Get ready to feel the heat of the kitchen at a selection of the capital’s top chef’s tables, where you’ll have a front-row seat to the action with personalised service from the head chef. From a basement spot in Soho to a fireside experience in Whitehall, these are seven of the most impressive out there right now, as picked by Alex Dalzell.
Ekstedt at The Yard
Cooking over open fire is having a moment right now, but it’s nothing new for Niklas Ekstedt, the Swedish chef who’s taken the principles of New Nordic cooking and stripped them back to their primitive past. Everything on the menu is scorched, charred, or licked by flames and you’ll really feel the heat of the fire at the newly designed seven-seat chef’s table that overlooks the pass. The nine-course experience begins in the kitchen next to the brick furnace, where beef fat is melted over the coals in a cast-iron cone and poured onto an oyster, and ends with chocolate tart souffles rising in front of you in the wood-fired oven.
3-5 Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall – book here
Evelyn’s Table
Brothers Luke, Nat, and Theo Selby moved back to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons at the beginning of 2023 and passed the baton to James Goodyear, a seasoned pro who’s headed up the kitchens at HIDE and Adam’s in Birmingham. Head down the narrow staircase into the former beer cellar and take one of the 12 seats overlooking the compact, high-tech kitchen. Five chefs will create a surprise five-course menu that fuses seasonal British produce with Scandi and Japanese flavours.
28 Rupert Street, Soho – book here
The chef’s table at Muse
Muse
When Tom Aikens was just 26 years old, he became the youngest chef to gain two Michelin stars in the UK. Fast-forward 16 years and he returned to his fine-dining roots with Muse – a 23-seat restaurant in a three-storey mews house in Belgravia. You’re never far from the action no matter where you sit, but the five-seat counter on the ground floor is the most intimate spot. Drawing inspiration from his Norfolk upbringing, Aikens’ menus read like cryptic crosswords and it’s only when the dishes appear that the intricate cooking is revealed.
38 Groom Place, Belgravia – book here
The Sea, The Sea Hackney
The sister venue to the Chelsea restaurant of the same name, the Hackney outpost takes the half-restaurant, half-fishmonger concept to new depths. Under the railway arches close to Haggerston station, most of the space is taken up with a large development lab where executive chef Leo Carreira and his team transform day-boat fish into inventive dishes for an eight-course omakase menu. At the 14-seat counter, expect seafood like you’ve never tried before, such as dry-aged monkfish with soy salt and plankton, and frozen squid with a togarashi egg.
337 Acton Mews, Haggerston – book here
The chef’s table at Kitchen Table
Kitchen Table
For a blowout dinner, set aside up to 4.5 hours to experience one of London’s most accomplished chef’s tables. The evening begins with aperitifs and canapés in the bar (which used to be Bubbledogs), before you take your place at the curved counter to savour up to 20 surprise courses. James Knappett opened this spot back in 2012 and he’s managed to stay at the forefront of the food scene thanks to constant invention of prime British produce that’s earned Kitchen Table wo Michelin stars.
70 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia – book here
Aulis
Simon Rogan’s Soho spot finally got the recognition it deserves this February with a long-overdue inclusion in the Michelin Guide. The team transports the flavours of the British countryside into a sleek urban setting, where a crack team of chefs serves a multi-course menu packed with foraged herbs, carefully sourced meat and fish, and seasonal produce grown at Rogan’s farm in Cumbria, where the original Aulis opened in Cartmel in 2016. This is intricate, complex cooking at its most approachable.
16 St Anne’s Court, Soho – book here
Mauro’s Table
When the chef who helms the three-Michelin-starred, one-time best restaurant in the world Mirazur decides to open a place in London’s £1 billion hotel opening of the year, you have to pay attention. From the private chef’s table, you’ll take a sensory journey to the sun-drenched gardens of the French Riviera – think monkfish bathing in cloud-like artichoke espuma, venison tucked under Campari-glazed radicchio, and halibut in a glistening clam butter sauce.
Raffles London at The OWO, 57 Whitehall, Whitehall – book here