London’s original May Fair took place in what is now Shepherd Market between 1686 and 1764, at which point the powers that be scrapped the annual shenanigans for becoming ever-more tawdry. Mayfair’s destiny instead was to be developed along the elegant Georgian lines of the garden squares still intact today, even if the mansions of the aristocracy that once lined Berkeley, Grosvenor and Hanover Squares have been replaced by art galleries, hedge funds, luxury car dealerships — and some of the priciest restaurants in the capital.
We’ve tried not to bang on below about how much it costs to eat out in 21st-century Mayfair; suffice to say that should you find yourself on the most expensive square of the Monopoly board, don’t be surprised to discover that starters alone can cost more than an entire meal on the Old Kent Road. It can be obscene.
But while foodie bargains in Mayfair are not so much few and far between as virtually non-existent, the prospect of feeding some of the richest diners on the planet lures the most talented chefs in the world with access to the finest ingredients from around the globe.
So from three-Michelin-starred fine dining to chic Chinese and suave Indians, the freshest fish and the fanciest French, here are our favourite places to eat in the most exclusive corner of London. Pack your platinum credit card, pimp your ride to an Uber Lux and get ready to party with the one per cent at the best restaurants in Mayfair. Money never sleeps, but it does need to eat: here’s where to feed the greed.
The Dover
“Dover for the Continent” went the old British Rail poster in the days before the Channel Tunnel: not a cry that this scorchingly hot new spot has rallied to. The Dover instead takes the Italian restaurants of New York for inspiration, wrapped up in the sort of mid-century Midtown glow that looks like a set straight from Mad Men (though owner Martin Kuczmarski, the former chief operating officer of Soho House, apparently used 1970s Sophia Loren as his mood board). Sink into the Don Draper decadence of it all with one of the seven knockout (almost literally) martinis ahead of food that takes the notion of silky comfort to a new level of cosseting indulgence: whopping prawns in a horseradishy Marie Rose sauce, parmigiana americanata that is more cheese than aubergine, a side order of mash and jus that is pomme purée submerged in gravy. Reservations, stored in a handwritten book, are like gold dust but the bar accepts walk-ins and the burger and fries is terrific.
33 Dover Street, W1S 4NF, thedoverrestaurant.com
Niju
What was 20 Berkeley, the Mayfair bolthole with private club-style surrounds but an open-to-all ethos, has become Niju, a Japanese grill and sushi bar — and the change has been very much for the better. The culinary theme is ‘katei ryori’, or home-cooked food, which can only make one assume that domestic science lessons in Japan are rather more advanced than they are in the UK, given that the culinary offering is overseen by Endo Kazutoshi, the third-generation sushi master behind Michelin-starred Endo at the Rotunda. Dishes beautifully presented on pretty crockery include a tomato tartare that mainlines the Japanese love of pure, seasonal flavours, sushi prepared either traditionally (spanking fresh yellowtail, sea bream and scallop) or new style (melt-in-the-mouth otoro with a dollop of caviar) and larger plates such as beef (Kobe sirloin for preference) grilled over a bespoke charcoal mix. The excellent Nipperkin cocktail bar has stayed the same except for the addition of a snacky menu of sando sandwiches.
20 Berkeley Street, W1J 8EE, nijulondon.com
Mount St Restaurant
One might expect a restaurant from art-world supremos turned hospitality gurus Hauser & Wirth to do a decent line in things to look at while one eats but possibly not £50m worth of Freud, Matisse and Warhol, to name but three. Even minus the art, suave Mount St would be a booby dazzler straight from the pages of a glossy interiors mag, but what’s on the plate looks just as good as the surroundings thanks to chef Jamie Shears. The temptation to order the richest things on the menu in order to channel the full sybaritic indulgence of the atmosphere is hard to resist — omelette Arnold Bennett, lobster pie — though in our experience, the simpler, lighter dishes such as grilled leek vinaigrette are actually the best. All that’s missing is a cocktail bar, but the nearby Farm Shop wine bar is a decent substitute, or else there’s the Audley pub on the ground floor of Mount St (both are Hauser & Wirth-owned). Mount St is open for breakfast and weekend brunch, too and there’s even a kids’ menu for early-years art lovers.
First Floor, 41-43 Mount Street, W1K 2RX, mountstrestaurant.com
Il Gattopardo
One might assume that the last thing Mayfair needs is another high-end Italian but Il Gattopardo at least has the heritage to make it welcome. The man shaking the pans is Massimo Pasquarelli, who comes from the Ritz-Carlton Singapore following 10 years working for Alain Ducasse, while the restaurant is owned by the same team behind the similarly glitzy Amazónico, Bar des Prés and Roka. Il Gattopardo, as any movie buff will know, is the Italian for leopard, though the irony of naming a Mayfair restaurant after a novel portraying aristocratic decline was perhaps overlooked in favour of the film adaptation famous for its extravagant banquet scenes. The menu luxuriates in Italian classics re-worked for expensive tastes: beautiful Scottish scampi with garlic and herbs; pungent vitello tonnato; deeply flavoured lobster gnocchi — with white truffles a highlight in autumn. Quality is high and the final bill steep.
27 Albemarle Street, W1S 4HZ, gattopardo.restaurant
Sushi Kanesaka
The past couple of years have seen a splash of ultra-expensive Japanese restaurants open in Mayfair — steak at Aragawa (from £580), omakase at Taku (from £160 at lunch) — but to our mind the best — assuming one can afford the £420 food bill — is Sushi Kanesaka. The nine-seat sushi counter is the London outpost of Shinji Kanesaka, who holds two Michelin stars in Tokyo; here his deputies craft 18 exquisite courses behind a 300-year-old cedar-wood counter before handing them straight to guests who are in tune with the reverentially serious vibe of it all. An umami bomb of chu toro tuna atop a log of body-temperature rice is the first-among-equals highlight. Most of the seafood is fished out of UK waters; everything else — freshly grated wasabi, a bespoke rice blend from Yamagata Prefecture, astonishingly sweet fruit — comes from Japan. Air miles, one suspects, do not weigh heavily on the conscience of the clientele here.
45 Park Lane, W1K 1PN, dorchestercollection.com
Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill
Richard Corrigan has two West End gaffs: the huntin’ and fishin’ wild-food specialist Corrigan’s Mayfair and this venerable fish restaurant, founded in 1916, which the Irish chef gave a new lease of life in 2005. Bentley’s better expresses Corrigan’s generous personality, even if the cost of fish these days means that prices don’t. Upstairs is a formal dining room, decked out with William Morris fabrics, for business lunches and celebratory suppers; the downstairs oyster bar is more fun, with a counter to watch London’s star shuckers work their way through 10,000 bivalves a week and dispense pearls of oyster wisdom (a squeeze of lemon and twist of black pepper is life-changing advice). Wherever you sit, expect luxey British seafood classics in which the produce shines: a shellfish cocktail with crab, lobster and brown shrimp as well as prawn; butter-bathed Dover sole; and, to really push the boat out, lobster Thermidor, almost as boozy as the knockout martinis served in the adjoining bar.
11-15 Swallow Street, W1B 4DG, bentleys.org
Sketch
One could spend all day immersed in Sketch and still find something new. Things kick off at 8am with breakfast pastries in the Parlour; lunch might be a deeply savoury haddock and scallop soufflé with Colman’s Mustard beurre blanc in the ground-floor Gallery, overhauled every few years by a leading British artist; the current sunshine-yellow look comes courtesy of Yinka Shonibare and seeks to illuminate the influence of African tradition on European life. Hang around for afternoon tea before cocktails in the Glade, then a trip to the sci-fi pod-shaped loos and tripping the light fantastic up the art-lined stairs to the jewel-coloured Lecture Room and Library, an exceptional, extraordinary three-Michelin-starred dining room with just as many staff as diners and so much space between tables one might be being waited on in a private house. Expect stunningly presented treatments of seasonal produce served as a multi-dish interpretation of a single ingredient: haute cuisine as haute couture and a once-in-a-lifetime experience to save up for.
9 Conduit Street, W1S 2XG, sketch.london
Gymkhana
The blueprint for every contemporary Indian in the capital, one is just as likely to see a celebrity as a City CEO dining on the next table at Gymkhana, whether in the colonial-themed ground-floor dining room (rattan booths, ceiling fans, sepia photos) or the cooler basement, which has the feel of a late-night lounge bar whatever the time of day. If it weren’t for the prices, the menu could be called crowd-pleasing, and the trick up the sleeves of the Sethi siblings who founded the restaurant has been to treat familiar Indian dishes with the refinement that comes from top-end ingredients and just enough innovation in the kitchen to make them taste creative not clichéd. Poppadoms come as spiced papads with a trio of tongue-tingling chutneys, supersized lamb chops have enough flesh on the bone to withstand a fiery marinade, the pastry-topped biryani is laced with wild muntjac while excellent veggie options include creamy-and-crunchy raj kachori chat: puri shells dolloped with yoghurt and chutney. Getting a table, alas, is likely to involve reserving months ahead; sister restaurants Trishna in Marylebone and Brigadiers in the City are easier to get into and serve similarly delicious cooking.
42 Albemarle Street, W1S 4JH, gymkhanalondon.com
LPM
Just as W. Somerset Maugham described the Côte d’Azur as “a sunny place for shady people”, half the fun of spending time in this plutocrat-approved, Riviera-themed restaurant is wondering what one’s fellow diners do for a living to be able to afford to eat here. Most likely they are transiting through London to another business lunch at an LPM in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Miami or Riyadh, while dreaming of a year in Provence. The original LPM is La Petite Maison, a brasserie in the old town of Nice which has long since moved from foodie secret to being the sort of place where Prince Albert of Monaco eats when he is slumming it over the border. Still, the cooking — French food for people who don’t like creamy sauces and strange cuts of meat — is as much of an attraction as the eavesdropping, even if the high-protein, low-carb formula is effectively a Francophone spin on owner Arjun Waney’s other big hits Coya and Zuma. Expect scallop carpaccio, rack of lamb and crème brûlée, washed down by one of the best collections of rosé wine in London, knocked back at tightly packed tables where you’ll be rubbing shoulders (literally) with your neighbours. After all, as the restaurant’s motto goes: “tous célèbres ici”.
53-54 Brook’s Mews, W1K 4EG, lpmrestaurants.com
Hakkasan Mayfair
London’s second Hakkasan is arguably better than the original, and not only because Bruton Street is a more fittingly luxurious address than a dodgy alleyway off Tottenham Court Road. The ground-floor lounge-cum-bar is a chic dim-sum spot for anyone who hates eating in basements in the daytime, while the dining room below is more intimate than at Hanway Place, with pools of shadow between the spotlit tables in a room divided by carved oriental screens, even if at times it feels hectically like eating in a nightclub. Anglo-Chinese classics such as prawn toast and sweet and sour pork are refined with superior ingredients, pork ribs and roast duck rendered fragrant with jasmine tea and black truffle, while desserts should on no account be missed: “chocolate caviar” involves a tin of cherry compote topped with “eggs” of chocolate mousse on a tray billowing dry ice. The staff, many of whom are model-grade good looking, have a reputation for frostiness, but we’ve always found the service couldn’t be more caring.
17 Bruton Street, W1J 6QB, hakkasan.com
Murano
Everyone loves Angela Hartnett, but behind the TV presenting, cookbooks and podcast with Nick Grimshaw is a chef who originally came to prominence as part of Gordon Ramsay’s team of lieutenants in the noughties and who won Murano’s first Michelin star in 2009. A serious chef she may be, but Murano occupies the casual luxe territory of loosened-up haute cuisine, not only in the dining room’s mood of relaxed professionalism (smiley but solicitous staff, well-spaced tables and comfy chairs) but food that is joyously Italian rather than being filtered through fine dining. Pasta is a highlight — silky herb tortellini with Swiss chard and goat’s curd, perhaps — while main courses such as turbot with Tahitian vanilla, white asparagus and pork crumb show just as much attention to the accompaniments as the star ingredient. Refreshingly, one can order anything from three (£95) to six (£145) courses, all with the bells and whistles of amuse-bouches, pre-desserts and petits fours.
20 Queen Street, W1J 5PP, muranolondon.com
Hide
This hugely ambitious project from chef Ollie Dabbous sits atop a bar overseen by Dabbous’ long-term cocktail collaborator Oskar Kinberg. The two floors above are occupied by two dining rooms, open all day from breakfast to supper. The nicest part of the Michelin-starred operation is the first-floor, where sylvan views over Green Park form the backdrop to Dabbous’ visually arresting cooking: the signature canapé involves house-made charcuterie wrapped around a quill of bone and feather, while the other must order is an eggshell filled with slow-cooked yolk, butter, mushrooms and cream and presented on a bed of hay. Hide is owned by the same people as Mayfair’s smartest off-licence, Hedonism Wines, and drinking is taken very seriously here. The best bit of all — well, sort of — there’s an iPhone charger concealed within each table, ensuring the entire seven-course tasting menu can be posted without one’s phone running out of juice.
85 Piccadilly, W1J 7NB, hide.co.uk
Bellamy’s
A French brasserie with an upmarket English accent, Bellamy’s is the only London restaurant where Queen Elizabeth II ever ate: how’s that for a seal of approval? One might follow Her Maj and order oscietra caviar, but the joy of Bellamy’s is that the food is far more down to earth than the royal patronage suggests. The late Queen followed her fish eggs with a smoked eel mousse; elsewhere are entrecôte with excellent chips and even better Béarnaise, and a chocolate cake made to the recipe of owner Gavin Rankin’s mother. Rankin calls Bellamy’s “a club without a sub” and it is probably the closest thing that Mayfair has to a local restaurant for local people (with bank balances to match). If you find the prices more Coutts than Co-op, there’s a two/three course table d’hôte for £30.50/£38.50, frankly a bargain these days, while the oyster bar serves toasted sandwiches for under £15 in the day, before turning into a cocktail bar in the evening.
18 Bruton Place, W1J 6LY, bellamysrestaurant.co.uk
Hélène Darroze at The Connaught
Three-Michelin-starred chef Hélène Darroze is such an icon of Gallic gastronomy that she has been immortalised not only as the character of Colette in the film Ratatouille but in plastic-fantastic form as a Barbie doll to encourage girls to follow the doll’s motto of “you can be anything”. The real-life Darroze is a softly spoken woman who lets her food do the talking, whether it’s exec chef Marco Zampese shaking the pans or Darroze herself on one of her fortnightly trips to London. A seven-course, seasonally changing tasting menu (£225) turns produce from long-term British and French suppliers (Cornish lobster, Landais asparagus) into lightened-up haute cuisine, often with a distinct note of spice: that lobster comes with tandoori spices, carrot, citrus and coriander, for instance. The best supplier of all, however, is Darroze family Armagnac, poured over a baba or wheeled over on a trolley. The wood-panelled room within The Connaught hotel is as gentle as Darroze herself, all soft pink and smooth velvet, while private dining at either the chef’s table or in the wine cellar is the most cossetting of corporate entertainment.
Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, the-connaught.co.uk
Sabor
Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s Sabor takes what everyone loved from her time as the executive chef of Barrafina — a ground-floor counter serving accomplished evolutions of the tapas classics — and offers it alongside a first-floor dining room to remind Londoners that Spanish people don’t just eat small plates. The cooking of Galicia and Castile is the focus upstairs, with dishes cooked in a wood-fired “asador” (Castile) or copper pans (Galicia), whether various sizes of suckling pig from Segovia, Burgos black pudding mixed with rice or seafood specialities of monkfish tempura, grilled squid and paprika-spiked octopus. Inevitably, however, it’s the ground-floor counter surrounding an open kitchen that feels like the heart of the action. Croquetas come stuffed with piquillo peppers or Manchego cheese, tortilla is laced with txistorra sausage, there are milk-fed lamb sweetbreads with capers and, to finish, bombas de chocolate, a trio of doughnuts exploding with cocoa and coffee. A dozen sherries and cavas by the glass kick off an impressive all-Spanish wine list.
35-37 Heddon Street, W1B 4BR, saborrestaurants.co.uk
Scott’s
Not for nothing is Richard Caring known as the king of Mayfair, with a West End restaurant empire on which the sun never sets, from brunch at 34 Mayfair to lunch at Bacchanalia and late-night partying at Sexy Fish. Scott’s, however, is the jewel in Caring’s crown, not only because it was the first restaurant that he added to Caprice Holdings when he bought the owner of The Ivy in 2005, but because there is almost no restaurant occasion to which the answer isn’t “Scott’s”. Solo supper? Try a dozen oysters (with or without a glass of house Henriot) at the counter. Seafood and starspotting? Order Dover sole on the terrace and, even if one of your neighbouring diners isn’t a celebrity, sooner or later a famous face will stroll by on Mount Street (most likely en route to... Scott’s). Even meat eaters are catered to with steak and chops, though the glittering altar of crustacea and crushed ice that greets visitors to the clubby dining room indicates that fish should be at the forefront of any meal here. Pretty much the only occasion for which Scott’s does fall short, in fact, is for a pre-dinner cocktail — and for that there is The Connaught Bar a few doors down.
20 Mount Street, W1K 2HE, scotts-restaurant.com
The Grill by Tom Booton
Very much infra dig for smart foodies for most of the 21st century, the arrival of fresh-faced young chef Tom Booton has made this famous hotel dining room essential again since his arrival in 2019. British grill room classics are given a contemporary twist, so that beef tartare comes seasoned with a layer of oxcheek jelly, a prawn Scotch egg has a warm tartare sauce for dipping and lobster Thermidor is reinvented as a Cheddar tart topped with a fleshy roasted claw with a sauce of seafood bisque — though for the ultimate indulgence, order a side dish of pommes boulangère, served in a copper pot with sticky layers of caramelised onion. With its love for all that glisters, the Dorchester will never be cool but Booton has made it contemporary, not least with puddings whipped up at a separate dessert bar and a cocktail bar to linger at after the final slurp of strawberry and clotted cream soft-serve. Prices, too, are bang up to date: upwards of £35 for a main course.
53 Park Lane, W1K 1QA, dorchestercollection.com
Veeraswamy
London’s oldest Indian restaurant has a pukka pedigree, opened by an Indian princess in 1926 and now in the hands of MW Eat, the company behind Chutney Mary and Amaya. A tourist-friendly position overlooking Regent Street makes Veeraswamy more approachable than its St James’s and Belgravia siblings, with couples on a posh evening up west as likely to be sitting on the next table as Indian family reunions and City boys drinking Beavertown Pale Ale (or bonus-blowing fine wines). Spot-on spicing and expert timing result in the likes of sweet-fleshed wild tiger prawns in a coriander, chilli and mint marinade, veggie options such as raj kachori (wheat puri filled with vegetables and topped with yoghurt, chutney and pomegranate seeds) are equally diverting, while the signature dish of lamb shank encased in flaky pastry involves a jug of bone marrow sauce poured over meat cooked for six hours. Too full for pudding? Order a chocolate martini instead. For something more casual and a little more affordable, try the excellent new Masala Zone at Piccadilly Circus.
99 Regent Street (entrance on Swallow Street), W1B 4RS, veeraswamy.com
Mimi Mei Fair
Samyukta Nair is a Mayfair force to be reckoned with, a restaurateur with the Indian Jamavar and Bombay Bustle as well as French Socca and Japanese/Thai Koyn to her name. Mimi Mei Fair, her Curzon Street Chinese, is her prettiest place, especially the suite of first-floor salons decked out in duck-egg blue panelling, sugared-almond armchairs and hand-painted screens; the ground-floor booths aren’t quite as eye-catching, though as “mi mi” means “secret” in Mandarin, are a good place to know for off-radar assignations. The emphasis on visuals ensures that the food looks as good as the surroundings, whether glossy baked wagyu puffs, langoustine wrapped in a golden spiral of angel hair pasta, pastel-coloured dim sum baskets stacked like boxes of Charbonel et Walker chocolates, or a tower of deeply flavoured dong po pork belly arranged in an inky pool of soy. High prices (especially for wine) are matched by the high quality not only in the kitchen but from super-professional staff.
55 Curzon Street, W1J 8PG, mimimeifair.com
Langan’s Brasserie
The fact that Langan’s attracted 10,000 bookings for its first fortnight of re-opening in 2021 demonstrates the fondness with which this historic restaurant is held by London restaurant-goers, whether the first generation of customers from the mid-1970s or their millennial offspring who are now the ones paying the bill. Langan’s was founded by Peter Langan and Sir Michael Caine in 1976 and re-opened by Mayfair club operator Graziano Arricale in 2021 in a swirl of marble and Murano glass; the handsome half-Italian is as attractive an advert as any for the good-time glamour of Langan’s, where the quality of food plays second fiddle to fun. Langan’s classics of fish pie, bangers and mash and spinach soufflé catch the retro mood; the new menu — Dover sole, daube of beef — could hardly be called cutting edge, though at least vegetarians get some thoughtful things like poached white asparagus and spiced roast cauliflower which would have been unthinkable in the 1970s. Upstairs is an invitation-only bar and club open until 3am; wear your smartest clobber to get a tap on the shoulder.
