"There are no good private dining rooms.” So tweeted the impish Ed Cumming once upon a time. There is something to be said for the take: private dining rooms rarely have the same buzz, décor nor sometimes even the same menu as the main restaurant itself.
Yet, as with any entirely-made-up rule, there are notable exceptions. Some of these are below; private dining rooms that stand toe-to-toe with the restaurant proper. And then there are places which cater for large groups within the restaurant itself, which come into their own come Christmas time. However the split, the best spots for big groups do something creative rather than crass with the décor, cater for a range of dietaries — there’s always at least one when it’s a group of seven — and have a wine list that stretches from “catering for the budget of a poor journalist friend” right up to “the boss is paying”. The worst, well... the worst are not on this list. Have a ball.
Pied à Terre
If you’re feeling fancy enough to book a private dining room for friends and colleagues, go the full cochon and opt for a Michelin-starred French restaurant. Step forward Pied à Terre, which boasts three such rooms — one of which is in the heart of the action, being situated at the front of the restaurant. They don’t do turkey at Christmas in France, and as such they don’t do it here either, preferring that turbot take centre stage on the festive tasting menu. This comes with a veritable garden of herbs, as well as a gem lettuce fricassee, and is followed by Fallow deer graced with delicate white truffle.
Elsewhere, Pied a Terre’s vegetarian offering is perhaps the least French thing about it, featuring the likes of beetroot meringue with pistachio, and smoked coco bean velouté with white balsamic , fish-free caviar. Service is friendly and warm, whilst still offering that French sense of formality.
34 Charlotte Street, W1T 2NH, pied-a-terre.co.uk
Rochelle Canteen
Rochelle Canteen is for life, not just for summer — despite its famous walled garden of Eden. The dining room is situated in an old school bike shed and located on playground gardens, so it’s no wonder so many guests feel compelled to take all their friends. It’s not all playground rules, though and there’s no ban on booze; on the contrary, the wine list, curated by Melanie Arnold, is as renowned as the food for its range and generosity: bottle prices start at £25, and most hover around the mid-40s.
The menu is more desirable still, having been designed by Margot Henderson. Her ability to marry comfort with creativity easily rivals that of her husband Fergus, whose famous for St John. There are schnitzels, stews, spiced squashed with flatbreads — at least for now; the menu is hyper-seasonal. Throughout the month, guests will be equally well served, with generous, shareable dishes that do delicious justice to the title of Henderson’s first book, You’re All Invited.
16 Playground Gardens, E2 7FA, rochellecanteen.com
Wild by Tart
With the exception of the excellent Lorne, every restaurant in Victoria seems to have had its character subsumed by a glassy pile of soulless architecture, but Wild by Tart has done its best to remain true to its whimsical name. It is warmly lit and softly furnished; the bar is long, strewn with flowers, and good drinks come from it, like their seasonal margaritas — just £7 between 5—7pm. There is a private space — a mezzanine, overlooking the restaurant — but the main dining room boasts plenty of tables for eight, where diners can tuck into a feasting menu centred around a charcoal grill, a wood oven and owners’ Jemima and Lucy’s farms. Tamworth pork with parsnip puree, woodfired pumpkin with chimichurri and seed dukka and porcini and taleggio arancini sing out from their festive feating menu. Dogs are welcome (perhaps even encouraged), which means any pup-owning friends have no excuse for avoiding all the fun.
3-4 Eccleston Place, SW1W 9NF, wildbytart.com
Toklas
Toklas restaurant and bakery is the culinary child of Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, best known as the founders of the Frieze art fair. The building — a brutalist space that was once a car park, obviously — is as intimidatingly cool as might be expected from such lineage, with slick modernist design and striking artworks; the food, mercifully, is not. The feasting menu is served “family style”, in the form of big, shareable platters of whole turbot or braised chicken with wild mushrooms and bay. True to the spirit of feasting, dishes come with crusty piles of homemade bread, and sides of rosemary-flecked roast potatoes. With desserts of chocolate cake, tart or strudel to finish, Toklas make even triple carbing into a form of art.
1 Surrey Street, WC2R 2ND, toklaslondon.com
Darby’s
Maybe it’s that song, maybe it’s the 100-odd Christmas films that are set there, but there is something irrepressibly festive about New York City. Unfortunately, there is also something about the current exchange rate that makes the prospect of visiting vanishingly small — so Darby’s, Robin Gill’s New York-style restaurant in Battersea’s surprisingly serene Viaduct gardens, will have to suffice. One could do worse. Gill is a superlative chef, able to turn his hand to most cuisines, and he’s particularly big on the Big Apple. He’s also big on partying, and Darby’s is designed accordingly: the space is capacious enough to accommodate large groups, whether around a table to feast on sharing platters of braised short rib, crispy shallots and crispy beef fat potatoes, or in a standing area to enjoy canapes like Cornish crab cocktail with pickled cucumber and rich beef nuggets with hot mustard. Drinks are — well, as I said, Gill loves a party. The Manhattan rivals anything you’ll find in Manhattan itself, and the Guinness — a nod to Gill’s Irish heritage — flows smooth and fast.
3 Viaduct Gardens, SW11 7AY, darbys-london.com
Curious Kudu
The holy grail of private dining rooms is one which is characterful and demands no room charge. Step forward Curious Kudu: a gallery by day and a restaurant by night which requires no room charge, just a minimum spend. The room has its own private entrance, so there’s no walking through the main restaurant wishing you were there instead. The food, however, is Kudu through and through — onion tarte tatin with boerenkaas cheese, braai lamb shoulder brightened with pink pepper corns and rosemary jus and bread so addictive, it should be prescription only, coming drenched with melted smoked bacon butter or melted seafood butter and almonds.
117 Queen's Road, SE15 2EZ, kuducollective.com
Hawksmoor
It’s hard to avoid Hawksmoor at this time of year — literally, given there are now eight in London — but also because the rarely-changing menu, a robust mix of seafood, steak and no fewer than six types of carbohydrate, screams winter. Even the best of the cocktails, like the sour cherry negroni and ‘fuller fat’ Old Fashioned, are festive in flavour and strength. Hawksmoor’s founder, the charismatic Will Beckett, was one of the first to counter the tweet asserting there are no good private dining rooms — and rightly so, as Hawksmoor’s truly are impressive. Take Hawksmoor Wood Wharf, the latest of the group, where the PDR is housed in an eco-friendly floating pavilion. The festive menu is just what you want from Hawksmoor too — which is to say it is their usual menu with the delightful addition of “cows in blanket”, roast parsnips and sprouts.
Across town, thehawksmoor.com
Hoppers
The fact you need at least six people to even sample the festive feast at Hoppers is reason enough for it to be on this list. The menu sounds so good, it’s worth making more friends for if you don’t presently have enough. The menu is billed as a Sri Lankan take on yuletide classics, as well as seasonal twists on its signature dishes — take the richly spiced mutton roll, here made with with venison instead of mutton and with hot cranberry sauce added. In place of the famously-overrated turkey, they’ve roasted a whole lamb shoulder kari, or — well, maybe “and”, depending on how many friends there are — a chicken, marinated in a deep-roasted mix of coconut, chilli and rice. These can be enjoyed whilst ensconced in private dining rooms in both Marylebone and Kings Cross, but sadly not at not Soho, where the entire restaurant is the size of a stocking. Marylebone’s got the edge, for my money: the dining room, inspired by tropical modernist movement of the late Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa, offers an appealing blend of light and dark, airy and comforting, and the private rooms are only semi-private — so diners can both hear each other speak and enjoy the intriguing design of the main restaurant.
77 Wigmore Street, W1 and 4 Pancras Square, N1, hopperslondon.com
Upstairs at The George
No matter how fervently one makes the case for breaking with traditional festive fare, there’s always that one person who regards December as a reason to eat as many roasts as possible. Take that person and their friends to Upstairs at The George, a Grade II listed pub on Portland Street. Its festive menu is, like many of the features, straight out of the Victorian age. There’s a country house terrine, confit goose leg with all the trimmings, sucking pig and the odd nod to the 21st century in the form of a celeriac and mushroom pie for vegetarians. The chef overseeing the food is James Knappet, of two Michelin-starred Kitchen Table, and whilst that shows in the price it also shows in the quality. Best of all, for your traditionalist friends, The George looks, feels and drinks like a proper pub, with cask ales and craft beers as well as a glittering array of English sparkling wines.
55 Great Portland Street, W1W 7LQ, thegeorge.london
Bistrotheque
Pie shops and cafs asides, there aren’t many food places who could stake a claim to opening out east before it was cool. Bistrotheque doesn’t, but having first opened its doors in an abandoned warehouse in Bethnal Green in 2004, it well could. That it’s been a beloved local haunt ever since tells you almost everything you need to know. The bistro-style food is seasonal, shareable and simple: think fillet steak, potato dauphinoise, roast chicken with aioli, and walnut and orange cake with apricot cream. Well-executed, these are arguably the only foods one ever really needs. Both the space — a light, bright, whitewashed dining room filled with filament bulbs — and the relaxed, happy vibe lend themselves well to groups, which it accommodates around large tables within the dining room. It’s not overly festive — it’s far too cool for that — but it is a solid place for fun group times.
