In this, the new era of restaurant pricing, dining out can seem a fortune. Not quite the fortune of say, a night at the theatre, but pricey nevertheless. Whereas once an expensive meal out might come in at £100 for a pair, now that seems to buy a mid-tier night for one.
Happily, though, there are a fair number of spots that still sweat it out to offer decent value for the customer. It is, of course, worth remembering that value and price are very different things. Price is functional and transactional; value is emotional. A Tesco meal deal might be less expensive than lunch at the Ritz, but only one of these will make your heart sing.
As such, alongside lunch deals and January sales, these are the best value menus we’ve seen of late. The surprising thing about this list is just how much some of these restaurants are offering against a backdrop of rising rents and rates, staff shortages and increasing food costs. And yet, menus from both the hot new openings and the established Michelin-starred kitchens can remain excellent value — provided you know where to look. Below is a good place to start.
£30 and under
The Devonshire
The £29 three-course set menu (£25 for two) at The Devonshire feels particularly good value when considering that the main course alone — skirt steak with chips and sauce — would be about that price at any decent steakhouse. The steak far surpasses “decent” here, prepared daily by in-house master butcher George Donnelly, once of the Ginger Pig. Cooked over coals, the main is arguably the star of the show but the generous prawn cocktail with a langoustine topper rivals it, and the sticky toffee pudding is near perfect. Three courses of this calibre are very hard to find at this price point elsewhere. Oh, and it’s available all day, Monday — Friday.
17 Denman Street, W1D 7HW, devonshiresoho.co.uk
20 Berkeley
In the economics of a restaurant, a three-course menu without choice makes a lot of sense, but rarely do you find what they used to call a table d’hote menu. For anyone under 35 — or if you've never worked in a restaurant — that’s a multi-course menu, with multiple choices for each course, all for a set price. 20 Berkeley offers a 3-3-3 menu, that’s three options each for starter, main and pud, for just £27 at lunch. There’s also a £22 two-course lunch offering and set menus at dinner for £34 or £39 for two or three courses respectively. At this level of cooking and with this quality of British produce — not to mention the cost that comes with that Berkeley Square postcode — this is exceptionally good value. Update: on February 19, the Standard learned that 20 Berkeley is to re-brand as NIJU, a Japanese restaurant led by Endo Kazutoshi of Endo at Rotunda. The group has not yet revealed when that will happen, though, so there’s time to enjoy the set menu.
20 Berkeley Street, W1J 8EE, 20berkeley.com
The Palomar
Another multi-course, multi-option offering with fabulous food at a great price, the Palomar is delivering a surprising amount of food for either £24 (three courses) or £28 (four). The meal might start with labneh, tirshi and velvet tomatoes with pita, followed by beetroot carpaccio, or perhaps a hearty Waldorf salad before generous Persian oxtail stew. There are two or three choices for each course bar pudding, which is fixed as pine nut tart. Available on weekdays between noon and 5.15pm.
34 Rupert Street, W1D 6DN, thepalomar.co.uk
Spring at Somerset House
Spring at Somerset House is a stunning restaurant, but one you tend to hope someone else is paying for (starters can creep over £30). The Scratch menu, however, is just £30 for three courses as it utilises otherwise-wasted food products, turning them into something delicious. These are proper dishes, like braised chicken with radicchio, carrots, kale stems and quince mayo, or rice pudding tart with almond and hazelnut crust and topped with a marmalade syrup. It’s pleasing to see the message of food waste reduction delivered in such gorgeous surrounds and with food this delicious, £30 is a steal. Do note, it's only available between 5.30 and 6.30pm, from Tuesday to Saturday, so best for the earlier birds.
Lancaster Place, WC2R 1LA, springrestaurant.co.uk
Sushi Atelier
There are a number of affordable, high quality lunchtime options at Sushi Atelier but the Atelier Bento in particular stands out. Two kinds of sashimi, three of nigiri, four pieces of maki, pickles, small starter, miso soup and a side salad, and a refill on that soup (for free), all for just £28. Elsewhere the Salmon Set comes in at great value with four salmon nigiri, eight pieces of salmon and an avocado roll (with the soup and salad offer) for just £20. Available weekdays at lunchtime.
114 Great Portland Street, W1W 6PH, sushiatelier.co.uk
Rick Stein Barnes
A riverside window table and a three-course menu at just £17.50? A good time is all but guaranteed. At Rick Steins in Barnes, porcini mushroom linguine is followed by a hearty steak and ale casserole before the alliterative pan perdu with poached plums pudding. Even with service charge added, there will be change from a £20 note. Available on weekday from 12pm until 5pm.
Tideway Yard, 125 Mortlake High Street, SW14 8SW, rickstein.com
Sussex
Returning to Soho and another menu offering surprising value is found at Sussex, from the Gladwin brothers (of Rabbit in Chelsea and the Shed in Notting Hill). The “farm to fork” lunch offer has always been a wallet-friendly one, and while a main course here typically comes in anywhere between £27 and £40, the three-course lunch for £25 (or £22 for two) is a dream. It's simple stuff — gazpacho, gnocci, ice cream — but it does offer a chance to enjoy the stylish Soho surrounds for less. Available every day at lunch.
63-64 Frith Street,W1D 3JW, sussex-restaurant.com
£60 and under
Dinner by Heston
Anywhere with two Michelin stars, like Dinner, tends not to be cheap. Not so here. The lunch offering, available from Monday to Friday, noon till 2pm, offers a three-course lunch for just £59 per person. Taking a leaf out of Skye Gyngell’s book, the menu looks at the impact of food waste in the UK, tailoring a sustainable offering that still lives up to the fine-dining occasion. There are three choices for each course, and each feels special, rather than sparese. The Batalia pie (of sweetbread, ox heart and turnip) looks especially good and with a wine pairing offered at £49 per person, this could be the most affordable two star lunch in town.
66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA, mandarinoriental.com
Chishuru
Adejoke Bakare's Michelin-starred Chishuru is rightly hyped, a place that speaks to Bakare's “blazing, intuitive talent,” as Jimi Famurewa put it. The four-course menu here is set, and while £75 in the evening, is just £40 at lunch. Things start with sinasir (a fermented rice cake), which arrives with maitake mushroom, alongside ekoki, a rice cake. A main of Senegalese yassa gets a luxurious twist with guineafowl, a caramelised onion and lemon sauce and yaji peanut spice, and for pudding there's a peanut and ginger cookie, with chai ice-cream. One of London's most celebrated examples of West African cooking, the daily lunch is a must.
3 Great Titchfield Street, W1W 8AX, chishuru.com
Silo
Whilst Skye Gyngell might have pioneered a low-to-no food waste approach, chef Douglas McMaster’s Silo has taken that blueprint and applied it to absolutely everything the restaurant does. All Silo’s menus are no-waste and the six-course “shortlist” at just £45 (available until 7pm most days, but only at lunch on Sunday) gives a wonderful overview of the type of restaurant we can expect more of in the future. Don't miss the maitake mushroom, with miso and Szechuan pepper. Wines start at £7 a glass, too.
Unit 7, The White Building, Queen's Yard, E9 5EN, silolondon.com
The River Cafe
There's nothing wrong with your eyes: the River Cafe really does have a value menu, offering three courses for £55. It's hardly the cheapest on the list, but taking the winter set lunch is excellent value compared the restaurant's usual prices (the average antipasti on the a la carte is about £30, with a plate of pasta coming in about the same). It’s only available at lunchtime, and must be booked in advance, but walking out of the River Cafe having dropped less than £60 a head feels like daylight robbery.
Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, W6 9HA, rivercafe.co.uk
L’Escargot
The £25 for two or £29 for three set prix fixe menu at L’Escargot is a well-known bargain, but perhaps the better value option is the Sunday menu, a shade pricier at three courses for £39. It's £10 more, sure, but the offering is substantially improved. It feels like an a la carte in terms of choice, which is wide, and the dishes themselves are excellent. Expect a feuilletée of smoked haddock (and how often can you find one of those?), a roast rib of aged Scotch beef with Yorkshire pudding, horseradish and all the trimmings, and proper puds like chocolate souffle, or a cheese selection with no supplement charge. The catch? This menu is only on at Sunday lunchtime.
48 Greek Street, W1D 4EF, lescargot.co.uk
Corrigan’s
The menu du jour at Corrigan’s Mayfair is replete with steak tartare, duck consomme and roasted guineafowl. In short, everything that one might seek for value is here in terms of quality, but considering a single a la carte main course might stretch upwards of £40, to find three of these gorgeous courses available for £38 is a real deal, or opt for two courses at £34. The choice is good, too, with multiple options for each course, moreover, you won’t need to dine at 10pm every third Thursday on a waxing moon — the menu du jour is available for lunch and dinner daily.
28 Upper Grosvenor Street, W1K 7EH, corrigansmayfair.co.uk
64 Goodge Street
Opened from the team behind Quality Chop House and Portland, 64 Goodge Street simply works. It feels like a Parisian import and acts with a certain French swagger. The prix fixe offering of three courses for £39 is only available at lunchtime, but considering a main plate from the main menu would sit between £29 and £42, it represents terrific value (especially for the restaurant that’s come the closest to five stars that the Standard’s David Ellis has even given).
64 Goodge Street, W1T 4NF, 64goodgestreet.co.uk
Behind
Behind, the Michelin-starred kitchen counter helmed by chef Andy Beynon, famously won its coveted star after being open for just 20 days. It’s a feat unlikely to be matched again any time soon, but the restaurant deserves its plaudits. Dishes like Hampshire trout wrapped in nori and served with a hazelnut pesto, or cornish mackerel cured in seawater have featured on the highly seasonal, highly seafood-focussed menu. The Thursday and Friday lunch offering of six courses for £54 (as opposed to the usual eight for £98) is a great way to discover Benyon’s glittering food.
20 Sidworth Street, E8 3SD, behindrestaurant.co.uk
BiBi Mayfair
Chet Sharma’s BiBi has achieved much in its short time, including being voted as one of the best restaurants in Britain by the National Restaurant Awards. With such acclaim, it would be easy to assume there's little value here. Not so. The set lunch is an absolute steal at £45 for four courses, with the menu speaking to a kind of luxurious modern Indian fare that’s rarely delivered with such ease. Snacks precede a starter of heritage beetroot dahi puri, while a choice of mains might be between a Lahori chicken curry or and an upmarket kebab. Expect a choice of flavoured kulfi for pudding and a delightful, delicious lunch.
42 North Audley Street, W1K 6ZP, bibirestaurants.com
Hunan
What delights at Hunan, the quietly tucked away Chinese restaurant in Belgravia, is both the breadth and the calibre of cooking on offer. The lunch menu comes in at £59.80 per person and offers 12 courses. No menu is presented, instead, diners simply let the restaurant know what they like, what they don’t like and how much spice they can handle. The published dinner menu eludes to the nature of the food: pan fried sea bream in yellow miso, black cod in vinegar reduction and steamed prawn dumpling with spinach, but at lunchtime, it’s truly a surprise. Rather fun, and good value really, too.
51 Pimlico Road, SW1W 8NE, hunanlondon.com
Wild Honey
The now-closed Le Gavroche once offered one of the best value lunchtime deals around, with three courses with water and wine for a decent fixed price. It seems the Michelin-starred Wild Honey is evoking that same sense of an “all-in-one” offer with its Working Lunch. Expect three courses, a carafe of wine, tea or coffee, water and a canelé to finish, all for £59. Anthony Demetre’s accomplished cooking has been a fixture of the London restaurant scene since launching Arbutus in 2006, and there’s something of that old-school value with this menu, which is available daily at lunchtime. With tempura and ceviche of Cornish sardines, Denbighshire venison haunch with Armagnac jus and sea bream with blood orange all on the menu, it feels a generous one too.
8 Pall Mall, St. James's, SW1Y 5NG, wildhoneystjames.co.uk
Sola
Victor Garvey’s Sola champions exemplary, immaculately sourced produce, all served in a plush, recently renovated Soho space. The £59 set menu has bags of choice, with three options for starters and mains, and two for dessert, featuring some of the restaurant’s greatest hits. A five-strong snack selection precedes flambéd native lobster with ginger oden dashi or the day’s sashimi with toasted soy and baby leek. Mains of roasted squab or perhaps sablefish in palm sugar follow, before a choice of pudding and a selection of mignardises. Given the quality of produce, and the beauty of the dishes, the menu (available for lunch, Wednesday to Friday) feels wonderful value, but a word to the wise — the service charge on the bill is a whopping 20 per cent.
64 Dean Street, W1D 4QQ, solasoho.com
£100 and under
Namaiki
Across the street from TikTok-trendy Blue Posts pub and next door to the bustling Miznon, the heart of Soho isn’t the first place one might look to find fantastic omakase at a fantastic price. But the menu at Namaiki is exactly that: wonderful value, brilliant produce and a relatively affordable pricepoint. Most restaurants of this ilk in London start at well over £100, so to find an 11-course omakase for just £88 a head at lunch does represent value — particularly remembering it’s the same produce that will get used later on at dinner, which comes in for nearer £200.
14 Broadwick Street, W1F 8HP, namaiki.co.uk
Restaurant 1890
Eating out at one of Gordon Ramsay’s fine dining spots in London would typically mean forking out three, if not four, figures a head. With luxurious ingredients and exceptionally chosen wines, it seem inevitable your wallet will take a beating. Not so here. The five-course lunch is £75, which seems remarkable considering it's not skimped on luxury. The menu consists of Cornish crab with yuzu hollandaise, confit hens yolk with white beetroot, venison with blackberries and Périgueux (Madeira and truffle) sauce. To eat in a fine dining space such as this (which has just won a star), at this price, is something of a dream. Available at lunchtime on Friday and Saturday.
Savoy Hotel, Strand, WC2R 0EZ, gordonramsayrestaurants.com
Chez Bruce
Chez Bruce in Wandsworth has beaten a path of classic French gastronomy since 1995. It’s probably the only place in London serving the homage to Pierre Koffman, a stuffed pig's trotter with morels and a red wine reduction — a luxurious, gelatinous thing — and whilst the dinner menu is touching £90 a head, the daily lunchtime offering comes in at just £67.50 for three fine French courses. With very few restaurants in town doing this kind of food, and even fewer at these prices, Chez Bruce remains a bastion of discerning luxury and overt French-ness.
2 Bellevue Road, SW17 7EG, chezbruce.co.uk
Myrtle
Irish-born Anna Haugh has carefully created one of London’s finest restaurants, yet the space remains somewhat of an under-the-radar gem. It offers well-prepared and immaculately-sourced ingredients from across Ireland, served in a space that feels as comfortable as your favourite aunt’s living room. The six-course at £85 is fabulous value when the provenance of the fare and the quality of the execution is taken into account. It’s available for both lunch and dinner daily.
1A Langton Street, SW10 0JL, myrtlerestaurant.com
Nest
The full offering at Nest rounds off the long list for value with its fine food quality, well-thought-through creativity and, naturally, a price tag that makes you look twice. The 10-course, £75 menu, available daily at dinner, spans the best of sustainably sourced British ingredients with a flair that remains captivating, without straying into the ‘cheffy’. Chalk stream trout tart, crab salad with sea buckthorn and BBQ monkfish with savagnin feature on the current seafood season menu and with duck and vegetable season soon in the offing, the developing food should keep both the adventurous and the value-seekers happy for some time.
