Spring Is Here as London’s Favourite Canalside Restaurant Reopens

Towpath Cafe, a favourite canalside restaurant, bar, cafe, and seasonal London lifestyle venue will return after its annual winter hibernation on Wednesday 9 March.

Initially, the restaurant, which is run by chefs Laura Jackson and Lori De Mori, will resume service for breakfast at 9 a.m. through to the late afternoon, including a lunch service, before closing at 5 p.m. for the first fortnight, Wednesday to Saturday.

Thereafter, as it moves through the gears and the weather gets a little less hostile, it will open in the evening for snacks, low intervention refreshments, and eventually dinner.

Towpath, which is located under the Whitmore Bridge on the Regent’s Canal, south of De Beauvoir Town, over the course of the last half decade and more has evolved from being a kind of badly kept industry secret (Rochelle Canteen-on-Regents, perhaps) to an Instagram favourite (in 2020, this website referenced “lawn-green tables an unmistakable canvas for eggs on toast, tumblers of espresso, chickpeas with chard, and other delicious, simple seasonal assemblies”) and, in the autumn of 2020, a successful cookbook: Towpath: Recipes and Stories.

Indeed in 2021, Towpath proved itself to be at the perfect intersection of food, design, and lifestyle, with a feature in the Modern House. “A place whose seasonal opening has, over the last decade, signalled the arrival of more optimistic times ahead for its many devotees,” it said. Towpath’s rusticity and warmth recalls southern European holiday cooking; its devotion to the seasons aligns it with the likes of Spring, Cafe Cecilia, Rochelle Canteen, Cafe Deco, 40 Maltby Street, and other ingredient-obsessed restaurants.

And just as in 2020 and every spring before it, the re-emergence of Towpath from hibernation, on the eve of British summer time, “presages warmer weather, lighter nights, and brighter ingredients.”

Stay tuned for the first menu of many this Wednesday.