Best Restaurants, Bars and Things to Do in Fulham, London

About Fulham

Fulham's food scene has the confidence that comes from serving a local population that knows what it wants and returns regularly. The neighbourhood does not trade on hype or new openings in the way that parts of east London do, but the quality of its best restaurants and gastropubs is consistently high and has been for years. It is a place where restaurants earn their reputation slowly and keep it by continuing to perform.

The concentration of good eating runs along several axes simultaneously. Fulham Road carries the main weight from Chelsea westward, with restaurants that range from neighbourhood Italian and French to more contemporary openings. Parsons Green and the surrounding streets have their own cluster of venues that serve the local residential community, and New King's Road extends the options further toward Parsons Green station.

Lets Discover creators who cover Fulham tend to live or spend significant time in the area and know which places earn repeat visits. Their picks reflect a neighbourhood where the best restaurants are often not the newest ones.

Fulham Road provides the main dining corridor running through the neighbourhood, with a mix of well-established restaurants, wine bars and gastropubs that have been part of the local landscape for years. Parsons Green Lane and the streets around the green itself contain one of the more pleasant clusters of neighbourhood restaurants and pubs in west London, with options that work equally well for a weekday dinner and a long Sunday lunch. New King's Road, running from Parsons Green westward toward Putney Bridge, has a slightly different character with independent cafes, delis and neighbourhood restaurants that serve the residential streets around it. Wandsworth Bridge Road and the blocks running south toward the river have a quieter and more local feel with some worthwhile venues that are less well-known outside the immediate area.

History and culture in Fulham

Fulham has been inhabited since at least the early medieval period, when the Bishops of London maintained a palace on the Thames at the western edge of what is now the neighbourhood. Fulham Palace, which served as the official residence of the Bishops of London for over thirteen centuries, remains one of the area's most significant historical sites and is open to the public. The neighbourhood developed as a market gardening area in the 17th and 18th centuries, supplying vegetables to London, and traces of this agricultural character persisted into the Victorian period. Craven Cottage, Fulham FC's stadium on the Thames embankment, has been the club's home since 1896 and is one of the oldest football grounds still in use in England. The area around Parsons Green developed in the Victorian era as middle-class housing and has retained a residential character throughout.