What Are Small Plates And Why Are They Everywhere in London?
You sit down at a London restaurant, open the menu and notice something slightly confusing.
There are no starters.
No obvious mains.
Instead, there is a long list of dishes roasted aubergine, grilled prawns, burrata, flatbreads, potatoes, perhaps something cooked over charcoal and somewhere on the menu you find a sentence telling you that the kitchen recommends ordering “two or three plates per person to share.”
Welcome to the world of small plates.
If you eat out regularly in London, you've almost certainly encountered them. Restaurants from Soho to Shoreditch have embraced menus built around smaller dishes designed to arrive when they're ready and, often, be shared across the table.
For some diners, it's the perfect way to eat.
For others, it raises one very important question:
Why can't I just order a main course?
So what exactly are small plates, where did the idea come from, and why have they become such a noticeable part of London's restaurant culture?
First, What Exactly Is a “Small Plate”?
A small plate is essentially a dish smaller than a conventional main course, designed so that diners can order several different things rather than committing to one large meal.
Imagine going to dinner and ordering grilled vegetables, seafood, a meat dish, something fried and a couple of sides for the table.
Instead of everyone eating one separate meal, the table becomes the meal.
You taste a little of everything.
Small plates aren't one specific cuisine, and the idea of sharing multiple dishes certainly wasn't invented by modern London restaurants.
Cultures around the world have eaten communally for centuries.
Spanish tapas, Greek and Middle Eastern mezze, Italian cicchetti, Chinese dim sum and many other dining traditions all involve meals built around multiple dishes, although each has its own distinct history and customs.
What London restaurants have done is adopt the broader idea of eating several smaller dishes and turn it into a flexible restaurant format.
That's why you might now see the phrase “small plates” describing everything from grilled scallops and pasta to roasted vegetables and fried chicken.
London Didn't Invent Sharing Food
This distinction matters.
It would be misleading to suggest that London suddenly invented the idea of putting several dishes in the middle of a table.
It didn't.
London's small-plates culture has been influenced by the city's enormous diversity of cuisines and by European dining traditions that were already built around sharing.
Spanish tapas restaurants helped familiarise British diners with ordering several smaller dishes rather than a starter and main.
Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurants brought their own traditions of mezze and communal dining.
London's large international population meant diners were already comfortable with many different ways of eating.
Over time, chefs began borrowing the format not necessarily the cuisine.
A modern British restaurant could serve small plates.
So could an Italian restaurant.
Or a Scandinavian-inspired restaurant.
Or somewhere cooking almost entirely over fire.
“Small plates” gradually became less about one particular food tradition and more about how the meal itself was structured.
Why Did Small Plates Become So Popular in London?
There isn't one single reason.
Instead, several changes in London's dining culture came together.
One of the biggest was that restaurants became less formal.
For much of the twentieth century, the traditional restaurant meal followed a predictable structure:
Starter.
Main course.
Dessert.
Everyone ordered their own dish, and courses arrived in sequence.
London's modern restaurant scene became increasingly casual.
Counter seating appeared.
Open kitchens became fashionable.
Restaurants moved into railway arches, converted warehouses and tiny Soho dining rooms.
Menus became shorter and changed more frequently.
And the way people ordered changed with them.
Small plates suited this new style perfectly.
You didn't necessarily need a three-course dinner lasting several hours.
You could order a few dishes, share everything and add another plate if you were still hungry.
You Get to Try More of the Menu
This is probably the biggest attraction.
We've all experienced the restaurant dilemma.
You want the pasta.
But the fish sounds incredible.
Then you notice someone at the next table eating something that looks even better.
With traditional mains, choosing one usually means missing everything else.
Small plates solve that problem or at least attempt to.
Two people might order five or six different dishes and experience far more of what the kitchen can do.
That makes eating out feel more exploratory.
Instead of asking:
“What did you order?”
the conversation becomes:
“Have you tried this one yet?”
For people who genuinely love food, that's a big part of the appeal.
They Changed the Social Side of Eating Out
Small plates also turn dinner into a more communal experience.
Plates arrive in the middle.
Someone divides the last piece.
Another person orders more bread because there's sauce left.
Everyone debates whether to order “just one more thing.”
The meal becomes interactive.
That fits particularly well with London's increasingly casual dining culture, where many successful restaurants aren't built around white tablecloths and formal service.
The emphasis is often on atmosphere, conversation and discovering food together.
Of course, sharing only works if everyone actually wants to share.
If you've ever reluctantly watched someone take the final croquette you had mentally claimed as your own, you'll understand that small plates aren't always as peaceful as the concept suggests.
Chefs Like Them Too
Small plates aren't only convenient for diners.
They give chefs freedom.
A traditional main course often needs to feel complete on its own—perhaps a protein, vegetables, sauce and accompaniments.
A small plate can focus entirely on one idea.
A single seasonal vegetable.
A particular cut of meat.
One unusual ingredient.
A simple combination of two or three flavours.
That allows restaurants to experiment and change menus according to what's available.
It can also make dining more interesting.
One dish might be incredibly simple.
The next could involve several days of preparation.
Together, they create the meal.
London Has Restaurants That Helped Define the Style
Several influential London restaurants helped make this way of eating feel completely normal.
Spanish restaurants such as Barrafina showed how exciting counter dining and tapas-style ordering could be.
Polpo, which opened in Soho in 2009, helped popularise Venetian-inspired small plates and a more relaxed style of sharing food.
Restaurants such as Kiln brought another interpretation, serving Thai-inspired dishes from an open kitchen in a compact Soho setting where ordering several dishes to share feels natural.
Across London, many modern restaurants subsequently embraced menus designed around sharing.
Importantly, these restaurants don't all represent the same culinary tradition.
That's precisely the point.
Small plates have become a format that can work across very different cuisines.
But There Is One Controversial Part: The Price
We need to talk about this.
Because not everyone loves small plates.
One of the most common frustrations is that the word “small” doesn't necessarily mean cheap.
You might see a dish priced at £9 and think:
“That's reasonable.”
Then you're told to order three or four per person.
Add bread.
Add drinks.
Add service charge.
Suddenly, the bill looks very different.
This has become something of a running joke among London diners.
The classic moment comes when the server says:
“We recommend around three to four dishes each.”
And everyone at the table quietly starts doing mathematics.
Small plates can be excellent value, particularly when sharing allows you to experience more of a menu.
But they aren't automatically cheaper than traditional dining.
Always look at the recommended number of dishes before deciding whether a restaurant fits your budget.
There's Also the “Food Arrives When It's Ready” Rule
Another phrase you'll often hear is:
“The dishes will come out as they're ready.”
This is common at small-plate restaurants.
Instead of waiting until every component of a traditional course is ready simultaneously, the kitchen sends dishes as they're finished.
Sometimes this creates a wonderful rhythm.
One plate arrives.
You share it.
Another appears.
Then something unexpected arrives from the grill.
The meal unfolds gradually.
Other times, three plates arrive at once and suddenly your tiny London table becomes an architectural puzzle.
It's all part of the experience.
How Many Small Plates Should You Actually Order?
There's no universal rule because portion sizes vary enormously.
A restaurant may recommend around two or three dishes per person, while somewhere else may suggest more.
The safest approach is simple:
Ask the staff.
They know which dishes are substantial and which are genuinely small.
You can also start conservatively.
One advantage of this style of dining is that you can often order another dish later if you're still hungry.
And remember that sharing matters.
Four dishes between two people can feel very different from four dishes ordered individually.
Are Small Plates Just a Trend?
At this point, probably not.
Individual restaurant trends come and go, but sharing food is hardly new, and London diners have now been eating this way for years.
What may change is the terminology.
Some restaurants call them:
Small plates
Sharing plates
Snacks
Plates
Dishes
Others don't label them at all they simply design the menu so sharing feels natural.
The broader shift is more important than the phrase itself.
London dining has become less rigid.
A meal doesn't always need to follow starter, main and dessert.
You might sit at a counter.
Order six dishes.
Share everything.
Add another plate halfway through.
Skip dessert and order cheese.
There are fewer rules.
So, Are Small Plates Worth It?
They can be brilliant.
At their best, small plates let you experience far more of a restaurant than one traditional main course ever could.
You discover different flavours.
You share food.
You talk about what's arriving.
And dinner becomes an experience rather than simply everyone concentrating on their own plate.
But they're not automatically better.
Sometimes you want your own bowl of pasta without negotiating who gets the final forkful.
Sometimes you want one enormous Sunday roast.
And sometimes you really don't want to hear the words:
“We recommend four plates each.”
That's fine too.
The interesting thing isn't that small plates have replaced traditional dining.
They haven't.
It's that they've given London another way to eat.
Final Thoughts
So the next time you walk into a London restaurant and discover there are no obvious starters or mains, you now know what's happening.
Small plates aren't a mysterious new cuisine.
They're a style of dining built around ordering multiple dishes, often sharing them and experiencing more of the menu together.
The idea draws on much older food cultures from tapas and mezze to countless traditions of communal eating—but London's restaurants have adapted the format across an extraordinary range of cuisines.
And perhaps that's why it works particularly well here.
London has always absorbed influences from around the world and turned them into something that feels part of everyday city life.
Small plates are another example.
Just remember one thing before ordering.
When the waiter says:
“Three or four each should be about right…”
Maybe check the prices first.
Discover More of London's Food Story
From the traditions behind London's favourite foods to hidden restaurants, international cuisines and the stories shaping how the city eats, discover more London food guides on LondonYaar.com.
Follow @rohan.londonyaar for more ways to understand and taste the city beyond the obvious.