These Are the Best Bakeries in London Right Now

London's pastry culture is a perfect blend of contradiction. On one block, you'll find the prim and proper scones served with afternoon tea that give the perfect crunch, while just a few steps away, there's a shop offering the fluffiest sourdough ka’ak stuffed with za’atar and feta, providing an entirely new taste experience. It's this mix of tradition and disruption, of pastry cases filled with local, Great British Bake Off-worthy bites next to global imports, that makes the capital of the United Kingdom one of the most dynamic pastry destinations in the world right now. And it's no surprise that it ranked No. 6 on Food & Wine's 2025 Global Tastemakers list of the best cities in the world for pastries. 

While you can start and end a pastry-filled getaway in London just about anywhere, I suggest kicking things off at one of the Pophams Bakery locations, which is leaning all the way into that spirit of experimentation with menu items like its decadent, salty-sweet maple bacon croissant, which has become a minor celebrity in its own right, getting endlessly praised and dissected on Instagram with home bakers attempting to recreate its magic. 

Just around the corner, sweet treat fans can also pop into The Dusty Knuckle, which proves that delicious things can also do some good. The bakery is equally well-known for its potato sourdough as it is for its youth employment program, and even won the King’s Award for Enterprise in 2025. It's high praise but well deserved for the spot that also slings focaccia sandwiches and chocolate tarts out of its converted shipping container shop. 

Over on Columbia Road, Pavilion Bakery is leaning deep into fermentation. Its sourdough is simply unmatched, and you'd be lucky to get a loaf as they make them in ultra-small batches, which sell out quickly. But if the bread is gone, that's OK, as their caramel-colored croissants make for an excellent backup plan. 

For one more splash of cool-kid pastry magic, there's Jolene, which stone mills its own flour, ensuring every bite is as fresh as it gets. As a bonus, those grains are also grown on nearby sustainable farms and are used for their famed sausage rolls, raisin bread, and popular Guinness cake (as a bonus, this spot doubles as an acclaimed date night spot, too). 

But you don’t have to stay in East London to find this mix of old and new. In Fitzrovia, Arôme is bridging French and Asian flavors with bakery favorites, including its signature honey butter toast made with thick-cut, caramelized shokupan. It's not even close to subtle. And that's what makes it great. 

Visitors to London can keep the global flavors going with a bite at Common Breads, where Lebanese baking traditions are celebrated with a generous helping of za’atar spice. The shop's specialty is ka'ak, topped with sesame or salted butter and jam, for a taste of the sweeter side. It even offers it with its “everything” mix, sort of like a Beirut-style everything bagel. 

However, London isn't abandoning the classics, either. At St. John Bread and Wine, the Eccles cake — a cake once banned in England for being too rich and delicious — with Lancashire cheese remains a must. Same goes for the doughnuts at Bread Ahead in Borough Market. Their crème brûlée flavor has gone viral time and time again. So often that the bakery launched a crème brûlée experience, so fans could learn to make their own. 

At the more refined end of the spectrum is Toklas Bakery, which bakes with a sense of precision, producing pastries that look as though they should be in a gallery instead of on a plate. Though its menu rotates often, you can usually count on a gorgeous croissant, a slice of chocolate and hazelnut cake, or a bouncy brioche. 

Savory flavors are also on the menu in London, including at The Ginger Pig, a butcher shop known for its premium cuts, along with its sausage rolls, which offer a flaky, quintessentially British experience. And over at The Pie Room inside Rosewood London, the humble meat pie has been elevated to fine art, with tiny, ornate, glazed pies, including chicken and wild mushroom, and hand-raised pork pies, make for a fantastic lunch on the go (just make sure to preorder if you want one, as they are only available between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday). 

And then there’s this writer's personal favorite: Climpson & Sons. While revered for its specialty coffee, it also features a rotating pastry menu that's either made in-house or brought in via its partnerships with other bakeries around the city, ensuring a true taste of the London scene in one shop. (The brand also frequently shares love for other bakeries on its Instagram @climpsonandsons, so follow along for more recommendations.) 

To attempt to wrangle London's pastry scene into a single category would be a fruitless effort, but again, that's what makes it great. Pastry here isn’t precious. It’s gutsy and global. It's shaped in equal parts by new and old world traditions. You don't always need to book high tea to indulge in a sweet little treat here. You just need a good pair of walking shoes to get you there and a strong desire to eat dessert first.

To uncover the best food and drink experiences for travelers, Food & Wine polled over 400 chefs, travel experts, food and travel writers, and wine pros from across the globe for their top culinary travel experiences. We then turned the results over to our Global Advisory Board, who ranked the top nominees in each category. For the full list of all 165 winners, visit foodandwine.com/globaltastemakers.