Dining Out: Where to Eat in London When It’s Too Hot to Eat in London

Ice cream in Catford, gnocchi in Bloomsbury. Life’s rich tapestry.

Hello everyone. Before I get into the meat of this week’s paid post, I have some things to tell you:

1. As of last Wednesday, Dining Out is officially an award winning publication, which is cuckoo crazy. We won the Self-Published Online Writer award at the Guild of Food Writers Awards 2025. Mad stuff. Thank you all for your readership and encouragement, it means so very much!!

2. You’ll probably have noticed that there’s not been a weekly review for a while. I needed a bit of a break, and I wanted to refocus a bit. While I still won’t be back to a weekly turnover anytime soon (I’m knackered and skint lads), I am going somewhere fun this week, so please expect a write up about that in your inboxes in the near future.

Okie doke*, that is the housekeeping done so now let’s get to the good bit:

Don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s absolutely boiling. It’s the perfect weather for heatwave behaviour (this is a phrase we used to use at VICE for the deranged shit you do when it’s too hot, like sleeping with your legs out the window or going to work tops off. Heatwave behaviour.), but I have to say: it is not always the perfect weather for going to restaurants.

You are restless you are damp and the only thing you can actually stomach eating is mini Magnums. I understand because I have been in this boat for the past few days too, prone on the sofa crunching ice cubes and little squares of refrigerated melon, and intermittently saying to my housemate: ‘it’s so hot’.

Sometimes, however, it is necessary to leave the house in these conditions – perhaps you have a birthday or a spouse who cares not for your protestations about underboob sweat and would like to actually go somewhere nice – and because it looks like we are in for a hot hot summer in general, I have done a public good and assembled this helpful list of places you should eat, when it’s too hot to eat.

Watandar, Catford

The best thing about being an adult is that you can have ice cream whenever you want. You don’t have to ask your mom! You can just have it! It’s so good. Probably the most delicious ice cream I have ever had in my life is at Watandar in Catford, where they serve sheeryakh, made with condensed milk and and whole milk, in huge, towering portions, it’s own folds lovingly cascading down on itself. Everything at Watandar is amazing – I love their chapli kebab, which is a flat lamb patty style situation – and banging for a hot day, as it’s a lot of grilled meats with rice and salad. But my god. That ice cream, man.