London’s Most Famous Tasting Menus, Ranked

London’s big-money restaurants come in all shapes and sizes, but the city’s multi-starred tasting menus are probably the best-known. Which, though, is the most worthwhile? If you’re planning on spending upwards of £500 on a meal for two, then it’s very much worth investigating.

Below, we’ve ranked London’s most celebrated tasting menu restaurants, which range from life-affirming to tortuously uninteresting. Food is important but we also considered the price of each tasting menu, service, atmosphere, and other little things that add to the experience, like a server using tongs to present a single rye cracker.

Find the fancy fine dining restaurants that are definitely worth it here.

THE SPOTS

9.1

1

Core By Clare Smyth

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$$$$Perfect For:Fine DiningImpressing Out of TownersSpecial OccasionsUnique Dining Experiences

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Price: £245

At Core By Clare Smyth you begin with thimble-sized snacks. There’s a buttery lobster roll and Prince George’s packed lunch favourite, mini caviar sandwiches. Both are flawless. In fact, everything at this luxury Notting Hill townhouse is. The presentation of dishes makes us feel like we’ve stepped on to the set of a live-action fairy tale, and the service is slick but never stuffy. The British cooking is made for kings, queens, and anyone who’s willing to sit down for a post-9pm dinner. Because that’s when you’re most likely to find a table. The seasonal menu almost hits the £250 mark, while the classic menu features a biblically irresistible apple.

Price: £260

Not quite loved, but strangely tolerated the world over, Gordon Ramsay has created a mega-brand that includes multiple restaurant franchises of varying bog-standard quality. This makes it all the more surprising that his namesake flagship fine dining restaurant isn’t just competent, but really quite good. Located on a death-wish part of Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea, the inside of this restaurant is dull (cream) but its clientele (motley) and its food (delicious), is not. Let the chef lead with the Carte Blanche menu or go for the classics. Either way, there are brilliant takes on steak and chips, and a decadent lobster ravioli.

Price: £225

The Ledbury scores high in the field of starry restaurants because it’s a lovely place to be. Light floods the sedate Notting Hill dining room in the day, and the staff speak like regular people rather than AI Jeeves. The food mixes French technique with quality British ingredients, and every sweetbread or Cornish turbot tastes better than any you’ve had before. It can be a bit finickety at times, but with every brush of British wasabi or scoop of turbot bone velouté, you learn just enough without feeling lectured.

Price: £285

The glitzy foyer of this Mayfair hotel is an entertaining Coutts safari but its flagship restaurant, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, feels like a luxury cruiseliner at times. The dark, windowless room is made up of heartfelt anniversaries, goutish business types, and flash-happy momagers—which makes for a less than special-feeling atmosphere. That said, the butter-heavy French cookery makes up for it at times, and the bread selection is excellent.

Price: £225

Despite looking like Willy Wonka’s 18+ playpen, the upstairs at Sketch isn’t bad. Lots has been said about this multi-restaurant Mayfair spot, not all of it good, but here the kookiness is just right. For example, a server will carefully and wordlessly portion and serve a cracker using a fork and spoon. It’s silly, especially in a room that looks like a melted pack of Smarties. Food-wise, it’s OK. There’s some good experimentation in the French dishes, and then there’s some Champagne poured straight from the bottle into your sauce. But you can’t say it’s lacking personality.

Price: £225

Hotel restaurants can get a bad rap and, unfortunately, Hélène Darroze at The Connaught doesn't do anything to help them out. This Mayfair restaurant checks all the boxes of an unsatisfying fine dining experience. The room has the atmosphere of a family reunion that’s been misbooked as a wake. The service is impeccable while being almost completely incomprehensible, and quite frankly, the French tasting menu has the air (and strange combinations) of high-end plane food.