Britain’s soggy holiday season has left the nation soaked through, and seeking solace from the driving rain in comfort foods. Tea and toast, sausage and mash, pie and peas, fish and chips: they’re not exactly the fresh n’ fruity summer salad fads favoured by health freaks and beach bums.

Still, whether it is a Saturday fry-up or Mum’s Sunday roast, there is an essential wholesomeness to comfort food that never fails to deliver, rain, hail or shine.

Bona fide British comfort food usually consists of those dishes redolent of childhood security and familiarity. It is cheap, cheerful and uncomplicated, and most often embodies home-made delights in the form of puddings, pies, stews or soups.

As autumnal weather brings us closer to darker days and cooler climes, we’ll no doubt abandon any healthy food regimes in favour of stodge, simplicity and security, and here are some of the best places in the West End to start:

Sea Shell
49-51 Lisson Grove, Marylebone NW1 6UH
Tel: 020 7224 9000

Best Comfort Food: Fish and Chips

Potatoes come in all shapes at this charming back street chippy: both baked and mashed are on the menu, but it’s the crunchy chips and tasty fish (poached, pan-fried, or battered) that deserve the most mention, including garlic prawns, calamari, whitebait, and lemon sole goujons.

Café Emm
17 Frith Street, Soho W1D 4RG
Tel: 020 7437 0723

Best Comfort Food: Burgers

This candle-lit, family-run restaurant serves some classic British staples (steak and ale pie, sausage and mash) and its pseudo-Parisian, intimate interior is atmospheric and unobtrusive. But it’s the hearty and surprisingly inexpensive burgers (minted lamb, lentil and bean) that really make this place.

The Dog & Duck 
18 Bateman Street, Soho W1D 3AJ
Tel: 020 7494 0697

Best Comfort Food: Sausages

This cosy and charismatic Victorian drinking hole, once frequented by Orwell, is as traditional as they come. You can stuff yourself with a half-pound Aberdeen Angus burger, steak and ale pie, chocolate fudge cake or fruit crumble, but it’s the fine selection of sausages, including pork and Guinness, Cumberland, and Lincolnshire, that will keep you coming back.

Lamb & Flag
33 Rose Street, Covent Garden WC2E 9EB
Tel: 020 7497 9504

Best comfort food: Cornish Pasties

At the head of a narrow cobbled passageway off Garrick Street, this quintessential Covent Garden pub serves up delightful Cornish pasties, ploughman's lunches, and doorstop sandwiches at lunch times, and full pub grub on red checked tablecloths in the Dryden room upstairs.

Newman Arms
23 Rathbone Street, Fitzrovia W1T 1NG
Tel: 020 7636 1127

Best comfort food: Home made pies

One of Fitzrovia’s old-timers, this little former brothel and 19th-century tavern is famous for some of London’s best pies, including steak and Guinness, venison in red wine, pork, apple and cider, or mutton and barley.

The Ship
134 New Cavendish Street, Fitzrovia W1F 0TT
Tel: 020 7636 6301

Best comfort food: Jacket potatoes with baked beans and cheese

The Ship has rock n’roll pedigree and a haphazard style that attracts a mixed collective. Everyone from punks to poets, suits to effortlessly cool media types flock here to enjoy the music, the atmosphere, and the hearty grub which includes jacket potatoes with a multiple of delicious toppings.

Rugby Tavern
19 Great James Street, Bloomsbury WC1N 3ES
Tel: 020 7405 1384

Best comfort food: Chip butty

This sports-themed Antipodean corner pub off Lamb’s Conduit Street is frequented by lawyers and locals who lunch on an array of decent comfort food such as pork and apple sausages and mash and gravy, but their chunky chip buttys are the best.

The Volunteer
245-247 Baker Street, Marylebone NW1 6XE
Tel: 020 7486 4090

Best comfort food: Sausage and mash

All leather sofas and beaded curtains, this pub opts for a loungey décor and a drink selection heavy on the Belgian beers. Close to Regents Park, The Volunteer serves real ales, beers, wines and spirits as well as tasty traditional English food including their delicious sausage and mash.

By Abbey Stirling/MOLI