Fancy Restaurants in London: The Room Is a Separate Booking

Fancy is not the same as good, and in London it is frequently not even the same restaurant. The rooms people mean when they say fancy are a separate category from the rooms with the best cooking, and the two overlap less than you would think.

The thing that matters here is the one nobody tells you: the room is a separate booking from the restaurant. The conservatory, the booth, the garden room, the table under the dome. These are allocated when the reservation is made, by somebody who asked for them. By the time you are standing at the host desk, that decision was taken days ago.

Ask for the room by name

This is the whole technique and it costs nothing.

Clos Maggiore

Address

33 King Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 8JD

Nearest

Covent Garden or Leicester Square

Hours

Lunch midday to 2.15pm daily. Dinner 5pm to 10.30pm Monday to Saturday and 5pm to 10pm on Sunday. The terrace runs from midday to close

Booking

Online, or 020 4580 1174, or enquiries@closmaggiore.com

Standing

Routinely named among London's most romantic dining rooms, on the strength of one room in particular

How to get in

Book the conservatory, not just the restaurant. The blossom filled glass room with the fireplace is the reason the restaurant has the reputation it has, and the rest of the building is an ordinary good restaurant. If you book without specifying, you will very likely be seated in the ordinary part and wonder what the fuss was. It is the one room on this page that opens seven days.

The same applies across this category. The garden room at the Ivy Chelsea Garden, a booth rather than a table at Balthazar, the window at a view restaurant. Every one of them is a request made at the time of booking, and every one of them is free.

The grand rooms

Rules

Address

35 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7LB

Nearest

Covent Garden or Charing Cross

Standing

Established by Thomas Rule in 1798, which makes it the oldest restaurant in London

How to get in

Two centuries of accumulated red plush, oil paintings and antlers, specialising in game. Smart dress is requested and they state plainly no shorts and no sportswear. Children under ten are not admitted to the restaurant after 7pm. There is a cocktail bar upstairs, which is the easier way in if the dining room is full.

Brasserie Zédel

Address

20 Sherwood Street, Soho

Nearest

Piccadilly Circus

Hours

To 11pm Monday to Saturday. Only to 4pm on Sunday

Price

Prix fixe, two courses £16.95

Standing

A vast art deco Parisian dining room under Piccadilly

How to get in

The most impressive room in London for the money, by an unreasonable margin. Two courses at £16.95 in a gilded subterranean brasserie that looks like it should cost four times as much. The Sunday 4pm finish catches people out constantly. Book it and spend the difference upstairs.

Bluebird Chelsea

Address

350 King's Road, SW3 5UU

Nearest

South Kensington, 14 minutes on foot

Booking

020 7559 1000

Standing

An Art Deco former motor garage, now a café, courtyard, bar, restaurant, private rooms and members' club in one building

How to get in

A 1920s garage converted into a dining room and still recognisably a garage, which is the appeal. The 1am licence on Friday and Saturday makes it one of the few rooms on the King's Road still serving late.

Where fancy and good come apart

The Ritz is the clearest example. The Palm Court, the gilded room in every photograph of afternoon tea at the Ritz, is not currently where tea is served: it has moved to the eighteenth century William Kent House while the hotel is refurbished. People book on the strength of a photograph of a room they will not be sitting in. The Ritz guide covers it in full.

The Savoy is the second. Tea is served in the Gallery, whose stained glass dome the hotel now sells as the setting for its evening Twilight Tea. Most guides still name the Thames Foyer, and the Savoy’s own site says Gallery. If the room is the reason you are going, that distinction is the whole booking.

And Sketch is the third. The Gallery is no longer pink. It went yellow in 2022, and from 10 September to 10 November 2026 it holds Static Arcade, by the French artist and designer Camille Walala, for Sketch’s annual Art and Design exhibition. If you are going for the photograph you have seen, that photograph is several years out of date.

What fancy actually costs

Less than it looks, if you choose the room rather than the tasting menu. Brasserie Zédel is £16.95 for two courses in the most theatrical dining room in central London. A set lunch at a serious restaurant puts you in the same room as the evening at a fraction of the price, and the set menus page collects where that gap is widest.

Service is the number that moves. Most rooms at this end add 12.5 per cent and some add 15, which turns a round number into an awkward one. The tipping guide covers which houses include it and which do not.

How to book one

Name the room, every time. The conservatory, the booth, the window, the garden. If you do not ask, you get whatever is left.

Check the dress code, and only the venue’s own. Rules asks for smart dress and bars shorts and sportswear. Several of the grand hotels publish nothing at all, whatever the listing sites assert. A jacket is never wrong in any of these rooms.

Book lunch if the room is the point. It is the same room, the same service and frequently half the price, and it is the easiest table to get in every restaurant on this page.

Confirm which room is actually open. Two of the most photographed rooms in London are currently not serving what people think they are. That is not unusual at this end of the market, where refurbishments run for years.

Everything here was taken from each restaurant’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Rooms close for refurbishment and prices change. Confirm before booking.

The other directions from here: the Sunday roast, which several of these rooms do properly, and cheap eats, which is the same city on a different budget.

Where to go next

The best restaurants in London covers where the cooking is the reason to go, and the Michelin list covers the stars, which is a third thing again.

The French restaurants are the classical end of this, and one of them publishes something no other room in London does: book a table at Otto’s and it is yours for the whole evening, with no two hour slot.

The romantic restaurants cover the same rooms for a different evening, and the view restaurants cover where the window is the room.

Questions we get asked

What are the fanciest restaurants in London?

Rules on Maiden Lane, established in 1798 and the oldest restaurant in London, for accumulated grandeur. Clos Maggiore in Covent Garden for its conservatory, which is the room the reputation is built on. Brasserie Zédel under Piccadilly for the most theatrical dining room in London at £16.95 for two courses. Bluebird on the King's Road for an Art Deco motor garage turned dining room.

What is the most beautiful restaurant in London?

Depends whether you want grand or theatrical. The conservatory at Clos Maggiore is the room most often named, a glass room filled with blossom and a fireplace, and it is a specific booking rather than the restaurant as a whole. For sheer scale, the art deco hall at Brasserie Zédel under Piccadilly Circus, which costs £16.95 for two courses.

How do you get the best table in a London restaurant?

Ask for it when you book, by name. The conservatory at Clos Maggiore, the garden room at the Ivy Chelsea Garden, a booth at Balthazar, a window at a view restaurant: all of these are allocated at the time of reservation rather than on arrival, and all of them are free to request. By the time you reach the host desk, somebody who asked earlier already has it.

Are fancy restaurants in London expensive?

Not necessarily, and the room is the cheapest part of it. Brasserie Zédel serves two courses for £16.95 in the most impressive dining room in central London. A set lunch at a serious restaurant puts you in the same room as dinner for a fraction of the price. What costs money is the tasting menu, not the surroundings.

What should you wear to a fancy restaurant in London?

Check the venue's own published code and nothing else, because this is the most frequently wrong detail on listing sites. Rules requests smart dress and states plainly no shorts and no sportswear. Several of the grand hotels publish no dress code at all. A jacket clears every door in this category and is never wrong.

Is the Palm Court at the Ritz open?

Not for afternoon tea at present. The Ritz sells its tea in the eighteenth century William Kent House, across the Queen Elizabeth, Wimborne, William Kent and Music Rooms, and does not mention the Palm Court at all, which means the gilded room in almost every photograph of afternoon tea at the Ritz is not the room you will be sitting in. If the Palm Court specifically is the reason you are booking, wait.