Small Bowl, Big City: How a Basement Noodle Shop Survives London’s Food Scene

Everyone warned me British food would be bland. My mom was so worried she even offered to raise my allowance just so I could eat out in better restaurants. One week in, I was homesick, hungry, and tired of all the beans already. I then found LIU Xiaomian, a Chongqing noodle shop hiding in the basement of a 250-year-old pub, like a speakeasy except the contraband is chili oil. Somewhere between slurps, the business student in me took over: a short menu, a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet, and rent paid to a pub instead of a Marylebone landlord. In a country that throws away over a million tonnes of food through its hospitality sector every year, I started wondering if the most sustainable restaurant in London was the one you can’t even find.

By Edward Zhang (10/31/26) — London, UK