The best cold dishes in London to beat the heat.

You thought summer was going to be this hazy, laidback free for all, no worries, no problems, didn’t you? Then you tried having a good square meal. At more than 30°C. Easier said than done. Now, all those delicious dinners out you had planned have been beset by visions of heat-induced headaches and meal sweats and you’ve completely lost your appetite. We’re just guessing here, but it’s undeniable. Eating in the heat is no joke. Don’t worry, though, there are plenty of options beyond salad and sandwiches. In fact, there’s a whole world of supremely tasty, somewhat exotic and most assuredly heat-neutral food out there this summer. Scroll down to discover three of our favourite options in London right now.

A steaming-hot bowl of ramen doesn’t often feature on the list of things you want to eat when your T-shirt is sticking to your back. Yet the delicious Japanese dish comes in many colourful and unusual varieties, the most pertinent this summer being hiyashi chukka, that is cold ramen. Newly on the menu at Soho pop-up Yamagoya, the temporary London outpost of the classic noodle stop opened by Mr Masatoshi Ogata in Fukuoka in 1969, this dish features nori, pork, cherry tomatoes, bamboo and cucumber served on a bed of cold noodles with an umami-filled dipping sauce on the side. Light and surprisingly refreshing, it’s best paired with an ice-cold Asahi beer and, if you have room afterwards, soybean flour and molasses.

Since it opened last summer, Yosma in Marylebone has drawn a series of rave reviews for its refined take on classic Turkish dishes. As you might expect, the critical focus has typically been on the products of its grill – lamb breast with courgettes, hazelnuts and lemon yogurt, stone bass with mangal roasted red peppers and so on – but the contents of its cold mezze and salad menu are equally intriguing. How about frika salata –  a combination of young green wheat, dill, pomegranates and blueberries – or levrek marine – slices of marinated wild sea bass with wild kale and sea purslane? As the image above demonstrates amply, a choice curation of dishes will be more than enough to satisfy not just the eyes and tastebuds, but your beleaguered biological thermostat.

It’s been a few years since ceviche was the food craze of the minute in London, but that doesn’t mean the Peruvian dish of marinated raw fish has got any less delicious. It simply means there are more places to get it. Mr Martin Morales’ definitively named restaurant Ceviche now has outposts in Soho and Old Street, and offers a range of tangy, refreshing, chilled options for those looking to cool off, all of which are made with sustainably sourced ingredients. As a starting point, we would recommend the Don Ceviche (pictured), a combination of sea bass, amarillo chilli tiger’s milk, sweet potato, red onion and chilli, but the sides are also worth a look, in particular the Toma! Te Lo Todo salad, which mixes heritage tomatoes with pickled strawberries to tingling effect. Drinks-wise, it’s got to be one of Ceviche’s superlatively tangy pisco sours.

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