Comfort food is food that makes you feel better than the weather outside. It’s warm, it’s filling, it asks nothing complicated of you. London does it well — across dozens of traditions and cuisines, the city knows how to feed people on grey days. Here’s where to find the best of it.
What Makes Food Comforting
There’s a reason comfort food is consistent across cultures: it’s not a coincidence. The psychological pattern is the same everywhere.
Warmth. Hot food changes your body temperature and slows you down in the best way. A bowl of something steaming on a cold day is physiologically soothing before you’ve even tasted it.
Density. Comfort food is filling. Not just in a caloric sense — it’s food that sits with you. A ramen, a stew, a bowl of dumplings. You don’t finish them and immediately feel hungry again.
Familiarity. Comfort food works partly through memory and association. It’s why the best comfort food often has a cultural or personal history — it’s not just fuel, it’s a reference to something known and safe.
Simplicity. Comfort food doesn’t show off. The best examples are straightforward dishes done very well. A perfectly cooked bowl of pelmeni with cold sour cream and golden fried onions needs nothing else.
London’s Best Comfort Dishes
London’s diversity means comfort food here is not one thing. It’s several dozen things, each excellent in its own tradition.
Ramen. The Japanese noodle-broth has become one of London’s great comfort food staples. Deep, long-cooked bone broths (tonkotsu, shio, miso), thick noodles, soft-boiled eggs, nori. There are excellent ramen shops across Soho, Fitzrovia, and Shoreditch. The queue is usually worth it.
Pie and mash. Properly British comfort food. A short-crust or suet pastry pie — steak, chicken, or game — served with mashed potato and gravy or liquor (the traditional green parsley sauce of the East End pie and mash shops). There are still genuine pie and mash shops in East London if you want the original. There are also newer interpretations across the city.
Curry. London has world-class curry. Brick Lane, Tooting, Southall — the range of South Asian cooking in London is enormous. A slow-cooked lamb curry, a dhal makhani, a fragrant chicken korma. These are among the most comforting dishes you can find anywhere, and London has some of the best outside the subcontinent.
Ful medames. Egyptian slow-cooked fava beans, served with olive oil, cumin, lemon, and flatbread. An undersung London comfort food. Warming, filling, and cheap.
Pho. Vietnamese beef noodle soup — delicate but deeply restorative. A good pho is both subtle and deeply savoury, with a broth that’s been cooking for hours. There are excellent Vietnamese restaurants and cafés in Hackney, Shoreditch, and Kingsland Road (known locally as Pho Mile).
Shakshuka. Eggs baked in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce. Originally from North Africa and the Middle East, now well-established in London’s café and brunch culture. Hot, shareable, and genuinely satisfying on a cold morning.
Why Dumplings Top the List
Of all the comfort foods in London, dumplings might be the most universally beloved — because they appear in almost every food culture and they work every time.
A hot dumpling is almost impossible not to find comforting. The thin dough, the savoury filling, the steam when you bite through. It’s food that wraps itself around you.
Eastern European dumplings — pelmeni and vareniki — are comfort food in the truest sense. They were built for cold climates. They were designed to warm people up after long journeys, long days of work, long winters. The toppings — sour cream (cold and cooling against the hot dumpling), fried onions (savoury and golden), fresh herbs (bright, cutting through the richness) — complete the picture. You sit down with a bowl and you feel better within minutes.
At Varenik & Pelmen, a bowl of Pork & Beef pelmeni with sour cream and fried onions is about as comforting as London gets. We handmake every dumpling. We take the toppings seriously. And at £5 per 100g with toppings included — an average bowl running £10–12 — it’s comfort food at a price that doesn’t add to your problems.
Our pelmeni: Lamb & Beef (halal) · Pork & Beef · Chicken · Pork · Kids’ coloured-dough
Our vareniki: Potato · Cabbage · Mushroom · Sweet Cherry · Strawberry · Cheese & Spinach
Six included toppings: Sour cream · Crispy bacon · Fresh herbs · Sautéed mushrooms · Fried onions · Berry jam
Where to Warm Up
For dumplings: check eatpelmeni.com/find-us for our next pop-up date and location.
For more on London’s best dumplings across all traditions, see The Best Dumplings in London. For the full menu, visit our menu.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best comfort food in London?
London’s best comfort food spans many traditions — ramen, curry, pie and mash, pho, shakshuka, and dumplings all have strong London versions. Eastern European dumplings — pelmeni and vareniki with sour cream and toppings — are among the most purely comforting dishes in the city, especially in colder months.
Where can I get warming food in London?
Ramen shops across Soho and Shoreditch, curry restaurants in Brick Lane and Tooting, pho cafés on Kingsland Road, and Eastern European dumpling bars like Varenik & Pelmen. For handmade pelmeni and vareniki, check our current pop-up dates at eatpelmeni.com/find-us.
Are dumplings comfort food?
Absolutely. Dumplings are comfort food in almost every culture that has them — and that’s most of them. Eastern European pelmeni and vareniki are particularly good at the job: hot, filling, savoury, and served with sour cream and toppings that make the whole thing deeply satisfying. They were built for cold weather eating.
What’s good to eat on a cold day in London?
A hot bowl of pelmeni with sour cream and fried onions is our recommendation. But honestly: ramen, curry, pie and mash, or a pho will all do the job. London is very good at feeding people on grey days. The city’s diversity means you’ve got serious options regardless of where you are.