I’m a food writer who was born and raised in the UK. Here are 10 British dishes everyone should try in their lifetime.

A Cornish pasty is a large, half-moon pastry enclosing chunks of beef skirt, finely chopped potato, and turnip with lashings of black pepper and a slab or two of butter.

The pastry, which is somewhere between shortcrust, flaky, and hot-water crust, should have the rigidity to withstand being transported, as traditionally it was taken down the tin mines as a “crib” (Cornish for a mid-morning snack).

The pasty’s edge is crimped on the side, never the top, and was traditionally thrown away because the miner’s hands would have been covered in arsenic and other metals, which are a tad deadly if ingested. 

If you’re in the UK, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to Cornwall to eat a decent pasty. 

A Sunday roast is like a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal that occurs regularly.

It typically consists of roasted meat (often a whole chicken, a joint of beef, or pork with crackling) plus roast potatoes, root vegetables such as carrots and parsnips, and lashings of that aforementioned brown gravy. 

Around Christmastime, roasts are often paired with our version of pigs in blankets — meat wrapped in more meat. Specifically, they are mini sausages hugged by a rasher of streaky bacon. Outrageous, I know.

Yorkshire puddings are clouds of cooked batter that puff up in the oven and soak up gravy like the most delicious sponge you’ve ever used.

They pair well with a roast, and so does stuffing (usually sausage mixed with onions, sage, and breadcrumbs served either inside the meat or cooked separately) and green vegetables.

It’s unclear why the dish is called toad-in-the-hole, but some suggest it’s because the sausages peep out of the batter in the same way toads might hide just in the entrance of their burrows.

One thing is for sure, though: It’s a crime to serve your toads without a rich onion gravy, made slowly on the stove by caramelizing onions and reducing beef stock to a thick, brown tangle.

Some have traced the origins of this popular British dish back to Jewish immigrants fleeing Portugal.

It consists of fresh white fish — often pollock, cod, or haddock — deep-fried in a crispy batter, and served alongside thick-cut chips (no, we do not call them fries).

Depending on where you are in the UK, you’ll have it with curry sauce, just salt and vinegar, or brown gravy (which, once again, is appearing on my list). 

Cottage pie is what your granny makes you when you come ’round for dinner. The pie has a deep layer of ground beef cooked with carrots and onions that’s topped with mashed potatoes. It’s baked until golden.

The best cottage-pie fillings have been slowly simmered for hours, possibly with some red wine thrown in for good measure. Adding cheese to the potato topping is optional, but highly recommended. 

The version made with ground lamb, rather than beef, is called shepherd’s pie and is equally delicious. Both are typically served alongside fresh garden peas or runner beans.

Pie and mash consists of a smallish, round pie, usually with a meat-based filling (traditionally mutton) that’s served with mashed potatoes and a green-flecked parsley sauce.

In the north of the country, you’ll typically find pie and mash served with gravy.

Scotland has managed to put mac and cheese in pies in place of the traditional meat, because why wouldn’t you want triple carbs for dinner?

Greggs is a bakery chain that’s both a source of national pride and dependable baked goods.

Should you ever find yourself visiting the UK, you’ll probably be close to one of its 2,000+ outlets — unless you’re in Cornwall, where the chain is widely considered to be an invasive species, threatening the native pasty.

But if you’re elsewhere, do visit a Greggs and purchase a sausage roll.

Marvel at the flaky pastry, which is somehow the same color as the meat inside. Deeply inhale the aroma of a winning fat-to-carbohydrate ratio, before consuming your sausage roll the traditional way: on a cold park bench with gammy pigeons pecking at your feet.

And vegans, rejoice — Greggs has an excellent plant-based sausage roll.

Usually eaten hot, baked beans here are typically canned haricot beans suspended in a vibrantly sweet orange-colored tomato sauce.

A UK cupboard staple, they’re found in households up and down the country, served alongside full English breakfasts, and used as a vehicle for visual comedy by early noughties game shows.

I eat baked beans piled onto buttered toast and top them with grated cheddar, which melts and oozes into the sauce.

Traditional British food often centers on a waste-not-want-not attitude, and the old-fashioned bread-and-butter pudding is a prime example.

This pudding is a sweet dish made with stale bread slices, which are buttered, then soaked in an egg-based custard before being baked with raisins and brown sugar.

It’s a lovely dish that can also be made with leftover non-British food, such as croissants or brioche.

This story was originally published on May 1, 2022, and most recently updated on August 24, 2026.