If you want to eat cheap but also feel that you are eating well, the following are tried and true. I’m not giving reviews, just tips, and am leaving location and hours to the reader who is willing to consult Square Meal, the best online restaurant guide to London.

Masala Zone:  The owners of Chutney Mary on upscale Kings Road, a nouvelle curry restaurant that wafts Anglo-Indian aromatics, opened a chain of short-order curry cafes that I return to over and over. There are several locations across the city.  The setting is spare and efficient, only a few notches above Starbuck’s. But the combination thalis are freshly made every day – this is the best on-the-run Indian food I’ve ever tasted.

Prêt a Manger: Also a presence in the larger American cities, this chain of “Ready to Eat” sandwich shops is a joy, since everything is made from fresh organic produce at shockingly low prices for London.  Locations are so ubiquitous that in some parts of the city there is one on either side of the street to save you the trouble of standing at a red light. The salads are even better than the sandwiches, and plastic-cup chocolate mousse will surprise you with its intense flavor and high quality.

Central Bar, Royal Festival Hall:  The people who refurbished RFH on the South Bank, next door to the National Theatre, gifted London with its best and largest outdoor cafe overlooking the Thames. It’s a sea of bodies in warm weather cheerfully – and futilely -- seeking a London suntan. The central bar services the patio (a cafeteria, really)  sits just inside. You can also eat in the sparkling white interior faced with floor-to-ceiling glass. Americans will be intrigued by rocket, kiwi jelly (i.e., fruit gelatin that is tons better than Jell-O), prawn sandwiches, and lots more recognizable things. The hot food is confined to daily soups and stews. 

Marks and Spencer food halls:  London department stores  are expected to provide eating places for their shoppers, and Harrad’s is famous for its sumptuous food hall, if you have the pelf to dine at it. The interior is better than any apartment I’ve ever inhabited. Modest, comfy, rather worn-out-at-the-heels Marks and Spencer is never mentioned in the guides. Eating here has all the cachet of eating at Sears. But persevere, and you’ll find acres of take away food (crispy Chinese duck with hoisin sauce, dim sum, assortments of curries), along with deli bars and cafes. Locations throughout.

Waitrose:  We drop quite a few notches to buy take-away food from a supermarket, but the Waitrose chain, the poshest  throughout the city, has fresh bacon and sausage hot off the griddle in the morning and curries later on, along with good, honest  bread and cheese. To actually eat stylishly in a grocery store, tout Londres is flocking to a gargantuan new Whole Foods on High Street Kensington,  a block from the tube stop. It has six cafes upstairs offering an exotic range of foods, including a kebab bar and fruit smoothies (well, that’s not so exotic). Be warned,  the prices are double American ones. Still, you get high quality, also downstairs  in the bread and cheese departments.  One could do worse than taking a ploughman’s lunch to nearby Kensington Park or Holland Part in the other direction. 

Gastropubs:  Hearing this neologism makes old London hands laugh, remembering a time (beginning with Adam) when pubs were far from gastro, excepting an occasional bout of gastroenteritis. Now pubs are smoke free and chich. The ones who aspire to be bistros are known as gastropubs. The most famous – and one of the city’s hot spots – is the Anchor and Hope, located on the South Bank a block from the Old Vic theatre. The problem with it and its ilk is that they generally aren’t that cheap.   You can offset the price by eating a prix fixe lunch, known in England as a set lunch and far more common than the prix fixe dinners in America. Scads of people adore gatropubs, and they seduce drinkers who suddenly feel hungry after a half (or two or three) of bitters. I go in a pinch to meet the neighbourhood and come away satisfied.

Set lunches:  Having mentioned them, I must take a moment to sing hosanna for set lunches. They generally come as two or three courses and are offered from top to bottom across the London restaurant scene. That includes the poshest Gordon Ramsay boîtes like Petrus, Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s (the prettiest), and his frostily formal flagship on Hospital Road in Chelsea.  Admittedly, lunch at the latter is offered at $80 before liquor, coffee (always overpriced in such places), service, and tax. Call it a hundred, but you will eat the same way millionaires do, just respectably early.  Average set lunches begin at $30-$50.

When I am aping my financial betters, my favourite lunch by far is upstairs at Sketch, a fantastic import started by the great French chef, Pierre Gagnaire.  I spotted him on the premises and had a chat one time, although asking the waiter to bring the chef over was like asking for an audience with God. Another mega-Franco-celebrite, Joel Robuchon,  presides at a distance over the chic Atelier de Joel Robuchon, where you sit at a bar and watch precious tiny plates of food being prepared. I’m a fan because the tastes are original and often inspired. The set lunch won’t fill you up, but your stomach deserves art, too. 

Cheap Japanese:  I haven’t eaten at them, but the far-flung chain of Wagamama restaurants are kid-friendly and packed all day – you sit on benches at communal tables.  Surprisingly, they have been rated as London’s most popular restaurant for the past few years. Similar in scope is Yo!, another chain that families like, plus any number of Tokyo-style sushi bars where toy trains or boats in canals transport food around the counter. When it passes in front of you, you grab what you like. I mention these cheap Japanese outlets because serious Japanese (e.g., the resplendent Nobu, especially the one over the water at Canary Wharf) is among the most expensive food in the city.