Drinking rather than eating may be the traditional approach to New Year’s Eve, if only because a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne is not something any sensible person should attempt sober. And yet what could be more civilised than spending the biggest night of the year at a restaurant table with drinks on tap, food from one of the capital’s top chefs and a guaranteed seat once auld acquaintances have been forgotten for another year?
Most restaurants are open on New Year's Eve; it is, along with Valentine's Day, the only night of the year guaranteed to get bums on seats. Sometimes, then, this means the hellish prospect of a set menu for double the price of normal. And while, true, dining out on NYE is never going to be a cheap eat, we've selected the restaurants below based on the quality of experience — whether that's a full-on party atmosphere or simply the promise of some exceptional food.
If budget is a concern, or you have a party to get to after dinner (or a babysitter to get home to), it’s worth noting that at many restaurants the bill can almost be halved by booking an early sitting for New Year’s Eve; it's those that cross midnight that really start to cost.
So, from chic Chinese to three-Michelin-starred French, Mayfair party palaces and immersive food and music matches — to say nothing of DJ sets from the biggest names in electro to bagpipers and marching bands — here are the 14 best restaurants to be when the clock strikes midnight. Start the year as you mean to go on!
Brasserie Zédel
Say “bonne année!” to 2024 at this cavernous dining room beneath Piccadilly Circus, possibly the Frenchest place to celebrate New Year beyond the stage of the Folies Bergère. From 9pm, Brasserie Zédel will play host to an evening of cabaret compered by award-winning host Peter Groom, who will be appearing as Marlene Dietrich. Willkommen! The entertainments will include a tribute to Josephine Baker as well as jazz, magic and acrobats before culminating with vintage-inspired dance troupe The Gatsby Girls performing the can-can at midnight. To eat, take your pick from the ooh-la-la à la carte: frogs’ legs, coq au vin and tarte Tatin.
How much? Three courses approx £45, plus an £80 cover charge (from 9pm) for entertainment
20 Sherwood Street, W1F 7ED, brasseriezedel.com
The Ned
Three words to get the heart of any reveller beating faster: black-tie blowout. This is what the Ned are promising on New Year’s Eve, where the former banking hall HQ of Midland Bank (now the hotel’s immense marble-clad foyer) will be given up to a party-cum-live entertainment installation featuring roaming acts, aerialists, live band performances, DJ tunes and, no doubt, a whole lot of drunken dancing. To eat, there will be canapés and feasting stations serving unlimited lobsters, oysters, roasts and more; wash it all down with free-flowing bourbon, rum, tequila, gin and whisky cocktails. Pacing yourself? There’s beer, wine and fizz, too.
How much? £350
27 Poultry, EC2R 8AJ, thened.com
Quo Vadis
This landmark Soho dining room (Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital here) is no stranger to celebrations: its Christmas carols and Burns Night shindigs are key events on the London restaurant calendar. New Year’s Eve promises to be no different, with the private rooms in the upstairs members' club given over to a three-course feasting menu including mains of sirloin with roast potatoes and greens, turbot with mussels, clams and sea vegetable veloute, and cannelloni with three cheeses, pumpkin, spinach and chard, as well as a welcome glass of Champagne. Music will come courtesy of pianist Clifford Slapper and there will be DJ sets until 2am. A reduced three-course à la carte will be on offer in the restaurant downstairs.
How much? Three-course feasting menu (club), £110; three courses (restaurant), approx £65
26-29 Dean Street, W1D 3LL, quovadissoho.co.uk
The Petersham
While predicting a New Year dusting of snow is probably best left to the bookmakers, a snowfall of white truffle is guaranteed at the Covent Garden offshoot of Richmond’s Petersham Nurseries. The five-course Italian menu promises truffle at almost every course: truffle fritters, scallop carpaccio with truffle, spinach tortelli with truffle, slow-cooked beef with truffle mash; in fact, the only thing that doesn’t come with a shaving of tuber is the tiramisu. Which is just as well, because no one wants what’s basically mushroom in their pudding. A jazz band will perform throughout the evening. Want even more truffle? Add it for £14 per gram.
How much? Five courses, £170; wine pairing, £95
2 Floral Street, WC2E 9FB, thepetershamcoventgarden.com
Park Chinois
The Mayfair Chinese with added tassels, fringed fabrics and gold taps shaped like duck’s heads is going all out for New Year’s with a day of “Shanghai Royale”. A three-course New Year’s Eve menu will kick off with duck de Chine topped with gold oscietra caviar ahead of A5 wagyu beef, steamed sea bass, king crab koshihikari rice and chocolate bonbons. There’ll be a live jazz band before midnight and a DJ afterwards, but if being awake when the clock strikes twelve is as deplorable as overcooked Peking duck, at lunchtime there's dim sum soundtracked by a pianist, or else early-evening dining with live performances from 5.30-7.30pm.
How much? Early evening menu, £145; from 7.30pm, £495 (premium seating) or £395 (limited view)
17 Berkeley Street, W1J 8EA, parkchinois.com
Brunswick House
Chef Jackson Boxer’s dining room-cum-antiques emporium always surprises, not least because who expects to find a Georgian mansion by the Vauxhall gyratory? The candles will be lit on New Year’s Eve for a four-course menu prepared by Boxer and his team, served in the flickering half light. Expect snacks of grilled potato bread and devilled eggs ahead of chalk stream trout crudo, wood-fired Highland sirloin, and boozy prune tart with almond sorbet. All diners who book for dinner will be welcome to head down to the cellar bar for pre- and post-dinner drinks from 5pm, where four-piece band The Fool’s Moon will be performing blues in the dance room from 7pm.
How much? Four courses, £90
30 Wandsworth Road, SW8 2LG, brunswickhouse.london
The Dartmouth Arms
If your answer to a New Year’s Day hangover is a bracing dip in Hampstead Ponds, make sure you’re in the right neck of the woods the night before with an evening at this Dartmouth Park gastropub, overseen by hosts-with-the-mosts The Disappearing Dining Club. The five-course menu includes the likes of artichoke soup, lobster ravioli, pan-roast duck breast and brandy and orange poached pear. Hit the dancefloor after, with DJs Ben Osborne, Dave Rose and Neil Thornton taking to the decks until 3am, leaving four hours before the ponds open.
How much? Five courses, £95
35 York Rise, NW5 1SP, disappearingdiningclub.co.uk
Sketch Lecture Room and Library
Arguably by the time one has reached the three-Michelin-starred summit of Sketch’s Lecture Room and Library, there have been so many eye-popping divertissements — a chain of giant paperclips in place of a velvet rope; Chris Levine’s portrait of The Queen, Lightness of Being; lavatories sparkling with Swarovski crystals — that the only thing required to make the evening complete is a meal of sublime brilliance. This being Sketch, however, more is always more, and for New Year’s Eve a seven-course menu will be accompanied by a mix of opera, operetta and musical performances by the London Festival Opera, with a glass of Krug Grande Cuvée to toast the New Year. Start as you mean to go on…
How much? Seven courses, £475
9 Conduit Street, W1S 2XG, sketch.london
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester
The three-Michelin-starred outpost of Gallic superchef Alain Ducasse — overseen by fellow Frenchman Jean-Philippe Blondet — is offering two sittings on New Year’s Eve, the only difference being that not kicking back at a table in The Dorchester as the clock strikes midnight will knock £350 off the bill. Still, it’s not difficult to see where all that money is going, with luxury ingredients including native lobster, Kristal caviar, seared duck foie gras, white truffle and Cornish turbot. Wine pairings such as Dom Pérignon 2013 are no less sybaritic, while suave staff deliver smooth-as-silk service.
How much? Seven courses, £300 and £650 (first and second sittings)
The Dorchester, 53 Park Lane, W1K 1QA, alainducasse-dorchester.com
Sexy Fish
This pan-Asian extravaganza feels like a party whatever the night — that’s sort of its thing — but New Year’s Eve promises to welcome 2024 with a bang. Things don’t get started until 9pm, with live music and dancers segueing into a DJ sets until 3am. The £380 entry fee can be spent on the usual à la carte or tasting menu as well as wines, cocktails and malts from what is claimed to be the world’s largest Japanese whisky collection. Pick and mix between cold and hot small plates — tuna tataki and salmon tartare, prawn gyoza and pork belly yakitori — plus larger dishes of caramelised black cod with spicy miso, sticky iberico pork ribs with green onion and chilli, and USDA prime rib-eye and Australian tomahawk wagyu. Not so hungry? There are standing tickets at the bar for £50.
How much? £380
Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square, W1J 6BR, sexyfish.com
Carousel
Fitzrovia’s revolving door of chef residencies is serving up a double whammy of creative talent on New Year’s Eve. “Paired” is a series of one-off events between Carousel and electro festival AVA which sees chefs paired with DJs for an immersive food-and-music matching. For NYE, that means a five-course menu from Sam Buckley, chef-patron of Stockport's soon-to-close Where the Light Gets In, and a live soundtrack from Mancunian DJ and producer Mr Scruff (pictured). Expect the likes of Carlingford oyster with oyster shell tostada and pork ragu doughnuts, green onions and bone broth, plus another 200 guests turning up for the New Year’s Eve party from 8pm, with cocktails and fried chicken in the bar and revelry until 2am.
How much? Five courses, £125; drinks pairing, £50; afterparty-only tickets, £35
19-23 Charlotte Street, W1T 1RW, carousel-london.com
The Ritz
Who needs fireworks when there’s a bagpiper, a 14-piece military marching band counting down to midnight and half a bottle of Champagne on each table in a restaurant that looks like a dining room at Versailles? Needless to say, The Ritz’s gala dinner is a black-tie affair, though the six-course supper is worth dressing up for: Isle of Mull scallop, ballotine of duck liver, Cornish turbot, Anjou pigeon, tournedos Rossini. Once the clock strikes twelve, there'll be dancing until the wee small hours courtesy of live music from the Soul Jets. Don’t book a table if you’re not fully committed: the eye-watering cost of the evening must be paid upfront and is non-refundable.
How much? Six-course dinner, £1,900 (children £950)
150 Piccadilly, W1J 9BR, theritzlondon.com
Amazónico
Tarzan meets Halston is perhaps one of the more unexpected mashups on the New Year’s Eve party scene but Amazónico’s annual Jungle Fever party takes for inspiration 1970s disco. No Bianca Jagger on a horse, alas, but there is globetrotting DJ Natasha Diggs and live music from Flo Collective, plus an array of musicians and DJ talent until 4am beneath a ceiling hung with disco balls and neon lights. Early-evening bookings (from 5.30pm) come with a set menu and a glass of Veuve Clicquot; the full Jungle Fever shebang includes Chilean wagyu fillet with black truffle glaze, Scottish halibut with bouillabaisse and A5 wagyu sirloin with caviar. Note there’s a suggested dress code of “tropical disco glamour”: dust off that flared safari suit.
How much? Jungle Fever experiences from £595; early evening booking, £140; open bar ticket, £275
10 Berkeley Square, W1J 6BR, amazonicorestaurant.com
Chop Chop
While it is probably not a good idea to hit the gaming tables of the Hippodrome Casino having been refreshed earlier on New Year’s Eve, we would thoroughly recommend finishing off a night of celebrating at the casino’s basement Chinese, Chop Chop, which is open until 4am — almost early enough to still be awake for the New Year’s Day dawn. Chop Chop comes courtesy of celebrated roast meat specialists Four Seasons, so glossy chunks of duck, char siu and pork belly are the thing to go for here; for preference, order all three on a bed of boiled rice with some chive oil for drizzling. Other top shouts include salt-and-pepper prawns, steamed garlic scallops and stewed beef brisket. Just don’t forget to bring some ID to show the security on the casino’s front door.
How much? Roast meats from £16.80
Hippodrome Casino, Cranbourn Street, WC2H 7JH, hippodromecasino.com
