Eating 8 of London’s Most VIRAL Foods (Are They Worth It?)

London's food scene has always been world-class but these days it's the viral food stealing the spotlight. From over-the-top pastries to dishes you've probably scrolled past a hundred times on TikTok we're on a mission to find out if they're really worth the hype. And lucky for me I got my cousin here who's a professional chef to weigh in with the expert take. We rank each food by how long we'd wait in line for it and we find some unique non-food spots along the way. Alright let's jump in. We started the day at Chestnut Bakery which is a rising bakery chain in London They've won many bakery and pastry awards for example the best croissant in the UK in both 2023 and 2024. We went with the original croissant which they're known for and then of course we had to try a raspberry pistachio croissant as well. Chestnut Bakery voted the best croissant in London. Apparently it's like the most buttery flaky lightest croissant you can get. It's like what makes a good croissant. When they laminate the dough if they use real butter and they laminate it correctly it's like got an airiness about it because it's it's actually such a dense pastry and has so many layers but if it's done right it tastes so airy and light. So light. It's still nice and crunchy on the outside and a little bit of sweetness to it. That's just the plain croissant I want nothing other than this. I love anything pistachio I'm excited about this. That is next level. The pistachio, the raspberries, the tart, flaky amazing croissant. Very strong start to the day. So the goal of today is not to find the culinary gems it's to try all the places that we've seen popping up on TikTok hundreds and hundreds of times as we're researching this trip. Hopefully some of them are actually worth it though and that first stop was definitely worth it so I'm excited for the rest of the day. Like all of the food adventures I have with Clark we decided to plan the day around walking as much as possible since we were eating a lot and also seeing a lot of London since he was only visiting with me for three days. So we made our way through the chaos of Piccadilly Circus and the tourist areas that surround it on our way to our next stop. Clark hasn't been to London in a long time so I wanted to take him to the best place in the entire city Leicester Square. What do you want to do first? Go to the M&M's store or maybe Burger King. Leicester Square is one of the most famous public squares in London as it's close to a lot of the main tourist attractions such as the West End and Trafalgar Square. It's mostly packed with chain restaurants though so this is the only time I visited during my entire month in London. I did like the sculpture garden that they had around the square and it was cool to see sculptures of Mary Poppins, Harry Potter characters and even Paddington Bear. Chef Clark aka James Bond. I like my martini. Shake it not stirred. The highlight of the Lego store is that were people with waiting in line to take pictures with William Shakespeare Lego and not Harry Potter Lego. I was shocked. Josh was telling me there's this unknown spot called Gregg's. Best sausage roll in the whole city. So I think this is the most non-tourist experience we've had yet. I'm sure all the people who live in London come here daily, get their Gregg's sausage rolls, sit in Leicester Square in front of the Mary Poppins statue. Tell me how many times you've done that if you're a Londoner in the comments. Cheers. Cheers. Honestly I can have that on the way to work five days a week. It's like the McDonald's of sausage rolls but I'm not saying that as a bad thing. No. It's that's the best sausage roll in the city you could get for a pound fifty I guarantee it. Before heading to our next food spot we decided to explore a little bit and we headed over to Trafalgar Square. This is basically like a gathering spot in the middle of the city with lots of fountains and the famous Nelson's Column and then right next to it are two incredible London museums. First you have the National Gallery which is one of the most visited art museums in the world. It houses over 2,000 paintings with some dating back to the 13th century and with masterpieces by Van Gogh, da Vinci, and Rembrandt. The building itself is iconic too with its grand neoclassical facade and sweeping steps that look out over the city. And then just around the corner is the National Portrait Gallery which is dedicated entirely to portraits of historical, important, and famous British people. It opened in 1856 as the first gallery of its kind and it's a fascinating way to see British history told through faces and it's one of my favorite museums in London. Got all those museums out of the way let's go eat man I'm hungry. Time to eat. That's enough looking. Let's eat. Leaving Leicester Square behind we made our way into Chinatown. So we were on our way to Spud Bros but we saw Bunsik right here and I've seen so many videos this place too so we'll go and check that out and then we'll go Spud Bros. I was told it's actually pronounced Boonsheik and it's become a go-to spot for Korean street food in London. I've been told the lines for this viral corn dog can be massive but when we went they had just opened and so there was no wait. So I have no idea what this place is other than I've seen a lot of videos. We got the most recommended which was the potato chicken. It's a chicken hot dog covered in like deep fried and looks like french fry crust with like a spicy sauce on top. I can see the hype. Chicken hot dog covered in french fries and pancakes. All right my turn. Oh I'm fully in on that. It's like there's a sweet and spicy. The potatoes are awesome. I mean the hot dog is the hot dog but that's strong. So we've introduced a new rating system on this one and that is how long we would feel okay waiting based on how good it is. So for that place I would say a 15 minute wait I would feel fine with. What about you Parker? 10 minutes I'm standing in line for that crunchy goodness. And then what about the croissant? What are you doing with that one? Oh the pistachio raspberry croissant. That's something I would wake up thinking about if I lived here. Yeah I'm giving a solid 10 to 15 minutes for that one as well. Two good stops. Oh and Greg's sausage rolls. I mean you never have to wait for that. So one minute wait well worth it for Greg's sausage roll. Yeah baby. Next up we're heading to Spud Bros. I've seen so many videos about this but I cannot imagine that it's as good as people say it is. I mean it's a baked potato so I'm happy to be proven wrong. We will see. When we arrived at Spud Bros there was no line. Probably because we were early and we were greeted with some of the nicest people I've ever met which made me instantly excited to try the potatoes. What makes the baked potatoes? The toppings. Okay okay okay. So you just want to load it up with all the good stuff? That's what you're doing right here? Goes on top of the cheese and the oils from the cheese melt into the Spud. Man. And if you leave it for five minutes that cheese is gonna melt. Look at that dude. That is a that is a scoop. A scoop right there man. Y'all ain't messing around right now. Look at that. That's beautiful. It's like an artist at work right here. What do you say when something's incredibly delicious in London? Like what's the slang for it? This is lame. This is lame. First off the people in there Jason and Q the most awesome dudes I think I've ever met. They're hyping this place up. I feel like I'm gonna love it now just because of how cool they were. So here we go. We got the Spud Fathers. This is the Spud Father. There's chili on there. There's crispy onions. There's tram sauce which is like their secret sauce. Potato. Garlic butter. And also this thing is like It's heavy. It's heavy. I wasn't super excited to eat this but if this is my only if I was gonna have one meal of the whole day like this is it. This is everything you need. That's all you need It's like meat. Two pounds. Three pounds of meat. Potato. Beans. Crispy onions. The sauce. Jason from Spud Brothers he told us we got to put the garlic butter on there first before you put all the other toppings on there. It was a great recommendation because it like soaks into the potato and just makes it so good. Cold London day. How is it? I'm waiting. What's up? Look at that. That's the boy Q right there. What's up? What's up? I said I'm waiting in line for this thing. That's what I said. If there is a line absolutely I'm waiting in line for this thing. So how many how long you waiting in line for this? 11 minutes. The thing about this is just straight comfort food. I was thinking that the price wasn't gonna be worth it but I mean literally this could feed an entire family like me and Clark have been already been eating this and look at the dent we made in it. So you could basically one meal it in London with this and the price is probably fair for that. There ain't nothing healthy about that. There's a potato in there somewhere but it's loaded with garlic butter and like I would pass out if I ate this thing this entire thing but man I give it a solid 16 minutes. I would wait 16 minutes for this. This is the longest I would wait so far and honestly it's because the food the amount of food and how awesome those dudes are in there. So there you go. Cheers. Leaving our crazy experience at Spud Bros we explored more Chinatown and then headed over to the West End to see some of the theaters from the outside at least. Next up we're checking out the Noodle Inn and you can see it hasn't even opened for another 10 minutes and that is the line right there. So we're really testing the theory right now because we got in line 10 minutes early so we're gonna see if it's worth 10 minutes or even more of waiting. They started letting us in right at 12 o'clock and we were able to be seated at the bar and this place is popular. Literally there was a line outside of the window the entire time we were there. If you have the opportunity definitely sit at the bar because then you can watch them making the noodles right in front of you. This spot is called the Noodle Inn and it's a viral sensation in Soho largely due to its hand-pulled noodles that everybody wants to come and see. It is 12.05 minutes after they opened already completely full and it's a Wednesday so get here early for this one but we got a great spot. It's known for something called an oil spill wide noodle which is a noodle that's in a spicy chili drenched sauce with generous toppings like braised beef minced pork or even chicken. We started with the wontons which are amazing and then we went on to our main course. Clark didn't realize that we're gonna eat like six places more today and he ordered us a beef shank to go with it. Oh wow. Oh my gosh the spiciness of the chili. You can put like a huge amount of garlic and chili on the meat and then pour hot oil over it and it makes it sizzle and crack. This has got a good spice there's a lot of chili in it but it's not too overpowering and these noodles are some of the best noodles I've ever had in my entire life. The guy is right in front of us just rolling them just stretching them out. He stretched them out on the table lets them set for a second then drops them in the hot boiling water. The next guy on the line pulls them out puts them in the bowl stirs them in some vinegar and then starts building the bowls with them. It's an operation they have here. All right so with the wait on this spot wait as long as you can like I can't even rate this like this place. Me and Clark both said. I'd wait an hour. Yeah. I would wait an hour for this. We said this might be the best meal we've ever had together these noodles right here so I mean if you have to like a little bit of spice. I don't know how it'd be without the spice but if you like a little bit of spice man this is totally worth the wait. And there's the line as we're leaving at about 12 30. So when you're comparing that to the other things we've already eaten that they're not even on the same level whatsoever that is at a very high tier. I highly recommend waiting for that. They said the lunch line is usually not too bad 30-45 minutes but the nighttime line can be an hour hour and a half so come about 10-15 minutes before they open and probably get a good seat. You got anything to say chef Clark? Oh hi I'm blown away that was uh one of the best things we've eaten together like the best single dishes. It's not you know there's no frills inside you sit down you watch the chefs make the noodles and then you get the most amazing bowl of like chili spice noodles and meat dropped in front of you and you just don't want you don't want to say a word you want to inhale every bit of it. So good. Heading on. After the combination of spud bros and then noodle inn we needed to walk so we decided to explore some of the areas that were around us. That's a sundial that was built in 1694. Luckily this is in a loved area called the seven dials and there's lots of different shops and things you can look at around here including the also famous and viral Neal's yard. Neal's yard is just one of those hidden gem type places as you have to enter by a small alleyway and you kind of discover it with all the colorful buildings. It's really popular for photos. Heading on we continued our walking tour going down many different alleys and just heading into any park we could find. This is like the quintessential summer day in London but it's the spring right now so you can see everybody out just enjoying the sun. It's pretty cool to see. This is another of the 500 reasons why London in the spring is pretty impossible to beat. And then from there it was on to our next viral spot Fortitude which is famous for their beignets which often sell out as soon as they release them. Luckily for us we were there on a weekday and there were a lot left but tiramisu was the flavor which isn't always my favorite. Next up we're at Fortitude bakery for what is called a beignet. I honestly have no idea what's inside of this but I've seen this a ton of times on my tiktok so look look at this look at this monstrosity. This is the tiramisu that's the one that they have today. There's no elegant way to eat this. Here we go. That is decadent, gooey, full of flavor, sweet, not bad. Here we go we got the tiramisu donut from Fortitude bakery. Beignet. Excuse me. You American. The tiramisu beignet from Fortitude bakery. Looks like a big yeasted donut that they like butterfly open then they fill with some sort of espresso cream topped with chocolate little cocoa powder. You can see the line behind Clark right there. That's pretty good. Nice and sweet stuffed and just overflowing with that espresso cream. Tiramisu isn't even one of my favorite desserts but I get down with that. If every tiramisu was like that I'd crush a lot more tiramisu. In terms of time we waited about five minutes for it. I have no problem waiting five minutes for that. It's not really my style but if you like that kind of thing I think you'd wait a little bit longer. Yeah I think the amazing thing about that place is they always have different flavors. Today it was tiramisu. Other days it's been raspberry and lemon curd filled. I think there's some other flavors that I would probably wait in line longer for but waiting in line for five minutes was no worries. We're heading to the British Museum to explore a little bit and take a break for some food and then we're going to go to one more market later. Also if you're wondering where Borough Market is we have an entire video we did on that. You can see that up here. That's probably the most viral place in London for sure. We interrupt this food video to go to the British Museum. I mean what is there to say about the British Museum that hasn't already been said. It's one of the most famous museums in the world. It's home to millions of objects that tell the story of human history from the dawn of civilization to today. Its collection is a little bit controversial but it spans continents and eras with highlights including the Rosetta stone and ancient Egyptian mummies. You could easily spend an entire day here. It's crazy seeing stuff from like 1200 BC it's hard to even comprehend how long ago and how old that's looking. It's such a beautiful spot and one of the coolest things about London is that you can just pop in here walk around for 45 minutes like we did and continue on because it's free. And that ends our museum intermission back to food. Leaving the British Museum we hopped in the tube and we headed over to Camden. This is where the Camden market is which is one of London's most eclectic destinations. It's a sprawling collection of shops and stalls where you can find everything from vintage clothing and homemade crafts to international street food. Clark you want to go eat at that Chinese buffet dude? There's a dragon on the top. I couldn't think of anything I want to do less than go to All You Can Eat buffet. The market began in the 1970s as a small arts and crafts market and has grown into one of the city's top attractions drawing millions of visitors each year. It's definitely a hot spot for viral eats and lots of TikToks are created here. I was told that this area was made famous a little bit by Amy Winehouse used to come down here and drink at one of the pubs and then if you go down this alleyway right here you can see a mural that was painted for her. It was painted by the street artist JXC to mark the 10th anniversary of her death. That's what Clark wants to eat next. You're gonna eat the whole thing. How long do you section? Four sections? About 80, 88 seconds. Take that down. I gotta say it I think that Camden Market is cooler than Borough Market. I'd like want to come here more and I wish I wasn't so full. We actually explored Camden Market for about 45 minutes before making our way to the food stall which was the entire reason that we were here. This next spot was called the Yorkshire Burrito and it flips the classic British Sunday roast on its head and provides a handheld street food form. So instead of the tortilla they serve it in a Yorkshire pudding wrap in which they put in lamb, roast potatoes, stuffing, greens, and even a mint sauce. Then they wrap the whole thing up for you and they serve it like a burrito. Here we go Camden Market Yorkshire Burrito. I don't know it looks pretty good. I was a little bit nervous at first but the dude was awesome working in there. Wow that is not what I expected at all. Strong horseradish has a mint sauce. Super super strange but I think that's pretty good. Yeah it's like nothing I've had. It's really good and honestly it kind of tastes like a Christmas dinner rolled up. It's a London burrito there you go. London burrito. All right so we're about fooded out. We got one more spot we're gonna go to but before that Clark's gonna get beat in some mini golf. No way no chance. There is nobody here on a Wednesday it's just Clark and I. We're gonna run this place right now. Let's go. I honestly don't even know how to describe this place. It's called Junkyard Golf Club and it's like part crazy mini golf course, part nightlife, part art installation. It's definitely Camden for sure. This is an insanely cool hole. It's like a bathroom that you hit through. Amazing. All in one. I'm not gonna lie this is a really fun series of courses. They're very short but they're well laid out. We have now reached the acid trip part of the mini golf course. If you're looking for a fun way to spend a couple hours you could definitely do worse than this. All right and for our last stop of the day the Flatiron which I have been told many many times is a good spot. Clark how excited are you to eat steak? Very excited. I'm very full but I love steak. I can eat steak anytime. This is a great steak for everyone. We got some new reviewers joining this time. Oh my gosh where'd you get this? So Flatiron is like from the shoulder and it's a steak that used to be the butcher's cut. They used to not sell it very much but it's become a well-loved steak. Here we go. This is hard to beat a 15 pound steak that's for sure. Oh yeah it's a great steak. Nice coarse salt on it and they just serve it to you on a cutting board. That's like exactly what you want when you just want a steak. It's good too. It's so good. It's 90 out of 90. A 90 out of 90? Oh wow. Okay what's your Sunny? I love it anything. Okay so what's your review? It's so good. So tender. I love the coarse salt on it. It is the best meal right now. How many minutes would you wait for this steak? Okay a half of a song. Sunny how many minutes would you wait for your french fries? One minute. One minute okay. Uncle Clark how long would you wait for this steak? 10 minutes. 10 minutes. That's what I say about it. I know dude are you going 11 or 9? 11. All right. 12. 12 minutes. 12 minutes. A dozen minutes. It's about how long we waited for the kids to come up from the train. Yeah. Oh I'd probably wait like 30 minutes at least for it. All right there you go. Good steak. So good. French fries are a hidden gem on this menu. They're cooked in bone marrow or beef drippings and you can taste like you're going to the beef they're amazing. Flatiron is a loved chain in London that's a good value for your money and we came back three or four times while we were here. Plus they give you a token at the end and you can turn it in for an ice cream which was my kids favorite part of the experience. And with that our viral food video for London is done. Clark what'd you think of the viral food in London? I thought most of it was leading up to the hype. I could definitely see why people have made it go viral. Yeah why people wait in line for it and why people wait in line for it. My biggest takeaway and what I'll be going to bed thinking about is those noodles. Those noodles. The chili oil spill noodles were bang bang the vibe in there. They're like get in order this because it's amazing. We know it's amazing. You know it's amazing. Crush it and then get out because somebody else needs your seat. All right where can people find you? Chef Clark Myers on Instagram and Provisions JH in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. If you want to eat more of London with us you can check out one of these videos and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks for watching and let me know if you want to see more videos with Clark in the future doing food reviews in other cities. Also let me know if I left something off in London that you love. We'll see you on the next one.