London restaurants are remarkably inventive when it comes to charging you for things. Bread, water, service – at this rate, someone will introduce a supplement for the chair.

But November brings an extra pound worth paying. StreetSmart is back, inviting diners to help tackle homelessness simply by eating out. For once, a restaurant bill might leave you feeling better about the money you’ve spent.

Elsewhere, Dalston has been spared the loss of a much-loved pizza joint, thanks to an employee who bought it herself. Florence Knight returns to London’s kitchens, Bar Douro brings rare Portuguese beef to Soho and the man behind The Dover is expanding his collection of glamorous dining rooms into Chelsea.

There are new tacos in Dalston, too, and a northern Indian restaurant in Marylebone serving a Sunday roast with gunpowder potatoes. Traditionalists may need a lie-down.

The £1 restaurant bill addition that’s actually worth paying

Restaurant bills can now resemble legal documents, with enough extra charges to make you wonder whether you’ve accidentally bought a stake in the business. But throughout November and December, some of London’s best restaurants are inviting diners to add £1 that might genuinely do some good.

StreetSmart, which launched its 29th annual campaign on 1 November, asks participating restaurants to add a voluntary £1 donation per table. The money supports projects tackling homelessness, from emergency accommodation and meals to healthcare, training and housing advice. Donations stay in the communities where they’re collected, while LandAid pays the campaign’s operating costs, meaning every pound donated reaches the projects.

Since 1998, StreetSmart has raised more than £16.2m, including £1.18m last year. New London supporters include 2210 by Natty Can Cook, Cloth Cornhill, Bar Blondie and Florence Knight’s Lunette. They join St John, Barrafina, Gymkhana, Lina Stores and The Wolseley, among others.

It’s entirely optional. But if you can afford dinner at Gymkhana, you can probably find another pound. Unlike the supplement for bread, this one might change somebody’s life.

Runs 1 November-31 December 2026 | Find your nearest participating restaurant here | Website

Voodoo Ray’s is saved by one of its own

London has become so accustomed to restaurant closures that a survival story feels almost suspicious. But Voodoo Ray’s, Dalston’s New York-style pizza institution, has been rescued by someone who actually works there.

The company behind the restaurant entered liquidation in October, putting its last remaining Kingsland High Street site at risk. Restaurant reported last week that Rebecca Lines, an employee of several years, has taken over, with plans to retain its independent character and expand catering and events.

Founded by DJ and nightlife entrepreneur Dan Beaumont in 2012, Voodoo Ray’s helped introduce London to the sort of enormous, thin-crusted New York pizza that makes the average takeaway offering look like a digestive biscuit with aspirations. Its 22-inch pies, sold by the slice or whole, have seen plenty of Dalston nights through to the bitter end.

Downstairs, agave cocktail bar Doña is moving into the former home of Dance Tunnel and Karaoke Hole, a basement with an impressive record of keeping east London entertained.

An employee rescuing the restaurant she works in is not how these stories usually end. For once, Dalston gets to keep something it loves.

95 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB | Website

Florence Knight returns to London with Lunette

Florence Knight is back, and she’s chosen somewhere with a decent view. Lunette opens on 3 November on the 11th floor of Nick Jones’s new St Clement hotel, overlooking the Thames. It’s her first restaurant of her own, following Polpetto and Sessions Arts Club, where her cooking attracted a devoted following.

The dining room has just 30 covers, huge windows and an open kitchen, with interiors designed alongside Alex Eagle and Sophie Hodges. Hopefully the lift is reliable. Eleven flights of stairs is a lot to ask before dinner.

There’s a set menu, at £80 for four courses at lunch and £110 for dinner. Preview dishes include crisp pomme soufflé with smoked eel and roe, golden crab rice with peppered egg yolk and milk custard with onion and caviar. It’s intricate cooking, requiring an extraordinary amount of work to make something look as though nobody has touched it.

Knight has been away from London restaurant kitchens since leaving Sessions Arts Club in 2024. The view will be a bonus; the food is the reason to go.

Opens 3 November | Level 11, St Clement, 180 The Thames, London WC2R 2NF | Website

Bar Douro brings rare Portuguese beef to Soho

Max Graham has unfinished business with Greek Street. In 2013 he ran a Portuguese wine and port pop-up there, years before Bar Douro became one of London’s more dependable places to drink well and eat salt cod. Now he’s back, with the keys to number 10.

His third Bar Douro opens on 4 November in the former home of 10 Greek Street. There will be familiar blue-and-white tiles, a Portuguese-only wine list and small plates from executive chef Neuza Leal: salt cod with potatoes and eggs, garlic prawns, smoked sausage croquettes and acorn-fed black pork.

The novelty is Maronesa beef, from a rare native cattle breed raised in the mountains of northern Portugal. Bar Douro says it will be the first restaurant in Britain to import it, serving mature-cow ribeye on the bone and larger cuts to share. London has heard more than enough promises of life-changing steak, but at least this is something different.

The first Bar Douro opened beneath the railway arches near London Bridge a decade ago. Soho brings Graham back to the street where he first tested the idea.

The wine list covers all 14 Portuguese winemaking regions. Anyone whose knowledge begins with Vinho Verde and ends with duty-free port can consider this an education.

Opens 4 November | 10 Greek Street, London W1D 4DH | Website

The Dover’s Martin Kuczmarski opens a restaurant in Chelsea – without telling anyone

Martin Kuczmarski appears to be building a restaurant empire for people who wish London still looked like a photograph from 1962, only with fewer people smoking indoors. And probably better loos.

He’s also developed a taste for keeping everyone guessing. Five days ago, the former Soho House executive began posting mysterious black-and-white videos on Instagram, leaving London’s restaurant obsessives to play detective.

The answer arrived today, 2 November: Chelsea Counter, now officially open at 39 Cadogan Gardens, in the former Meat the Fish site. It joins The Dover, his Mayfair hit known for low lighting, extravagant martinis and New York-style Italian-American comfort food, alongside Martino’s on Sloane Square and Dover Street Counter, both opened last year.

Details of the new menu remain thin on the ground, but if his other restaurants are anything to go by, expect more old-school glamour, Italian-American influences and the sort of food people actually want to eat. Kuczmarski has a gift for making brand new restaurants feel as though they’ve been there for 50 years. Apparently he’s now perfected the art of opening them before anyone has quite worked out what’s going on.

39 Cadogan Gardens, London SW3 2TB | Instagram

Andrew Clarke brings Acme Taco to Dalston

Andrew Clarke hasn’t finished setting fire to things in Dalston. The chef behind Acme Fire Cult has opened Acme Taco at 40ft Brewery, next door to his live-fire restaurant, which makes the neighbourhood an even better place to arrive hungry and leave smelling of smoke.

It’s the second Acme Taco, after Walthamstow, with a kitchen led by Ernesto Puga, who grew up in Veracruz and previously worked at Cavita and From the Ashes. The inspiration came from Clarke’s time in Mexico City taco kitchens; the resulting menu is a long way from the standard pulled-pork-and-guacamole approach.

There are tacos of beef suadero involving cheek, heart, tongue and sausage, slow-cooked lamb barbacoa and wagyu birria. More cautious diners can stick to ribeye with cheese and poblano chilli, though that would seem a missed opportunity. Tostadas arrive with bluefin tuna or confit pig’s head, while the grill turns out prawns with achiote butter and pork ribs with hot agave. Dessert runs to chocolate and black mole ganache or a coffee-spiked horchata creation.

Everything comes with beer from the brewery next door, which is convenient: this is food that looks likely to require at least a second pint.

40FT Brewery, 10 Lockwood Way, London E17 5RB | Website

Oorja opens in Marylebone with northern Indian cooking and a £21 tiffin lunch

Marylebone has no shortage of places to spend too much on lunch. Three dishes for £21, though, is worth investigating, especially from a chef whose CV includes The Cinnamon Club and Jamavar.

Oorja opened on Thayer Street on 1 November, the latest restaurant from Gobind Chona’s Starwins Group and a sister to its Shaftesbury Avenue original. Here, head chef Jadhav Tukaram, most recently of Oudh 1722, concentrates on northern Indian cooking, from Punjabi and Rajasthani dishes to food from Lucknow.

That means lamb shank nihari slow-cooked with star anise, cinnamon and fried onions, tandoori malai broccoli with cream cheese and rose petals, and biryanis steamed under pastry lids. Dessert includes masala-chai crème brûlée with gulab jamun, an unlikely pairing I’m entirely willing to investigate.

Lunch brings three dishes in a traditional tiffin box for £21, which beats spending almost as much on a sandwich eaten over a keyboard. On Sundays, there’s spice-roasted lamb rump, masala sea bass or mustard-marinated cauliflower with gunpowder potatoes, pickles and onion kulcha. Anyone who insists a roast must involve boiled carrots can stay at home.

The 90-cover restaurant also has a bar serving spiced shikanji lemonade, mango lassis and cocktails, so abstaining from booze needn’t mean an evening of tap water. A £49 Diwali feasting menu runs from 3 to 10 November, with samosa chaat, Kolhapuri chicken and sweets. A good week to arrive hungry.

13-14 Thayer Street, London W1U 3JR | Website

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