Langan’s, a September Thursday, just gone half one in the afternoon. Drizzle outside. Inside? Everyone’s absolutely soaked. One Hollywood star is leaning in on the wine; sorts in suits are celebrating with Champagne; another table is getting very particular with the martinis (“vodka, glacial, and make sure it’s an orange twist, not lemon.”). Carefree waiters glide with the food, but the sommelier is breaking a sweat.
“Now this,” one diner is saying to her pal, “is what my dad used to call a PFL. We always had the choice: did we want a TBL, two bottle lunch, or a PFL, a proper f***ing lunch?”
It’s not just at Langan’s where lunch looks more like 1984 than 2024. “We don’t like to boot people out,” says Victor Garvey, of Soho’s Michelin-starred Sola. “But we do when dinner service starts. At least once a day we get a table that comes in at 12.30 and doesn’t leave ‘til almost six.”
City sorts — by now surely sick to the back teeth of Zoom — seem to be back out in force, doing deals over bottles of Bordeaux and closing over chateaubriand. The idle rich never went away, of course. But for the rest of us, what in polite company is known as the power lunch means a chance to dress up, go big with the order, and gossip until it’s time to roll straight into supper. So whether you’re signing on the dotted line or simply want a big one, here’s where to head. Rolexes at the ready.
The new contenders
The Dover
The Dover has enjoyed a deserved reputation for sultry evening occasions since opening late last year, but now the ultimate power restaurant is finally open for lunch. The Dover ticks all the essential “power lunch” checkboxes. Mayfair? Check. Glamorous interiors? You betcha. Hard to book? And then some. But the lunchtime setting feels lighter and more inviting, perhaps a shade less seductive and more accessible, with the lights and the music turned up a little; all the while maintaining that feeling of being in the right place. As ever, there are straightforward hamburgers, prawn cocktails and lobster ravioli alongside heavy-hitting steaks and “The Dover” sole, for the ultimate power play in longer lunchtime ordering. The martinis, meanwhile, are heartily Standard approved.
33 Dover Street, W1S 4NF,thedoverrestaurant.com
Il Gattopardo
The sister restaurant to Amazonico (the Rainforest Cafe for grown-ups) it may be, but Il Gattopardo deserves a closer look. The unabashed Italian menu is as priced-to-postcode as a Mayfair restaurant could be, but fortunately the food holds water. The dining room is plush, dark-panelled, white-tableclothed and with moneyed suits by day and evening dresses by night, it’s a power-player’s dream. The bar in the back is a beauty, too.
27 Albemarle Street, W1S 4HZ, gattopardo.restaurant
Sale e Pepe
Old — 50 this year — but new too, as owner Markus Thesleff has completely overhauled Knightsbridge’s original chic Italian. “We’re getting people hitting three, four grand with the wine,” says Thesleff. “And not with crazy bottles. Just a lot of them — and they’re lining them up on the table, just like the old days.” Once non-existent, cocktail sales are through the roof, he adds. Come for wild king prawns, veal Milanese and Tignanello by the case load. Book the Ubers in advance.
9-15 Pavilion Road, SW1X 0HD, saleepepe.co.uk
Sola
The Americans have always had a thing for going big at lunch — you’ve seen Wolf of Wall Street? — so perhaps no surprise New York-born Garvey knows how to draw a crowd, who come for a detail-oriented tasting menu executed at an extraordinary level. Think art on a plate vibes. The wine list is practically all-American too; lingering is all but inevitable. Be careful: the Groucho is only over the road.
64 Dean Street, W1D 4QQ, solasoho.com
Arlington
The paint is finally as dry as the martinis at Jeremy King’s rekindled Le Caprice. An ultimate power lunch destination in St James’s, it sits a few doors down from The Ritz, attracting the great and the good of the fashion, media and arts world, with a splash of royalty to boot. Your order? Bang bang chicken with plenty of Sancerre.
20 Arlington Street, SW1A 1RG, arlington.london
Mount St. Restaurant
Not a new opening, but certainly one of the new breed of lunch behemoths, Mount St. seems built for gallerists and dealers to shake hands over fine food and finer wines. Fitting, given owner Hauser & Wirth is in the art game. The intimidation factor with power lunches cannot be underestimated: yes, the dining room is colourful and gorgeous, but who says “no” to a contract when they’re sat beneath a Matisse? Carrying on after? Across the road is its sister wine bar, underneath Farm Shop.
41-43 Mount Street, W1K 2RX, mountstrestaurant.com
Bistro Freddie
Whilst Bistro Freddie has a younger, Shoreditch crowd at dinnertime, lunches are studded by the occasional big city type with a nose for a great restaurant. The result? A surprising power lunch destination where the biggest bottles (Alexandra Price is the group head of wine and knows her stuff) come priced for City folk (read: over £200 a bottle). For the rest of us, the wines are pleasingly diverse and affordable, but if you’re closing a big deal and looking for a big bottle, all the while proving your restaurant cred, go here.
74 Luke Street, EC2A 4PY, bistrofreddie.com
The old stalwarts
Claridge’s Restaurant
The dining room at Claridge’s is powerful space which could schmooze, intimidate or relax just about any player trying to broker a big deal. The leather banquettes are deep and luxurious and yes, of course that’s imported Italian marble. For the finance crowd in Mayfair, or for a yacht salesman hoping to score his first Sunseeker commission (their UK office is next door), there can be few better restaurants.
Brook Street, W1K 4HR, claridges.co.uk
Langan’s
Langan’s has been a power-player in Mayfair since first opening its doors in 1976. The restaurant was brought back from the dead in 2021 and today remains a haunt for a lunchtime set of diners making a set of discreet deals (and those for whom the three-martini lunch is done as part of a health kick). So, less Jordan Belfort and more Sir Jim Ratcliffe? Well, with the restaurant’s artistic heritage spanning Hockney, Freud and Bacon, maybe it’s more Larry Gagosian.
Stratton Street, W1J 8LB, langansbrasserie.com
Cecconi’s
A lot of Cecconi’s power-play dining stems from its proximity to just about everything important in well-heeled Mayfair. Cecconi’s is at the epicentre of everything from the art dealers of Cork Street to the fashion set of Old Bond Street, to the tailors of Savile Row, and the hedge fund crowd of Dover Street. The room always throngs. One for celebrity spotting, too.
5A Burlington Gardens, W1S 3EP, cecconis.co.uk
M
Is this the ultimate City restaurant? The wine list is fearsomely good, the steak choice unrivalled, the atmosphere full of furious chatter and rounds of laughter. It is something for Champagne to start, white for the starters, big-shouldered reds for the mains. Service here is on the money — appropriately enough for a power lunch — so it’s somewhere where rarely does anything seem too much trouble. It helps that Mike Reid, the executive chef, has a menu that goes beyond beef, with a refined, Japanese influence throughout.
60 Threadneedle St, EC2R 8HG, mrestaurants.co.uk
One Lombard Street
“You can pitch as much as you like on screen but you have to close in person. Breakfast, lunch, cocktails or dinner beats screen time, anytime,” says owner Soren Jessen, who is not entirely convinced the power lunch ever really died. “Politicians meet with the City, recruiters meet with talent, writers get inspiration, films are made, deals are closed and people have a lot of fun.” The place practically rattles with chatter in the week. Somewhere for oysters, steaks and Manhattans at the domed bar afterwards.
1 Lombard Street, EC3V 9AA, 1lombardstreet.com
Sweetings
At Sweetings, it could be 1924, let alone 2024. The long-standing City institution, which is only ever open for lunch, does not accept reservations. This has no impact: queues form from the 11.30am opening, with the crowds coming for Guinness in tankards, fish pie and gleefully overpriced Chablis. There are nursery puds, too. It is its own particular type of heaven.
39 Queen Victoria Street, EC4N 4SF, 020 7248 3062
Goodman City
Probably the most Patrick Bateman place on the list, Goodman City is a stereotype of suited men making deals with quite a lot of chest-pumping and red meat mastication. But these sorts return time and again because of the high calibre of the food and the friendly clubhouse atmosphere. Ansa Stanley, the general manager with around seven years under her belt, oversees this testosterone-drenched dining room with disarming ease.
11 Old Jewry, EC2R 8DU, goodmanrestaurants.com
The upcoming upstarts
Simpsons on the Strand
In what is described as a return of the Grand Divan, the restored Simpson’s will undoubtedly be a power-lunching dream. For those not cutting deals at 1pm over roasts served from a gilded trolley, a more casual accessible space is slated to open upstairs.
Opening Spring/Summer 2024, 100 Strand, WC2R
Carbone at the Rosewood
Following the billion pound Raffles London at the OWO and the billion pound Peninsula London comes the probably-very-expensive Chancery Rosewood hotel. Taking over the site of the former US embassy and slated to open next year, this will likely be another billion pound property built for only a certain kind of elite high net worth traveller. With New York City import Carbone slated to be a flagship restaurant in the hotel, power lunching in Mayfair will get a Manhattan, NY-Italian twist.
Opening 2025, 30 Grosvenor Square, W1K, rosewoodhotels.com
Le Caprice at the Rosewood
It seems that the Qatari-backed Rosewood in Mayfair are willing to get the big hitters imported into their hotel as alongside Carbone, it’s widely reported that Richard Caring’s Le Caprice will reopen in the property in 2025 too. Very little intel on this one, and unlike Carbone which has an outpost in New York, Le Caprice has been closed since 2020 and was sold to Jeremy King. Perhaps the deals made in the making of all these restaurants will encourage the restaurants themselves to become temples of power-brokering.
Opening 2025, 30 Grosvenor Square, W1K, rosewoodhotels.com
The Emory
The new, all-suite Emory hotel is launching one door down from sister property the Berkeley. While London waits for news on which culinary giant will take over Marcus Wareing’s old space, the internationally renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is opening abc kitchens at The Emory. Expect high-powered dishes like whole turbot for two, tuna or fluke crudo, and black sea bass with spinach and lemon. In short: a menu built for a PFL.
