Low lights, luxury interiors and rooms that transition after sunset. These are the five London restaurants where I’d want to be taken to dinner this season.
Knightsbridge’s most glamorous Italian has slipped something altogether more intimate onto its first floor. Alba’s new omakase counter seats just ten, with Harrods glowing through the window and the chef working directly in front of you. Takuya Kaneko, a Zuma veteran of eight years, leads the counter each evening, serving nigiri, sashimi and small raw courses built around Icelandic uni, bluefin otoro, and Kristal and Beluga caviar. The exciting thing is that there is no menu, you simply hand the evening over to the chef. Two sittings, Tuesday to Saturday, nine courses at £95 or twelve at £150. Intimate and impossibly exclusive.
1st Floor, 70 Brompton Rd., Alba London
Mayfair’s most discreet members’ club has opened its doors a little wider. At The Twenty Two, hospitality veteran Guillaume Glipa, the man behind Chiltern Firehouse’s golden years and alumnus of Annabel’s, has reimagined the restaurant as Café 22, a Parisian-accented dining room with its own entrance on North Audley Street. Deep colours, works by Moroccan artist Mahi Binebin and a roaming cocktail trolley set the mood, while the menu keeps to French classics done properly, from duck à l’orange to truffle roast chicken. Come for dinner, stay for martinis, and expect the night to run on.
43 North Audley St., Cafe Twenty Two
Tucked away in the hidden mews of Bruton Place, The Cocochine feels less like a restaurant and more like the townhouse of a very well-connected friend. Chef Larry Jayasekara, formerly head chef at Pétrus, opened it in 2024 with gallerist Tim Jefferies, and its four floors are hung with Irving Penn and Richard Avedon prints. Produce comes from the Rowler Estate in Northamptonshire and seafood from Scotland’s Tanera Island, finished with quiet nods to Larry’s Sri Lankan roots. For the ultimate seduction, book the top-floor private suite, with its own lounge and towering fireplace, for up to sixteen.
27 Bruton Pl., The Cocochine
Behind a 1905 Beaux-Arts façade on Albemarle Street, Isabel has been turning heads since 2017. Inside, it’s pure gilded glamour: a glowing brass bar beneath a ceiling of golden domes, palm-printed walls and staff dressed by Colombian designer Johanna Ortiz. New head chef Catarina Almeida, formerly of Petersham Nurseries and Brown’s, steers a menu drawn from Latin America and the Mediterranean. Lunch slips easily into cocktails, and cocktails into the small hours. Isabel brings the sensuality of Latin America to the grandeur of Mayfair, and is where dinner becomes a night out.
26 Albemarle St., Isabel Mayfair
Few Mayfair dining rooms carry the ambience of Novikov after dark. Moments from Bond Street, Novikov’s Berkeley Street holds two restaurants and a lounge under one roof. The Asian room is the showpiece, its open kitchen fronted by a market-style display of seafood, while the Italian room offers a wood-fired oven, suede-panelled walls and something more composed. Then there’s the Lounge Bar, where the cocktails flow and DJs play late into the night. Dress the part, the code is smart and elegant. Confident, polished and unapologetically glamorous.
50a Berkeley St., Novikov Restaurant
