The same kitchen. The same dining room. Frequently the same cooking. Between a quarter and two thirds off, for the crime of arriving at midday instead of eight in the evening.
This is the most useful thing we know about eating well in London, and it appears on half the pages of this guide because it keeps being true. Here it is in one place, with the actual numbers.
What the gap actually looks like
Medlar on the King’s Road is the cleanest illustration, because it publishes the whole ladder. Three courses at lunch: £57. The same three courses at dinner: £83. Twenty six pounds a head, same room, same kitchen, six hours apart. Two courses run £48 and £67, one course £38.50 and £49.50, and Sunday sits between the two at £59 for three.
| Where | The deal | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Brasserie Zédel | Prix fixeSunday stops at 4pm | £16.95, two courses |
| Blacklock | All InMinimum two people | £28 a head |
| Quo Vadis | Soho Set Menu | £30 two courses, £35 three |
| Medlar | Set lunch£69 in December | £57 three courses |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | Set lunchTwo Michelin stars | £65 three courses |
| Balthazar | Prix fixeAll day Mon to Thu, Fri to 6pm, from 5pm Sunday | £25.50, two courses |
| Trishna | Set lunchOne Michelin star since 2012 | Two, three and four courses |
| Spring | Scratch menuTue to Sat, 5.30pm to 6.15pm, 30 guests a night | £40, a bite and three courses |
| som saa | Set lunch and dinner | Published alongside the carte |
The one that makes no sense at all
Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, two courses for £16.95. A vast art deco Parisian dining room under Piccadilly, serving honest French brasserie cooking at a price that has no business existing in W1.
The catch is the one everybody gets wrong: it runs to 11pm Monday to Saturday but stops at 4pm on Sunday.
Two Michelin stars for £65
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental does three courses at lunch for £65, Monday to Saturday. That is two stars at the price a good one star room charges for dinner, and it is the single best value booking in Knightsbridge.
Their booking window is specific and worth diarising rather than chancing: reservations open three months to the day in advance.
Where the value is not on a set menu at all
Blacklock charges £28 a head for the All In, for two people or more: in their own words, pre-chop bites followed by beef, pork and lamb skinny chops piled on charcoal grilled flatbreads, with a side each. That is not a set lunch, it is the whole proposition, and it is the best value proper meal in several postcodes at once. They also keep a few tables back for walk ins, which almost nothing at this level does. Note the 12.5 per cent service charge they add to every bill.
Spring’s Scratch menu is the most interesting thing on this page, and the hardest to get. A small bite and three courses for £40, built around produce that would otherwise go to waste, because as they point out 40 per cent of British fruit and vegetables are discarded before reaching a shelf for being the wrong shape. It runs Tuesday to Saturday between 5.30pm and 6.15pm and is limited to thirty guests a night, which is a forty five minute window in the whole week.
How to use this
Book the expensive restaurant at lunch and the cheap one at dinner. That one reversal is worth more than any other piece of advice in this guide. A weekday lunch at a starred room costs less than dinner at an unstarred one.
Check whether the set menu runs at dinner too. Several do. Trishna runs lunch and early evening menus; Balthazar runs its prix fixe all day Monday to Thursday, until six on Friday and from 5pm on Sunday. The phrase “set lunch” is frequently a misnomer.
Read the days, not just the menu. Zédel’s Sunday finish at 4pm, Medlar’s £69 December price, Blacklock’s two person minimum and Spring’s forty five minute Scratch window are all published and all easy to miss.
Weekday, not weekend. Most set menus are suspended at the weekend, which is also when the rooms are full. The two facts are related.
Every price here was taken from the restaurant’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Set menus change more often than carte prices. Confirm before booking.
Cheap eats in London is the other route to eating well for less, and it compares what four of the most recommended cheap places actually charge.
The smarter rooms are where most of these set menus live, and the Sunday roast is the other fixed-price meal worth planning around.
Where to go next
The narrowest set menu window found anywhere for this guide is in Chelsea. Elystan Street serves its set menu between six and half past six at dinner and at no other time, while Medlar two streets away charges £57 for three courses at lunch and £69 for the same thing in December.
The best restaurants in London covers the wider field and the starred rooms cover the top of it, where the lunch trick saves the most.
By neighbourhood, Knightsbridge holds the two star lunch, Soho holds Zédel and Quo Vadis, and Chelsea holds Medlar.
Questions we get asked
Which London restaurant has the best value set menu?
Brasserie Zedel on Sherwood Street, at 16.95 pounds for two courses, in a vast art deco room under Piccadilly. For the best cooking per pound rather than the lowest price, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal does three courses at lunch for 65 pounds, and it holds two Michelin stars.
How much cheaper is lunch than dinner in London?
At the top end, dramatically. Medlar publishes both: three courses are 57 pounds at lunch and 83 at dinner, from the same kitchen in the same room. That 26 pound gap is typical rather than exceptional, which is why a weekday lunch at a starred restaurant often costs less than dinner at an unstarred one.
Do London set menus run at dinner?
More often than the name suggests. Trishna runs lunch and early evening menus, and Balthazar runs its prix fixe all day Monday to Thursday, until six on Friday and from 5pm on Sunday. Always check, because the phrase set lunch is frequently a misnomer and the early evening version is the one worth having.
Are set menus available at weekends?
Usually not, and that is not a coincidence. Set menus exist to fill quiet services, so most are suspended exactly when the dining room would be full anyway. If the set menu is the reason you are going, go on a weekday.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 56 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
