Tasting menus worth the price
The London tasting menus that are actually worth the price: Lyle's, Brat, The Clove Club, Ikoyi, Sessions Arts Club. A short list of the serious ones, by Vivi.
Tasting menus are the most over-priced and most over-praised format in London dining. They are also, occasionally, the most exciting. These are the ones that are worth it.
The list
- Lyle’s, Shoreditch - the most precise short menu in London. Five courses, modern British, deliberately understated.
- Brat, Shoreditch - not technically a tasting menu, but order the tasting option and you get the same effect.
- The Clove Club, Shoreditch - Isaac McHale’s seasonal menu in the old Shoreditch Town Hall.
- Ikoyi, St James’s - West African flavours in Mayfair. Unique and serious.
- Sessions Arts Club, Farringdon - not a tasting menu either, but the lunch menu is short and deliberate enough to count.
What not to order
Anywhere that markets the experience harder than the food. If the wine pairing is twice the price of the menu, the kitchen is asking you to pay for the room.
The wine pairings
Usually skip them. The exceptions are Lyle’s and Noble Rot-adjacent places where the sommelier is serious.
Clara Whitfield
Editor and restaurant critic
Clara Whitfield is the editor and lead restaurant critic of Vivi. She has eaten through the London restaurant scene professionally for over a decade, contributing reviews and features to regional and national food publications.
She writes Vivi's weekly restaurant review and the Saturday essay. She prefers early dinners and a table facing the room.