Amazon has launched its restaurant food delivery service in London

Amazon has launched its restaurant food delivery service in London as it looks to go head-to-head with Uber and Deliveroo.

The "Amazon Restaurants" service is available in a handful of postcodes via the Prime Now app, which launched in the UK in 2015 and enables Prime members in nine urban areas across the UK to get one and two-hour delivery on over 15,000 products.

The fact that you have to be an Amazon Prime member to use Amazon's restaurant food delivery service is likely to put off a number of customers given Amazon Prime costs £79 a year, or £7.99 a month. Uber and Deliveroo, on the other hand, have no membership fees.

Amazon, has convinced Michelin star Indian restaurant Benares to sign up to its platform, as well as Mayfair Pizza Co., The Duck Truck, and Hummus Bros. In total there are 148 restaurants that will deliver their food via the platforms.

"London offers some of the best cuisine from around the world, so we're delighted that Amazon Prime customers can now enjoy food from their favourite restaurants via Amazon's ultra-fast Prime Now service," said Al Wilkinson, UK head of Amazon Restaurants at Amazon.

"Based on our own research into what is important to consumers in food delivery, our team have hand-picked a selection of the best quality local restaurants in London. We're excited to be helping many of these small businesses start offering home delivery for the very first time."

Amazon said all food deliveries will be completed in less than an hour, while Uber and Deliveroo are targetting times of closer to 30 minutes.

The service will initially be available to Prime Now customers in the City, the West End, Westminster, Pimlico and Victoria in central London; Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Bow, Clapton, and Homerton in the east; Islington, Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill in the north; Kensington and Chelsea in the west; and Southwark, Lambeth, Vauxhall and Kennington in south London.

The launch of Amazon Restaurants in London comes after couriers at Deliveroo and UberEATS staged protests over pay, with several of them saying they were earning less than minimum wage. Amazon has not specified how much it intends to pay couriers.