Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in London Mayfair
Hardens guides have spent 34 years compiling reviews of the best Mayfair restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 107 restaurants in Mayfair and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Mayfair restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Mayfair Restaurants
7.
Delfino
Pizza restaurant in Mayfair
121a Mount St - W1
“Delicious pizza and pasta” at remarkably sensible prices for the area draw a steady crowd to this recently refurbished family-run Italian (est. 1953) on a Mayfair corner site.
8.
Jamavar
Indian restaurant in Mayfair
8 Mount Street - W1
“A high class of Indian food and a smart interior” has helped propel Samyukta & Dinesh Nair’s grand venue in the heart of Mayfair into the top rank of London’s subcontinental restaurants. Many of our reports agree that the food here can be “exceptional”, but even some fans feel its reputation, accolades and prices are overblown. Even more sceptical souls just have “no idea why this has a Michelin star”.
9.
Amazonico
International restaurant in Mayfair
10 Berkeley Square - W1J
The “wonderful decor” at this jungle-themed Mayfair haunt combines with live music and cocktails to create a “great atmosphere”. But the high-end Latin-American-cum-Japanese cuisine comes at “gulp-inducing prices”, and critics say the venue is “Instagram-worthy but not much else” – “a place to go to be seen”.
10.
Pasticceria Marchesi 1824
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Westminster
117 Mount Street - W1K
2021 Review: For a posh bun, it’s hard to upstage this new Milanese import: a fashionista favourite for its superlative cakes and also serving some more substantial dishes (such as risotti) alongside cocktails and wine. Too limited feedback for a rating as yet, but all of it enthusiastic.
11.
Hakkasan Mayfair
Chinese restaurant in Mayfair
17 Bruton St - W1
“Divine dim sum” served in a moody, nightclubby setting (“very dark basement lighting” at the original) has helped this slick pan-Asian chain go from an obscure basement near Tottenham Court Road tube (which opened in 2001) to become a glam, international chain with 11 locations from Miami to Mumbai. Prices have always seemed a bit “excruciating” and performance generally is “not as good as it once was”, but this remains one of the Top-50 commented-on brands in our annual diners’ poll; and there’s still lots of praise for its “attractive” style, “fantastic” cooking (the dim sum in particular, as well as the duck) and “wonderful cocktails”. Less so for the “perfunctory” or “artificially polite” service, which, over the years, is increasingly acknowledged as just part of the package.
12.
Umu
Japanese restaurant in Mayfair
14-16 Bruton Pl - W1
“Just simply heaven” – this discreet Japanese venue brought Kyoto-style, kaiseki dining to London when it first opened in 2004 and – despite having lost other parts of his once-extensive restaurant empire – founder Marlon Abela still owns it. Perhaps reflecting Abela’s non-Japanese heritage, it’s one of the more vibey top-end Japanese locations in town: it sits in a bijou Mayfair mews with svelte, elegant decor. As one of the first places to introduce Londoners to the vertiginous price-points of Japanese dining, it has always been seen as costly, but fans say it’s “the most misunderstood restaurant: anyone who really knows Japanese food would praise this restaurant to heaven and back” on account of chef Ryo Kamatsu’s “ever-changing, seasonal Japanese cuisine”. The kaiseki menu is £250 per person, but you don’t have to opt for it: there’s a wide à la carte and they make a feature of using the ‘Ikejime’ method of killing fish designed to bring ‘unparalleled flavour and texture when preparing sashimi’. All reports agree this place is “not cheap but does a sound job” – indeed most reports regard it as “exceptional” in all respects.
13.
The Guinea Grill
Steaks & grills restaurant in Mayfair
30 Bruton Pl - W1
“Wonderful old school charm” oozes from this offbeat Young’s pub, in a quiet Mayfair mews. The public bar at the front is characterful, but it’s the charming and comfortable adjoining grill room (opened in 1952, and significantly extended over the years) that makes this place such a magnet for steak-lovers and business wheeler-dealers. As well as dishes like Chateaubriand, Côte de Boeuf and Sirloin – and sides like Haggis or Ox Heart – there’s a wide variety of traditional dishes and some of “the best pies in town”. After personnel changes last year, ratings took a dive, but it returned to a good all-round performance in this year’s annual diners’ poll and is “now on top form”. Top Menu Tip – “best devilled kidneys ever”.
14.
Sexy Fish
Fish & seafood restaurant in Mayfair
1-4 Berkeley Square - W1
“A horror-fest of crassness” bringing “Essex-on-Berkeley” to Mayfair – Richard Caring’s famous and glitzy seafood scene is “just not my type of restaurant” for most of the good number who comment on it in our annual diners’ poll. “With the accent on glossy surroundings, flamboyant menus of sushi, fish and seafood all backed up by that wretched waterfall”, “it’s basically a night-club with food” and “absurdly expensive for what it is”: an impressive 2/3 of those who rated it did so as their most overpriced meal of the year.
15.
The Audley
British, Modern restaurant in Mayfair
43 Mount Street - W1K
Artfully restored by ArtFarm (the hospitality wing of the Hauser + Wirth Swiss art dealership), this wood-panelled and appropriately art-stuffed pub is celebrating its second year as a “quality local”; and although it’s in the beating heart of ‘Mayfair Village’, it’s not a bad value one either, with “lovely” service and “really good pub food” (even if the menu doesn’t stretch much beyond Scotch eggs, sausages, shepherd’s pie and the like). Upstairs is the Mount Street Restaurant (see also) and there are event spaces on the upper floors.
16.
Hélène Darroze, The Connaught Hotel
French restaurant in Mayfair
Carlos Place - W1
A “magical place with extraordinary food”, is how fans view the Mayfair operation of this celebrated French chef (holder of the Legion d’Honneur no less), which for about a quarter of diners in our annual poll lives up to its Michelin billing as one of London’s premier dining rooms (they awarded it three stars in 2021). Her occupation of the main dining room of this blue-blooded hotel has always been somewhat controversial, however, and its ratings continue to plummet ever since its elevation to the Tyre Co’s top award. It doesn’t help that a dreadful recent makeover has turned this gorgeous, period chamber into something “very corporate feeling” (“and as for the colour scheme, what were they thinking?”). Most problematic, though, is the fact that the cost of a meal has become “holy cow expensive!”. Even those who consider her cuisine “flawless” think the final bill is “insane” and more than a third of reporters nominate this as their most overpriced meal of the year (“it was very disappointing, smacking of chef not present and outrageous charging, particularly the criminal charges for wine pairings”).
17.
Jean-Georges at The Connaught
Pan-Asian restaurant in Mayfair
The Connaught, Carlos Place - W1K
2024 Review: Other than for a deeply cosseting afternoon tea, it’s hard to be too thrilled by this blue-blooded hotel’s luxurious conservatory dining room. Although it’s branded with the name of the famous NYC chef, it’s difficult to discern any trace of JGV’s fingerprints in the design of the ubiquitous, international-luxe menu of caviar, fish, posh pizza, burgers, salads and so forth. Of course, if you find yourself in Mayfair, and are sanguine about spending £30+ for a bowl of mushroom bolognese or shrimp salad, it’s a jolly pleasant experience. Viewed through a more demanding lens, though, it can seem “overpriced” for something with little in the way of distinctive culinary personality.
18.
The Punchbowl
British, Modern restaurant in Mayfair
41 Farm St - W1
2021 Review: Approaching its 300th birthday, this Mayfair pub is more stylish than most in the West End, partly due to its history of celebrity ownership (it was part of Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s divorce settlement, with Ritchie getting The Queen of Pop’s share when they split). Foodwise, it’s also been a decent bet in recent times (although it did receive one ‘off’ report from a former fan this year).
19.
Les Platanes
French restaurant in Westminster
26-28 Bruton Place - W1J
2021 Review: In a Mayfair townhouse that was formerly the short-lived Babel House (RIP), this ‘contemporary bistro de luxe’ features a southern French menu from chef Thierry Laborde, and opened in mid-2019, too late for any survey feedback. In his early review, The Evening Standard’s David Sexton focused on its handsome design, variably realised and expensive cuisine, impressive wine list and bargain set lunch (£25 with wine).
20.
Bocconcino Restaurant
Italian restaurant in Mayfair
19 Berkeley St - W1
2024 Review: “You can’t fail to impress with the food, vibes and service”, according to fans of this Moscow-based chain, whose Mayfair offshoot is not short on glam. It provoked less feedback this year, though, in our annual diners’ poll (too limited for a rating), but expansion is coming in the second half of 2023 with a new branch, below the Strand Palace Hotel.
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