Hyde Park Corner Restaurant Guide

“The room is the star” at this swish hotel restaurant on Hyde Park Corner, with its gorgeous domed glass ceilings (providing natural light by day) and huge chandeliers. Formerly known as Celeste (RIP), it has now adopted a less fancy, more fashionably straightforward menu under chef Shay Cooper. The overall experience is much more consistently well-rated in this new guise, although there are still some quibbles over “so-so” results and “patchy” service. Most consistent is support for the “sublimely elegant”, “reassuringly traditional, tasty and well-presented afternoon tea”.

“As good as anything you might experience in Verona or Florence” – Theo Randall’s “divine, monthly regional tasting menus” produce “consistently great” results as well as adding interest to his Mayfair HQ, just off Hyde Park Corner. “There’s the option of wine matches” and “a good cocktail bar (especially the design-your-own-Negroni option!)”. “Ok, the space isn’t terrific” – windowless, and off the foyer of a large 1970s hotel – but “it is one of the very few celebrity chef restaurants where the chef is frequently to be seen”. “Theo always seems to be there and comes out into the dining room most times you visit”, helping create an overall atmosphere that was surprisingly well-rated this year. Top Tip – “Sunday brunch at £65 including unlimited Prosecco, Negroni or Aperol Spritz is particularly good value”.

2022 Review: Mexico City chef Martha Ortiz was creating a good reputation for her street-food-inspired menu at this venture, within a large hotel right on Hyde Park Corner. ‘Temporarily closed’ as we go to press: a call to the hotel in September 2021 showed no fixed time had been set for a re-opening.

2021 Review: Since 1971, this age-old rocker has grown from its first site, near Hyde Park Corner, to 186 globally, and 2019 saw the group reinvest massively in the capital, with not just a new hotel (on the site that was once The Cumberland) by Marble Arch, but also with the July 2019 opening of a 19,000 sq ft, multi-level, new London flagship at Piccadilly Circus. The latter opening includes a menu shake-up, which introduces an unsuspecting world to new culinary delights, including the ‘24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak BurgerTM’; (as well as the retail opportunities of ‘the world’s largest Rock Shop”’). For silver-haired reporters (who were alive for the chain’s founding) – a generation by-and-large untroubled by the hipster burger revolution – the “generously meaty” patties of the original are “still the best”, and one early report on the hotel says its restaurant “really rocks” too…. Even allowing for cynicism about the effects of nostalgia on the tastebuds, the brand fares better in the survey than most mass-market offerings.

Hermès, Loewe and Zimmermann help inspire the Spring/Summer 2023 Prêt-à-Portea collection on the ‘cakewalk’ of this Belgravia chamber, which takes annual inspiration for its wizard patisserie selection from the catwalk of the fashion industry. If you have money to burn, it’s an impressively skillful and witty twist on the afternoon tea experience – tuck into “Hermès’ tasselled bucket bag, crafted out of Victoria sponge sandwiched with apricot jam, wrapped in chocolate and finished with a chocolate feather plume!”

“Tom Aikens is back to his brilliant best!” at his “chic little Belgravia mews house”, where he’s created “an outstanding small restaurant with open kitchen”. Set on two floors, “tables are a bit close”, but the “intimate” style is a selling point for most diners (especially at the chef’s counter), as is the fact that there’s “plenty of interaction with the chefs including patron Tom”, all of whom “serve and explain with a remarkable personal touch”. The menu – “exquisite food, delivered with passion and skill” – draws on Tom’s upbringing – “love the story-telling… a truly special experience”.

“Still the best Nobu for food in my opinion” – many “superb” meals are still reported at Nobu Matsuhisa’s first London outpost: the first floor of a boutique hotel on Park Lane (famous, in part, for Boris Becker once having fathered a child here in between courses in a cupboard off the main dining room). “The original black cod is definitely better than the many rip offs that abound” and its mix of sushi, tacos, steak, raw seafood and other luxurious Nikkei bites inspires uniformly high ratings. “The uninviting room undeniably needs a make-over”… but people have been saying that almost since it first opened.

2023 Review: Tucked away in a mews townhouse, this “dependable” Belgravia haunt has served upscale Pakistani cuisine to a wealthy crowd for 45 years. It particularly hits the spot for “meat-lovers” – “the lamb chops are seriously loveable” – while “the friendliness of the staff makes up for the rather boring Gulf and Russian clientele”.

“Interesting vintages, well introduced by the sommelier” helped win renewed praise this year for this slick, luxurious Belgravian (built around a central wine cage), which was also sometimes nominated for its “romantic” potential. However – as it approaches its 14th year – although its modern French cuisine was often favourably rated this year, there’s little of the excitement in feedback that once distinguished it as one of the flagships of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant portfolio.

2023 Review: This smartly kitted-out pub with a “nice outdoor terrace” on a cobbled Belgravia street has a “short, simple and well-executed menu”, providing “Sunday roast and fish ’n’ chips of quality”.

A “buzzy” atmosphere and “decent wine list” are strengths of this “reliable, traditional Spanish tapas bar”; and prices that represent “great value for Mayfair” have helped sustain the jolly venue from its founding decades before the current vogue for Hispanic cuisine. Notable fans include Fred Sirieix and Caribbean pirate Johnny Depp.