Private Dining Rooms To Book In London
Dining out in London is always quite the theatrical affair. From waiting staff whisking intriguing menus under your nose, to open kitchens and creative cocktails firing up your appetite. Yet, sometimes, we just want to close the doors on the clatter, if only for an hour or two, and indulge in a private room with DJs, personalised tables and an exclusive bar amongst friends and family.
If you’re looking for something a little more intimate and inviting, you’ve come to the right place, as we’re shining a light on some of the snug private dining London spots hidden away from the glare of the city. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary, graduation or maybe you want to throw a bash just because, here are some of the London private dining rooms…
L’oscar London
L’oscar’s private spaces come with rather more history than your average dining room. The Committee Room retains its original 1903 Royal Doulton fireplace, while The Library combines oak panelling, rare books and Venetian masks. But the real showstopper is The Baptist, an octagonal chapel dating from 1856 that has been restored with an upstairs dining space and bar below. If you want the room itself to be a talking point before anyone has even looked at the menu, start here.
Where: 2-6 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AA
Website: www.loscarlondon.com
Juno Omakase
Tucked away at the back of Los Mochis in Notting Hill, Juno is a six-seater Mexican-Japanese omakase that’s perfect for a special occasion. At £230 per person, it’s definitely a splurge, but the chefs are brilliant, the atmosphere is fun and relaxed, and the food is seriously impressive. It’s a great “I know a place” spot if you’re looking to impress, with some of the best sushi in London. The entire menu is gluten- and nut-free, featuring sustainably sourced ingredients guaranteed to make everyone happy.
Where: 2-4 Farmer Street, London
Website: www.juno-omakase.com
Bentley’s
Bentley’s has not one but five private dining rooms tucked above the restaurant on Swallow Street, bringing the same old-school charm upstairs with considerably more privacy. They work particularly well for the sort of lunch that has no intention of being quick, with Richard Corrigan’s seafood and seasonal British cooking forming the basis of the menus. It’s classic, grown-up and conveniently close to the oyster bar downstairs should you want to start proceedings there first.
Where: 11-15 Swallow Street, London, W1B 4DG
Website: www.bentleys.org
Sam’s Riverside
For a private dinner with a view, Sam’s Riverside has an intimate dining room overlooking the Thames and Hammersmith Bridge. Seating just 18, it’s tucked away from the main restaurant and flooded with natural light, making it a particularly good option for a long lunch or smaller celebration. Come autumn and Christmas, there are specially curated festive menus alongside bespoke wine selections, with that riverside backdrop doing much of the decorating for you.
Where: 1 Crisp Rd, London W6 9DN
Website: www.samsriverside.co.uk
The Manhattan Room at The Park
The Manhattan Room is one for keeping things properly intimate, seating just 12 for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Hidden on the lower-ground floor of The Park, it goes big on Art Deco details: African Limba wood panelling, orange leather and velvet, Horst P. Horst photography and a hand-painted ceiling depicting Central Park. The food follows The Park’s American-with-Italian-influences approach, while the wine list looks largely towards California and Italy.
Where: The Park, Queensway, London W2 3RX
Website: www.theparkrestaurant.com
Corrigan’s Mayfair
There are two excellent options at Corrigan’s, depending on how close to the action you want to get. The Chef’s Table seats up to 14 behind a glass wall looking directly into the kitchen, with an antique oval table and the option of a six-course tasting menu or three-course à la carte. For something smaller, the Kitchen Library seats just six around a banquette barely a metre from the kitchen, surrounded by Richard Corrigan’s collection of cookbooks. For food obsessives, the latter might be one of the most appealing rooms on this list.
Where: 28 Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London, W1K 7EH
Website: www.corrigansmayfair.com
Impala
Impala’s new private dining room is available for exclusive use and seats 8-14, which makes it a good fit for a birthday or any dinner where you’d rather not share the room. Meedu has written three menus, each opening with Impala’s three breads and small plates for the table. Next come heaps of grilled sheftalia, beef short rib and sardines in vine leaves, before a choice of whole roast duck, wild seabass baked in bran or cull yow chops with tail fat potatoes. Lead wine programmer Penny Vine will curate a wine list ahead of your arrival, so the only decision left is who gets the last of the duck.
Where: 13-14 Dean St, London W1D 3RS
Website: www.impala.com
Savoy Grill
There are few better places to make six people feel very important than Savoy Grill’s Kitchen Table. The private room looks directly into the kitchen, with chefs presenting each course and a dedicated sommelier looking after the wine. It seats up to six and starts from £130 per person. Alternatively, disappear into the golden Wine Room, where up to eight diners can eat surrounded by rare bottles with a personalised wine menu put together alongside the sommeliers.
Where: 100 Strand, London WC2R 0EZ
Website: www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com
Pétrus by Gordon Ramsay
For a dinner where the food is very much the entertainment, Pétrus has a Chef’s Table right in the heart of its kitchen. Up to eight guests sit together for a bespoke seven-course menu while getting a close-up look at service inside the Michelin-starred restaurant. At £195 per person before wine, it’s certainly an occasion dinner, but one that feels considerably more special than simply shutting the door on a conventional private room.
Where: 1 Kinnerton St, London SW1X 8EA
Website: www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com
The Wine Cellar at The Lanesborough
Hidden in The Lanesborough’s original 18th-century cellars, this is private dining for people who take the wine just as seriously as dinner. Gothic details and dark mahogany give the room plenty of atmosphere, while Head Sommelier Jules Coppier can delve into a cellar containing bottles such as Pétrus and Château Latour to pair with Executive Chef Shay Cooper’s modern British cooking. If that somehow isn’t enough, there are Cognacs dating as far back as 1770 elsewhere in the hotel.
Where: Hyde Park Corner, London, SW1X 7TA
Website: www.oetkercollection.com
The Ivy Asia St Paul’s
For something less discreet and considerably more theatrical, The Ivy Asia St Paul’s has a dedicated private events space that can be configured three ways. Take the entire Sekushi Room for 50 seated guests, or split it into the Tokyo and Kyoto Rooms for smaller groups. Each has its own bar, while lacquered reds, gilded Buddha statues, chandeliers and Japanese woodblock artwork ensure nobody is going to mistake this for a beige corporate function room.
Where: 20 New Change, London EC4M 9AG
Website: theivyasia.com
Straits Kitchen at Pan Pacific London
Straits Kitchen gives you three rooms to choose between. Maxwell is the largest, seating 50 with floor-to-ceiling windows, its own reception area and, importantly, a Champagne wall. Newton goes in the opposite direction, seating 12 among dark wood and marble, while the 15-seat Katong centres everyone around one large table. If your guest list gets completely out of hand, the restaurant itself can also be hired for up to 120.
Where: 80 Houndsditch, London EC3A 7AB
Website: www.panpacific.com
The Dining Room at Broadwick Soho
Broadwick Soho’s private Dining Room feels more like somebody’s exceptionally well-designed home than an events suite. Sitting on the eighth floor, it has floor-to-ceiling windows looking across London, a fireplace and one long boardroom-style table seating 28. Breakfast meetings are particularly well served by all that morning light, although we’d personally be more interested in getting everyone around the fire for drinks once work is finished.
Where: Berwick Street, London W1F 8TH
Website: www.broadwicksoho.com
The Library at The Chesterfield Mayfair
There’s something reassuringly right about private dining in a library once autumn arrives. The Chesterfield’s version seats up to 20 among oak-panelled walls and shelves of books, with seasonal British menus tailored to the occasion. The hotel has several other spaces available, including its Conservatory and Salon, but this is the one we’d choose when the brief is a cosy dinner rather than a huge event.
Where: The Chesterfield, Charles Street, London
Website: www.chesterfieldmayfair.com
Quilon
Michelin-starred Quilon has managed to make its private dining room feel properly separate from the restaurant rather than simply a side room with a door. It has its own entrance, private bar and live kitchen, with space for up to 20 around one long table. A bespoke chandelier inspired by Kerala’s native flowers nods to the coastal south Indian cooking coming from the kitchen.
Where: 41 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AF
Website: quilon.co.uk
The Oratory at The Milestone Hotel
Eight people, one former private chapel. The Oratory is easily one of the more unusual small private dining rooms in London, sitting beneath an ornate vaulted ceiling inside The Milestone Hotel. It’s particularly good for birthdays and anniversary dinners where a huge room would kill the atmosphere. For bigger gatherings, the Windsor Suite seats up to 30 and comes with its own butler’s pantry.
Where: 1 Kensington Court, London W8 5DL
Website: www.milestonehotel.com
The Rembrandt Suite at The Rubens at the Palace
Moments from Buckingham Palace, The Rembrandt Suite at The Rubens leans firmly into classic London grandeur. Rich interiors and a deliberately intimate scale make it particularly suited to celebratory lunches and dinners, with bespoke menus available and the hotel’s signature Beef Wellington providing a fairly obvious centrepiece for the table.
Where: 39 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, SW1W 0PS
Website: www.rubenshotel.com
The Garden Room at Idalia
The Garden Room sits inside the Grade II*-listed Pillar Hall at Olympia but, thanks to its conservatory setting and connection to the garden, feels considerably removed from west London outside. It seats up to 45, with chefs Samantha Williams and Lorena Tomassi putting seasonal British produce at the centre of the menus.
Where: 5 Olympia Way, London W14 0NE
Website: www.pillarhall.co.uk
The Italian Greyhound
The Garden Room at The Italian Greyhound works particularly well when your definition of “private dinner” has expanded to include most people you know. There’s space for 52 seated or 100 standing, with a £55-per-person three-course feasting menu alongside options for cicchetti, canapés or a bespoke menu. It’s bright and elegant rather than formal, making it a good shout for daytime parties as well as big dinners.
Where: 62 Seymour St, London W1H 5BN
Website: www.theitaliangreyhound.co.uk
The Orgy at Rake’s Café Bar
Hidden behind a discreet curtain inside Rake’s Café Bar at Andaz London Liverpool Street, The Orgy is an intimate private dining room for just eight to ten guests. The rather provocative name comes from the third painting in William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, and there’s another neat historical connection: the series’ protagonist, Tom Rakewell, eventually ends up in Bethlem Hospital, which once stood on the site now occupied by the hotel. A good one for a small dinner where you want the room to come with its own story.
Where: 40 Liverpool Street, London EC2M 7QN, England
Website: www.hyatt.com
Vori
For something a little more relaxed, Vori’s Cyclades dining space seats up to 14 and keeps the focus firmly on eating together. Groups can work with the restaurant to create their own menu or go for its Parea sharing menu, while groups of 25–40 can hire the restaurant privately. Greek food, wine and everything arriving in the middle of the table: precisely how a group dinner should work.
Where: 120 Holland Park Avenue, London W11 4UA
Website: vorigreekitchen.co.uk
The Tudor Pass
One worth leaving London for. The Tudor Pass at Great Fosters has opened a private Chef’s Table in its Wine Room for groups of just six to ten. Everyone eats together from the same menu, beginning with welcome snacks before a four-course tasting menu from Executive Head Chef Stefano Di Giosia. At £145 per person, it’s one for a proper occasion — and with such a tiny group, nobody gets relegated to the bad end of the table.
Where: Stroude Road, Egham, Surrey TW20 9UR
Website: alexanderhotels.co.uk
CORD
CORD is a particularly useful one to know if the guest list is liable to change. Its private dining rooms can accommodate up to 26 for everything from client lunches and meetings to birthdays and celebratory dinners, with the same food and service as the main restaurant. For something considerably bigger, the entire restaurant can be hired for up to 130 guests, while the café is available for groups of up to 50.
Where: 85 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1AE
Website: www.cordrestaurant.co.uk
144 On The Hill
Part of Richmond Hill Hotel, 144 On The Hill is a good option when you want to get a group together without everyone having to trek into central London. Its private rooms can be used for everything from relaxed lunches to celebratory dinners, with the restaurant team handling the food and service. Come autumn, Richmond provides a particularly good excuse to make an afternoon of it before heading inside for dinner.
Where: 144-150 Richmond Hill, Richmond TW10 6RW
Website: www.richmondhill-hotel.co.uk
The Caxton
Filled with natural daylight and tucked away from the main restaurant, The Caxton’s private dining room accommodates up to 14 with a layout that can be adapted to the occasion. There’s a £600 minimum food and drink spend, with seasonal set menus starting from £38 per person or the option of a sharing menu created for the table. Ingredients take inspiration from the hotel’s rooftop kitchen garden and its own Buckfast honeybees, with plenty of the cooking done over the Josper grill.
Where: St Ermin’s Hotel, 2 Caxton Street, London, SW1H 0QW
Website: www.caxtongrill.co.uk
The Pelham
Sitting directly opposite South Kensington station, The Pelham has the added private-dining advantage that nobody can reasonably claim they couldn’t find it. Its dedicated room beside La Trattoria seats 12, with the hotel’s colourful, country-house-inspired interiors making it feel rather less corporate than your average private room. It works equally well for a small birthday dinner or a lunch where you actually want to hear everyone at the table.
Where: 15 Cromwell Place, South Kensington, London SW7 2LA
Website: collezione.starhotels.com
Theo Randall Cucina Italiana
Theo Randall Cucina Italiana has two private dining rooms that can work separately or be combined when the guest list starts creeping up. The more intimate Puglia Room seats 18, with a cosy feel that suits family gatherings and smaller dinners, while the Amalfi Room seats up to 30 and has enough space to move from drinks into a seated dinner without changing rooms. For bigger occasions, take both: together they can accommodate up to 58 seated or 75 standing.
Where: InterContinental London Park Lane by IHG, One Hamilton Place, Park Lane, London W1J 7QY
Website: parklane.intercontinental.com
The Montague on the Gardens
The Montague has a collection of private rooms rather than one space doing all the work, making it suitable for everything from a family dinner to a larger reception. Its Bloomsbury location is part of the appeal, with views over garden squares and the British Museum moments away, while seasonal menus can be tailored to the occasion.
Where: 15 Montague Street, London WC1B 5BJ
Website: www.montaguehotel.com
bbar
For private dining with a little more personality, head underneath bbar to 43 Below. The underground space has its own private bar and a speakeasy feel, making it as well suited to drinks and birthdays as it is dinner. There’s also a mezzanine upstairs for semi-private gatherings, with direct access to the terrace.
Where: 43 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0PP
Website: www.bbarlondon.com
The Great House at Sonning
If you’re willing to make a trip out of dinner, The Great House at Sonning has the Thames as its backdrop. Its Dining Room can accommodate up to 100 guests and comes with access to the terrace and lawns overlooking the river, while smaller private rooms are available for more intimate occasions. There’s overnight accommodation too, which feels particularly useful once the wine starts appearing.
Where: High St, Laleston, Bridgend CF32 0HP
Website: coppaclub.co.uk
The Swan at Streatley
Another option worth heading out of London for, The Swan at Streatley sits on a particularly pretty stretch of the Thames. The standout space is the Kingfisher Suite, where floor-to-ceiling windows give larger dinners panoramic river views, while smaller rooms are available for more intimate groups. Private terraces and gardens lead towards the water, so this is one to keep in mind when the setting matters just as much as the menu.
Where: High St, Streatley, Reading RG8 9HR
Website: coppaclub.co.uk
The Beaumont Mayfair
The Beaumont brings its Art Deco-inspired interiors to private dining, with spaces available for intimate dinners, drinks receptions and larger celebrations. The submission particularly positions it for the run-up to Christmas, when the combination of seasonal menus, polished service and a Mayfair address makes a fairly easy case for moving the annual gathering out of the office.
Where: The Beaumont Brown Hart Gardens Mayfair London W1K 6TF
Website: www.thebeaumont.com
Gordon Ramsay at Sea Containers
For something with a view, Sea Containers London combines its riverside location with private dining and event spaces alongside the newly opened Gordon Ramsay at Sea Containers. Groups can keep dinner, drinks and the rest of the celebration under one roof, with the restaurant itself focused on British produce and Gordon Ramsay classics.
Where: 20 Upper Ground, London SE1 9PD
Website: www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com
The Stafford London
The Stafford has several rooms to choose between, including the Sutherland, Argyll, Pink and Panel Rooms, but the most interesting has to be its 400-year-old Wine Cellar. The spaces cater to different group sizes and occasions, from family dinners and Thanksgiving to Christmas lunches and end-of-year celebrations. If you want something that feels distinctly old London, the cellar is the obvious choice.
Where: 16, 18 St. James’s Place, London
Website: thestaffordlondon.com
Hélène Darroze at The Connaught
Hélène Darroze at The Connaught is a London landmark. The three Michelin-starred restaurant offers two unique private dining rooms: The Sommelier’s Table and The Chef’s Table. For those interested in wine, The Sommelier’s Table is located in the expansive Connaught wine cellars. The walls are lined with the world’s top vintages, personalised bottles gifted directly from selected vineyards, and many more bottles, each with a unique story the head sommelier can walk guests through between courses. Finally, the most immersive private dining experience is at the Chef’s Table. Located directly opposite the pass of the kitchen, downstairs from the main dining room, this 8-person table alone is a work of art where you are welcome to watch artistry at play.
WHERE: Carlos Pl, London W1K 2AL
WEBSITE: www.the-connaught.co.uk
KOL
KOL combines the finest British ingredients, championing wild food and seasonality to create unique dishes which reflect the bright, fresh flavours of Mexican cooking. Plus, the restaurant has one Michelin star and was voted No.23 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. The Chef’s Table is located downstairs and is inspired by a traditional Oaxacan home, overlooking its private kitchen with a dedicated team of chefs. The space seats up to 20 guests and offers a seven-course menu. Dishes to try: TACO (langoustine, smoked chilli, sea buckthorn) and MOLE (purple carrot, coloradito, fermented blackcurrant, and winter truffle).
Where: 9 Seymour Street, Marylebone, London W1H 7BA
Website: www.kolrestaurant.com
