets of London, rising to 68% amongst 18 to 24 year olds. The survey also found that 50% of women believe that London has become less safe over the past five years. The murders of Nicole Smallman & Bibaa Henry in 2020, and Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in 2021, raised questions around the “rules” that women have to follow to keep themselves safe. As with Sarah Everard, who was raped and murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer, the murder of Zara Aleena in 2022 highlighted further institutional failings as it was discovered that her killer should have been recalled to prison after committing other offences.

All-female running group These Girls Run and protein brand For Goodness Shakes hosted a ‘Light Up the Night’ run in Clapham at the end of January to showcase how safety concerns limit women’s freedom to exercise outdoors. The run came following a survey of 1000 female runners revealed that 80% of them avoid running outside in the dark during the colder months, with 72% citing fear over personal safety as the biggest barrier. More than a quarter of women said they run holding their keys in their hands as a precaution, underscoring the fact that women still have to carry out “safety work”.

Read Full Article here.

For the non-chronically online, ‘maxxing’ is internet slang (derived from ‘maximising’) that refers to optimising an aspect of your life, usually in an extreme way. It became popularised thanks to ‘looksmaxxing’ but has since creeped into the vernacular by being attached to a variety of different topics and with varying degrees of irony. It’s basically the ‘-gate’ of the brain rot era.

Let’s go back to where it all began: looksmaxxing. This is an online male beauty subculture centred around maximising physical attractiveness – chiselled jawlines, high cheekbones, “hunter” eyes, ripped bodies – in an effort to increase your “sexual market value” and conform to social media ideals of masculinity. It encompasses everything from skincare and exercising (softmaxxing) to plastic surgeries, steroid use and bone smashing (hardmaxxing) to achieve the desired effects.

Looksmaxxing has existed incel forums for years but has transitioned to mainstream social media thanks to (extremely problematic) influencers like Clavicular. Another manosphere-based spin-off is jestermaxxing, the practice of cracking jokes, using humour and being silly to attract attention and gain social clout.

Why are these new slang terms breaking through? Streamers and influencers like Clavicular are “extremely effective attention hijackers”, leveraging their popularity to infiltrate politics and the news agenda. There’s also money changing hands. Clippers, people who clip other content like livestreams, TV shows and podcasts into short form videos for social media, use these terms in their captions to create the most clickable content, and they can be paid, by platforms or by content creators, for producing viral content. “The internet is always giving us new words and new terms. Sure, “jestermaxxing” will eventually sound old and cringe (perhaps soon, even), but this is the beautiful bounty of online communication. New ways of communicating and expressing!” writes Katie Notopolous in Business Insider. “In this case, it also seems relevant to keep in mind that the new memewords are being pushed by people who are chasing dollars, not just lols.”

Read the full article here.

We don’t need to wax lyrical about London’s food scene – we know it’s the best restaurant city on the planet and it was just named the world’s best food destination in the 2026 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. The diversity of food on offer is its biggest strength; it’s cliche to say but you really can eat your way around the globe in London. However, while we have the four corners of the world on our doorstep, it’s a little harder to find the four corners of the UK.

It’s not like you can’t get traditional British food. There are plenty of chippies, curry houses, pie & mash shops, pubs doing Sunday roasts and caffs doing fry-ups. Old-school restaurants like Rules, Wiltons and Sweetings are doing dishes like steak & kidney pudding, fish pie and spotted dick. There are modern classics, like roast bone marrow and parsley salad, alongside Eccles cakes and jam roly poly, at St JOHN. Sally Abé is opening her own British bistro Teal in Hackney this spring, serving Cornish mussels with Jersey Royals, Dorset crab royale with English peas and lovage, marmalade ice cream sandwiches and penny lick ice creams.

What we’re starting to see now though is more regional specificity and more Celtic representation, not just in the produce but in the dishes. Deeney’s and Auld Hag are flying the flag for Scotland with haggis toasties, square sausage morning rolls and macaroni pies. Detroit-style pizza may be the headline act at Ria’s but owner Ria Morgan-Ratcliffe has added a little nod to Scottish roots with a battered deep fried Mars Bar on her dessert menu.

Tomos Parry has featured Welsh produce on both his Brat and Mountain menus since they opened but it’s new Peckham cafe Bara that’s shining a spotlight on Welsh food. Run by Cecily Dalladay (a MasterChef: The Professionals quarter-finalist) and former head chef Zoë Heimann, Bara was inspired by Cecily’s Welsh background and her Grandma’s 1950s Welsh Gas Board cookbook. As well as bakes like bara brith, Bara is doing Welsh sandwiches made with fillings like laverbread, Welsh lamb, Caerphilly cheese, Blas Y Tir leeks, and Câr-y-Môr shellfish, and even their take on a Swansea breakfast. Londoners are lapping it up, with the goods regularly selling out, indicating that there’s a real appetite there even though Welsh food has suffered from a lack of PR…

Continue reading here.

‘Fuck North London (seriously, what is it with North Londoners?)’ proclaims this post on Instagram that stopped us mid-scroll – with over 450 comments at the time of writing, it seemingly caught a lot of other people’s attention too. It’s promoting an event hosted by writer, founder and cultural leader Phin Harper, where speakers will argue the case for both sides of the river being the best, and it got us thinking, why do people get so het up about the North vs South London debate?

London is a tribal city. Where you’re from or where you live is one of the key markers of your Londoner identity. Though well-connected, London is a big old place and the time it can take to traverse it means that people tend to cluster around the neighbourhoods they live in. Who among us has not sacked off plans after opening Citymapper to check the route?

A 2019 YouGov poll found that people living in South London are twice as likely to cross the river regularly than North Londoners are to head south. Commuting does have a big impact on these results as office neighbourhoods tend to be clustered around Central London – but maybe this explains the accusatory nature of that IG post? After all the caption does say, “While southern Londoners obligingly drag themselves North at the behest of friends in Clapton or Chalk Farm without complaint, persuading a Northerner to cross the river in the other direction is like drawing blood from a stone.”

What to read the full article, see here.

A bowl of greens. Some potatoes. Something to fill the plate while the main did the heavy lifting. That hierarchy has collapsed. In many restaurants now, the sides are as important as the main event.

Somewhere between truffle fries and fully loaded fries, we crossed a line. What began as indulgent extras has turned into a full-blown flavour arms race. Carrots arrive drenched in hot honey and chilli. Cabbage is glossed with XO. Potatoes are crushed, confit, fried twice, showered in herbs, spice blends and something crunchy for good measure. Sides aren’t padding. They’re flavour bombs, competing with starters and mains for attention.

It’s not just anecdotal. In the US, “spice” reportedly now appears on more menus than “fruit”. Heat and instant impact are what diners are scanning for, whether that’s chilli oil, gochujang, nduja or hot honey. Sides are the perfect delivery system: familiar, low commitment, maximum hit.

There’s also the question of value. A recent New York publication flagged the rise of the expensive side, where a £6 bowl of greens has crept into double figures. It sounds bold until you see what’s involved: premium produce, layered seasoning and serious technique. In some cases, more thought goes into the side than the protein beside it.

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Now, though, London seems to have fallen out of love with veganism, and hard. We’ve noticed fewer vegan options on menus and far fewer Veganuary pitches landing in our inboxes this year.

Data shows that sales of plant-based food in Britain have fallen 4.5% in the year to January 2025, with brands reducing their vegan product lines and restaurants cutting back on vegan dishes - Wagamama removed the Vegatsu along with other vegan items in 2025 after pledging to make 50% of its menu plant-based in 2021. All Veggie Prets, which first began opening in 2016 and grew to ten sites at its peak, have been converted back to regular stores.

Many dedicated vegan restaurants that opened during the boom have shut up shop, including The Vurger Co, Rudy’s Vegan Diner, Halo Burger and Neat Burger. Rachel Sugar reports that the situation is similar over in NYC, where a number of vegan restaurants have closed. Eleven Madison Park, which went vegan in 2021 and retained its three Michelin stars in 2022, reintroduced meat to the menu in 2025 in an effort to encourage more diners to come in after feeling the strain financially. As Sugar writes, “one challenge, then, of running a vegan restaurant is to be the right amount of vegan: vegan enough to communicate to vegans that you’re vegan, but not so vegan that you alienate the vast majority of the dinner-seeking population.”

Beyond Meat, one of the leading plant-based meat alternatives companies, has also been struggling financially; the company has denied bankruptcy rumours but has been dealing with slow sales as demand has waned. As food consultant and founder at Good Food Studio Amir Mousavi says, “Brands like Neat Burger and Beyond Meat were amplified far faster than consumer behaviour ever justified, propelled by funding rounds, celebrity backers and influencer ecosystems paid to tell people this was the future of food. Meat analogues were positioned as revolutionary when, in reality, many of them were just another form of highly engineered, ultra-processed food wearing a plant-based badge.”

There are a number of factors behind the bursting of the vegan bubble. For some, who took up veganism to help save the planet, have realised that the climate crisis is so bad, their efforts, however valiant, will ultimately have a negligible impact, so they’ve returned to eating animal products. As Jordan Page states in the Standard,” It’s much like how we gave up plastic straws to save the turtles, but the likes of Elon Musk, Taylor Swift and the Kardashians seem set on boiling them alive anyway with the carbon emissions released during their frivolous private jet journeys.” Practices like regenerative agriculture, something that’s championed by companies like Wildfarmed and The Ethical Butcher, show how responsible meat consumption can have a positive impact on the environment and can help address the challenges faced by our food systems.

In a cost-of-living crisis, choices are also being dictated by price. Plant-based alternatives are often expensive for consumers to buy and for restaurants, making veggies sing in the same way as meat or fish can be more labour intensive than slapping a steak on a grill. Even more processes are required when it comes to turning plant-based ingredients into products that closely resemble meat.

A lot of these vegan alternatives, including faux meats and plant-based milks, have benefitted from the halo effect of appearing healthy because they’re made of plants, despite being ultraprocessed. Whether they are inherently healthier or not (fake meats have less saturated fat and fewer calories than real meat but they can be higher in salt and lower in fibre, and some plant-based milks have oils added to them to improve the texture), there’s been a real pushback on UPFs. Vegan alts are out, protein maxxing and fibre maxxing are the trends of today.

The popularity of veganism has also led to its downfall. All restaurants were forced to up their game on their veggie and vegan dishes so as not to be left behind, meaning that there are generally much better options across the board. People can dine in mixed groups knowing that everyone is better catered for, lessening the need to go to vegan-specific restaurants.

In her Grub Street piece, Rachel Sugar reported that as vegan offerings began to disappear, meat consumption increased, with US sales hitting a record $104.6 billion in 2024. We’ve certainly noticed an increase in steak on restaurant menus across London, and it’s appeared on many wine bar menus too, often as the only large sharing dish.

There’s certainly braggadocio that comes with ordering a big juicy steak in a restaurant but even those who don’t care about flexing on socials are dropping money on meat. The news is bleak and life is hard enough without trying to maintain a restrictive diet, so people are splurging on little luxuries where they can - you may not be able to buy a house in London, but you can buy a steak. At his butcher’s Turner & George, Richard H. Turner says “both prime cuts and lesser cuts are being bought. Day to day eating of lesser cuts with a splurge at the weekend appears to be a key trend”. Restaurants are mimicking this offering, with steak frites deals sitting alongside more expensive dishes at the likes of Elliot’s, Wilsons and Top Cuvée.

From the horses….

“The plant-based category is not just resetting, it is coming back down to earth after a period of artificial hype. For a few years, the sector was less about food and more about financial momentum. Venture capital poured into brands promising rapid disruption, and the quickest way to sell that story was through meat imitation it seemed. This was a hunch, and it was artificially amplified, and now it’s failed, disastrously. The closer a product looked, bled and behaved like meat, the more investable it seemed, regardless of whether it actually moved the dial on health, sustainability or food quality, none of which were part of the original intent.

Plant-based food is not going away, but the fantasy version of it is. The idea that you can shortcut your way to better eating by recreating meat through industrial processes has proved hollow, and dramatically so. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Real progress in this category will come from food that is recognisably food, built around whole ingredients, restraint and purpose, not from trying to game familiarity or nostalgia.”

-Amir Mousavi, Food consultant and founder at Good Food Studio:

“I’ve definitely noticed a softening in veganism, particularly among my catering clients, who tend to be very health-conscious and discerning about what they eat. A few years ago, there was a strong push towards fully plant-based menus. More recently, those same clients have been telling me they’ve felt tired or lacking energy and have started reintroducing protein into their diets. What I’m seeing now isn’t a return to heavy meat consumption, but a shift towards eating less meat, but better meat. At events, for example, there’s been a clear move towards high-quality, high-welfare products such as Jamón Ibérico, which is naturally rich in oleic acid and fits with a more balanced, nutrient-focused way of eating.”

-Omar Allibhoy, chef and author

“We have seen a slight decline in customers ordering the full vegan tasting menu but vegan dishes are still popular as part of a vegetarian, fish or meat table order. Tadka Dal is still a best seller side dish which is vegan along with Truffle Pulao, a mushroom best selling vegan main dish at my restaurant Kutir. It is nice for customers to still have the choice to order from an extensive vegan menu and mix and match dishes depending on dietary preferences. My vegan dishes are always full of flavour; Indian cuisine lends itself well to vegan options with the use of spices and herbs that do not need the addition of dairy or meat to taste delicious when cooked well.

-Rohit Ghai, Chef Patron of Kutir

“Footfall and bookings remain strong, with our restaurants reporting repeat custom from both committed vegans and flexitarians. Guests are increasingly drawn to food that feels more natural, seasonal and ingredient-led, which is exactly how we’ve always cooked since the very first Mildreds in Soho in 1988. However, the plant-based category is becoming more sophisticated. Consumer preferences are shifting away from processed alternatives and towards healthy, plant-forward nutritious options. We don’t see a collapse in demand, but more discerning customers.”

- Sam Anstey, MD of Mildreds Restaurant Group

“At the luxury end of the catering industry, we haven’t seen a decline in demand for vegan food so much as a shift in how it’s approached. Veganism was once treated as a trend or headline, especially from 2021-2023 when we saw a marked increase in requests for purely vegan events. However, today what we’re seeing instead is a baseline expectation of exceptional plant-based options on all event menus. There has been a real shift towards seasonal menus that prioritise flavour, craftsmanship and sustainability without being overly prescriptive.

A lot of the drive for vegan options during this period came from a desire for sustainability, which absolutely remains central, however we’re now seeing this expressed through practices such as ethical ingredient sourcing, waste reduction and regenerative farming as opposed to a strict dietary ideology.”

• Jens Nisson, director and executive head chef of Bubble Food

I lived in New York for a year in 2018 while opening hotels across LA, Portland, Chicago and NYC, and there were aspects of American hospitality that genuinely grated on me. The tipping culture, for one – tipping on absolutely everything, even at street food stalls and in grocery stores. I know, I know, nobody likes that person, but it was A LOT. Then there was the relentless cheerfulness: the ‘Hey, how are you today?’ asked first thing in the morning in coffee shops. Living in hotels meant this was frequently my first interaction of the day, and I am not a morning person, AKA I need caffeine to hit my veins before I chat sh*t to anyone. And of course, they were mostly on autopilot rather than actually wanting to know how every single one of the 1,000 people they served daily actually were. And to be fair, I don’t blame them for that.

That said, two things became immediately clear the moment I landed back in London and went for my first meal out: American hospitality is highly strategic, and Americans are exceptionally good at monetising service.

I remember walking into a hyped new London restaurant that showed availability online. Unsure of my arrival time, I didn’t book and instead tried my luck as a walk-in. I was told there were no tables all night. So I whipped out my phone, booked online on the spot and asked if they could take my number to call me if something came up earlier than my booking, which was only 30 minutes later. They refused and simply told me to come back.

In the States, the response would have been very different. You’d be offered a standing spot in a corner, given a menu, encouraged to order drinks, and then seated as soon as a table became available. American hospitality is so much more focused around the art of maximising covers and they don’t want to let a single person go. You’d leave grateful, feeling like they’d done you a favour – and they’d maximised spend for the business in the process.

That level of hustle just doesn’t tend to happen that often in London. Neither does the upsell, which they do so smoothly and without resentment, and you don’t mind because leftovers are always offered to go. The doggy bag isn’t just accepted, it’s encouraged, which in turn makes you far less likely to worry about over ordering. I once ate half a Chateaubriand for breakfast by a hotel pool after dinner at The Grill in New York, and I am not sad about it.

Part of the difference may come down to front-of-house structure. London restaurants rarely employ a dedicated host or maître d’ outside of super luxe spots, and it’s even less common now given the pressure those salaries put on the P&L. But a great one can pay for themselves many times over. I once got annoyed when a host in New York asked us to move tables mid-meal to accommodate a large party walk-in – until he comped our bottle of wine and sent extra items for the inconvenience. He knew exactly what he was doing: a minor cost offset by the value of a ten-top of enthusiastic eaters and drinkers.

There are smaller tactics too. In many American restaurants, you’re poured a glass of ice water the moment you sit down, even in winter. It’s not just hospitality: quenching your thirst makes you more likely to order an alcoholic drink. Subtle, calculated, and effective.

Many London restaurants still fall way short of employing smart service tactics, including many of those that look to America for inspiration. One Club Row is one exception that springs to mind – its co-founder Benjy Leibowitz lived and worked in New York hospitality for a decade – and you definitely see that experience come through in the service there.

So while London continues to borrow American concepts at pace, the question remains: are we embracing the service mentality behind them – or just the aesthetic?

From The Horses Mouth

Ten minutes before opening, torrential rain, four thirsty people and a wine bar. We asked for a glass, got told to come back in ten and sent back out into the weather. Missed opportunity, really – we were more than ready to be their easiest first round.

Anon, Parched. Dehydrated. Desperate. 2025

If you have any examples you’d like to share - shoot them across to Christina@londontheinside.com and we’ll share them in our next edition!