Online ordering system for City of London takeaways and restaurants

Chefzi is an online ordering system for takeaways and restaurants in City of London: your own ordering site and branded Android app (iOS coming soon), 0% commission, plans from £9 a month billed yearly, first month free with no card, month to month with no contract. The FSA register lists 353 takeaway and sandwich shop premises and 914 restaurant and café premises in City of London (pulled 13 November 2026).

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City lunch, office delivery, click and collect

Selling to the Square Mile: lunch, offices and collection

The City of London is a small council area with a very large food register: 353 takeaway and sandwich shop premises and 914 restaurant, café and canteen premises, on the Food Standards Agency data pulled on 13 November 2026. That is about 2.6 restaurants and cafés for every takeaway, against 2.3 across England, so the typical City customer is choosing between a sit-down option and a quick one a few doors apart. The number that matters for your own ordering page is how fast you can be ready when the customer is.

Half of the takeaway premises are in four postcode districts: EC2M (94), EC4M (30), EC3M (29) and EC2V (25), which together hold 178 of the 353. EC2M alone is about 27% of the City's takeaways. Delivery zones in Chefzi are set by postcode or radius, each with its own minimum order and fee, so one tight zone around the busiest district, with a higher minimum for the streets beyond it, fits how the premises are spread. Nine in ten takeaway premises sit within 0.8 miles of the middle of the area, which makes the City one of the easiest places in the UK to draw a delivery zone around.

• City lunch. Lunch is a short window, so ordering ahead is the point. A customer picks collection on your own site, you accept the order in the Chefzi Orders app with a prep time, and they see it. You set collection hours separately from delivery hours, so collection can stay open through the lunch rush and delivery can stop when your last rider is out. Chefzi has no slot grid and no cap on orders per time, so when the kitchen is full, pause ordering or lengthen the prep time rather than letting orders pile up.
• Office delivery. Set a minimum order for the postcode districts where offices cluster, so a single sandwich is collected and a team order is delivered. For bigger orders booked for a date and time, the catering feature lets you take them in advance, with the notice you need, on a separate section of the menu.
• Click and collect. Collection is on every plan, with cash on collection or card on Plus and Pro, and the order shows your prep time. The full set-up, and what Chefzi does not do, is on the click and collect page; the UK checklist is in the click and collect guide.
• Quiet hours. If your kitchen trades mainly in office hours, set your ordering hours to match, and use a holiday or special-day closure for bank holidays, which covers collection and delivery in one go.
• Hygiene rating. 82.1% of the 347 rated City takeaways hold a 5, against 62.0% across England, and 2.9% are rated 0 to 2 against 5.8%. A 5 is the norm here rather than a differentiator, so a customer is more likely to notice a missing or low rating than a high one.

How many takeaways and restaurants City of London has

City of London registers 1,861 food businesses of every kind with the Food Standards Agency. 353 of them are takeaway or sandwich shop premises and 914 are restaurants, cafés or canteens. Among the 33 councils the FSA lists in London, City of London is number 8 for takeaway premises.

Restaurants and cafés outnumber takeaways by more than two to one (914 against 353), so sit-down kitchens that also do collection are a big part of the market.

Hygiene results for takeaways

347 takeaway premises in City of London have a published rating. 82.1% of them hold a 5, against 62% across England (+20.1 points), and 2.9% are rated 0 to 2.

6 takeaway premises are shown as awaiting inspection and 116 (33%) had a rating date in the last 12 months. With so many 5s, a 4 or below stands out to a customer scrolling through options, so show your rating and fix anything that holds it down. How hygiene ratings work for takeaways.

What stands out in City of London

• This is one of the bigger markets, with 1,267 takeaway, restaurant and café premises, so a kitchen needs a page and a brand customers recognise to be found among them.
• EC2M alone holds 27% of the takeaway premises in City of London (94 of 353), so a kitchen there is competing with a dense cluster for the same customers.
• Hygiene ratings differ by district: 92% of rated takeaways in EC2V hold a 5, against 75% in EC4A.
• City of London and Tower Hamlets (1 miles apart) are close in size: 353 and 339 takeaway premises.

The kitchens behind the names in City of London

No single cuisine word (kebab, pizza, Indian, Chinese, Turkish, chicken, peri-peri, shawarma, fish and chip, burger) appears in 10 or more trading names in City of London, so the market is a spread of independents rather than one dominant style. That favours a menu that is easy to find under its own name.

Counts are premises, takeaway plus restaurant and café, whose registered trading name contains the word. A name without the word is not counted, so treat them as a floor.

Trading names in City of London show a spread rather than a theme: pizza leads with 9 premises (0.7%), in line with the UK's 4.6% (FSA, 13 November 2026). With no dominant style, a kitchen is judged on its own name and menu rather than on its category, so being easy to find under that name is what a direct ordering page adds. Kebab or doner names are rarer than average: 0 of 1,267 (0.0%, against 1.7% across the UK). These are name-keyword counts, a floor rather than a census.

Postcode districts and delivery zones

City of London has takeaways in 23 postcode districts, and the three with the most are EC2M (94), EC4M (30), EC3M (29).

99% of City of London's food premises sit within 3 miles of the middle of the area, and half are within 0.4 miles, so a kitchen can usually cover its patch with one postcode-based zone; a short collection time is the easiest thing to promise. Chefzi's delivery zones are set by postcode or radius, with a minimum order and fee per zone.

Late-night hot food in City of London: the council's own page

Serving hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am normally needs a late night refreshment licence under the Licensing Act 2003, issued by the local council. City of London's council publishes its process here: City of London council licensing page (checked 13 November 2026). Check it before you open your ordering hours past 11pm.

The general rules, the 11pm to 5am window and what to ask are in the late night refreshment licence guide. Chefzi lets you set collection and delivery hours separately, so ordering hours can follow whatever your licence conditions say. This is general information, not legal advice.

City of London and the areas around it

Part of Greater London, with Camden, Southwark, Brent, Croydon, Newham and Lambeth.

Nearest council areas by the centre of their food premises (distance between centres):

All UK locations

Popular in London

• Chicken shop ordering in Tower Hamlets
• Chicken shop ordering in Southwark
• Pizza shop ordering in Westminster
• Indian restaurant ordering in Tower Hamlets
• Indian restaurant ordering in Westminster

All of London

Sources

• Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme open data API (api.ratings.food.gov.uk), Open Government Licence v3.0, pulled 13 November 2026. Takeaway/sandwich shop and restaurant/café/canteen business types.
• Council licensing page linked above, opened 13 November 2026.