Michelin Star Restaurants in London

The Michelin Guide’s London listing returns 85 starred restaurants: six with three stars, fifteen with two and sixty four with one. That listing covers London and its surroundings, and Michelin’s own summary of the 2026 guide counts 84 inside London itself, so treat 84 or 85 as the same answer rounded differently. The breakdown is worth more than the total, because the three tiers are barely the same thing.

Sixty four of those 85 hold a single star. The phrase Michelin starred therefore covers everything from a formal dining room with a three hour tasting menu to a small neighbourhood restaurant with forty covers and a chef who does not want a second star. Understanding that range is the difference between an excellent evening and an expensive, uncomfortable one.

The six with three stars

Three stars means, in Michelin’s own framing, worth a special journey. London currently has six:

• Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Chelsea
• Core by Clare Smyth, Notting Hill
• Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, Mayfair
• Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Mayfair
• The Ledbury, Notting Hill
• Sketch (The Lecture Room & Library), Mayfair

These book out months ahead, cost what you would expect, and are genuinely once-in-a-while occasions rather than dinners. If you want one, start looking the moment you know your dates, not the week you arrive.

What the tiers actually mean in practice

Three stars. A destination in its own right. Long, formal, expensive, and something you plan a trip around rather than fit into one.

Two stars. Excellent cooking, worth a detour, and in London this is often the sweet spot: close to three-star cooking without the same ceremony or the same wait. There are fifteen of them.

• Brooklands by Claude Bosi, The Peninsula, Belgravia
• The Ritz Restaurant, Piccadilly
• Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal, Regent Street
• Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Knightsbridge
• The Clove Club, Shoreditch
• Bonheur by Matt Abé
• Row on 5
• A. Wong, Victoria
• Gymkhana, Mayfair
• Restaurant Story, Bermondsey
• Ikoyi
• Kitchen Table, Fitzrovia
• Humble Chicken, Soho
• Trivet, Bermondsey
• Da Terra, Bethnal Green

Bonheur by Matt Abé and Row on 5 are the recent promotions. The list is more varied than the three-star one in every respect that matters: A. Wong is Chinese, Gymkhana Indian, Ikoyi West African in inspiration, Humble Chicken a yakitori counter. If you are choosing one dinner in London, this is the tier to choose it from.

One star. This is the tier people misunderstand. A single star means very good cooking in its category, and in a city with London’s density that includes a great many restaurants that are relaxed, mid-priced and local. A one-star lunch is frequently the best value fine dining in the city, and many of them do a set menu at midday for a fraction of the evening price.

If you have one dinner in London and want it to be memorable rather than ceremonial, the one and two star tiers are usually the better answer than chasing a three.

The lunch trick

This is the most useful thing in this article. A large number of London’s starred restaurants run a set lunch menu that is dramatically cheaper than dinner in the same room, with the same kitchen, the same service and often two or three courses of the same cooking.

If the budget is the constraint rather than the ambition, book lunch. It works hardest of all at the starred Indian rooms, where the pre-theatre menus start at £36 and one house exempts them from its minimum spend. You will eat better for the money than at almost any dinner in the city, and the rooms are usually quieter and easier to get into.

The Clove Club in Shoreditch shows the size of the gap better than any other example in London, and it does it twice.

Its dinner tasting menu is £285. The same full tasting menu is £185 on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, which is a hundred pounds a head decided entirely by which night you choose. A shorter dinner tasting runs at £225 on Mondays and Thursdays.

Then look at lunch. Three courses there are £95. That is a third of the dinner price, in the same room, from the same kitchen, at one of the most admired restaurants in the country. Checked on its own site on 27 September 2026 and again on 2 October 2026.

The catch is the cancellation policy, which is the strictest of any room on this page. Changes made with less than 72 hours notice cost £125 per person at lunch and £155 at dinner, and that covers rescheduling and reducing your party size, not only cancelling. Their own wording is that it is not discretionary. Our Shoreditch guide has the rest of the terms, including the £20 per person charge for dietary requirements not given in advance.

Why you cannot compare these prices easily, and it is not an accident

Here is the practical obstacle, and it is worth naming because it explains why so few people take the lunch route.

A good number of London’s starred restaurants do not publish their menus as readable pages. Checked on 27 September 2026, Trishna serves its lunch and early evening menu as a PDF download, and Quilon’s menu page carries no readable prices at all. Neither is hiding anything, and both are excellent. But a set lunch you have to download a document to price is a set lunch most people never find.

So the method matters more than the list. When you are checking whether a starred room has a cheaper lunch, go to its own menus page rather than a listing site, and open the PDF if that is what it offers. The figure is usually there. It is just never on the page you land on.

How to book a Michelin star restaurant

Know when the book opens. Most starred restaurants release tables on a rolling window, commonly one to three months ahead, at a fixed time on a fixed day. Find out when that is and be ready, because the popular ones go in minutes.

Try weekday lunch. Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes are the softest slots everywhere.

Take the cancellation. Most of these places hold waiting lists and a surprising number of tables free up in the final week. It is worth the email.

Read the deposit terms. Card details are standard, and no-show charges are real and enforced.

Practical notes

Dress. Smart is expected everywhere in this bracket and jackets are expected at several of the Mayfair rooms. Nobody will make a scene, but you will feel it.

Timing. Tasting menus run long. Three hours is normal at the top tier and closer to four is not unusual. Do not book anything afterwards.

Service. Usually added at twelve and a half percent. You are not expected to add more.

Allergies and restrictions. Tell them when you book, not when you sit down. At this level they will cook around almost anything given notice, and almost nothing without it.

One caveat worth stating plainly

The guide is republished every year and stars move. Restaurants gain them, lose them, and occasionally hand them back deliberately. Every count and every name on this page was checked against the MICHELIN Guide’s own London listings in September 2026 and again on 2 October 2026, and the six three-star restaurants above are exactly the six the guide lists, name for name. Two of the two-star entries, Brooklands and The Ritz Restaurant, were separately confirmed from their own hotels’ pages as well.

That said, anything you read about Michelin stars has a shelf life, this page included. This page previously said London had 88 starred restaurants, which was three too many, and that is how quietly these numbers drift.

If a specific star rating matters to your booking, check the current guide before you reserve. If what actually matters is eating extremely well, the rating is a starting point rather than the answer, and plenty of London’s best cooking has never held a star at all.

For the evening either side of dinner, the best cocktail bars in London covers the drink beforehand and the best bars covers where to go afterwards. Our main London guide has the rest, and this year’s openings covers the rooms most likely to be holding a star of their own before long.

If you are eating east rather than central, our Canary Wharf guide covers a district the Elizabeth line has changed completely, and where you can still get a table at the weekend.

The rest of the range: the best restaurants in London without the stars, the Sunday roast, and cheap eats at the other end, where the cheapest plate at a queued-for pasta bar is £9.50.

Where to go next

One of London’s starred rooms is entirely vegan, and hardly anyone leads with it. Plates on Old Street holds a star and the Michelin Guide records its cuisine simply as Vegan. The vegan guide covers it, along with the conditions attached: four days a week, no walk ins, a deposit on every booking and a maximum table of six.

The Japanese guide puts Umu in context, a Mayfair kaiseki room that took its star within five months of opening and serves lunch from fifty pounds in a two hour window.

Set menu restaurants is the page that makes all of this affordable, and the fancy restaurants list covers the rooms that impress without a star.

Questions we get asked

How many Michelin star restaurants are in London?

85, holding one, two or three stars between them. That is more than any other city in the United Kingdom and among the highest counts in Europe, which is precisely why the phrase Michelin starred is close to useless on its own: it covers everything from a tasting menu costing several hundred pounds to a neighbourhood room doing a set lunch. Six of the 85 hold three stars.

How many 3 Michelin star restaurants are in London?

Six. Three stars means, in Michelin's own framing, worth a special journey, and it is the rarest of the three grades by a wide margin. Three of the six are in Mayfair, which is why that one district books out months ahead.

Which London restaurants have three Michelin stars?

Six: Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, Core by Clare Smyth and The Ledbury in Notting Hill, Helene Darroze at The Connaught, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester and the Lecture Room and Library at Sketch. Three of the six are in Mayfair and two are in Notting Hill.

How do you book a Michelin starred restaurant in London?

Find out when the book opens rather than simply trying early, because several open their diary on a fixed window such as three months ahead to the day. Then read the deposit terms, which at this level are real money and frequently non refundable, and declare allergies and restrictions at the time of booking rather than on the night.

Which Gordon Ramsay restaurant is best?

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road, and it is not a close call on the only measure that is published: it is one of the six restaurants in London holding three Michelin stars, and the only one of his London rooms with more than one. The rest of the group runs from one starred room to the brasseries and the burger bars, which are a different proposition entirely. If the three star price is the problem, the lunch menus at this level are covered above.

Is there a cheap way to eat at a starred restaurant?

Weekday lunch, and the saving is not marginal. The same kitchen and the same dining room serve a set menu at a fraction of the evening price, and it is by some distance the best value fine dining in London.

Does a Michelin star mean a restaurant is formal?

No, and assuming so is the most common misreading of the guide in this city. London holds 85 starred restaurants and the range runs from a three hour tasting menu in a hotel to a forty cover neighbourhood room with a chef who does not want a second star.