The Resy Guide to London’s Best Restaurants For a Special Occasion

A Family Get Together

Haute Chinese cuisine in London wasn’t even a twinkle in Alan Yau’s eye when Hunan’s founder Mr Peng founded his long-running restaurant in Pimlico in 1982. His ‘leave it to us’ menus – tasting menus as nobody called them then – were decades ahead of their time, with influences from Hunan, Guangzhou and his native Taiwan. Son Michael hosts, overseeing the generously priced wine list that’s held to be one of London’s finest. Justifiably one of London’s most adored restaurants.

Mark Kempson’s neighbourhood restaurant is low key one of London’s finest restaurants. It may not have the swash and swagger of some of its fellow Michelin star winners, but that’s just the way the Kensington locals like it. In common with his former boss at the Square Phil Howard (now of Elystan Street), Kempson strives to commit the seasons to the plate. Dine à la carte or choose the £110 tasting menu for classical cooking like raviolo of red leg partridge, with Jerusalem artichoke, apple and sage or BBQ monkfish tail with St Austell Bay mussels, curried cauliflower, and bacon.

It’s never not an occasion at this historic Soho address, whether you’re on your own at the bar with a smoked eel sandwich or gathered around a white-clothed table in the pretty dining room getting started on a magnum of Ruinart. Jeremy Lee’s brand of epicureanism draws on centuries of British culinary tradition and European influences. There’s always a good pie, a proper pudding, and a whole host of seasonal delights to discover. If you’re celebrating with a group, they have a range of gorgeous private dining rooms for hire, too.

A Big Birthday

Another newcomer from two Michelin star winner Tom Sellers’ school of swank (see Story Cellar). This one’s in Mayfair, the natural habitat of the high roller, and it’s all about good times and glamour. Sellers and his two accomplices – exec chef Tom Anglesea (the Laughing Heart) and head chef Chase Lovecky (Two Lights, Clove Club) – have created a menu that will have sybarites drooling. Oysters from the raw bar; Orkney scallops; English wagyu carpaccio ‘Harry’s Bar’ and beef fat chips; even ‘surf and turf’ of Scottish langoustines and English rosé veal. All, however, are but precursors to the trip to the knickerbocker glory station for a build-your-own topped with popping candy, cinder toffee and whatever your infantile heart desires.

What a delicious feeling it is to settle onto a slouchy banquette for supper at Orasay, Jackson Boxer’s chic neighbourhood restaurant in Notting Hill. Boxer’s style is elegant, his produce exemplary. Consider raw stone bass with black radish and miyagawa; wood-fired prawns, pickled kumquat and miso butter; or wood-grilled monkfish with scallop skirt velouté. The private dining room for ten is a looker.

The stage is set at Brunswick House for a celebration on a grand scale. Jackson Boxer has a luxurious style entirely his own. You see it in the roast cod, bouillabaisse, seaweed and lime leaf; in the raw Dexter beef with smoked bone marrow and crispy shallots; and in sour apple sorbet, whisky toffee and mint granita. If you’re inclined to spend a bit on wine, the single bottle list has some juicy magnums, Super Tuscans and blowout Burgundies.

Celebrating an Anniversary

Seabird at the Hoxton in Southwark is the 21st Century answer to the age-old question: “where to find the best seafood in London?” On the roof at the Hoxton, amid lush foliage, chic rattan, and shell-topped tables, you’re a world away from the ruddy-nosed aristos that populate the old school oyster establishments of St James’s and Mayfair. Here, you can slurp oysters in style, choosing from London’s longest list including Jersey rocks and prestigious Gillardeau from France. If you’re really going for it, order the £220 ‘Afternoon Sea’, a festival of fruits de mer for all your friends, that piles lobster, upon dressed crab, upon razor clams, clams, mussels, langos, red prawns and more besides. There’s caviar too, from £100/30g.

The Water House Project has grown from a supper club chez chef Gabriel Waterhouse to a fully-fledged restaurant in Bethnal Green. The spirit of those early events lives on around the communal tables where guests gather as if at a dinner party (there are individual tables if you’re feeling shy). The £155 a head bill includes beverage pairings and ten magical courses such as smoked potato, scallop roe and walnut, and grouse with beetroot and rose.

In these straitened times, it’s possible to delude yourself that you will go to Story Cellar, Tom Sellers’ near-Parisian wine bar and bistro in Seven Dials and limit yourself to the rotisserie chicken and a single glass of vin rouge. But oh no, once you’re settled at the counter or cosy in the corner booth, there’s no hope. So give in to your immoderate urges. Order that lobster Thermidor, that T-bone, that whole Dover sole! Besides, realistically, where else are you going to drink a 2011 Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru or 2002 Châteauneuf du Pape Roussanne if not here? A friendly place in which to treat yourself and others.

It’s hard to imagine the Michelin Guide’s inspectors hopping on the overground to Hackney Downs to drink orange wine and eat BBQ seaweed ice cream at Casa Fofo with East London’s finest, but they made it and they gave it a star. There’s no menu as such; chef Adolfo de Cecco and his team explain each course as it comes, whether 100-day aged dairy cow with sourdough miso and friggitelli, or strawberry grape, sake lees, and white chocolate. It’s a fixed price £68 for the menu; wild and wonderful wines to match, another £49. Smiling faces all around tell you it’s worth it.

A Graduation Dinner

Super talent Angelo Sato rejigged the formula at his Soho counter restaurant Humble Chicken this year. While it meant saying goodbye to his exceptional yakitori, it meant saying hello to a kitchen theatre experience quite unlike any other in London. The £145 menu is a 16-course succession of surgically crafted miniatures such as dainty smoked beef tartare tartlets with spicy miso, mustard seeds, and crispy bone marrow; and pert mussels stuffed with avocado. It’s fine-dining, sure, but from your stool at the counter, sipping sake and chewing the fat with Sato, it feels like anything but.

This is where it’s at: sitting at the open kitchen counter at Silo in Hackney Wick, sipping on a glass of pét-nat, and marvelling at the sheer crackpot genius of zero waste chef Douglas McMaster. Like a culinary Rumpelstiltskin, he spins straw into gold, or rather, buttermilk into ‘quavers’ with Dorstone cheese; knotweed into cocktails; and leftover bread into ice cream sandwiches. It’s an education, a show, and an exploration into the possibilities of fine-dining. One goes away feeling galvanised. £75pp.

Popping The Question

This candlelit Mayfair nook takes its name from Kitty Fisher, the 18th Century courtesan and original ‘it’ girl, said to have once eaten a 1000 guinea note on a slice of bread and butter. The restaurant’s belted Galloway beef for two with green peppercorn butter and crispy potatoes, a signature since day one, is far better bang for buck. The atmosphere’s so seductive, one can’t help but go from Bad Kitty cocktail to a bottle of Burgundy and the inevitable glass of port that follows. Prices, blessedly, are not too ‘Mayfair’.

Chianti flasks, dripping candles, and red-checked tablecloths were tropes of romance long before the Lady and the Tramp made them so. The Clerkenwell trattoria, the late Russell Norman’s paean to Florence, captures the magic. Italian classics of penne alla vodka, panzanella, and pork tonnato with caperberries won’t break the bank; so max out on a whopping great bistecca alla fiorentina and a once-in-a-lifetime Brunello.

Celebrating a Promotion

Even before it moved to its sleek new home at 180 The Strand, Ikoyi was London’s, possibly Europe’s hottest tickets. It has earned a spot on the World’s 50 Best and now has two Michelin stars to its name. It’s £300 for the tasting menu (a £180 lunch menu is available on Wednesdays and Thursdays) that includes works of genius such as lobster agrodolce with baked lobster head and pistachio beurre blanc; semi frozen mantua melon cooked in peppercorn tea, plum kernel and sour chilli; and the nothing-short-of-iconic plantain with smoked kelp and blackberry. Is it worth it? Is it ever.

Make a night of it at Counter 71 by bookending the experience with cocktails at Lowcountry, the Deep South-inspired cocktail bar beneath the restaurant. A Rum Swizzle or Sherry Cobbler in, you’re ready to take your seat at chef Joe Laker’s kitchen counter for the main event, a £110 multi-course menu of best-in-class British produce. Prepare for kitchen theatre and flavours that will comfort and confound, such as bitter salad with smoked rapeseed and caviar and a fennel seed custard tart. Then it’s back to the bar for a nightcap, perhaps bartender Ryan Sheehan’s signature Old Fashioned with fat-washed bourbon and maple.

A meal at Manteca turns a good day into a great day. There are no bad calls on the menu, a Shoreditch celebration of Italian artisan traditions from pillowy focaccia to house-cured salumi, hand-cut pasta, and huge chops and steaks cooked over the coals. Emily Acha Derrington’s expansive wine list includes both classics and ‘down the rabbit hole’ drops.

A Belated Reunion

Phil Howard and Rebecca Mascarenhas have been doing ‘quiet luxury’ at their Michelin-starred Chelsea restaurant since long before the term was invented. To dine at Elystan Street is to slip into a beloved Loro Piana sweater: comforting, cosseting and impossibly chic. Howard’s modern British menus celebrate flavour and pleasure in equal measure. Thinly slices venison are paired with pickled walnut, rose hip drizzle, and smoked truffle cream; silky pasta with Australian black winter truffles, chicken stock and plenty of farmhouse butter. Choose from set menu,  à la carte, or £115 tasting menu, with classic or contemporary wines.

Michelin-starred Leroy in Shoreditch deserves its spot on any list of London’s best lunch deals (three courses, £35). It’s also a good one for a blow out, thanks to its tempting wine list. A juicy read, it has a page apiece for skin contact, rosé, exceptional Champagnes, and magnums of every colour. The atmosphere is cool and casual and so’s the food: devilled eggs; charcuterie; barbecued scallops, lemon and brown butter; and open lasagne of beef shin and Taleggio. Service charge included (see above).

If Noizé in Fitzrovia flies below the radar, it’s only because its regulars don’t want you to know about it. Former Pied à Terre manager Mathieu Germon opened it in 2017 with a view to serving contemporary French food in an unpretentious setting. Chef George Farrugia worked for Eric Chavot and Pierre Koffmann, so knows his stuff. His brill on the bone with celeriac risotto and truffle, and roasted venison loin and pastilla with beetroot are crying out for an Old World wine match from the keenly priced list. There’s also a reserve wine list with vintages going right back to the ‘70s. They might even have your birth year.

Fallow in St James’s is your go-to for sustainable feasting in a central London setting. Between a few of you, you can really get stuck into the menu from homemade charcuterie to spicy corn ribs, juicy cuts of dairy cow, the epic cod’s head, and swirls of sourdough soft serve. The drinks list has your favourite frozen margaritas and craft beers as well as some big-ticket wines and magnums – the ultimate payday flex.