Truly, there are only so many ways you can fry a sausage, so the real make or break for a greasy spoon connoisseur is the choice of carb to form a buffer between the solids (bacon, sausage, black pudding) and the gloops (egg yolk, beans). Toast is compulsory so it doesn’t count, therefore the standard options are chips (for lunch and for children), hash browns (for Americans and for children) and bubble (correct). Bubble is the aficionado’s choice, and those who subscribe would travel a long way for a breakfast based around it — to Tulse Hill perhaps. Electric has been going since 1932 and like the other great London caffs — Pellicci, Regency, and Alpinos — is run by a proprietor with origins outside the U.K., in this case Stavros Tsoukkas whose Greek-Cypriot family has owned it since 1978. The bubble here shows a little bit of that Mediterranean touch, intensely herby with big enough chunks of Savoy cabbage to stave off scurvy for a day or two, all moulded into a big soft patty fried to a char on both sides that cuts through the oil and fat like a strong cup of tea. Eat it in a setting that feels like is hasn’t changed for donkey’s years, surrounded by wooden signs and assorted arcana from halcyon days, old boys with old accents tucking into liver and onions, and feel grateful that at least someone is preserving it.

Time and space tend to behave themselves in London, but around a small room in Herne Hill, things warp unexpectedly. For one, there’s no menu given at this Jamaican seafood restaurant; instead, it is stuck up on the far wall near a fridge. Actually, there’s no real indication of what to do at all. So here it is: walk directly to that fridge, and pick a fish — red snapper, bream, and sea bass among others. Tell the chef how to cook it: steamed in a sauce made of tomato, thyme, and okra, fried with a side of bammy, or in brown stew with rice and peas. The price will depend on the size of the fish; there are sides: prawns and lobster. Take a seat, and wait. This is a place where whiling away an hour drinking Red Stripes is to partake in the community of a place, not to wait anxiously for a meal; by the time that meal arrives, there is nothing in London that better hits the spot. This is not a restaurant everyone will enjoy, but for those who get it, this is the kind of unaffected simplicity people spend money travelling to Italy and France for, right on Brockwell Park’s doorstep.

Tafe Beleynah is a magician. Here on a small Brutalist housing estate off the Walworth Road she works alchemy with lentils that any number of molecular gastronomists or meat-free burger companies would sell their soul to learn the secret of. Although this is not a vegan restaurant, it’s easy to have a completely meat- and dairy-free meal here, where Beleynah’s Ethiopean and Eritrean dishes can be soaked up by the thousand eyes of teff-based injera, made in-house, of course. The no-brainer to get is the house special vegan selection, which gives a generous amount of all of Beleynah’s vegan stews, including the misir wat — lentils spiced with berbere — which has the uncanny meaty depth of a slow-cooked ragu. Of the house selection, the defin misir wat, a much milder lentil stew, has a rich, acidic butteriness that approximates a cottage cheese, while actual cottage cheese crops up in an outstanding kitfo that only just cooks the small cubes of beef until they are bouncy and rich. Despite all this, the best dish may actually be the dulet, the most obviously meaty thing on the menu, that combines kidneys and tripe finely chopped into springy, savoury anonymity that could convince even the most ardant offal sceptic.

A January listing of this restaurant said: “if London was New York, then this Kurdish cafe would be the subject of food pilgrimages and glossy weekend magazine features”. Since then, Pary Baban and her family have slowly built a Camberwell/Peckham empire, adding a restaurant on Church Street to the Vestry Road cafe, Peckham Levels concession, and an Elephant and Castle coffee stand — and two glossy magazine features. What marks Nandine apart is the level of soul, skill, and care put into the food on an almost microscopic level: it’s one thing to make hummus well, but it’s another to nail each of the eleven components of their vegetarian mezze, from the vine leaves to the qawarma. Even simple rice or cabbage dishes are elevated through judicious use of fresh herbs like dill, mint, and parsley. Boreks, both triangular and spiral, can be bought from the counter, and a Kurdish breakfast comprising in-house yoghurt, white cheese, fig jam, honey, bread, and salad is somehow simultaneously frugal and completely luxurious.

When Abdullahi Maikano opened Alhaji Suya just over a year ago it was a huge deal for the London Hausa community who finally had one of their own owning and operating a restaurant dedicated to a Hausa speciality. In that time Maikano has become the indisputable king of suya in London. Beef, lamb, and chicken are the standard options here, cooked on the long barbecue at 45 degrees, flattened into Bible page sized parchments of meat, rested then finished to order on an electric grill to develop a crust. There are also, occasionally, gizzards and kidneys, but it’s the fatty cut of tozo (beef), veal-like in its colour and texture, which melts on the tongue, providing it is eaten straight off the grill while the homemade yaji is still aromatic and volatile, provoking a nasal rush that is almost ecstatic. Always ask for kilishi if he has it, a type of jerky made from dried, flattened muscle, the bright purple colour of a bruise, that packs a sweet heat that builds and builds and builds. Not just a great suya spot but one of the best takeaways of any kind in London.

Once upon a time, around 2010 or so, south east London was home to the most impressive concentration of Vietnamese restaurants in the city, essentially holes in the walls of Deptford High Street. Quan Viet’s La Vong fish that even made a virtue out of dill, the devil’s own herb; Chung Viet’s noodle soups of astonishing clarity, the kind that would quell homesick Parisians; Pho Hanoi’s light and crispy banh xeo stuffed with bouncy prawns and beansprouts. All those meals will be lost in time, like tears in pho. Time to move on. On Evelyn St there is a new flourishing: Cafe Mama Pho for those in the mood for soup and Eat Vietnam, a barbecue specialist. Nem nuong nha trang come correct as dense, adana-like pork skewers, to be wrapped in lettuce and herbs, while suon heo nuong from the BBQ section is a whole rack of crunchy back ribs, the sweetness of the glaze almost evoking Americana if it wasn’t for the sobering hit of anise. The chef is from south Vietnam and its the Vung Tau specialist banh khot that shouldn’t be missed here: small cups of batter the same size and shape as Anna Higham’s brown butter cakes at Flor, sweet with coconut milk and fried with a splayed prawn as the literal icing on top. It’s not exactly a crowded field but this is one of London’s best Vietnamese restaurants right now.

Manze’s is never going to change anyone’s opinion on pie and mash. While places like Goddards in Greenwich are innovating with various degrees of success, adding different pies (welcome), extra spicy chilli vinegar (extremely welcome) and baked beans (an atrocity), Manze’s sticks to the two “indigenous” London foods that it’s been serving since Italian Michele Manze came over from Ravello and opened up shop in 1902: pie, mash and liquor, and eels. Either you were brought up on this food and buy into its lore, the fork and spoons (knives are provided solely to weed out the daytrippers), the gummy pies and pappy mash, smeared round the edge of the plate, a bulwark to keep out the seepage of mucilaginous Kermit-green liquor. Or you regard it as the culinary equivalent of Brexit. Manze’s is nostalgia, it’s baby food nonpareil, it’s lineage and tradition, it’s London culture to the hilt. The fact of whether it’s good or not (and to be clear, it is actually very good) is almost immaterial, it should be compulsory for any Londoner who likes food to go to Manze’s at least once a year and order a double pie and mash, dowse it with the oddly Chinese condiments (chilli vinegar and white pepper) and pray that they don’t all move to Essex.

Deptford is often spoken about as the new Dalston by those who think another Neo Dalston is a good thing. Walk around the station and the taprooms and cafes show a side of Deptford unrecognisable even ten years ago, such is the pace of change. But there are names, like the ravens in the Tower, whose presence means there is still a bit of old Deptford left. To the names of Manzes and AJ Goddard (RIP) it’s possible to add another: Una. Chaconia, named for the flower of Trinidad, is Una’s baby, and it is often treated as a labour of love or a hobby with erratic opening hours and a menu which is never quite always fully available. There is a lot of generosity too, but this “is still a business, not a church”. Both the rotis themselves, pliant and pillowy, and the fillings of perfectly spiced goat curries or potato and spinach, are completely made in-house, and are fuel for the whole day, especially when paired with a fried bake and Una’s pepper sauce. [Una is currently on a well deserved holiday and will update her hours as soon as she’s back.]

Walk from Plumstead to Woolwich to read the signs of the significant Nepali community that has built up here, in this pocket of London where the Thames grows wide. The Pashupatinath temple just off Winn’s common is the first of its kind in Europe and from here to Royal Arsenal (once a munitions factory and now an arch, a couple of pub chains, luxury riverside homes, and a farmers market) the Gurkhas who were granted housing in the area make their presence known not with kukris but with momos and soup noodles. Kailash Momo near the station is one of the busiest in the area, and the extensive menu has something for everyone, soaking up Tibetan, Nepali, Indian, and Chinese influences. The namesake momos are actually not the strongest point; better to get set lunches of “crazy” fried meats to be eaten with dried chiura (flattened rice), as well as generous thalis with adroitly spiced lamb, chickpea and lentil curries and pickled potatoes (aloo ko achar). Those in the mood for thukpa should head back down the road to Plumstead’s D Namaste, but the thenthuk is excellent, with ribbons of thick cut noodles similar to Chinese dao xiao mian all in a complex, acidic broth.

It seems to be no coincidence that one of the most beautiful London cafes has been created by an architect couple from Asmara, Eritrea’s capital whose unique Art Deco architecture has outlasted the Italians who designed it. Indeed Eritrea has been more willing than other countries to embrace their colonial rubble by turning them into heritage, and this is as visible in the food as the buildings. Inside Blue Nile, sensitively restored by Jon and Nina from the old W. Geller sausage shop, there are white tiles, low lights, Giro d’Eritrea posters, and a chart translating Ge’ez script into English. Meanwhile, Italy punctures the now-familiar menu of stews and injera with unfamiliar berbere-spiced pastas, tiramisu, affogato, and Peroni.

Jon’s mother Shewa is responsible for most of the cooking here, tending towards (but not exclusively) vegetarian with complex, nimble spicing in a dish of tumtumo (lentils) and a heavier hand in the brick-red silsi that serves both as a sauce and a dish in itself, enlivening a mixed platter of mixed vegetable dishes served on wine-gum sour injera, made in-house. Make sure to end (or begin) with some kemem tea — which is not a tea but a grounding infusion of many of the spices used in the cooking itself.

Where, in the pantheon of dumplings to put momos, then? Those Iced Gem pleats that can be served boiled, fried, souped, drenched in sweet chilli, or bobbing in a tangy Nik-Nak orange pickled curry? Quite highly, to be honest. In fact its their versatility that put them close to god tier, the fact it’s possible to order four or five variations and still not feel fatigued. The best dumplings in Woolwich are found at Maya DDs, round the corner from Kailash Momo and Blue Nile, where the jhol momos (that pickled number) is the pick of the bunch. Tripe (bhutan) can be ordered stir fried but is even better in the deep fried crispy version, coming out as Cthulhu-like tentacles, crisper than chicharron due to the high fat content and the surface area where each frill has turned into a little spike of batter. Of note are also the chatamari, often called Nepali pizzas by people who have never seen a pizza. In actual fact these rice crepes are more like Vietnamese banh xeo, stuffed with beans, potato and chicken mince and served with a mutton curry on the side to cut through the stodge. If any Nepali restaurant in Woolwich is worth the DLR ride it’s this one.