London has no shortage of places where you can eat beautifully, talk too loudly, order “just one more thing,” and then pretend the dessert was everyone else’s idea. But Honey and Co. in Bloomsbury has a particular kind of magic. It feels less like a restaurant trying to impress you with culinary fireworks and more like a generous friend who happens to own an excellent spice cabinet, a serious pastry section, and a deep emotional commitment to tahini.
Located on Lamb’s Conduit Street, Honey and Co. is one of London’s best-known Middle Eastern restaurants, celebrated for warm service, colorful sharing plates, fragrant breakfasts, and desserts that have caused many sensible adults to lose all control around cheesecake. The restaurant was founded by chefs Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, whose cooking draws from Middle Eastern home kitchens, Israeli food culture, Mediterranean ingredients, and the relaxed pleasure of feeding people well.
This is not the kind of London dining room where you whisper over a tiny plate and wonder if you accidentally ordered the garnish. Honey and Co. is bright, approachable, lively, and built around abundance. Think hummus you want to scoop with heroic confidence, shakshuka that makes breakfast feel like a small holiday, grilled meats, seasonal salads, pickles, herbs, fluffy breads, and that famous feta-and-honey cheesecake waiting at the end like a tiny golden plot twist.
Why Honey and Co. Works So Well as a London Hangout
The phrase “London hangout” can mean many things. It might be a café where you answer emails while guarding a table like a dragon. It might be a pub where your friend says they are “just having one” with the credibility of a weather app in a thunderstorm. Honey and Co. lands somewhere more delicious: a relaxed Middle Eastern dining spot where food is the main event, but conversation is never pushed into the background.
The restaurant’s charm comes from its balance. It feels polished but not stiff, flavorful but not fussy, stylish but not intimidating. The room has a clean, bright design, with a neighborhood restaurant feel that suits Bloomsbury perfectly. Lamb’s Conduit Street itself adds to the experience: independent shops, calm sidewalks, and the rare London atmosphere that says, “Yes, you are still in the city, but you may unclench your shoulders now.”
A Restaurant Built for Sharing
Middle Eastern dining is often at its best when everyone at the table is reaching, passing, dipping, negotiating, and saying things like, “Who finished the labneh?” Honey and Co. understands this rhythm. Its menu leans into sharing plates and colorful combinations, making it ideal for friends, couples, solo diners, and small groups that enjoy ordering across the table.
A typical meal might begin with meze: creamy hummus, pickles, fresh herbs, tahini, spiced vegetables, and bread that becomes less of a side dish and more of an edible tool. From there, the table can move into grilled dishes, fish, chicken, lamb, seasonal vegetables, and salads brightened with citrus, yogurt, nuts, herbs, and spice. The flavors are confident without being shouty. They arrive with warmth, not ego.
The Food: Comfort, Color, and Serious Flavor
Honey and Co. is often described as Middle Eastern, but that label only begins the conversation. The food pulls from a wide regional pantry: tahini, sesame, pomegranate, dates, preserved lemon, cumin, za’atar, cardamom, harissa, yogurt, herbs, and honey. The result is food that feels both familiar and surprising. It is comforting enough to relax into, but layered enough to keep your fork busy.
Breakfast and Brunch: The Shakshuka Effect
Breakfast at Honey and Co. is one of the smartest ways to experience the restaurant. Shakshuka is a standout, especially for visitors who believe breakfast should involve more drama than a sad hotel croissant. Traditionally, shakshuka features eggs cooked in a richly seasoned sauce, often tomato-based, though green versions with herbs and vegetables bring a fresher profile. At Honey and Co., breakfast feels generous, aromatic, and properly energizing.
Bureka, pastries, eggs, yogurt, breads, and strong coffee also fit naturally into the morning mood. This is the sort of brunch where you can still have a real conversation. Nobody needs to scream over a DJ at 10:30 a.m., which, frankly, is a public service.
Lunch and Dinner: Meze, Mains, and the Joy of “One More Plate”
Later in the day, the menu shifts toward vibrant sharing plates and heartier dishes. The appeal lies in contrast: creamy with crunchy, smoky with bright, sweet with salty, rich with acidic. A good Middle Eastern meal should wake up every corner of the palate, and Honey and Co. does exactly that.
Dishes often showcase the kind of cooking that looks simple until you try to recreate it at home and realize your spice drawer has been lying to you. Chicken might arrive with freekeh and herbs; fish may be paired with sharp, fresh salads; vegetables are treated as main characters rather than polite decorations. Falafel, hummus, labneh, tahini, grilled breads, and pickled elements create the kind of spread that makes diners slow down and enjoy the table.
The Dessert Everyone Talks About
Honey and Co.’s feta-and-honey cheesecake is the dessert with its own fan club. It is often mentioned in reviews, recommended by regulars, and remembered by visitors with the tone people usually reserve for old love letters. The combination sounds simple: tangy cheese, honeyed sweetness, and crisp pastry texture. But the genius is in the balance. It is sweet, salty, creamy, crunchy, floral, and just dramatic enough to make sharing feel like poor planning.
If you are visiting for the first time, save room for dessert. This is not optional in the emotional sense. You may technically skip it, but then you will spend the rest of the evening wondering who you have become.
The Atmosphere: Friendly, Bright, and Unpretentious
One reason Honey and Co. has remained beloved is that it avoids the coldness sometimes found in fashionable restaurants. The dining room is stylish, but it does not feel like a showroom. The service is knowledgeable without turning dinner into a lecture. The food is plated with care, but it still feels like something designed to be eaten joyfully rather than admired from a distance.
That matters. Middle Eastern dining is deeply connected to hospitality, generosity, and shared pleasure. Honey and Co. captures that spirit in a London-friendly format. You can go for a breakfast meeting, a long lunch, a relaxed dinner, or a weekend catch-up. It suits locals, visitors, food lovers, and anyone who thinks a table full of dips is one of civilization’s better ideas.
Who Should Visit Honey and Co.?
Honey and Co. is a strong choice for travelers looking for a memorable London restaurant that is not built around tourist clichés. It is also excellent for Londoners who want a neighborhood meal that still feels special. If you love Mediterranean food, Middle Eastern flavors, vegetarian-friendly plates, smart brunch options, and desserts with personality, this restaurant belongs on your list.
Best for Food-Loving Friends
Groups of friends will appreciate the shareable nature of the menu. Ordering several plates creates a casual, generous rhythm. Nobody is trapped with the wrong main course. Everyone gets to try a little of everything, and the table naturally becomes more social.
Best for Couples Who Actually Like Sharing
Honey and Co. also works beautifully for couples. It is cozy without feeling cramped, romantic without being syrupy, and interesting without being exhausting. The food encourages conversation, which is useful if you are trying to avoid the classic date-night trap of discussing nothing but the waiter’s haircut.
Best for Solo Diners
Solo diners are not an afterthought here. The restaurant’s friendly format and bright dining room make it comfortable to visit alone, especially for breakfast or lunch. A solo meal with shakshuka, bread, coffee, and a pastry is one of the better ways to remind yourself that independence can be delicious.
What to Order on a First Visit
Menus change, so the best approach is to follow the season and ask the staff what they love that day. Still, there are some smart first-visit principles.
Start with Bread, Dips, and Meze
Begin with a spread of meze. Hummus, tahini-based dishes, labneh, pickles, vegetables, and bread create the foundation of the meal. This is where Honey and Co.’s style shines: big flavor, strong texture, and enough freshness to keep the meal lively.
Add Something Grilled or Slow-Cooked
For the center of the table, choose something grilled, roasted, or slow-cooked. Middle Eastern cooking is brilliant at building depth through smoke, spice, citrus, yogurt, and herbs. A well-seasoned chicken, lamb, fish, or vegetable dish can anchor the meal while still leaving room for lighter sides.
Do Not Skip the Salad
At many restaurants, salad is the thing people order to feel responsible. At Honey and Co., salads can be full of nuts, herbs, fruit, cheese, grains, yogurt, and sharp dressing. They are not punishment in a bowl. They are flavor architecture.
Finish with Cheesecake or Something from the Pastry Side
The pastry reputation is real. If the feta-and-honey cheesecake is available, order it. If other cakes, pastries, cookies, or seasonal sweets catch your eye, trust the instinct. The restaurant’s sweet side is not an afterthought; it is part of the identity.
Why Honey and Co. Stands Out in London’s Middle Eastern Food Scene
London has an outstanding Middle Eastern food landscape, from Lebanese grills and Turkish ocakbasi restaurants to Persian dining rooms, Israeli-inspired cafés, and modern Levantine spots. Honey and Co. stands out because it feels personal. The cooking is restaurant-level, but the emotional register is home-style. It does not chase trends as much as it refines its own language of flavor.
The founders’ background helps explain that character. Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich built Honey and Co. around food that feels deeply rooted in memory, travel, family, and hospitality. Their wider work, including cookbooks and related London food projects, reinforces the same idea: everyday food can be joyful, generous, and layered with story.
This is why Honey and Co. feels different from a restaurant that simply adds za’atar to a dish and calls it a concept. The flavors are not decorative. They are the structure. The sesame, citrus, herbs, yogurt, spice, and honey are doing real work.
Planning Your Visit
Honey and Co. is located at 54 Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, a central London neighborhood that is easy to combine with museums, bookshops, garden squares, and a slow afternoon walk. It is close enough to the British Museum area to make sense for travelers, but tucked into a calmer street that feels more local than hectic.
Booking ahead is wise, especially for dinner or weekend brunch. The restaurant is popular, and a spontaneous visit can work better during quieter hours. Always check current opening times, menus, and reservation details before going, because restaurants are living creatures and occasionally change schedules just to keep us humble.
Experience Section: A Longer Look at Dining at Honey and Co.
Imagine arriving in Bloomsbury on a cool London afternoon, the kind where the sky cannot decide whether it is being poetic or just gray. Lamb’s Conduit Street gives you a gentler version of the city: small storefronts, people walking with purpose but not panic, and that lovely London feeling that history is leaning politely against every brick wall. Honey and Co. fits the street perfectly. It does not shout for attention. It glows.
The first experience is usually smell. Before the menu becomes a plan, the air has already started making suggestions. Warm bread, coffee, spices, roasted vegetables, sesame, citrus, and something sweet from the pastry side seem to float through the room. It is the kind of smell that makes you suddenly forgiving. Late train? Fine. Rain? Romantic. Friend who said “I’m five minutes away” while clearly still in another postcode? Acceptable, as long as they arrive before the hummus does.
Sitting down at Honey and Co. feels different from entering a grand, formal restaurant. There is no sense that you must perform sophistication. You are not required to know the vintage, pronounce every ingredient perfectly, or pretend you naturally eat dinner with tweezers. The pleasure here is more direct. The staff can guide you through the menu, but the food itself is friendly. It invites curiosity rather than anxiety.
A good meal might begin with bread and dips, which is also when the table dynamic changes. People who previously claimed they were “not that hungry” suddenly become extremely committed to scooping. Someone says the hummus is excellent. Someone else says the pickles are doing important work. A third person starts calculating whether ordering more bread would be excessive, then orders it anyway because society advances through brave decisions.
As more plates arrive, the meal becomes colorful and conversational. A salad might bring crunch, herbs, and brightness. A grilled dish might add smoke and warmth. Yogurt cools spice. Tahini adds depth. Honey softens salt. Lemon wakes everything up. The best part is that no single dish needs to dominate the table. The experience is cumulative. Each plate adds another note until the meal feels complete.
The restaurant is especially good for the kind of hangout where food is central but not precious. You can talk about travel, work, families, ridiculous London rent, or why everyone suddenly knows someone making sourdough again. The plates keep moving. The conversation pauses when something especially good arrives. Then someone takes the last bite of a shared dish and tries to look innocent. It is classic human behavior, and Honey and Co. provides excellent evidence.
Dessert changes the mood again. The feta-and-honey cheesecake is famous for a reason: it delivers contrast in a way that feels both elegant and comforting. The salty tang of cheese, the sweetness of honey, and the crisp texture underneath create a dessert that is rich without becoming heavy. It is the kind of final plate that makes people lean back, smile, and say they could not possibly eat more while actively checking whether one more spoonful remains.
Leaving Honey and Co., the best feeling is not just fullness. It is the satisfaction of having eaten somewhere with personality. London is packed with restaurants chasing novelty, but Honey and Co. succeeds by being deeply itself: warm, generous, fragrant, and quietly confident. It is a place to meet, linger, share, and remember. For a London hangout with Middle Eastern soul, it is hard to beat.
Conclusion
Honey and Co. is more than a Middle Eastern restaurant in London; it is a warm, flavorful hangout built around the pleasure of sharing food. From breakfast shakshuka to colorful meze, fragrant mains, fresh salads, and that unforgettable feta-and-honey cheesecake, the restaurant delivers comfort with intelligence and hospitality with heart.
For visitors, it offers a delicious alternative to predictable tourist dining. For locals, it remains the kind of neighborhood restaurant worth returning to again and again. Whether you come for brunch, dinner, solo dining, or a catch-up with friends, Honey and Co. makes a strong case that the best London meals are not always the loudest or flashiest. Sometimes they are the ones where the bread is warm, the tahini is smooth, the conversation stretches, and dessert somehow becomes non-negotiable.
Note: This article is based on current publicly available restaurant information and reputable dining coverage. Menus, prices, hours, and booking policies may change, so readers should check the restaurant’s latest details before visiting.