Best Ghost Kitchens in London:
A Guide to Encore Kitchens
16 July 2026 | 9 Minute Read
London is home to more ghost kitchens than any other UK city, driven by a delivery market that shows no sign of slowing down. That's borne out in the numbers: the UK delivery sector already ranks among the three largest in the world, forecast to grow at close to 8% a year over the next decade, and 40% of people in the UK now order up to three food deliveries a week.
A ghost kitchen gives you a way into that market without the cost of a dine-in restaurant – and often the chance to run more than one delivery-only concept from the same site. This guide covers what makes that work well, who it suits, and where Encore Kitchens fits in.
Encore Kitchens' Ghost Kitchen Network in London
Encore Kitchens is the UK's biggest dark kitchen operator, running 550+ kitchens across 25+ locations nationwide – including 18 sites spread across London – and reaching an estimated 10 million consumers in total. As the team puts it, the goal is to provide a fast route to market for food brands, whatever that looks like for a given operator – delivery, production, or distribution.
Explore Encore Kitchens' delivery-only kitchen options in London to see availability across the city.
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| Area | Location | Address | Standard Kitchen | Large Kitchen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central London | Nine Elms | 76 Stewart's Road, SW8 4DE | 16m² | 32m² |
| Central London | Tower Bridge | 81 Enid Street, SE16 3RA | - | 28m² |
| North London | Colindale | Knightsbridge House, NW9 8XG | 18m² | 35m² |
| North London | Kentish Town | Regis Road, NW5 3EW | 16m² | 32m² |
| North London | Tottenham Hale | 110-118 Markfield Road, N15 4QF | 16m² | 32m² |
| North London | North Circular (Brent Cross) | Unit A, 964 North Circular Road, NW2 7JR | 18m² | 28m² |
| South London | Croydon | 106 Beddington Lane, CR0 4TB | 16m² | 32m² |
| South London | Norbury | Norbury Trading Estate, SW16 4RW | 18m² | 25m² |
| South London | South Bermondsey | 107 Ormside Street, SE15 1TF | 16m² | 32m² |
| West London | Chiswick Park | Greenock Road, W3 8DU | 16m² | 32m² |
| East London | Bethnal Green | (Arch 3) Railway Arches, 3-7 Gales Gardens, E2 0EJ | 20m² | 32m² |
| East London | Shoreditch | 7-8 The Oval, E2 9DT | 18m² | 25m² |
| East London | Whitechapel | Fully Occupied | - | - |
| South West London | Battersea | Unit 9-10, Parkfield Industrial Estate, Culvert Place, SW11 5BA | 18m² | 28m² |
| South West London | Balham | Unit 9, 9 Zennor Road Industrial Estate, SW12 0PS | 18m² | 27m² |
| South West London | Fulham | Unit 20, Talina Centre, Bagleys Lane, SW6 2BW | 12m² | 24m² |
| South West London | Wandsworth | 29 Lydden Road, SW18 4LT | 20m² | - |
| South West London | Wimbledon | Fully Occupied | - | - |
Book a tour of an Encore Kitchens location to see one of these kitchens in person.
What Makes a Good Ghost Kitchen Provider?
A ghost kitchen is a professional kitchen space used to prepare food exclusively for delivery, with no dining room or front-of-house attached. The term is often used alongside "dark kitchen" or "cloud kitchen," but it's most associated with the multi-brand, virtual-restaurant side of the model – a single kitchen running two, three, or more delivery-only concepts, each listed separately on Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat.
A good provider needs to support more than a single menu going out the door. That starts with kitchens actually built to run multiple brands, without cross-contamination or workflow bottlenecks getting in the way, but it also comes down to how smoothly a brand can get started in the first place – Encore builds its onboarding around making sure a brand is prepared before it even steps into the kitchen, rather than leaving that groundwork to be figured out after signing. The strongest providers scout locations alongside a brand too, matching sites to delivery radius and demand data rather than just handing over a list of available units, and price membership as one flat fee with no revenue share, so there's no separate bill run or cut of delivery sales to plan for. And the support needs to hold up past the first site, into a second kitchen or a second brand from the same one.
Who Ghost Kitchens Are Best For
Ghost kitchens tend to suit a specific set of operators more than a traditional restaurant lease would. Multi-brand and virtual restaurant operators use them to run several delivery concepts from shared infrastructure, while delivery-first startups treat them as a way to validate a concept before committing to a bricks-and-mortar site. Established restaurant groups often use a ghost kitchen to launch a spin-off or test brand without touching their existing footprint, and catering or production businesses turn to them for overflow capacity during peak periods without signing a long lease. If any of that sounds familiar, the next question is which provider actually delivers on it.
Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Ghost Kitchen in London
Location and catchment matter more than anything else. Most delivery platforms work off a 2-3 mile delivery radius, so a kitchen's exact position determines which customers it can actually reach – proximity to dense residential and office populations counts for more than the borough name on the lease, and the right cuisine for the surrounding demographic matters just as much as the postcode. It's also worth looking past Zone 1: some of the strongest opportunities sit in up-and-coming neighbourhoods with high order volumes and less saturation than central London.
Beyond location, a few other factors are worth checking against any shortlist:
Multi-brand capability – whether the kitchen and licensing can support more than one concept if there's a plan to expand later
Contract flexibility – shorter, flexible terms let a brand test a location before committing further
Pricing structure – a flat monthly fee is easier to plan around than rent plus a share of delivery revenue
Platform and marketing support – some providers help manage delivery platform relationships or run marketing on a brand's behalf
Room to scale – the strongest option is one where a second or third kitchen is the next conversation, not a fresh negotiation from scratch
Why Encore Is a Strong Option for Ghost Kitchens in London
Encore's 300+ brand partners include Byron, Haidilao, Burger King, Wingstop, Popeyes, and Bronson's Burgers, several of them running multiple concepts across the network. A few things stand out for operators specifically weighing up ghost kitchens.
More kitchens across London than any other operator
That scale matters in a practical way for a ghost kitchen specifically. A brand isn't limited to wherever one provider happens to have space – it can open in whichever part of the city has the strongest order volumes for its cuisine, then add a second or third site under the same account as demand grows, without switching operators or starting a new relationship from scratch.
One flat fee, with compliance handled centrally
Membership runs on one flat fee rather than a revenue share – rates, utilities, pest control, and maintenance are bundled into a single monthly cost, with nothing taken from delivery sales on top. Encore also manages compliance centrally across every site, including EHO facilitation, fire strategy, legionella risk assessment, and CCTV, so a multi-site operator isn't handling a different set of requirements at each kitchen. Onboarding is built around what a brand actually needs, too: some operators are trading within three days, others take closer to six weeks to get set up and start taking orders. Once running, 24-hour site management and a dedicated account manager handle the day-to-day, including the relationship with delivery platforms – and the more that account manager understands a brand's goals, whether that's staying at one site or expanding into new areas, the more the support is tailored to match. One tenant put it simply: if the brand succeeds, Encore succeeds too.
Built for brands running more than one concept
For brands running more than one menu or concept, that kind of consistency shows up in the day-to-day operation itself — tenants point to having everything made under one roof as central to keeping stock control and food quality consistent as they add sites. Encore's in-house construction team can also help adapt a kitchen's layout for a new brand or menu, quoting for works and recommending trusted tradesmen rather than leaving that to be arranged independently. Newer virtual brands without a marketing budget of their own also get access to Encore Social, covering content creation, menu photography, and creator campaigns. Members also get access to thousands of monthly product samples from established F&B brands, plus discounts across tech, finance, equipment, food, and packaging through Encore's Member Hub – not the reason to choose a kitchen provider on their own, but a genuine add-on once everything else stacks up.
Proven with real multi-site growth
The clearest proof is in how tenants have grown. Italian restaurant brand Matteo's Cucina Italiana joined Encore in November 2024 and has since expanded from a single kitchen into Tottenham Hale, Chiswick Park, and Balham, using order data from its first site to guide where it opened next – watch Matteo describe the growth in his own words. Wingstop's UK business shows the same pattern at larger scale, running 14 dark kitchens and taking around 30% of its orders through delivery, a model that's helped it become one of the top 10 most-loved brands on Deliveroo.
Ready to Scale in London?
Get in touch with the Encore Kitchens team to check availability for your next site.
Frequently Asked Questions
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A ghost kitchen is a professional kitchen space built for delivery orders rather than walk-in customers, most often used to run one or more virtual restaurant brands trading exclusively through apps like Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat. Operators use them to launch a new concept, test a menu, or run several delivery-only brands from a single site without the cost of opening a full restaurant.
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Encore Kitchens is the UK's biggest dark kitchen operator, running 550+ kitchens nationwide, including 18 sites across London. Scale matters more than it might seem for this specific model: a bigger network gives a brand more genuine choice over where to open, and room to add a second or third site under the same account as it grows, rather than negotiating a fresh relationship with a new provider each time. That's particularly relevant for multi-brand operators, since the best-performing area for one concept isn't always the best for another – having a real choice of postcodes makes it easier to place each brand where it will actually perform. Explore Encore's ghost kitchen network to see the full list of London locations.
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Ghost kitchens are used by virtual restaurant operators running multiple delivery brands, delivery-first startups testing a concept before opening a physical site, and established restaurant chains launching a new brand without disrupting their existing locations.
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Yes, provided the kitchen and licensing are set up to support it – that's one of the first things worth confirming with any provider before signing. Encore's kitchens are designed to run more than one concept from the same site, and the team can also help place a second or third brand into a different postcode if that suits a brand's strategy better than doubling up in one kitchen. Get in touch with Encore Kitchens to talk through what would work for a specific brand.
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There's more to compare than the headline price. Start with whether the kitchen and licensing can genuinely support more than one brand or menu, since not every kitchen is built for that even if a provider allows it in principle. Check how quickly a new site can be up and running – a fast, structured onboarding process matters far more for a delivery concept than it would for a traditional restaurant, where a slower launch is less costly. Ask whether the provider actively helps pick a site based on real demand data, or simply leaves that research to you, since that's often what separates a location that performs from one that doesn't. And look closely at how pricing is structured – a flat monthly fee is easier to plan around than rent plus a share of delivery revenue. Encore Kitchens covers each of these as part of its flat-fee, no revenue share model, with a team that helps place brands based on delivery data rather than leaving that research to the operator.
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The right location depends on where the target customers actually are, not just which borough has the best reputation. Encore selects sites using real catchment data – one London location, for example, sits within reach of over 130,000 households and 250,000+ workers, with a large share of the surrounding population in the 20-44 age bracket most likely to order delivery. Matching a kitchen to that kind of data tends to be a much stronger predictor of performance than picking an area because it sounds like the right postcode. Get in touch with Encore Kitchens to talk through which part of London suits a specific concept.
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Encore operates 18 sites spanning Central, North, South, East, South West, and West London – see the full location table above, or explore Encore's delivery-only kitchens for availability.
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Timelines depend on how much setup a brand needs before trading – some operators are moved in and trading within three days, others take closer to six weeks to get everything ready before their menu goes live on delivery platforms. Onboarding is built around what's actually needed rather than a fixed schedule. The best starting point is to book a tour of an Encore Kitchens location to talk through availability, pricing, and which site fits a specific delivery catchment.