London’s Best Private Dining Rooms | No Washing Up
Dinner parties are great.
But they’re even better when someone else is taking care of the cooking. And the décor. And the booze.
And at this hand-picked collection of private dining rooms, London’s best restaurants are ready to take care of all that. It’s your chance to close the doors, amp up your own soundtrack, and have the run of your own little party nook for the night – whether it’s an opulent snug based on an imperial train carriage, a 5am banquet 40 floors above London; or a secret garden where you can feast on dim sum beneath swaying lanterns.
Behold, our newly updated guide to London’s best private dining rooms:
Jump to: OPULENT | BOHEMIAN | RAUCOUS | GOURMET | PICTURESQUE
OPULENT PRIVATE DINING ROOMS
Kioku by Endo | Westminster
As if occupying the rooftop of the Old War Office on Whitehall – with its panoramic views of Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament and half a dozen other iconic London landmarks – wasn’t impressive enough, Kioku’s private dining room is set in a literal turret. And that’s not even the most impressive bit. No, that would be the food, which is a Mediterranean-Japanese fusion from a third generation sushi chef who’s worked at some of the world’s best restaurants…
Seats: 10 | Set menu? Yes, £200pp | Minimum spend? POA | Book private dining at Kioku
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Bob Bob Ricard | Soho & The City
If the Great Jay Gatsby owned a restaurant and thrust into it all his elegance, panache and charm, it would pale in comparison to Bob Bob Ricard. Then go out of business. And be scorned for trying to compare. The private dining room here is styled around an imperial dining car on a train, which you’ll immediately recognise from the velvet blinds on the train-style windows, the cosy, carriage-like dimensions of the room, and the buttons that allow you to summon Champagne.
Seats: Up to 16, or 8-18 at Bob Bob City | Set menu? No | Minimum spend? £1000-2000 | Book private dining at BBR
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The Wolseley | Piccadilly
Lacquered black walls, gilded Chinoiserie motifs, and a menu of European grand café classics spanning from breakfast through to dinner – The Wolseley’s elegant private dining room ticks a lot of boxes. Including the ‘was once a car showroom in the 1920s‘ one.
Seats: Up to 15 | Set menu? Breakfast or small groups à la carte, dinner set menu from £70pp | Minimum spend? £350+ | Book private dining at The Wolseley
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The Ivy | Covent Garden
Ah, The Ivy.
It really grows on you.
And their private dining room is every bit as delectable as the rest of the restaurant, with its characteristic diamond windows, private bar and complimentary flowers and place cards for the tables (making it a pretty ideal wedding breakfast spot). Being in the heart of Theatreland, they can also provide you with a jazz trio or pianist for the evening – allowing you to bundle round the baby grand and get into what is essentially very classy karaoke by the end of the night.
Seats: Up to 32 at one table, 60 at 6 or 100 standing | Set menu? Yes, from £60pp, with the chance to create something bespoke | Book private dining at The Ivy
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Sketch | Mayfair
In 1869, Millicent Fawcett gave her first speech calling for women’s enfranchisement in this very building. Fast forward a century and a half, and you can toast her legacy in the eponymous private dining room at Sketch, where you can also marvel at the triple Michelin-starred cuisine.
Seats: 8 | Set menu? Yes, POA | Find out more via [email protected]
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Gymkhana | Mayfair
Gymkhana’s intimate private dining vaults with arched copper ceilings, leather booths and art deco chandeliers provide an intimate setting for enjoying their double Michelin-starred Indian fare and hooch-filled silver punch bowls. They also don’t require any special booking or enquiry forms – you can make a reservation the usual way on their website, so you can easily make a Friday night dinner just a little bit more fancy.
Seats: Up to 10 | Set menu? Yes, from £65pp (lunch) or £100pp dinner | Minimum spend? £800 (lunch)/£1500 (dinner) | Book private dining at Gymkhana
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Daphne’s | South Kensington
Simon Owen
Daphne’s is a year-round showstopper. In summer, the retractable roof is drawn back and sun floods into the airy, mirrored dining room; in winter, stars twinkle through the glass roof, candles twinkle on tables, and the fireplace does a bit more than twinkle at the head of the table, as you tuck into their sumptuous Italian fare.
Seats: Up to 24 at one table, 32 at 4, or 50 standing | Set menu? Yes, from £70pp | Minimum spend? From around £2500 | Book private dining at Daphne’s
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104 | Notting Hill
Fancy a really private spot? Notting Hill’s 104 is so petite, it only seats 16 guests full stop. Meaning you can hire out the whole restaurant for your party – or stage an epic proposal that sees the other 14 diners reveal themselves to be a full brass band halfway through your date.
Seats: Up to 16 | Set menu? Yes, from £110pp, bespoke options available | Book private dining at 104
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Kioku by Endo | Westminster
As if occupying the rooftop of the Old War Office on Whitehall – with its panoramic views of Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament and half a dozen other iconic London landmarks – wasn’t impressive enough, Kioku’s private dining room is set in a literal turret. Fair warning: it’s insanely pricey. But then again, Mediterranean-Japanese fusion from a third generation sushi chef who’s worked at some of the world’s best restaurants was never going to come cheap…
Seats: 10 | Set menu? Yes, £200pp | Minimum spend? POA | Book private dining at Kioku
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Sushisamba | The City
If you’ve already had the pleasure of a sky-high cocktail in Sushisamba’s 39th-floor cocktail bar, then you’ve already been in the private dining room. Or, more accurately, stood directly beneath it. Because that curvaceous sculpture on the ceiling lowers down to become a banquet table for up to 30 diners. You can even hire samba dancers if you feel like the glittering city views, luxe sushi platters and top-of-the-range cocktails aren’t doing enough.
Seats: 30 | Set menu? Yes, from £95pp | Minimum spend? £4000 | Book private dining at Sushisamba
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The Midland Grand Dining Room | King’s Cross
Sure, The Midland Grand Dining Room lives up to its name, all triple-height ceilings and huge chandeliers. But so does The Midland Grand’s private dining room, which condenses all that luxury into an intimate, outrageously cosy area for up to 14 guests, serving the same wonderfully indulgent menu of French fare.
Seats? Up to 14 | Set menu? Yes, £45 (lunch) or £85+ (dinner) | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Book private dining at the Midland Grand
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The Ned | The City
Being set in the former Midlands Bank building, the grandiose hotel and restaurant micro-metropolis that is The Ned has no shortage of elegant spaces for hire. There’s private terraces overlooking the city, ballrooms that could be straight out of a period drama, and this: the ludicrously fancy Tapestry Room, with original crystal chandeliers and the largest tapestry of its kind ever made in Britain.
Seats: 10-200 | Set menu? Yes, bespoke | Minimum spend? POA | Book private dining at The Ned
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Duck & Waffle | The City
Not only London’s highest private dining room (being, as it is, on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower), Duck & Waffle is also one of the most delicious, serving caramelised banana waffle, spicy ox cheek doughnuts and, of course, their signature duck and waffle, at any time of the day or night.
Seats: 16 | Set menu? Yes, from £45pp for breakfast, £75pp+ for dinner | Book private dining at Duck and Waffle
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Kerridge’s Bar & Grill | Mayfair
An intimate private dining room with its own personal kitchen attached, where you’ll watch head chef Tom Childs and the team put together a hearty menu of British fare, from Cornish lobster scotch eggs to pig’s cheek pie with clotted cream mash. And the sommelier’s on hand to make sure it all goes down very well.
Seats: Up to 16 | Set menu? Yes, £150/175pp | Minimum spend? Yes, £2000 (lunch)/£2500 (dinner) | Book private dining at Kerridge’s Bar and Grill
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Hawksmoor | The City
When it comes to big celebrations, Hawksmoor is definitely more. Because their Guildhall branch is home to a sleek, wood-panelled private dining room reminiscent of an old gentlemen’s club. If old gentlemen’s clubs offered Chateaubriand steaks served in sizzling cast iron skillets and passionfruit pavlova, that is. For something more relaxed, try the private dining room at Hawksmoor Borough, which looks directly onto an open kitchen.
Seats: 10-22 | Set menu? Yes, from £30 (lunch) and £60pp (dinner) | Book private dining at Hawksmoor
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Brunswick House | Pimlico
Brunswick House isn’t just home to Jackson Boxer’s critically acclaimed restaurant. The other floors of this former Georgian mansion are all privately hireable, too – from intimate studies crammed with antiques to the terraces, parlours and vaulted cellars. And yes, they come with Jackson Boxer’s critically acclaimed food.
Seats: 6-110 | Set menu? Yes, from £70pp | Minimum spend? £250-£4250 venue hire fee, plus minimum spend | Book private dining at Brunswick House
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MiMi Mei Fair | Mayfair
The Vaults at MiMi Mei Fair are the epitome of luxury. You’ll find this pair of private dining rooms tucked underneath the two-storey townhouse restaurant, serving the same lavish Chinese menus and extravagant cocktails, only in a more intimate setting. Decked out in deep red burgundy, the shimmering ceiling reflects the warm glow of lamps placed around its leather banquettes.
Seats? Up to 6 | Set menu? No | Minimum spend? Around £600 | Book private dining at MiMi Mei Fair
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Dean Street Townhouse | Soho
Dean Street Townhouse already feels a world away from the chaos of Soho outside its handsome Georgian door. So the snug within the restaurant feels even more secluded, tucked away behind heavy drapes and offering a cosy nook for up to 14 to feast on classic, indulgent British fare.
Seats: 14 | Set menu? No | Minimum spend? POA | Enquire about private dining at Dean Street Townhouse
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Trishna | Marylebone
Trishna’s private dining room is a smart yet cosy wood-panelled cocoon, in which waiters will ply you with Michelin-starred dishes inspired by coastal Indian cuisine, while you bop along to your own soundtrack and look out over the wine cellar beyond. It’s basically a way, way better version of the sort of classy dinner party you could hold at home.
Seats: 6-12 | Set menu? Yes, £125pp | Minimum spend? From £5,500 (lunch), £8000 (dinner) + service | Book private dining at Trishna
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Holborn Dining Room | Holborn
A private dining room within the Dining Room, where, by day, a team of pastry whisperers craft their magnificent, crusted creations… and by night, you eat them, surrounded by quirky Victorian pie-making ephemera, candlelight, and shimmering marble.
Seats? 10 | Set menu? Yes, £65-90pp | Book The Pie Room at Holborn Dining Room
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Decimo | King’s Cross
Decimo scores a 10 on private dining thanks to its ludicrous city views (through floor-to-ceiling windows), the private bar, and the excellent Spanish-meets-Mexican dishes rustled up by Peter Sanchez-Iglesias (who opened Decimo for a change of scene after running two Michelin-starred restaurants in Bristol).
Seats? 38 | Set menu? Yes, POA | Book private dining at Decimo
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Dinner by Heston | Knightsbridge
By far and away the most fantastical room ever conceived, the private room at Heston’s time-travelling eatery takes inspiration from King Arthur’s round table, boasting an, er, oblong table; grand velvet thrones for each diner; embossed LEATHER WALLS and a chandelier apparently made up of the largest piece of hand-blown glass in Britain. Plus, the historical set menus offer dishes like spiced pigeon; an 18th century chocolate bar; and everybody’s favourite culinary practical joke, meat fruit.
Seats: 12 | Set menu? Yes, £130/170pp | Book private dining at Dinner
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The Masonic Temple | Liverpool Street
According to an urban legend, this former masonic temple lay blocked off behind a wall for decades before a construction worker noticed an extra room on the blueprint. Luckily, it turned out to be a marble-clad, domed-ceilinged, secret Edwardian temple fitted with thrones, candelabras and mysterious zodiac carvings. And luckily for you, it makes the perfect venue for a grand, atmospheric banquet (or séance).
Seats: 44 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? £2,200 | Enquire about private dining in The Masonic Temple
BOHEMIAN NOOKS
The Hero | Maida Vale
The team behind West London hit The Hero aren’t wasting a square inch of their beautifully revamped Victorian home. Nestled in the loft spaces above the bustling ground floor pub and first floor Grill Room are a pair of elegantly rustic private rooms: a dining room with a smart fireplace and bookshelves stacked with wine, and a more relaxed bar in the attic where you can enjoy either a sit-down meal or more casual drinks & canapés. Based closer to Notting Hill? The Hero’s older sibling, The Pelican, has a pretty lovely private dining room too.
Seats: 12/30 | Set menu? Yes, POA | Enquire about private dining at The Hero
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Blanchette | Soho
The Jungle Room at beloved French bistro Blanchette boasts a hand-painted tropical mural, a glass-fronted wine cellar, a cosy table set next to a cosy leather corner banquette, and flickering candlelight. The menu here comes in the form of their signature sharing plates, including dishes like crispy frogs’ legs, steak tartare with pickled girolles, crab timbale and seared tuna with avocado… which you may or may not actually want to share.
Seats: 14 | Set menu? Yes, from £55pp | Book private dining at Blanchette
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Paradise By Way of Kensal Green | Kensal Rise
Paradise was practically built for private parties. Almost every room of the teetering Gothic hideaway can be hired out, from the glass-roofed conservatory with a private bar, and the peeling, candlelit bohemian dining room, to the snug Reading Room packed with Chesterfield sofas and a roaring fire, or the vast music room (which comes with its own stage).
Seats: 10-100 depending on room | Set menu? Yes, from £55pp | Minimum spend? From £500 – £2500, depending on room and day | Book private dining at Paradise
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Kolae | London Bridge
At the very top of Kolae’s historic coach house home, you’ll find an attic space that’s been deftly converted into a private dining room. Inside, they’ve kept things pretty simple: bare wooden floorboards; exposed brick walls; minimal decor beyond leafy greenery and some warm lighting. But what’s landing on the table is likely to be some of the most blisteringly wonderful Thai food you’ll have ever had in the UK.
Seats? 18 | Set menu? Yes, £50pp | Minimum spend? POA | Enquire about private dining at Kolae
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Hanging Garden at My Neighbours the Dumplings | Clapton
My Neighbours The Dumplings is a little family-run restaurant specialising in handmade dumplings (who knew?) that manages to be both quaint and cool. The space itself is Chinese marketplace meets industrial chic: paint-chipped walls, colourful Chinese lanterns overhead, and long communal picnic tables for seats. This is carried right out to their ‘hanging garden’ room, draped with lanterns and sporting the perfect intimate vibe for a dinner party.
Seats? From 8-42 | Set menu? Yes, £30pp | Book private dining at MNTD
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Pig and Butcher | Islington
If this wasn’t attached to a fully functioning pub and eatery downstairs, you could just about persuade your friends that this was your very own, homely farmhouse kitchen. You know, if you owned an Aga. And got your meat freshly butchered by a bunch of highly skilled chefs in the basement. And knew how to serve that meat in hefty roasts and sharing platters including treacle-cured salmon.
Seats? 16-24 | Set menu? Yes, but à la carte for non meat-eaters | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Enquire at reservations@
RAUCOUS HIDEAWAYS
The Blues Kitchen’s Airstream Caravan | Shoreditch
Partying in a caravan won’t cramp your style if you do it at the Blues Kitchen Shoreditch, who have planted a 1950s silver airstream right in the middle of their live music club. Here you can kick back with your own personal drinks stash, sharing platters of Texan BBQ ribs and wings, a phone dock disguised as a vintage TV, and a private bathroom – all with the main dance-floor just a step outside, where they have live blues playing seven nights a week.
Seats? 15-25 | Set menu? Yes, POA | Book private dining at The Blues Kitchen
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Brigadiers | Cannon Street
Brigadiers pulls out all the stops when it comes to private dining. Hireable spaces here run the gamut from intimate dining rooms to the whole venue, which means you’ll have the run of their whisky vending machine, help-yourself bar, 8ft Texan pool table, sports screens, personal croupiers, and more. And they haven’t forgot the food & drink amidst all this – expect feasting menus of whole suckling pig and Champagne fountains.
Seats? 6-200 depending on room | Set menu? Yes, from £30pp | Minimum spend? From £800 (lunch)/£1,200 (dinner), dependent on room | Book private dining at Brigadiers
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Pizza Playground at Pizza Pilgrims | West India Quay
Planted in the basement of Pizza Pilgrims in Canary Wharf – alongside a bespoke 16 player foosball table and retro pinball machine – is a curtained-off party pad kitted out with plush Chesterfield sofas, a 65” TV hooked up to a Nintendo Switch loaded up with Mario Kart, plus exceptionally delicious pizza and drinks delivered in take-out boxes straight to your sofa.
Seats? 4-8 in the Nintendo area (but they try to be flexible), or up to 100 for full hire | Set menu? No | Enquire at [email protected]
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Barge East | Hackney Wick
Boat parties are always good fun. Private boat parties are a whole different kettle of fish (especially when you’re the captain). Such a scenario can happen at Barge East, the 118-year-old Dutch cargo barge, where there’s the option for you and your crew to hire out their cosy Captain’s Cabin, complete with bluetooth speakers.
Seats: Up to 8 | Set Menu? Yes (£55pp), or à la carte | Minimum spend? £1000+/£2500 | Book private dining at Barge East
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El Pastor Soho | Soho
When you don’t want the public to be privy to your group’s sloppy conversations after consuming too much tequila and mezcal, you can hire out El Pastor’s dark green private room. It’s perfect for a birthday dinner (featuring crispy duck taco sharing plates) that precedes a night out – especially considering you don’t have to move far to get to the after-party as there’s a club/agaveria, Mezcaleria Colmillo, in the basement. You just have to tackle the small matter of the stairs…
Seats: Up to 10 | Set menu? Yes, £35-50 | Enquire at [email protected]
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Bar Crispin | Soho
Ever dined at Bar Crispin and thought ‘God I wish I could get this place all to myself’? Well, such a thought isn’t entirely impossible. Hidden discreetly downstairs, there’s the option of hiring out The Green Room where you and up to 15 of your closest pals can engage in a dinner party of natural wines and small plates thought up by Casa Fofò’s Fabien Spagnolo. Surrounded by a back-lit wine rack, hand-painted lights and emerald walls, it’s a real gem…
Seats: Up to 16 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? £20pp | Book private dining at Bar Crispin
GOURMET HAVENS
Morchella | Exmouth Market
Something new’s grown from Perilla. The Newington Green gem now finally has a sibling in Morchella, a Mediterranean spot just off Exmouth Market. The Square’s former chef Daniel Fletcher has put together a menu designed for sharing, and there’s no better place to do that than in the intimate, candlelit private dining room nestled below the restaurant…
Seats? 14-18 | Set menu? Yes, £55/75 | Minimum spend? £750 lunch, £1000 dinner | Book private dining at Morchella
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Westerns Laundry | Highbury
Usher your nearest and dearest into the candlelit dining room at Westerns Laundry and feast on a banquet of small plates plucked from the day’s blackboard menu; share hearty mains of guinea fowl or slow roast pork shoulder; and finish with rum baba crowned with Chantilly cream. And you can also cap it off with a cake from their sibling bakery Jolene if it’s a celebration, like a Tuesday night.
Seats? 7-10 | Set menu? Yes, £65 | Minimum spend? No | Book private dining at Westerns Laundry
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Kol | Marylebone
Noma was placed at No. 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List in 2010. And again in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2021. So it’s fair to assume that any chef that’s passed through its vaunted kitchens knows their onions – and when the restaurant launched a satellite pop up in Mexico in 2017, Santiago Lastra was entrusted with the task. Now he’s opened his own insanely good, instantly Michelin-starred restaurant in London, and you can hire out the basement for your own exclusive party overlooking the Oaxacan home-styled open kitchen.
Seats? Up to 20 | Set menu? Yes, £120/180pp | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Book private dining at KOL
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64 Goodge Street | Fitzrovia
The latest opening from the garlanded team behind Clipstone and Portland has 1) exceptionally tasty French cuisine, 2) a beautiful private dining room in which to enjoy it, and 3) a really easy-to-remember address.
Seats? Up to 12 | Set menu? Yes, £59 (lunch) or £85 (dinner) | Minimum spend? None | Book private dining at 64 Goodge St
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Bubala | Spitalfields
Simply one of our all-time favourite restaurants in London – and it just happens to be vegetarian. They’ve squeezed in a private dining room above their Spitalfields restaurant, where you can chatter away in the cosiest of surrounds with a feast of aromatic Middle Eastern dishes on the table and your own personal bartender shaking things up in the corner.
Seats? Up to 24 | Set menu? Yes, from £55 | Minimum spend? None except dinner Thurs-Sat (£1000) | Book private dining at Bubala
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Lisboeta | Fitzrovia
Nuno Mendes’ Fitzrovia flagship, Lisboeta, is a love letter to Lisbon’s food scene, and the private diner is no exception. It’s called The Adega (it means ‘wine cellar’ in Portuguese) and it’s down in the basement, right next to the wine cellar itself. And yes, the wine is exclusively Portuguese, and is all made from indigenous Portuguese grape varietals. The set menu spans a raft of Lisbon-style classics, from Plumas Gelhadas (grilled acorn-fed black pork from Alentejo with a tomato salad) right through to Pão de Ló, a freshly baked olive oil cake.
Seats: 8-12 | Set menu? Yes, from £75pp | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Book private dining at Lisboeta
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Barrafina | Covent Garden & King’s Cross
Yes, part of the charm of dining at Barrafina is to sit at the counter and watch the chefs at work. But it’s just as charming to fill one of their private dining rooms with all your friends, who can join you in feasting on top-quality tapas (from your own private open kitchen), perusing the sherry cellars with a traditional aperitif in hand, and popping magnums of Spanish wine in understated, suave surroundings.
Seats? 8-30 depending on room/seating arrangement | Set menu? From £40 | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Book private dining at Barrafina
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Kebab Queen | Covent Garden
We know what you’re thinking. Kebabs? Private dining? Huh? But rest assured, that’s only because you’ve never had a seven-course gourmet kebab tasting menu served to you at your very own private chef’s table hidden behind an old kebab storefront underneath another kebab restaurant. Probably.
Seats? 10 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend POA | Enquire about private dining at Kebab Queen
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Quo Vadis | Soho
Soho’s grande dame had a facelift recently to celebrate her 90 years – a not insignificant part of which involved the creation of the dramatic Blue Room. Unlike the two light and breezy rooms below, members get priority booking here – but if you can time it right, you’ll be rewarded with plush, cobalt velvet banquettes, romantic candlelight, and your very own bar to boot.
Seats: 9-32 | Set menu? Yes, from £45 (bespoke options available) | Minimum spend POA | Book private dining at Quo Vadis
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Noble Rot | Soho, Mayfair
The setting of many a Labour strategy meeting in its previous incarnation, the townhouse now housing Noble Rot now has a cosily decadent private dining room on its first floor. You’ll have the run of the place for five hours, and of their delicious à la carte menu of modern British classics. Noble Rot Mayfair also has a smart PDR tucked away in the basement, and, being Mayfair, also offers a signature feasting dish of whole roast suckling pig with Champagne choucroute.
Seats: 10/12 | Set menu? No | Minimum spend? £500 (Soho)/£750 (Mayfair) | Book private dining at Noble Rot
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Quality Chop House | Farringdon
A thoroughly refined setting for an utterly debauched meal – allow the QCH to bundle you upstairs and lavish you with small starters of Mangalitza head croquettes and smoked cod’s roe; an enormous cut of meat prepared by the in-house butchers; ‘peak condition’ cheeses and some of the finest wines available to humanity.
Seats: 7-14 | Set menu? Yes, £75/110pp | Book private dining at QCH
PICTURESQUE PRIVATE DINING ROOMS
Curious Kudu | Peckham
Technically, Curious Kudu isn’t so much a private dining room as your own private restaurant. You’ll find it next to the Michelin Bib Gourmand-toting Kudu, serving the same brilliant South African fare – bread served with a skillet of melted seafood butter; braai lamb shoulder with smoked labneh; Kalahari-spiced biltong, etc. – but with its own private entrance and an array of contemporary artwork dotted around the bare plaster walls.
Seats: 14, or 35 standing | Set menu? Yes, from £69pp | Minimum spend? £400 (paid as deposit) | Book private dining at Curious Kudu
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Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings | Clerkenwell
Bright, airy and positively verdant, the Greenhouse at Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings is, for obvious reasons, a very popular brunch spot. But in the evenings, it makes an equally gorgeous dinner spot, as festoon bulbs peep through the leaves and award-winning cocktails appear on the tables. There’s also the kitchen, with its banquet table carved from a London plane tree; the verdant wine cellar; or for bigger groups, the entire restaurant.
Seats: Up to 35 depending on room | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? From £500-£2000 depending on room | Book private dining at B&H
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Spring | Strand
Nestled inside an old 19th Century drawing room at Somerset House which has been off limits to the public for over 150 years, Skye Gyngell’s first restaurant (after an extraordinarily successful stint at Petersham Nurseries) is exactly the place for you if you want a secluded, fairy-lit conservatory filled with critically acclaimed, seasonally inspired dishes. Which, as of now, you do.
Seats? Up to 36 | Set menu? Yes, from £85pp | Minimum spend? From £2000 for breakfast | Book private dining at Spring
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Wildflowers | Chelsea
Aaron Potter’s debut solo restaurant is a thing of beauty, both on and off the plates. Interior designer Laura Hart has transformed the place’s industrial history with casual elegance, particularly in the intimate private dining room. And the finessed Mediterranean-style menu proves that Wildflowers has not just style, but substance too.
Seats: 12 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? POA | Enquire about private dining at Wildflowers on [email protected]
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The Oratory | Kensington
For a holy different night out, book The Milestone’s private dining room – once the chapel of the original mansion house. Technically, it seats up to eight people… but it really comes into its own for a candlelit dinner for two, where you can even have a live harpist soundtrack the evening if you’re intending to ask your dining companion any important, life-changing questions.
Seats: 2-8 | Set menu? Bespoke, £85pp | Minimum spend? £950 | Book private dining at The Oratory
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Boundary | Shoreditch
There are definitely uglier places for a dinner party than the rooftop of the late Sir Terence Conran’s Boundary Hotel; a year-round orangery and terrace that’s a suntrap in summer, and a twinkly, firepit-laden retreat in winter. Feasting here is a cut above, with miso aged duck breast, baked aubergine involtini and 300g rib-eye steaks on the menu, all washed down with top-tier cocktails.
Seats: Up to 45 | Set menu? Yes | Enquire about private dining at Boundary
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The Greenhouses | Marylebone
Thomas Alexander
The Greenhouses aren’t so much a restaurant, as a small village of private dining rooms, all set in seasonally-decorated greenhouses in the grounds of a historic Grade I listed church. They range from intimate rooms for two to showstoppers for up to 24, and they’re all sheltered by a canopy of flowers and fairy lights (and, you know, a roof).
Seats: 2-30 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? £800+ | Book private dining at The Greenhouses
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Luca | Clerkenwell
Behold, the four possible locations for your next dinner:
1) Luca’s Pasta Room, styled after a rustic Italian cucina, where the chefs create fresh pasta daily;
2) Luca’s Garden Room, a conservatory overlooking the open kitchen, filled with an abundance of greenery;
3) Luca’s outdoor terrace, covered and warmed by a roaring open fire in winter & dozens of flickering candles; or
4) A less exotic room elsewhere, because you didn’t scroll this far down.
Seats? 6-20 | Set menu? Yes | Minimum spend? Yes, POA | Enquire about private dining at Luca
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HIDE | Mayfair
If you want to, er, hide away in Ollie Dabbous’ critically acclaimed, Michelin starred restaurant, there are five private dining rooms in which to do so. The most atmospheric is the Reading Room, with a curving banquette resting on stacks of literature, and books and branches whimsically twisting around the entrance.
Seats? 4-12 | Set menu? Yes, POA, varies by room | Enquire about private dining at HIDE
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Bocca di Lupo | Soho
In bocca al lupo is the equivalent of break a leg in Italian. But you won’t need any luck here, because the supremely cosy, intimate decor, perfectly chosen wine list and personal chef knocking up your sumptuous Italian fare is a sure-fire win.
Seats? 12-32, or 45 standing | Set menu? Yes, from £37pp (lunch) and £57pp (dinner) | Minimum spend? POA, plus venue hire applies over Christmas | Book private dining at Bocca di Lupo
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