Five Restaurants to Try this Weekend

Stockwell Continental

It sounds like an iffy lager, but this bar-slash-deli-slash-pizzeria from the team behind The Canton Arms is the venue South Lambeth Road has been crying out for. It only opened a few weeks ago, but apart from the walls needing a few pictures it already feels like it’s been there forever. The pizzas are a blistery dream, but it’s just as well suited to Sunday lunch (slow-roast Tamworth porchetta, anyone?) and aperitivo hour (a dinky dish of tomato and chilli arancini alongside a negroni sbagliato, signor.) Bolstered by some Self-promotion in this week’s ES Magazine, it’s likely to be packed from here on in. —Emma Hughes
169 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1XW

Morito Hackney Road

One of owners Sam and Sam Clark’s most enviable abilities? Injecting nuance, light and shade into each of their restaurants while running a common thread between them. Morito on Hackney Road — with Sager + Wilde, The Laughing Heart and Marksman convenient pre- or post-prandial neighbours — is in the Iberian lineage, while artlessly and inventively deferring to Moorish influences. It’s a cavernous room given the location, always thrumming with energy whether dining at a table or witness to the elegant marble that unwinds its way along the bar. A morning visit promises Moroccan beghrir with goat’s curd and thyme honey, while an evening jaunt demands an order of the lamb chops with anchovy and paprika butter — the stuff essential dreams are made of. The sherry list is dangerously thorough, while avid seguidors of natural wine will appreciate the presence of sparkling skin-contact from Bernabé, one of Alicante and Europe’s foremost producers. —James Hansen
195 Hackney Rd, E2 8JL

La Trompette

A younger sister to Chez Bruce, it offers all of that Wandsworth institution’s Old World charm and hospitality in a slightly lighter, more airy room just off Chiswick High Road. The food for the most part is French, but not suffocatingly so: modish ingredients like calçots crop up on both the à la carte and the evening tasting menus; there’s also the occasional flirtation with spicing from outside the Modern European wheelhouse. It’s a perfect spot for a special but surprisingly reasonable Sunday lunch — and whatever the supplement for the cheese board, it’s well worth paying: there can’t be many better in London. —George Reynolds
3-7 Devonshire Rd, W4 2EU

Weino BIB

Dalston’s big-hearted champions of eco-friendly wine culture debuted this taproom just before Christmas. BIB refers to “bag-in-box,” considered a more sustainable and cost-effective method of packaging the good stuff. The spartan site is crammed with adroitly picked natural wines in boxes, bags, bottles (for the traditionalists) and even kegs, for consumption on site or to carry/lug home. Tins of Jose Gourmet fish, Carrozzi gorgonzola, Dusty Knuckle bread and Natoora’s Jerusalem artichoke ravioli are on offer — all of which can be plated up in any given configuration to accompany all that gorgeous wine. Simply put, it’s wise to settle in for a glorious afternoon, into evening, into night. —Suze Olbrich
39 Balls Pond Rd, N1 4BW

Lamberts

There are neither boundaries pushed nor diners left unsatisfied at Lamberts, an understated neighbourhood restaurant much loved by Balham locals. Ostentation gives way to the kind of greeting only found at Zone 3 cubby holes; at this particular nook, three courses from the restaurant’s changing “market menu” will demand but £20. It’s curious that the place has not been more widely celebrated, for the cooking is majestic: steak and ale pies bring to the table a collective sigh; hake fillets are paired perfectly with tomatoes and butter beans. There’s no fear of revisiting classics, while more avant-garde gems like gnocchi, soft with broad beans and artichokes, provide a fine base from which to explore the happy and affordable wine list. On Balham High Road, before the great curry houses of Tooting, options are limited and skill is sparse; Lamberts is a proper rival to Clapham’s abundance. —Josh Barrie

2 Station Parade, SW12 9AZ